Episode 58: In Which DFM Has Dinner For Breakfast And Beats A 10 Year Old At Parcheesi... Twice!

Day 2 of my journey called for an early rise.  Mr. Kim's parents were up and a traditional Korean breakfast had been prepared, so I thought it was polite to come join them.

Korean breakfasts look exactly like Korean lunches and Korean suppers.  There's rice, kimchi, and a large collection of side dishes.  In fact there was more food at this breakfast than there was for dinner last night.  I was served another bowl of samgyetang, and I had an opportunity to show off my new kimbab eating skills.  

Rather than using my hand to hold my kim (dried seaweed) and then filling it with a spoonful of rice, I would take a spoonful of rice and then place the bottom of my spoon on the top piece of kim.  The seaweed would stick to the spoon and I would shove the whole conglomeration in my mouth.  Mr. and Mrs. Kim were impressed, because apparently Mr. Kim's father is the only person they had seen eat kimbab that way.  For the record, I had learned the technique from Yoo Sung Bok's father when I had dinner with Sung Bok's family.

After breakfast, April and I left with her sister Julie, and brother-in-law Kenny.  We were planning to see a famous temple nearby, but first we stopped in at an incredible tea house.

The tea house was hand built by the owner and is located  on the side of a beautiful mountain.  I can't remember the name of the place, but I'll never forget the stunning front yard.

It was hard for me to believe, but the inside of the tea house was even more beautiful than the outside.  It felt like stepping back in time a few centuries, because the floor was made of dirt, and you removed your shoes and stepped up onto the raised wood platform to find your table. (Note:  I have no idea what Korea houses were like a few hundred years ago, so ignore my earlier statement about stepping back in time).

I had something called 5 Flavours Tea, served cold, and it was fantastic.  While we drank and talked I was stuffed full of delicious traditional Korean cookies made from fried rice , and some sort of candy-coated traditional Korean peanut treat.  After tea I was given yet more tea, this time a special plum flower tea with the plum flower in my cup.

After tea we travelled a bit further to see the 1 370 year old temple, Gwangduksa.  The temple once housed 9 Bell Houses and 8 Castles, but was burned down by the Japanese in 1592 and had to be rebuilt.  I didn't bother to count how many buildings there are today.

Incredibly, there was one historical item still left standing.  This walnut tree is over 400 years old and is the first and oldest walnut tree in Korea.  It was brought to Korea by a monk and subsequently the Cheonan region has become famous for its walnut cookies.  I found this out later, otherwise I would have asked to have some.

After seeing the temple, April had to visit a high school student she used to tutor.  The student now attends an advanced language learning institute for grade 10 and 11 students.  The students can learn any of four languages, including Spanish and English, and April's student told me in near perfect English that she was at the bottom of her class.  April even got me an interview with the head recruiter who told me to send my CV to him in case there were future openings for teaching positions. 

The school had some young ducks outside in a pen.  Kenny and Julie's kindergarten aged son, Jun, came along with April and I (his parents went home), and he kept trying to get the ducks to come near him so that he could pet them.  Of course every time he moved closer to the ducks they moved away from him, and he started to become quite upset.  A few times I had to come and prevent him from lashing out at the cage in frustration.  Jun was a favourite of all the high school girls on their class break, and they would come to look at the ducks, but most him.

The school is located right next to an expensive apartment complex, built by Samsung for housing its employees.  Kenny is a Electrochemical Engineer and works for Samsung, building laptop batteries.  He told me he dreams of one day becoming the head of his division and expanding the business.

As if the pond/fountain weren't pretty enough, the apartment complex also had this large Teletubbies style rubber hill for the children and numerous other playground areas (all coated in rubber matting).

April left to go visit even more former students and I stayed with her sister at their new place.  Kenny told me that I was the first guest in his new apartment, so I felt honoured.

Julie slaved for well over an hour on this feast, which made me feel kind of bad.  Not bad enough to not scarf it all down, though.

Kenny/Julie's other son, Matthew, has a friend named Whi-seol (sounds like "whistle").  Whi-seol is twelve and very clever.  After dinner we played an intense game of Parcheesi.  Matthew loves this game and I had beaten him twice earlier, so he was happy to finally get his revenge this time.  Jun is only five and he soon got bored and started trying to steal my pieces.  Matthew got upset and started stomping on him repeatedly.  It reminded me and my brother at that age.

When I got home, another former student of April's was over at Mr. and Mrs. Kim's house.  We talked for a bit and then Mr. Kim took us all out for dinner.  By this time I was pretty full, but I had a reputation to uphold, so I finished my portion and more.  Mr. Kim ordered me some makgeolli, but no one else had any.  I didn't know that there was another option, so after I finished my makgeolli I finished off two giant bowls of tea, one each from Mrs. Kim and the student in the white shirt who had both ordered but not finished theirs.  Mr. Kim said, "he eats good and he drinks good too!"

Finally 1 O'clock AM rolled around and we finally went back home.  Tomorrow I will rise at 7 AM to catch another train for Gyeongju.

Episode 57: In Which DFM Holds A Stack Of Bills Two Inches Thick And Fights A Korean

Today (Thursday) is the day of my big trip.  My train wasn't scheduled to leave until 8:10 PM, which was nice because I had a lot to do before then.

I spent most of the day trying to catch up on my backlogged blog posts, doing laundry and packing for my trip, but I also had to find time to rush over to Lee's office and pick up a package.  Thankfully my tendinitis seems to have settled down a bit and I did not notice an excessive amount of pain in my knees while running there (I had expected to be crippled for a month or more after my half-marathon).

Around 6 PM I took the subway to meet my boss.  I was supposed to get paid on Tuesday but there were some unfortunate bank errors that ended up pushing my payday back until today.  When I showed up, the errors still had not been cleared up yet, but my boss had been given a promise that the money would be ready by 7:30 PM.  

In the mean time my boss took me out for some dalkgalbi (spicy chicken pieces grilled with vegetables and rice cakes in a spicy sauce).  Not wanting to waste an opportunity to learn about Korean culture I asked about, and was treated to a lesson on the responsibilities of the first born son in Korea.  All too quickly 7:10 rolled around and we left to find a bank and get my money.  

After all was said and done I had about $1200 in cash in my backpack.  I did not have time to go back home and stash it, so I was forced to travel around with it.  In hindsight I'm glad I packed all my stuff along with me when I went to see my boss (my mother would be proud).

The KTX bullet train travels at 300 km/hr, so the trip to Cheonan/Asan took little more than 30 minutes.  After departing from the train, April and I took a cab to her friend's apartment where we would stay for the next two nights.

If my trip were to consist only of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Kim I would have still considered it a great success.  Mr. and Mr. Kim are both public school teachers.  Mr. Kim teaches regular subjects in Korean, while his wife teaches English to Junior High students.  With April and myself both teachers as well it made for some interesting conversations around the dinner table.

Speaking of dinner, Mr. Kim is a great cook and served me a great meal of delicious, home-made samgyetang.  My boss and friends had told me that Korean mothers always give young men a lot of food and expect you to eat it all.  Even though I had stuffed myself full of spicy chicken just a couple hours earlier, I pushed my way through the whole bowl and all the rice.  Mrs. Kim looked at my empty bowl and said "good boy."

My bosses lesson came in handy in other ways as well.  Mrs. Kim had told me earlier that she stayed with her parents-in-law.  My boss had told me the first born son always has to take care of his parents, so I mentioned to Mr. Kim that I thought he might be the eldest son.  Mrs. Kim was impressed and told me that April had told her I had a "Korean soul," and that now she understood what that meant.

I had noticed earlier a picture in a newspaper of a ssireum tournament taking place (traditional Korean wrestling), and after supper I asked Mr. Kim about it.  I soon found out that Mr. Kim has the spirit of a young man.  After trying to describe the sport to me in his limited English he had me stand up and we did some sparing.  I wasn't able to take him down, but I was able to block all of his attacks (Mr. Kim didn't count on my past experience as a wrestler).  It's a good thing the Kims live on the ground floor.

Mr. Kim gives me hope for my own middle age.  Not only did he want to wrestle me on this night, but on another night he challenged me to an arm wrestling contest.  I can tell he's as competitive as I am, and it's a good thing someone called the arm wrestling match a draw because both of us would have continued fighting until someone became injured.  

Mr. Kim also showed me his numerous medals for running, including one from a recent Seoul International Marathon and another for running 13 km barefoot through the woods.  He also had a certificate for his successful summit of a 5005 meter peak in Nepal last year.  To put that feat in perspective, the tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies, Mt. Robson, is less than 4000 meters, and the mountains I have been hiking around Seoul are about 700 to 800 meters.

I could have stayed up talking with the Kims all night, but it soon grew late and the Kims had to get up early and teach the next day.

Episode 56: In Which DFM Gets His First Sunburn Of The Season And Is The Topic Of Another Speech

Tuesday may have been my last day teaching, but Wednesday was the day of the school's big picnic and I was invited along.  The picnic was supposed to be last week, but the weather did not cooperate so it go bumped to today.  Although it had been windy and rainy all week, the temperature this day was in the high 20s.

My last weekend must have really taken it out of me, because I slept in over an hour this morning.  I woke up in a panic and shifted into quadruple time mode.  Miraculously, I managed to make it to the school only ten minutes later than I normally do, which lets you know how much I like to take my time in the morning.

My job was to help the poor play school teacher with her four year olds.  All I can say is that one four year old is hard enough to control, but trying to keep track of fifteen on a field trip is madness.

After 45 minutes of driving and almost getting ran over by a dump truck, we finally made it to our mystery location.  The children spewed forth from the buses, and then the fun of sorting the 125 some-odd students into their classes began.

The teacher I was helping asked me to walk at the end of the line and keep everyone in order.  She never explained to me how you keep four year olds in order when they're still learning their (English) name, let alone commands like "stay in a line."

To make matters worse, Daisy here (pig tails, no bow) decided that it would be fun to stand in the middle of the road with the "brakes on" and make me push her along.  At the same time two other boys were going in any direction but straight. 

Eventually the three Korean teachers and myself were able to get two classes of four year olds together for some strawberry relay races.  My job was to take a seemingly endless stream of boys to the trees to go pee.  On the plus side I learned the Korean word for pee - pronounced "she."

This picture is the perfect metaphor for Toby (white hat).  Everyone is looking to the right, but he seems to have his own idea.  Good luck little Korean rebel, don't let The Man get you down.

Lunch time came around not a moment too soon since I had not had time for much of a breakfast.  However I was a bit worried as I had not been able to pack myself a lunch either.  But, the lunch ladies at this school are always looking out for me and it turns out that they packed me a giant Tupperware container of kimbap (a California sushi roll, but the seaweed is on the outside and there are only vegetables and rice on the inside)

After stuffing myself full of kimbap I walked around and said "hello" to all of the other classes... big mistake!  It seems as though every second child wanted to give me something from his/her lunch.  I got to the point where I couldn't eat the kimbap fast enough and had a stack of eight in my hand.  Eventually a teacher took pity on me and handed me a tray to hold everything (but not before she had a good laugh).

Sticker Girl (bottom picture) was up to her old tricks again and played another practical joke on me.  She called me over and showed me her milk bottle.  She pointed to the label and proudly proclaimed "see?  milk!"  I was very proud of her, and was just about to applaud her when she flipped the bottle over to show me the bottom where it became obvious that the inside contained some green tea like substance and not milk, as had been advertised.  She knew from the look on my face that she had got me, because she burst into hysterical laughter and I thought her smile was so wide it might rip off her face.  Touche little girl, you got me this time.

You may have noticed that the children have these ingenious chopsticks that are hinged on one end.  They allow for the perfect pinch every time and show that someone was really thinking when he made them.

This boy even had his own personalized lunch.  Enlarge the picture to see that his egg man has the same hair he does.

("You mean you eat other kids lunches?  Stop it!")

It's never too early to be an ROK soldier.  The two boys in front used the remainder of their lunch time to practice "going over the top."

It seems that children love to fall into holes.  Any ditch or mud puddle around the picnic area was soon filled with children making themselves dirty.

Some of the children were smart/strong enough to jump over the ditches.

Mostly though, they just got stuck and I would have to go rescue them.  In hindsight I think some of the children were getting "stuck" a little too often for it to be an "accident."

After lunch the children had some pictures taken (by a professional photographer, not just me), and played with bubbles.  Some of the children had to learn the hard way that when you dump your soap out you can't blow any more bubbles.  In Canada we would have coddled these "less fortunates" by giving them some social welfare, but over in Korea I get to just let them cry.  As MandDFM would say, "it's good for building personal discipline".

I'm not sure if there's some secret chain letter that's being passed around the World's kindergartens, but it seems that children everywhere love to latch themselves onto my legs whenever possible.  Today they finally managed to hit a nerve at just the right spot and take me down.  The little monsters showed no mercy though, and attempted to try and... well, I'm not exactly sure what they were trying to do here, but they sure looked happy doing it.

After the picnic we dropped the kids back off at school where most of their parents were waiting for them.  A few of the kids did not want me to leave though and took turns blocking my progress all the way along the length of the second floor hallway and down the stairs to the exit.

Finally they pooled their resources and made their Last Stand at the doorway.  

Poor kids.   One little girl (not pictured) actually started crying when I left.  I'll miss them too.

No time to cry just yet though.  After teaching I hustled over to Ace Climbing Center for one last training session and a chance to say "good bye."

Thomas and I had made a hard route on the roof of this "cave."  We were having troubles finishing it though so I did what I always do when I can't climb something at Ace: I called Ji-Hyeun over.  She flashed it (completed it on her first try), and even campused the last part (climbed without using her feet) on holds that were very hard to grasp.

What made her feat even more impressive too, was that she had just recuperated (barely) from becoming the first climber in the gym to complete a new boulder problem that had been created.  Choi and a group of the gym's tallest and best climbers had set up a hard problem and were taking turns trying to "send" it.  The men tried many times, but it was 5'4" Ji-Hyeun who finished the route first.

After climbing Choi took me out for Samgyeupsal, since it was my last day climbing at Ace.  Some of the other members came along and Choi gave a speech about how I was special to him.  He told me that from when he first met me to now that I had learned a lot of Korean and that he was impressed.  Before I had to leave he gave me one of his personal key chains - a miniature "Figure 8" belay device.  I'll miss Choi and everyone at Ace Climbing Center too.

Episode 55: In Which DFM Has A Private Concert Performed For Him And Finds A Boy Who Had His DNA Merged With That Of A Strawberry (The Fly Style)

Today was my final day teaching.

Every Tuesday the children in my first block class will sing a song to start the day.  Many songs have been sung over the last month, but my favourite is "Baby Squirrel Song."  I requested that the children sing it on my last day, but they outdid themselves and sang a small concert for me.  In case you're curious, "Baby Squirrel Song" was the final song in the video.  Astute readers can find Kindergarten Cop regulars like Minnie-Mouse Ears Girl, Sticker Girl, and Lew ("Balance Boy") in this video.

After singing it was time to get down to work.  I'm not sure what they were making, but it looks like a forest to me (hey, this class stole my idea!)  

Sticker Girl is in the second picture with a small present I gave her.  I thought she would be able to put it in her back pack and hide it, but she just couldn't resist showing it off everywhere and I got in trouble with the kids when I did not have enough for everyone.

My next class spent the entire block making "love letters" for me.  I told them my Korean name was Dae-ho and they thought this was fantastic.  Many of the pictures they made say "Dae-ho I love you," or something close to that.  Some of them just have wet marks on them though.

I even had a second class make me love letters too (the phrase "I love you" in Korean has a slightly different connotation than it does in North America and is used by everyone as a term of endearment between friends).  The boy in the second picture went for the "realist" approach with is drawing though, and drew me as an astronaut with antennae.  Later he put his hands on his head like antennae and bobbled around.  He called himself "Andy the ant."  I was impressed that he included the word "the," since many Koreans I've met seem to have trouble with the articles the/a/an.

The four year olds were still working on their strawberry theme, and were wrapping it up today with a "strawberry foods book."  Poor little Daniel just couldn't stay awake though and was practically falling asleep sitting up (I've actually seen a kid do that before).

The other four year old class made strawberry cookies.  I was honoured though to receive the first one.  Mmm... delicious.

When Koreans latch on to something they do it DFM style - they go all the way!  Here, the proof is in the pudding, and strawberry boys are that pudding.

The five year olds were finishing up their ant unit with a giant ant collage.  There were bits of magazines and newspapers, colourful fuzzy balls, straws, beads and sparkles.  But, because everything was being attached with glue, it wasn't a surprise that at least one child thought it would be a good idea to put glue all over his hands and try to stick them together.

For my final Special Art Class, I finished up my forest unit by getting the children to make a cover for a book containing all the pieces they've drawn over the last month (in this unit).  I didn't really think it through though, and the poor Korean teacher had to bind all the books by herself.

One final picture of Sticker Girl and Fight Girl together for "old time's" sake.  In hindsight, if I'd noticed Sticker Girl forgot the 'f' in forest I would have made her go back and fix it.

Good-bye school.

After work I went climbing, but today was a bit different because Woojin wanted to come along with me (Sung Bok's friend, not the phys ed teacher).  He struggled like all beginners do when they start climbing, but I was impressed with his determination and he lasted as long as I did.  He later mentioned it was something he wanted to get into more seriously, so I was happy to be able to do my part in helping to increase the dismally low number of active young adults in Korea.