Episode 43: In Which DFM Hears Wooden Bells, And Drinks $9 Tea

Today (Tuesday the 22nd) was my last day of work in Korea. As I mentioned in a previous post too, today was also the Christmas "song festival" at my school all all of the students and teachers have been busy preparing the last couple of weeks.

Here you can see all of the teachers dressed up as "Santa grandmother," as they get ready to play a fantastic rendition of "Silent Night" on the wooden "noise makers" they have in their hands. Each "bell" makes a different tone, based on how long it is. I'm not sure what they're called, but they sure were a complicated way to make music.

After I was finished for the day, the principal gave me a nice pair of gloves and announced over the intercom that all the teachers should leave their classes to come say good-bye to me. It was all rather touching, and almost makes me wish I wasn't finished... almost.

After work I went to meet Hyenii and some other friends from MEC. Hyenii told me that she would not be able to come to the fair well party MEC was holding for me next Tuesday, so she wanted one last opportunity to say good-bye.

I'm not sure why, but we went to some area in Seoul called Sinsa-dong. The area is famous for its many fashion stores, which in turn attract many women. In the summer, the street cafes are apparently filled with women, and the streets themselves filled with men driving expensive cars back and forth trying to impress those women.

Part of the problem with areas that fashion themselves on being "European," is that they bring with them European prices. The Korean restaurant we went to was still as cheap as any other, but the cafes were another story.

After our meal we decided to sit down and talk over a cup of tea or coffee, but at the cafe Hyenii chose, the tea cost $8-$9, and the water was more than $10! I assume being from Norway gives it an extra molecule of oxygen (but not hydrogen, that would make it hydrogen peroxide).

While initially reluctant to hand over my $9, I was later relieved when I receive an actual pot of tea, not just a cup. Even better, the tea was delicious and I received a refill of hot water for my tea leaves. That said, $9 is a ridiculous price to pay for something that probably cost 10 cents.

Episode 42: In Which DFM Watches Cooks Fight, And Stays Up All Night

While last Thursday was just a final day to get pictures of everyone at that school, Friday really was my last day at my other school.

I haven't really talked much about this "other" school or shown many pictures of the children, but since I figure one or two of my readers may be interested I'll show a few pictures.

Here (above) is the class from hell. I have a class of four year olds who are possibly worse, but at least they are easily entertained. This class is two years older, and if they aren't instantly gratified with the most exciting games or songs, they rebel. The boys in the third row (second from the back) are absolute monsters and at times they made their Korean teacher leave the room and cry (I saw it). The girl in that same row, with the striped sweater trying to look sweet, spent a few years in Australia and can speak English fairly fluently. However, instead of using her power for good (like translating for me), she prefers to announce "this is boring, I'm not going to do it," even before I start my lessons. All that said, for half an hour, two days a week, they're my monsters and so I still love them and already miss them.

Here's Min-ji. This is one of the most independent children I've ever seen. She typically sits at a table by herself, and is usually the first person done any assignment. One time the Korean teacher who helps me out tried to draw a picture for her and she started bawling.

Some time ago I wrote about Seon-gyu. Here he is (on the left) in his Taekwondo uniform, as usual, with his partner in crime In-young (on the right). He looks sweet, doesn't he?

(Wham! You just got lulled in to a false sense of security and now you're going to pay.)

(Wham! You just got it again! By the way, did anyone notice how all the students in the background are working hard while Seon-gyu is posing for all of these pictures?)

And that brings us to Jae-hyeun. Jae-hyeun is a year younger than Seong-gyu, but they're both in my "special art class" that I teach in the afternoon. I believe they're both in the same Taekwondo club, and Jae-hyeun seems to think that this makes Seong-gyu and him friends. Seon-gyu seems to think otherwise though, and views Jae-hyeun as an annoying little brother who needs to be beaten up regularly.)

(Merry Christmas!)

* * * * *

This day I also found myself back in Myeong-dong, for the second time in 24 hours.

My friend Hyeun-a was disappointed that she wasn't able to get me a present when I left Korean back in May. She told me at that time, that if I ever came back she would take me out to one of Korea's finest performing arts productions, Nanta.

First shown in 1997, Nanta is the longest running stage show in the history of Korean theatre, and it has also drawn the largest number of paying customers of any Korean stage production over its 12 year run. It won the best performance award at the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has been playing on Broadway since 2004. But what is Nanta?

Nanta is essentially a show about some cooks at a restaurant who have to make a lot of food really fast for a wedding. There are some conflicts between the characters that prompt said characters to engage in "cooking battles" involving a lot of banging in an interesting rhythmical fashion.

As boring as I made it sound, it is every bit as good as it was billed, and was probably one of the most entertaining things I've seen in Korea. Was it unbelievably good? No, but it was much better than I expected, and surprisingly funny.

In conclusion, I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening at Nanta, so I feel comfortable giving Nanta the coveted "high five" award from DFM (the highest honour a person, performance, etc., can receive). It's so good that if you come to Seoul and you can only do one thing, make sure it's watching Nanta.

* * * * *

After Nanta, I went to the MEC Christmas Party that had already started earlier in the evening. Since the subway closes at about midnight, there was no way for me to get back to my house afterwards (I didn't even know where I was, since I got picked up from a subway station). As a result, I decided to stay up all night and catch the morning train back home, but what I saw on the ride shocked me.

At 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday, in most cities, I would expect the subways to be pretty empty (I've not been to many large cities), but not in Seoul. The notorious Line 2 was again standing room only, and even more surprisingly a good number of the people riding the train were middle school students going to Saturday school.

I remembered reading that Korean children go to a half-day of school on Saturday, but I thought they wouldn't have to start until 10 AM. Actually seeing the poor kids freezing on a Saturday morning when everyone (including myself) should have been home sleeping, really shocked me. Though, it's better than having them hang out at the mall I suppose.

Episode 21: In Which Artists Try To Rob DFM, And Astro Boy Gives Him A Rude Gesture

Today (Friday) was the first day of my first Chuseok holiday. Last Thursday, some members of the English club (henceforth to be referred to as MEC) had decided to meet today for some fun and adventure. Being a lover of fun and adventure myself, I accepted the invitation to come along.

(Our group [left to right, back to front]: Grace, Sally, Tom, Hyenii, Vanilla (yes, that's her real [English] name), Ricky, I can't remember the name of the next woman with the green hoody even though I asked her twice [this is the look of letters when they are typed in shame], and finally some guy who isn't actually part of MEC and doesn't speak English either.)

Originally I had thought we were going to some mountain near the 38th parallel to peer into North Korea using high powered binoculars. However, I guess plans had changed, because when the car stopped we were at the English Village in Paju.

English Villages first came to Korea in 2004 from Spain and Italy. The goal of an English Village is to help give Korean children a chance to improve their English language skills through month long, live-in immersion camps, without having to leave Korea (thus keeping more money in Korea). Over 100 foreign teachers are employed to give the camp an authentic feel, and the "town" also has many post office, hospital, city hall, etc. type buildings to give a more authentic role playing opportunity for the children.

When we went to the English Village there wasn't much to see, as the teachers had all been given a week long holiday, and so many of them had gone to Bali or Thailand. Oddly enough, of the five or so teachers who had stayed one of them was Tom. Tom is a teacher from New Zealand that I had met at Ace Climbing Gym last week. I had remembered he told me about his job at the English Village in Paju, so I was wondering if I would see him. However, given the circumstances it was a pretty big coincidence that we ran into each other.

MEC is led by Tom (the Korean Tom in the photo above). And while we were walking through the streets of the English Village, Tom asked me if the houses reminded me of Canadian houses. To be honest, the houses and "stores" looked like something I might see in Disneyland, but even so they did not look Canadian. I told Tom that if anything the houses and street were modelled upon a town in Great Britain, as I had seen very similar lamp posts and street clocks in Edinburgh during my trip there in 2008.

About the only thing worth seeing at the English Village (on this day) was this amphitheatre that overlooked an artificial pond. The weather was as nice as it looks in this picture, and the pond was home to many "water skaters" that I happily watched for some minutes.

After we had seen all of the buildings in the town we went back to have some truly mediocre pizza and spaghetti at the town Pizza and Spaghetti Shop. Then after lunch, Tom broke out the Uno package he had bought, and I prepared to do battle in the most intense game of Uno ever.

While the game was friendly enough, and no one tried to cheat, per se, some of the Koreans' interpretations of appropriate protocol were different than what I'm used to. Grace, who was sitting next to me, was constantly trying to peer over my shoulder to see what cards I had, and every time Tom tried to "help out" by handing out 2 or 4 cards to an opponent who had just received a "Pick up Two" or "Pick up Four" card, he would look at the cards he had just picked up. I learned quite early to "help" myself whenever I needed more cards.

After Ricky won the hard fought Uno game, we moved over to the nearby HEYRI Art Valley. HEYRI Art Valley was was built in 1997, with the goal of creating a place where artists of different genres can gather to communicate with each other and the public. All I saw though, were a bunch of over-priced art stores and cafes that sold $5 2-inch by 2-inch squares of cake.

The one bright spot at the HYERI Art Valley was the toy museum. For the price of a piece of HYERI Art Valley cake I was able to explore 2 of the 3 floors (I had to pay an extra $2 to see Sponge Bob on the third floor), filled with quite probably thousands of toys of all sorts and sizes. Below are some pictures of my favourites.

(It's the underwater Lotus Elise from "The Spy Who Loved Me.")

("Marty, you're not thinking fourth-dimensionally.")

(I suggest clicking on the picture to zoom in and get a clearer view. Bonus points if you can guess the yellow toy to the left, just barely in the shot. Check the last picture for the answer.)

(The Nike Free shoe in front actually turns into the Transformer behind it. Zoom in on the image and look at the robot's wings. They're in the shape of a shoe and you can see the laces hanging down.)

("Go, go Gadget Pop Pen!")

(Long time readers will already know about my love for Astro Boy - I've already taken out a membership in NAMBLA - but I was overwhelmingly over joyed by this find. What's hilarious, is that it looks like Atom - his name in Korea - is making a rude gesture. However, the hours I spent watching Sasuke have not been wasted, and I think that in Japan this is considered a sign of self congratulations - like pumping one's fist in the air - since I have seen many competitors on that show use this same action when they have completed a stage in an impressive fashion.)

(The life-sized robots were a hit with everyone.)

(What toy museum worth its robots would be caught dead without a 1/24 scale Hyundai Pony model car tucked away behind a glass pane and some other boxes?)

(Do you remember my question at the top, about what the toy beside the T-1000 skull? If you said "Ripley's exo-skeleton from Alien," then congratulations, because you're the biggest nerd in the world.)

For supper we all went out for duck. It was my first time having duck and I was curious about how it would taste. Duck tastes a lot like really tender chicken actually, and was by no means anything less than delicious. However, I found that I preferred the pork dishes at our meal to the duck, perhaps because of the thicker and firmer texture.

After dinner, we were treated to an impromptu swing dance lesson by a friend of Vanilla's. Apparently she takes swing dance lessons and had invited the instructor to our meal. The instructor said I was a good dancer, but I was more pleased that I could understand enough of the words in his Korean directions to figure out what he was telling me.