Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Snow Day










We got about 2 or 3 inches of snow over the last two days. It was pretty exciting for us, being from Atlanta, which has little to no snow every year. Things didn't stop here...stores were open, schools were attended, work was done. We work in the evenings, so we got to take advantage of the snowy afternoon.


This small pagoda is adjacent to our apartment, just a little ways up hill. No one was up there, we were surprised.
We ran into this crew on the way down the hill. As soon as they saw the camera, they all huddled around their snowball and posed. It was pretty darn cute.

Just next to the hill with the pagoda is another hill. We decided to make a snowman since both of us couldn't remember ever making one. I couldn't figure it out at first, but Beth showed me the way. We found some gloves to give him hands. Beth had quite an affinity for "Mr. White (aka Three Slaps Johnny)."
I've been meaning to take a picture of this failure for a while.

On the way home I put a few snowballs together. We went up to our apartment on the 12th floor and opened the window. Children were all playing in the snow directly below us. I yelled out "bombs away!" and started chunking the snowballs. Two kids decided to try and catch them. It was a fun day.


Saturday, December 18, 2010

Holidays in Korea


We're pretty far into the holiday season, and so far it's been lovely. We were warned before we moved here that November and December can be tough for expats because it doesn't feel like the holidays. So I decided that we would do our best to bring the holidays with us.


Though we miss our friends and family (because that's the best part of the holidays), we've created a holiday atmosphere here complete with a real Thanksgiving, too many Christmas lights, and friends that feel like family.



For Thanksgiving everyone brought a dish and shared some special traditions from their families or cultures. We had a Russian toast before we ate, and said cheers in 10 different languages. The food was incredible. This is a picture of one of the tables of food (there were three!)


We had a beautiful little girl named Hana around to keep everyone charmed.


The day ended with the boys on the porch smoking cigars and some fun rounds of charades and other games. You can't beat that!




Sunday, December 5, 2010

Beer Snacks part 2



At nicer bars here in Korea they will give you snacks with your drinks. I've only had these served at one "hof" (bar) as they are called here, and they are certainly the most interesting beer food I've had. It is a small bug. It's called "beon de gi" and it tastes bad. They are swimming in a spicy, salty liquid. You can see the habanero peppers if you look close. These buggers are somewhat soft, and taste like soil. It isn't anything so bad that you want to gag, but one was plenty for me. You can see old women selling these by the bag full at the local markets

Here is some video, post beon de gi consumption.

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Monday, November 29, 2010

Goin' up that hill

We finally went hiking this past weekend. Hiking is a pretty big deal in Korea, nearly 90% of the country is mountainous. The city we live in is literally surrounded by mountains. We have some just 10 minutes walk from our apartment.

Like everything else here, there is the familiar and the unfamiliar. Most Koreans really get geared up to hike...walking sticks, proper gloves, jackets, canteens, hats. This is all for a hike of an hour or two.

Our first surprise was when we got to the top of the first hill. There was a clock tacked to a tree, and a mirror. Mirrors are EVERYWHERE here, from elevators to bus stations. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see one in the wilderness, but I was. We had a good laugh about this.





One of the cool things about walking trails and hikes here is that there is always a lot of fitness equipment. I mean, you've never seen so much, it is anywhere people walk. The top of the hill was no exception. Nothing like benching some kilos after a brisk walk up the side of a mountain.


The view was really beautiful up here. It's still interesting to see how the city looks from above, there are just SO MANY buildings.


We also saw some burial sites, they pop up every now and then in remote places. I thought it was interesting how sculpted the ground is around these mounds. They use the mounds of dirt instead of headstones, and the ground is usually very well manicured. I'm not sure by who.
We encountered these banners along the way, we assume they are talking about what a great area "Dalseo" is (this is the part of town we live in).

Once we made it down the mountain we found another treat--pressurized air guns to get the dust off of our feet. No one needs to know that you were hiking and no one will.


Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Hogwan


This is the building that our hogwan is in. Hogwan is the Korean word for private school. We are on the 4th floor of a 5 story building.


We were making our daily walk to our school last week, on our way from a lunch of bibimbap. I glanced over to the right to see our building, and noticed that a new banner had been added to the building. Nearly every building here is a littered with a cluster of banners and signs listing what is on each floor of the building. Everything is always in Korean of course. I noticed a few words in English on one though:
Our names are on this huge banner along with the other teachers at our school. Pretty neat, huh? I figured this was a good time to post a few pictures from inside the school. Its really small, our classrooms only have room for 12 cramped students.


This picture doesn't show everyone at out hogwan, but these are four of the teachers that we work with, pictured at the front desk of the school.

We get to work at 4:30pm and leave at 10:15pm. It's a really easy schedule, we are quite lucky.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Tree Sweaters


It's getting cold here. The days are still warm, but at night it gets really chilly. When it started getting cold we noticed that most of the trees here had been wrapped with this straw strap. The strap has the name of the part of town we live in. I thought it was just a festive decoration for the tree.
It isn't. Apparently these are put on the trees in the winter time to keep them from dying. Yes, this small strap has enough heating power to keep this tree from dying. We started to notice that rose bushes have the same sweaters on them as well. I'm no botanist, but this seems a little silly to me.
Trees are treated differently here. Old trees often have strong metal cables attached to them, forcing them to grow in certain directions. Big trees are constantly being relocated, and so there are wooded crutches surrounding them to keep them upright until they take root. There aren't very many big, old trees because the landscape here is still very new. Wherever we go, the trees rarely look like they just happen to be there, it all feels very intentional.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Born to Run



Beth ran a 5K this weekend in a small town outside of Gwangju. She did great, and without any training! It's impressive to me how anyone could even run that distance, much less without training. She wasn't even that sore the next day.

It was interesting to see the differences in running events here as opposed to in the States. I think the best part is the massage train. Just before the runners take off they all line up and give the person in front of them a shoulder massage. Then they rotate 180ยบ and return the favor.



The running events that I went to in the States (as a spectator, not a participant) were always full of supporters cheering on the runners and lots of sponsors. Not so much here. There really weren't many fans around. There were a few vending booths, and one table that was giving away bowls of fish stew over rice, with a side of kimchi. For the few fans that were there, the MC was giving out bottles of Soju (an alcoholic fermented rice drink) to the loudest participant. This is a picture of the MC with one of our friends.


Our friends in Gwangju are part of a running club, and I caught them crossing the finish line. For a few of them it was their first half-marathon, and they were really excited with their achievement.
After the race we sat down to eat a meal of pork, rice, kimbap and kimchi. The people that prepared the meal put about 2 dozen bowls on the ground and everyone helped themselves with chopsticks.


Monday, November 8, 2010

4 Headed Dog


Downtown you'll see some sights. Usually nothing too weird, but this past Saturday I saw this guy carting around these dogs in a baby stroller. They weren't for sale, they weren't advertising anything...the guy just enjoyed the attention he got (and boy did he get some attention).

He literally just sat and watched people take photos and try to touch these dogs. Dogs are popular pets here, but these are about as big a dog as you'll see. Everyone seems to be in a competition to get the smallest dog. All of these pups had their tails dyed different colors (very common). These dogs had also been "adjusted" so that when they bark it sounds like a squeak toy. Yes, the same squeak toy that dogs love to play with. The dog has now become the dog toy.