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 35: In Which DFM Helps The Government Of Seoul, And Becomes An Alien

Last Thursday Elise had to meet a friend, so we couldn't meet after work like we usually do. This week she tried to make up for it by taking us to the Ddeok Cafe to celebrate my birthday. The Ddeok Cafe is, like the name would suggest, a restaurant that only sells ddeok.

As long time readers will undoubtedly know, ddeok is essentially rice that has been compressed into sticky, chewy "cakes," which are surprisingly delicious and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. When you think that rice is eaten so often in Korea the name for "meal" is the same for rice, it seems counter- intuitive to then have rice for desert let alone make a restaurant to sell it. Then again, Canada has an obesity rate four times higher than that of Korea, and the restaurant was packed.

After the one week remembrance celebration of my last birthday I went to Ace to take part in the November climbing competition. Unfortunately I forgot that I had taken my shoes home last Wednesday to climb at Summit and that they were under my bed when I left in the morning. Ji-hyeun was kind enough to let me borrow a pair of rental shoes from the gym, but I think they were about a decade old, and the soles had started to petrify. Needless to say, it wasn't the best competition I've ever had, but it was fun nonetheless.

* * * * *

On Friday I finally got around to picking up my Alien Registration Card (ARC), which was supposed to have finished processing on Monday, but I was too busy all week to pick it up. Actually, I was not too busy, I just didn't want to go.

After picking up my registration card I was asked by a woman to fill out a survey about the experience of foreigners in Korea. I had read the results of this same survey given in spring, and I wasn't sure how six months could make a big difference.

While taking the survey I did notice some flaws though. It took me about half an hour to complete because I actually thought carefully about each question, but after I finished I was left wanting to answer more questions. For instance, how can I accurately give my opinion on the quality of "living in Korea" when the category involves water quality, neighbourhood cleanliness, house quality, etc.? I love the neighbourhoods, and while the houses are small, Americans and Canadians are spoiled with the mini-mansions they call bungalows anyway. However, the tap water literally disintegrates my gums and I've had to be extra careful about not using the tap water to brush my teeth. If I want to give high marks for the cleanliness of the streets and low marks for water quality, how can I do that without averaging the two scores out and making it look like nothing was overly good or overly bad?

And then there was the section for "comments," which didn't exist. I'm not sure how the government is going to know how foreigners think the problems can be solved if they don't let us tell them. After all, surveys don't fix problems by themselves.

My night wasn't done there though. You may remember the MEC Chuseok party back in October when we went to Paju. At the end of that night, Vanilla's swing dancing instructor friend gave us all an introductory lesson to swing dancing. Well, today he was throwing a party at his house, and so Hyenii and I decided to accept his invitation (I'm always up for Korean food).

Hyenii had followed me to the Immigration Office so that she could come with me to the party. I asked her if she could find any signs for the Immigration Office leading up to it from the subway. She could only find one tiny sign in Korean, on the large sign out front, with fifteen other small signs for other companies in the building surrounding it, but nothing leading up to the building that would give us directions as I expected, and yes I'm still bitter about it.

Speaking of bitter, the trip to the party would have taken less than half an hour on the subway, but Vanilla insisted on driving in her car because she didn't like the smell of the people on the subway. I'm not trying to single out Vanilla here, or even Koreans. This is a world-wide problem that I absolutely hate. It seems that as soon as someone makes a little money, he/she all of a sudden thinks that he/she is too good for public transportation. Well, listen people, you're not too good, in fact driving your car in a city with what I consider the World's best public transportation system makes you nothing but a douche bag. That half-hour trip in her car car wound up taking over an hour and a half, because about a million other douche bags decided that they absolutely needed to drive their cars too.

As for the party, it was of course great, once we finally got there. Delicious Korean food + Korean friends has been a recipe for success that has never failed my since I first got lost and taken out for dinner way back in March, and it didn't start now.

Episode 29: In Which DFM Brings Out The Dark Side In Korean Girls, And Chews The Heads Off Fish

The first couple of days of this week were marked by a "severe" cold snap. Severe that is for the Koreans, who were wearing winter coats inside, but I must say that 1 degree centigrade doesn't quite make for Arctic conditions where I usually live. That said, compared to the temperatures in the high teens we've been getting the previous week the change was still unpleasant. It also made me realise that I have a "clothing gap" between my light shell of a coat that doesn't really keep out the water when it rains, and my ski jacket that will probably be too warm even for the coldest of Korean winters. Luckily I noticed my local Korean sweat shop sells fleecy jackets that I might be able to get for a cheap price if and when the need arises.

With the cold weather, some Koreans have gone seemingly crazy. A Korean friend even told me that the two Seoul subway companies have a mental health counsellor on staff now because employee stress has risen as a result of dealing with the ever increasingly stressed out passengers.

How does this directly effect me? Well, the hard work the two Seoul subway companies spent to help create a respectful environment during my four month absence from Korea, seems to be for naught. On at least three separate occasions on Tuesday, an old Korean woman tried to sneak in to the subway train before even one person had left.

To put this in perspective, the behaviour of a fair number of Koreans in subways is rather rude by "Western standards," but a pet peeve of most of the "foreigners" I talk to is the fact that the people waiting outside the train will try to sneak in before everyone coming out of the train has left. I have to admit that I also get annoyed by this, but usually they only try to sneak on just before the last two people leave, so I can forget about it. What really irks me though, is when an old Korean woman (it's always an old Korean woman; they're the rudest of all Koreans, I'm sorry to say) gets paranoid and tries to push people out of the way to get to an empty seat that doesn't exist. It irks everyone else too, because most people would have given her their seat anyway (not me though, because they annoy me). On the subway on Tuesday though, I saw an old Korean woman try to sneak onto the train before the one person leaving had even taken a step. This man put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back off the train, and gave her a short lecture on not being rude. This man is my hero, and this moment was definitely the highlight of the week so far for me.

Another funny story involved Sticker Girl at my school (everyone remembers Sticker Girl, right?) The story involves a new teacher from Paris who I had to show around my school to give her an idea of what to expect and how to teach for my company. Since I knew it would be tough for her on her first day, I tried to get her to sit by a friendly child so that she could feel welcome. Unfortunately, I didn't think things through clearly because Sticker Girl was quite cold toward the new teacher. Afterwards she (the teacher) asked me what she had done wrong. I told her, "nothing, Sticker Girl has a crush on me, and she views you as the enemy because all the boys said you were pretty." The new teacher said "oh yes, I didn't realise that, she must really hate me." She's only 6 years old, but she's already mastered the Western female art of being overly jealous. Good work Sticker Girl.

In other exciting occurances, I met Perry again on Tuesday (Tuesday was a good day). He had been on a trip for the Korean government, leading a team of Korean youth up mountains in Italy, apart as well as being overly busy with his booming public speaking/personal motivation business. As a result he had not been climbing since July, but when he returned, it was "business as usual" and I went over to his house after climbing for some delicious food. This time his wife was not home, so we were forced to make do the best two "bachelors" can do. Perry bought some Korean spicy ramyeon noodles (which aren't so spicy for me any more) and tofu. He then mixed this all together with an egg and microwaved some fish that we ate head, bones, skin, tail and all, which is ironic since Koreans will peel all of their fruit before eating it because it's either sprayed with "chemicals" or "not delicious."

Episode 15: In Which DFM Meets A Movie Star, And Goes To A Place Where Everyone Knows His Name

In Canada I go to church every Sunday, but in Korea I find it a little intimidating to find a new church when I'm not even sure what is being said. However, last week and this week I have been fortunate enough to be invited to different churches by some new friends I have met.

Last week I was invited to Sarang Church in Gangnam by the English teacher at one of my schools. Even though Gangnam is more than an hour away from my home I felt that a month without going to church might be hard to justify to even the most liberal of Christians (which Korean Christians are not).

During my last visit I went to the largest church in the world. While Sarang Church is not as big as the Yeouido Full Gospel Assembly, it still has a large enough following to host five services. It also has a large "foreigner" population and holds three English(ee) services in a separate church down the street.

The English sermon was delivered by a guest pastor from California. Himself a Korean emigrant, he was apparently Jim Carey's Korean dialect coach for the movie Yes Man, and even had a small, one-line part in the film as a professor, but Jim Carey stole his one line.

While most Korean sermons deal almost exclusively with little more than the basic Christian principles (trust God, don't worry, be happy, etc.), this guest pastor made a concerted effort to deliver a message that was well researched and actually practical to the lives of the Christians in attendance. It was also chalk full of funny jokes, but experience has taught me Christians generally lack a sense of humour, and this congregation definitely supported that theory.

This week I had the privilege of attending the church of my friend Namhee. Namhee is a Korean I met in Canada while he was studying English. He is still in Canada, but wanted me to visit his family in Korea at his church.

I was picked up at the subway station by two of his friends. They drove me to the church and introduced me to the pastor, who already knew my name (apparently I had been expected). During the service, Namhee's two friends tried to translate for me as best as possible. I also knew enough Korean to figure out on my own that the pastor, at least at one point, was trying to suggest that Christians are supposed to be happy, but many Korean people are not happy but instead continuously walk around looking and feeling tired (probably because they don't sleep more than three hours a night).

One of the highlights of the experience was being able to sing along to the songs. During my past visit I went to April's church and was not able to follow along even to the slower hymns - my reading speed was just too slow. Today though, I was able to just barely scrape by, and could usually pick up enough of the words to sound like I knew what I was doing by the third time through the chorus (the words are on a large video screen at the back of the stage).

After service, I finally met Namhee's sister and her husband. Namhee's brother-in-law had studied English in my home town a few years ago, and it was he who had recommended the place to Namhee (I'm not sure why). Both Namhee's sister and brother-in-law were very nice, and after church they took me out to try some jjimdak.

(Namhee's sister is the one on the left.)

Jjimdak literally means "steamed chicken." The dish includes large chunks of steamed chicken mixed together with various steamed vegetables and red gochu pepper. Namhee's brother-in-law warned me that the red gochu peppers were exceptionally spicy, but after having burned off my taste buds with the green gochu peppers at Thursday's climbing competition these red peppers failed to even make my tongue tingle.

Next Sunday I will go back to the Sarang church to experience what a regular sermon is like (with the usual pastor preaching), and also to buy a Korean/English dual language Bible with which to follow along in the sermons and study Korean. However, I really enjoy the friendly atmosphere at Namhee's church and will probably go there most Sundays - it's closer, and saves me from having to ride the dreaded No. 2 Line that is always packed.

Episode 10: In Which DFM Channels Sigourney Weaver, And Builds A National Treasure Using Child Labour

Friday was an exhausting day. Actually, the day wasn't exhausting, but I sure was exhausted during it.

On my trip to school I was so tired I missed my transfer station twice. It wasn't that I was sleeping either - I had looked at the platform sign and said to myself "okay, one more stop," but somehow it just failed to register that one more stop meant that I should get off at the next platform. Fifteen minutes later I did the same thing again, this time when I should have gotten off at my final destination. It was highly fortunate I had left fifteen minutes early that morning, because my two errors added twenty minutes of travel time to my morning commute.

When I showed up to school I was prepared for two scenarios: one in which I had to teach six thirty minute classes of my own material with no curriculum or help (like I had the week before), and one in which I would be told that I should teach the originally planned unit for that day which now made no sense at all since on Wednesday I found out the children were not doing that unit (it's too long of a story to fit nicely in this post, but not long enough for its own post, so I've left it out). When I showed up ten minutes before class (the train fiasco), I was told to use plan B (apparently the school had talked to my boss who then told them they had to teach this unit today).

Well, wouldn't you know, not everyone got the message. Although I was able to finish the lesson easily enough with the five-year-olds, since I had all the materials with me, the two six-year-old classes had none of the materials they were supposed to prepare for me, and so I had to make up a thirty minute "art lesson" on the spot... with no art supplies.

The seven-year-olds had the supplies somewhere, but the first teacher must not have known they would be needed either since they were not ready when I came. I tried to explain to the teacher what I needed, but she couldn't understand. We then tried to use a girl who had moved from Australia and could speak English to translate, but I'm not so certain she's confident with her Korean, because when I asked her to tell the teacher what I needed she looked sick and said "I don't want to."

Eventually, I was able to get across what I needed, and while the teacher went on a search for the materials, I tried to entertain a rowdy class with some songs and games. The songs were well received, though perhaps a little too well received - a few boys decided that it was necessary to start kicking other students. One boy hauled off and Tae Kwon Do kicked another girl for, as far as I could tell, was "no reason." Other boys were pushing each other and soon students started falling over and into other students. I stopped the music and even though the students have limited English, the Ripley Death Stare from Alien is apparently International Language for "you'd better stop if you know what's good for you."

When I did get the class settled, and the materials finally arrived, I set the children loose on trying to make Namdaemun gate with straws and glue. Not having access to a giant piece of paper, or straws, or glue myself, I could not do the assignment at home before I came to school. Consequently, my instructions were not overly clear, but somehow the students managed to pull together and make the famous gate (National Treasure #1). For the next class though, I started with some more clear instructions and the results were downright astonishing (especially since I've since done this assignment at another school with less spectacular results).

While my first class got themselves into fights over who had which colour of straws, or how many, my second class quickly divided into tables and seemed to be racing to try and finish first. I'm almost certain it was the result of good discipline from the teacher (or the absence of a few rowdy boys from the other class), but this class has always been a pleasure to teach. It could have also been that I told them I would take a picture of them if they finished.

Below are the final results. Keep in mind these are what we in Canada would call six-year-olds, and they made these creations with no help from myself or their Korean teacher.

(Starting with the roofs.)

(Getting an outline.)

(Almost finished.)

(Keep in mind the picture of the gate is upside down in this view, so it looks worse than it was.)

(Best pose ever. Thank you boy in orange.)

(Second place gate, but by far my favourite picture. This group had seven kids as you can see, but they worked together almost flawlessly and were the first group to finish.)

(Hands down the first place winner. This group's straw gate was almost better than the original version I drew on the white board at the beginning of class. I'm pretty sure that boy at the back walked through this picture on purpose though.)

To compare the pictures with the original, click here.

Episode 32: In Which DFM Climbs Some Cliffs And Scares Some Mosquitoes

It was the big climbing trip today.

I took the 45 minute subway ride over to Ace Climbing Center for a 9:00 AM meeting time.  We packed up our gear in the back of the gym's Hyundai mini-van, and then crammed seven adults in and set out on a 2-hour drive to the climbing crag.

It was the first time anyone from the gym had been to our intended destination, so we had to stop at a restaurant and ask for directions when we neared what the SatNav said was the end of the journey (I hate Sat Nav, but that's another post for another time).  It's tough to tell its  height from the picture, but the restaurant had this really cute puppy that couldn't have been more than eight inches tall.

Eventually we found the road-side turn out and set off on a hike to find the climbing site.

After one hour, we finally reached base camp and unpacked our gear.

Alvin and his wife and I were going to start warming up on some nice looking routes, but Choi (pictured above, testing a hold) kept tearing off the rocks on his harder route and told us this wasn't a good area to climb.

Instead we moved to a different part of the wall.  In the past I've climbed in the Canadian Rockies and the first bolts always seem to be around ten to twelve feet off the sharp boulder strewn ground.  Here at this crag though, the route setters placed the first bolts much lower, around six or seven feet off the ground, for which I was quite thankful.  Plus, the ground was sand, so even if we did fall before we made our first clip we had a nice soft landing.

Perhaps it was a result of less initial stress, or that I was now more experienced, but I found myself climbing much better than I have in the past outdoors.  I did not get a chance to climb any PB grades this time, but the routes I did climb were done smoother and easier than I've ever been able to climb before and at the same difficulty rating too.

There also seemed to be many mosquito nests on this cliff face too, but the mosquitoes knew better and stayed away from me, lest they make me angry... they wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

Ji-Hyeun and Choi both made valiant attempts at this unconfirmed route that Choi estimated to be about 5.12b, but fell just short.  Click on the picture to blow it up and see how close Ji-Hyeun was to making it to the final chains (both she and Choi fell shortly after this point).

Eventually we had to head back and face a long, slow drive through rush-hour as what seemed like a thousand different Koreans all had the same idea to go to the same place at the same time.  Before we got to the car though, Choi picked a few choice rocks from the beach of stones that may eventually become set in clay and drilled onto the Ace wall as new climbing holds

Choi had planned to take the whole group out for dinner afterwards, but Alvin, his wife, and myself all had to teach early in the morning, and I still had to pick up groceries as I had completely exhausted my food supplies the day before in preparation for the move.  Furthermore, I had developed a head cold and lost my voice.  Teaching the children tomorrow is going to be a real battle.

Episode 29: In Which DFM Travels To Suwon To Meet A Man He Met On The Internet

In one of my earlier posts (Bar-barians) I mentioned a body-weight training website that had a great forum.  On this forum I met a former Canadian from Newfoundland, James, who has been teaching and living in South Korea for about 8 years now.  We had communicated numerous times, but today was the day we had set to finally meet in person.

I took the 1.5 hour subway to Suwon and met James at the train station.  After exchanging mutual disbelief at how an Internet forum could bring together two people from opposite sides of the planet, we went out for some lunch.

I told James that after my Busan pizza experience I only ate Korean food.  We found a Korean restaurant in the train station and I ordered some beef and octopus bibimpab, which is rice and a bunch of vegetables and egg all mixed together in a really hot stone bowl, plus the beef and octopus of course.

  

After lunch we went to a local workout park and demonstrated some of our pet skills.  James set a new PB today with 10 consecutive muscle-ups.  I made 27 dips - my highest number in about five years - and blistered up my hands quite badly, but I also held my best flag ever and skipped four rungs on the monkey bars.

After our workout James and his family took me out to a local restaurant where we had yet more Korean food.  This meal consisted of chicken slathered in hot sauce, some tteok, kimchi, and all sorts of other vegetables mixed together in a big frying pan at our table.  There were also some hard-boiled swallows eggs and other interesting articles in the side dishes that were delicious.

After the meal James took his kids to a nearby park, but James and I did most of the playing.  We tried to monkey walk up steep slanted poles and jump large gaps between different bars by swinging our legs to gain momentum and then trying to release our first bar and sail through the air to grasp onto the second bar with both hands simultaneously.

After we dropped his wife and kids off back home, James took me to the Suwon fortress where there were miles and miles of 16th century fortress wall on which you could walk.  The wall goes for at least a good 15-20 km, if not more, and wraps all the way around what used to be the city I presume.

Of course, we couldn't miss an opportunity to work out.  There were steep steps we would hop up on only one-leg, and then bear crawl down.  In this picture James is doing a handstand (it's tough to see, but he's in the bottom-right).

After a good 45 minute walk we went back to James' place where we watched videos of experts doing amazing body weight tricks.  James capped it all off by showing me a video of a man doing a one-armed muscle-up.  It is by far the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I was going to head back on the late-night train, but James offered me a room at his place for the night and a ride to the station in the morning.

I even got my own dressing table, so of course I had to accept.

James and his family were great hosts, and I really can't thank them enough.  My trip to Suwon was better than I could have imagined.  Thanks James.

Episode 24: In Which DFM Comes Face To Face With A Man Eating Beast And Fish Learn How To Drive Cars

Wow, it's been a few days since I've posted. My Internet went down again and so I was unable to update you on my adventures. Time to make up for it, because today was the day I've been planning for all month - the day of the big shark dive!

I got up at 6:00 AM to catch an early morning KTX train to Busan. The KTX train travels at speeds up to 305 km/h. When it was first built it cut the time of the trip to Busan from Seoul down to 1 hour 50 minutes (from about 5 hours). But, since its creation more and more stops have been added and the the trip now takes roughly 3 hours.

The train is a lot like flying in an airplane, but a bit less comfortable and only half as fast. However, it sure beats taking a bus and it costs about the same price as a taxi to an International airport from the center of a big city.

My neighbour for the trip to Busan was Joseph. Joseph is a bit of an anomaly in that he managed to pick up a perfect North American accent for his pefectly fluent English, without ever having lived outside of Korea. Joseph was on a business trip this morning for his company which franchises English schools. Joseph was nice enough to give me a strip of his pastry, since I did not think to bring anything for the trip, and he also spent most of the trip explaining to me the history of Korea from the invasion of the Mongols to the beginning of the Korean War. Don't think he was boring me though, I was fascinated and kept begging him for more information.

I severely underestimated how long it took to get from Busan Station to Haeundae beach by subway. Quite soon I realized there were far more stops than I anticipated, and that I was not going to make it in time, so I jumped off and tried to catch a cab. I got in the first cab that stopped for me and tried to do up my seat belt There was only a strap with a hook, but no catch though, so I just imagined a seat belt.

The cab driver did not speak English, but he was so happy with my infinitesimally small amount of Korean and that I was Canadian that he phoned up (and woke up) his daughter, who had studied in Canada, to talk to me in English. This has happened to me quite often since I've come to Korea and it is always awkward for both parties.

The taxi driver then realized that I was speaking Seoulese (people in Busan speak a different dialect of Korean than do those people in Seoul) and decided to "correct" my Korean with some impromptu lessons, but I couldn't understand a word he was saying. He got me to Busan Aquarium though, and that's all that mattered.

The Aquarium is located right on Haeundae beach, which is a beautiful beach in a beautiful area of Busan, which is itself quite a beautiful city.

When I was dropped off I was five minutes late. I couldn't see any signs for the diving, and when I went to the front desk to ask where the shark diving was I was told that there was no shark diving. Undaunted, I went over to the Information Office and was told that I should go under ground. I went underground and someone pointed me up a set of stairs, but these stairs just led back out onto the beach. Eventually, after twenty minutes of searching, I finally found someone who could direct me to the course, which was in fact at Busan Aquarium.

After filling out the requisite paper work and watching some training videos the other four divers and myself got on our wetsuits and goggles and went over to the training pool.

On the way over we saw a separate pool of about eight Lemon Sharks swimming around. Lemon Sharks are about 9 feet long and are aggressive hunters and they had been separated because they were eating the other animals in the aquarium. These animals cost tens of thousands of dollars each, and the Lemon Sharks had caused an entire species of stingray to "disappear" from the aquarium as well as having torn the fins of and scarred the bodies of a number of the Sand Tiger Sharks. The aquarium had put a number of giant tuna fish in to attract the teeth of the Lemon Sharks instead, but Lemon Sharks are smarter than that and did not touch the tuna. We were actually one of the last two groups to ever see the Lemon Sharks, since they were being shipped to Thailand on Monday (this happened on Saturday).

This is my diving team. Michael, the instructor, is on the left, and then there are Takayla and Jake from North and South Dakota (not sure whom is from where), Justin from Baltimore, and Maggie from Pittsburgh. All four of the Americans are English teachers near/in Busan and probably had a much easier time getting to the aquarium than I did.

Justin teaches at a school for the children of rich parents. Many of his students are the children of doctors or lawyers and are rather spoiled. One of his students is the daughter of a Korean professional baseball player. His classroom is wired by CCTV and the housewife mothers spend all day scrutinizing his teaching in the viewing room. As stressful as that sounds he seems to have adjusted admirably and was very excited about the dive. I was happy to hear from him later that two of his students were visitors to the aquarium that day and had waved to him through the glass.

We took pictures of the dive with Michael's underwater camera, but since they aren't up on the website yet I'll just show some of the best pictures of past dives with a few extras I found on the Internet of some of the other animals we saw.

The Sand Tiger Shark, which I shot afterwards through the glass from the outside looking in. The Aussies, whom regular readers of this blog know are XXXX rated, only refer to this as a Grey Nurse Shark.

Lest you thought I was lying about being in the aquarium with sharks.

This is a picture of a Green Turtle, over some coral reef in Hawaii. The Green Turtle was my favourite animal in the aquarium. Apparently it is rather aggressive and thinks that every diver in the pool is going to bring him food. Michael put him in a holding pen behind us while we were training, and when I was not being instructed I would turn around every chance I could get to look at the turtle who was always staring me right in the eyes and/or snapping its mouth at my face. Being close enough to have my fingers (or nose) bitten by such a majestic creature was really exciting; it made my hair stand on end and my heart race.

This is a diver from another group, but I had a very similar experience myself. After lowering down into the giant tank (a round tank of roughly 30 yards diameter and 8 meters depth) I knelt down to wait for the other divers. While I was waiting I was welcomed by a curious Grouper fish. This species of fish has been caught in the wild and found to have an entire human inside of its stomach. Today it thought it would swim over and come within about two feet of my face. I was so excited I forgot to breathe and thought something was wrong with my respirator. How can a fish be big enough to eat a human, you ask?

This is how.

Obviously I didn't take this picture myself, but this is an exact reenactment of my first minutes diving in the aquarium, except I was on the other side of the glass.

After diving I was starving, so Maggie and I went over to an American pizza restaurant to indulge in some "Western food." Back in Canada I used to love pizza, but after eating so much fantastic Korean food with its exceptional spices and exotic flavours I found pizza quite bland. Maggie said that she used to love bacon but found it disgusting when she went home after her first year of teaching in Korea. I'm going to go back home in a month and not be able to eat anything but rice.

After pizza we went back to the aquarium and our shark diving experience counted as admission to the aquarium as well, so it was "free."

These piranhas look like they've already finished their last meal.

Catfish are called "maggie" in Korean, so Maggie insisted on taking some pictures.

This Jackass Penguin (that's its real name) spent all day diving down into the water to look at the guests. It was quite a hit with the children.

One of the highlights was when I got to hold this real live sea urchin in my hands at the petting tank. Maggie said that it was rare to find an urchin that still had all of its quills. I guess they tend to get broken off by all the people handling them.

"Do you know what that sound is, Highness? Those are the Shrieking Eels! If you don't believe me, just wait. They always grow louder when they're about to feed on human flesh!"

What do you get for the fish who has everything? How about a car. Hyundai shows what the inside of James Bond's Lotus should have looked like after he drove out of the lake in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Best day of the trip so far by a long shot. If you're in Korea make sure you head to Busan for the shark diving experience. You can find more information here.

Episode 21: In Which DFM Gets Some More Gifts And Eats Some More Free Food (A Good Day)

Today the plan was to climb with Perry at Ace and then go to his house afterwards to meet his wife and have dinner.

I stopped by the school I always walk by on the way, to see if my little friends were there, but instead there was a big Middle School soccer game going on.  The black team had players who were much smaller, but they were very quick and played well as a team.  From what I could see they were winning.

I did meet a couple of other young boys who came up and talked to me.  "Hello.  Where are you from? ... I am from Korea."  That's a pretty standard set of phrases around a hagwon in Korea.  These boys were much less... wild than my other friends, but from what I could glean the boy on the right side of the picture likes basketball while his friend on the left is the big soccer fan of the duo.

I tried to take it easy at climbing today since I planned on climbing the next two days as well.  Instead of my normal hard bouldering I just worked on some of the longer endurance routes.  Someone brought in some delicious home made bread again, and here you can see Choi helping himself (he had to get some before I came in and ate the rest).  Ji-Hyeun is in the background giving the "Victory" sign.  Everyone in Korea thinks that Korea won the war by driving out the Japanese, while everyone in Japan thinks that they won the war by conquering the Koreans in the first place, so... V signs all around!  

Everyone was rather impressed when Perry told them I had eaten hungeo the other night, and as a reward (or just because he's Choi) Choi gave me a special ShamWow type towel with a picture of him climbing on it (I had expressed interest in the picture earlier).  There was also a climber who had to have been in his fifties at the youngest, but still had a six pack.  I love Korea.  I love this gym.

Perry's wife made us a lovely meal consisting of food sent from Perry's parents who are farmers.  There was some rice, four different kinds of kimchi, two different kinds of pork (they tell me it was pork, but it flaked off the bone and tasted like lamb if you ask me), and some tofu.  "Sadly," there were no fish heads, but none-the-less it was delicious.  For desert we had strawberries and pear slices.  I made a real pig of myself and ate at least 75% of the fruit tray.  (Did I mention that I love fruit?)  Of special note was that for the first time I had some wine that wasn't made from rice.  Perry's 15-year-old daughter is living and studying in China, and she sent back a bottle of the best Chinese wine - made from grapes!

I mentioned in my last post that Perry was multi-talented and well traveled.  I found out today that he's been to China, Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia, England, and France, and those are just the countries I can remember.  He says that one day he hopes his youngest daughter can go to high school in Canada.

After our meal, Perry took me for a stroll down a traditional Korean marketplace near his home.  Perry told me that this is a place foreigners never visit.  One of his friends worked at an Oriental health store.  His name is Kil Min Soo, and here he is holding up one of his favourite products - top of the line Korean Ginseng.  Mr. Kil heard from Perry that I had eaten a lot at his house and thought I might need some help with my digestion.  He prepared for me a special Korean tea called ssanghwacha (cha is tea in Korean) that was made from pine cones and actually tasted quite good.  I'm not sure if it is working, but I sure don't feel like I just ate half of Perry's home anymore.  In fact I think I need to eat again.  My Korean film maker friend from last night is going to have to make a film about a foreigner who ate all the food in Korea.  They can call it The Host 3 (apparently there is already a sequel to this Korean blockbuster about a foreign made monster that rises out of the Han river and starts eating Koreans).

On the subway ride home, some man came over and sat by me and started telling me that he had written over 1000 books, and that in Canada he has his own Medical College at a Canadian University, and that he developed a bus for traveling on ice, because ice is a big problem in Canada.  I couldn't understand half of what he was saying, but I think he needed a shave and a change of clothes.

Tomorrow Perry will let me know if his wife will let me stay.  He said I made a good impression (I even brought a gift!) but that his wife was very worried about her poor English skills.  That's the thing about Koreans, and especially Korean women:  They are forever appologizing for their English, even if it's perfect.  Keeping the ol' fingers crossed... and not just because I jammed them in a tiny crack whilst climbing.