Eating The Live Creatures

So then, me and some of the girlies I hang with here in South Korea decided to go to a sushi restaurant and try some of the sea food. We've all been here for different time periods. There is me who had been here for a few weeks, Erin and Diana who have been here for a few months and Sarah who has been in SK for a couple of years.

What came to us was a huge surprise!

We were enjoying our meal and one of us happened to mention trying live octopus. What do you know??? A few moments later a plate of live octopus was brought in to us! Call us inhumane or sick but we squealed, poked at it and ate it. It was delicious and so very weird.

Also at this point we had other plates of various fish on our table. On one of the plates we had already tried some of the fish but there was one small saucer of something called penis fish. (Due to it's colour and shape) and we were a little more hesitant to try it. Erin and myself both popped some into our mouth, we chewed down and swallowed. Nothing wrong with it, it tasted fine.

That is when one of the other girls pointed out it was also moving!

Yes we had eaten live penis fish. It was crazy! It did not wiggle like the octopus, it sort of breathed.... in and out.... it pulsated a little like a.....

Anyways... we were all now prodding the penis fish and what remained of the octopus tentacles which were sticking to the plate and curling around our chipsticks. (Yes we're evil and did voice immitations of the creatures saying "please do not eat me" while trying to squirm away from us.)

There was this one pretty big penis fishy thing that was really expanding and contracting, so for a picture, I put it on my tongue before chowing down and eating the little fellow.

We thought this would be it. There were lots more dishes. A huge plate of raw fish was brough out to us and the fish itself was still intact (it's head and tail) while it's middle was all sliced up. We dived in, grabbing slices of fish and then after a few moments, we all started squealing again.

The fish was still alive.... it was gasping and it's fins were moving. Instead of being grossed out though, we decided to poke it to try and get it to move more and play with its jaw pretending it was talking.

All in all it was a great and evil day... but I loved it! >:D

Korean Wedding

Today has been a fantastic day so far and it isn't even over yet!

One of the guys here was lucky enough to fall in love with a beautiful Korean girl and they had their wedding today - Old Korean style!

I can't actually explain what happened as I didn't understand a lot of it but Martin and his partner had to dress up in these brightly coloured costumes. He was carried by a bunch of guys on this strange chair and she was placed in a box and carried behind him. They walked around the sports park being carried until they got to the 'alter' thing.

Martin came up first, he did some bowing, listened to some guy speak over a microphone. Then his bride to be walked up and she had to hold this cover in front of her face. Then did this crazy routine of sitting and standing and bowing and drinking some liquid which could have been water or even soup - I have no idea.

This lasted around 30 minutes and then everybody just took photo's of the couple on their own, then with the family and then with all the friends. The weather was scorching hot and I even managed to get a little tan :)

We all went for food afterwards and I had this melt in your mouth steak in a hot soup with onion - it was beautiful and definitely the best meal I've had since I've been here. In a couple of hours we're all going out for drinks in celebration :)

Update.

Wow, I can't believe I've been here for three weeks already! It has been an amazing 3 weeks and it only feels like 3 days!

This is just an update on some smaller things I have done and about my activities here in Geochang that would not make fantastic posts on their own. Also my friend Megan pointed out that I haven't updated half as much as she thought I would have so apologises. I will try to do at least one post a week like this where I write what I have done in the last week while also doing my posts for big events etc.

I've met some great people here including Diana, Jon, Grant, Graham, Erin, Tim, Mark and many many others! There are just too many to list them all. Diana and Jon are both from South Africa and I've been out with both of them doing different things. For example last weekend I went bowling with Jon and Graham and this weekend I went to a Karaoke bar with Diana and Sipe. It was so much fun!

On Friday is Budda's birthday, but instead of celebrating that - one of the foreigners (Martin who is also British) is getting married to a Korean girl. So I will be going to a wedding which I'm excited about :)

I've also planned later in June to go to a Mudfestival with a group of people and hopefully in the next few weeks, me and Diana are going to go to a Buddhist Temple and live like a monk for 24 hours! I've heard it is very exciting :)

This last week I have finally managed to cook myself a meal in my apartment and during cooking I sort of freaked out because I had no idea what the red meat was that I had bought. It looked too dark to be pork and it did not have the texture of beef. I thought it was lamb but I'm told lamb is very difficult to get. Whatever it was....it tasted beautiful!

The pictures I've uploaded onto this post are just random ones I like from the last 3 weeks :)

Teachers Day

I know I haven't posted in a few weeks, I've been so busy coming to terms with my new living conditions and working so apologises beforehand.

Today was Teachers Day! And let me say it has been an amazing day! I helped the children make Happy Teachers Day cards for their favourite teachers and I received many presents!

I got a beautiful flower arrangement from one of the parents which had Lilies and roses and some other pretty little pink and purple flowers - they smell beautiful! I got a Louis Vuitton bag, some Christian Dior make-up. Fila socks, oil-free sunblock and anti-wrinkle cream and some 'Oaks' neck scarfs!

Here in Korea the children have English textbooks where there is a picture of an animal or piece of fruit and then the English word such as Lion or Banana is written next to it.

Well, Sunny and Amy decided to get me a Hengal book (Korean) to teach me to read and write and speak Korean!

How amazing is that!

Take a Hike

Take a Hike!

My first few days in Geochang South Korea went by very quickly. I would wake up, go to work, go home and go to bed. I was still recovering from diving in at the deep end so I was really looking forward to the weekend. The school director has a tradition of inviting the new teacher up to her cabin in the mountains with some of the students and their parents – this year was no exception. They even asked me if I need to go to Church on Sundays because of my religion – I then had to explain to them that I was not a Catholic or Christian and I was in fact a pagan – they had no clue what the f**k I was talking about. The best way I could explain it was to say that I love nature and nature loves me.

So... after establishing that I am a tree hugger (AKA a dendraphiliac – joke!) we arranged to meet at the school at 10am and I am told to wear a jumper because it is very cold up there. They also gave me a T-shirt which says 'Ivy League English Language Academy' on the front.

Sunday morning – I wake up, I shower, I put on a strap top, my T-shirt, a jumper and a jacket along with my jeans. I get to the school on time and I look up into the scorching sun with not a single cloud in the sky. Okay... so I wondered if maybe they were wrong about the weather, but then thought well these people are Koreans so they must know their own weather patterns. I'm not going to dictate to them that it isn't cold even though I've never been up in the mountains. So for now, I take my jacket off and tie it around my waist. Other people start to turn up and they too are wearing jumpers/sweaters etc so I don't look like an odd-ball. I'm happy.

I watch the many students getting into the cars and it is very clear these people have no road laws. They have like 7 people climbing into the back of one car and have 4 people sat in the front (these are regular cars) and I wonder to myself what would happen if we got pulled over by the police. Then I realised I had in fact not seen a single police car since I had been here and would not be able to tell you what one looked like so I didn't even know if I had seen a police car. Who knows the vehicle outside my apartment may be a police car and I've not even noticed. Not only are these cars stuffed full of people – but on the actual drive, we do not follow the traffic lights! When they're on green we go, on amber we go on red we still just go straight through them! I asked the teacher if we should have stopped and his response was “We can go through and hope for the best. Other traffic will stop.” My thoughts? 'WTF happens if the other driver thinks the same and we just collide into each other?'

Anyways – I'm sure you're more interested in my journal for the mountain sights and not the crazy mentality of these people. We finally got to the cabin and it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. To get to it – we drove up hill through this forest on a little dirt road which has enough space for one car to drive down. There is a clearing and there are what looked to be 3 massive ponds (I found out later none of them contain fish, one of them is a swimming pool, and the others are just man-made water flows surrounded by rocks.) To get to the cabin you must climb up these huge steps and next to it there is a little wooden shelter with a table. (There is another one of these wooden shelters down by one of the water flows.)

Okay – so at this point I am still sweltering in the heat which my 3 layers of clothing! The sun is beaming and we are just about to go on a mini hike with the children. I don't want to take any layers off because knowing my luck, it will be absolutely freezing in the mountain and we're not too far up at the moment – so I leave my layers and sweat like crazy as well as dehydrating! Luckily we didn't walk too far (the young ones are only like 3-4 years of age after-all) and we were back at the cabin before noon!

Now – it is time for the food!

I was told this was going to be a picnic so I had no clue what to expect as Koreans do not have sandwiches, pork pies, quiche or scotch eggs. (Which are some of the ingredients to an English picnic) What we started with was a bowl of strawberries and a huge platter of cherry tomatoes (which are absolutely delicious over here! The remaining tomatoes I took home in a massive bag and have been living on ever since.) During our mini snack fest, the parents took it in turns to ask me questions (This was actually them staring at me spouting Korean and me looking scared waiting for somebody to translate what they were asking.) most of it was just related to England and what are my hobbies/interests, what do I think to Korea – etc etc!

During this time, the children at the other side of the cabin produced pictures of the forest and mountains and wrote mini essays about how excited they were, the plants and the flowers and the fact that a new teacher (moi) was here with them. After our little snack fest I went to see the children and I played with them and listened to music. Most of them love Westlife and The Beatles and know most of the words to the songs. Once the work was over – we ate Gimbap/Kimbap which is a traditional Korean food. It is a roll made from seaweed and inside is packed with rice and other ingredients such as ham, onion, vegetables – and it is very very tasty. Then we ate fried chicken and pork :) hmmmmm yum yum!

After lunch we played games including some strange tigging game, spoon and egg racing game (except instead of an egg we used golf balls) and a letter association game. They got me on the Karaoke singing Bon Jovi and I recorded them singing the Beatles.

I even went on a much longer hike with some of the older students and the parents where we went so high up I got to take some fantastic pictures of Geochang from the mountain.

The only crazy/insane moment of the day was when one of the younger children Clara (who I think is 4 years old) decided it would be a great idea to dive into one of the ponds. What did I do? I stood and watched. Not because I didn't want to help or anything but there was 10 other adults next to her and a medical doctor so I figured my English panicky assistance was not required.

All in all – it was a very good day!

My first night....and day at work!

So... at 10pm I caught a bus from wherever the hell I was to Geochang. I half slept on the journey, I could not get comfortable and was so excited - even at night - to see the sights of Korea.

I got to Geochang at around 1.30 in the morning and I had to wait for the school director to come and pick me up from the bus station.

She came around 15 minutes later and showed me to my apartment which I would be stopping in. I think it is perfect - it isn't big but it is everything I am going to need while I am here. I have a different pair of shoes for my bathroom, and washroom as well as the main room of the place.





The school director told me to be ready in the morning for 9.30am - I presumed so I could meet the children. But Oh no.... I got to school and they took me straight to the Kindergarten class. They made each child stand up in front of me and say a couple of sentences in English. Then from their I had to speak to them in English and try to teach them phrases to say.

From 11-12 I teach the small children, these kids look around 3-4 years of age. They are very limited with their English but they find it fun to say the phrase "Oh My God!" and it is quite adorable.
Then from 12-1pm I have my lunch with the kids. They laugh at my attempts to use the chopsticks and are alway trying to get me to say words in Korean....which they giggle at so I can only assume they are rude words but I don't mind. I'm glad I can bond with them and make them laugh so easily!
Then I start my afternoon classes at 1.30 until 7. This is a mixture of different ages and abilities, ranging from children who are learning their animal names such as Dog, Cat etc to children who I can have full-blown conversations with in English on various topics.

On Thursdays and Tuesdays I also have an hours lesson with a Medical Doctor, he is wanting to learn English as it is obviously better for him to converse with any other foreigner.

I call my school director Mommy Teacher and all the children call me Rachel Teacher although the younger kids cannot say my name properly yet. They say "Waych Teacher"

I also learned on this first day that my age is different in Korea. I am actually 23 years old but in Korea, they count from the year you were born like this -

1986 - 1 year
1987 - 2 years
1988 - 3 years
...
...
2008 - 23 years
2009 - 24 years
2010 - 25 years

So by the end of Thursday I was pretty jet-lagged still and had quite an eventful day meeting everybody. The other teachers I work with are called Shine Teacher, Sunny Teacher and Amy Teacher. Shine Teacher took me out to meet the previous English teacher who is Grant. He is from the States and I also met a guy from England called Graham. We had drinks and conversed with some other Korean people in the bar who were really friendly. I did not get home again until 2 but even though at the end of my journey - my welcome was fantastic and I had a very good first impression :)

My Journey Part 4

My Journey – Part 4 (The battle of the toilet!)

So... I'm in the bus station, needing a break and also a wee. I enter the toilets and the first thing I noticed is that they're a little small so I would have to leave my suitcase outside. I enter a cubicle and my reaction was to walk out again – I thought I'd entered the men's restroom.



The actual toilet itself was just a hole in the ground, there is a little ridge on one side of it and a bin behind it as well as a tap. I bumped into a woman who walked straight into the same toilets. Not wanting to look like a fool, I sat outside the toilet as if waiting for somebody – checking my watch – yep, still had an hour and a half to wait. Not only did I have a long time until I could get my bus, but the journey from the station to Geochang was 3 hours long. I desperately needed the loo so I knew I would have to face this weird nightmare sooner rather then later. I wondered whether to ask somebody how to use the toilet, when approaching a lady I greeted her with a “Hiya” and enthusiastic wave. Her expression conveyed she thought I was completely nuts before walking away from me. Okay... to plan B.

I decided to give the loo a go. I re-entered, leaving my case just outside again. The first cubicle I walked into this time had shit all over the floor – I came to the assumption that it didn't really matter where you did the business as long as it was done within that small space. Not wanting to stand in somebody else's excrement – I stepped out and entered the next stall. It was cleaner by no stretch of the imagination but at least it did not have brown turd smeared everywhere. 'where the hell have I chosen to live for 12 months?!' I locked the door and examined the weird contraption for a good 5 minutes before deciding the best way to do this. When I had finally come to my conclusion, I heard voices just outside and realised my suitcase was there, so I quickly abandoned my second attempt at toileting and washed my hands (I didn't want any onlookers thinking I had actually used the toilet and did not hold hygiene standards.) I walked outside to see my panic about the suitcase was misjudged. There were just two women chatting and laughing on a bench outside the toilet – I smiled politely and grabbed my suitcase. I would obviously look suspicious if I ran out the toilet then ran back in so I decided to wander around the station and see if there were any other toilets I could use.

Another 10 minutes went by and I did not find any other rooms to defecate in. So I meandered back and decided to switch on my laptop to see if I could find any articles on toilet usage in Korea. As soon as the laptop came on it beeped at me telling me it had low battery. Megan was online so I thought it best to tell her I was okay, to let everybody know I was fine and to amuse her with my toilet expedition. She was not disappointed as far as I could tell. 10 minutes later I was back to square one. 'Right, I can do this!'

I waltzed into the toilet, dropped my kegs and pissed.

I'm not going to go into details, but I will say it was not a 100% success!

Right... now to wait for the bus.

To be continued...