Just like home

Among the many things I miss from home, winter weather is NOT one of them.

This morning when I opened my patio door I was happy to see snow covering the tops of cars and falling in the air. Ahhhh, it was so pretty and I had been hoping for snow for Christmas.

Once I left my apartment to meet some friends at the pool, I realized how much I dislike what comes along with the pretty snow.

The wind that greeted me when I got outside wasn't pretty, nor was the near wipe outs from the snow that had now turned to slush that had now turned to ice.

Not pretty and not fun.

I was cursing all the way to the pool. Of course the weather here is nothing like the weather we experience back in Winnipeg and people always say to me, but you're from Winnipeg! The coldest city in Canada! you should be used to this or this should be nothing to you.

well, yes, but....

I am a BIG sissy when it comes to winter and don't represent Canada or Winnipeg very well when it comes to cold.

I think I was born in the wrong country.

To close,

I hate you winter no matter where I am.

How many more months till spring?

The Disease of Me

To quote Tom Patrick back in the U of W days, "The disease of me" is when you think that people are always looking at YOU, talking about YOU, staring at YOU, making fun of YOU etc etc.

I had an attack of the disease of me when I was at the bank paying my bills through the machine. It being in Korean of course I have to remember which buttons to press in order for it to work.
I usually take a little longer than the average person and there was an ajuma behind me and I could feel her looking at me and kind of watching what I was doing.

The disease of me is thinking, ok she's staring at you b/c you're big and strange looking to her and she's thinking hurry up you stupid waygook.

Feeling uncomfortable I hurried to finish. When I finally did, I looked at her and smiled.

She was actually staring at me b/c she didn't know how to use the bill paying machine and was watching me to see what I was doing.

I felt so dumb.

I showed her how to put her bills in and then called over the bank helper person to help her with the rest that required language that I do not have.

Your brain is so funny sometimes. I'm getting a little worked up about this woman "watching" me and thinking I'm a freak but she was just wondering how to use the bloody machine!

Perception. It's everything!!

1st time ever

I meant to share this a while ago when it happened.

Some info you need before I go on with the story:

When you stand in line at the ATM here in Korea, lines are not really formed. More like a shoving match can break out for who gets the next available machine. It is extremely frustrating and I dislike it very much.

So one day I was standing in "line" waiting for the next machine with my game face on and elbows out to shove any ajuma who was going to try and steal the machine that is quite obviously mine. I had noticed an older man who was waiting there before me. When the next ATM was available I gestured to him to go ahead, because he was there first.
Much to my surprise, he said no, and gestured to ME to go ahead. We went back and forth with this as he was there FIRST so he should go but he let me go.

I was AMAZED and so pleasently surprised.

It is those nice random moments that make me smile.

It was so nice and it was the first time that had ever happened.

Something as simple as going to the bank and taking out money is usually such an irritating experience for me but this was a nice surprise.

End of another

I can't believe that another year will soon come to an end. It really does fly by.

I feel like I just got back from summer vacation and was thinking to myself, ok, how long until winter vacation?
Now it's here!

Novemeber posed to be a bit of a challenge with the weather change and my self diagnosed SAD. I was eating carbs, carbs and more carbs and sweets like crazy and not feeling goood about myself.
I have now adjusted to the weather and appreciate it everyday when I hear what the temperature is back home!
I am still loving my Tae Kwon Do club and I have a new love, the new gym that just opened across the street from my apartment. Ohhhh it's dreamy. It's clean, has spinning bikes and an attractive Korean boy who opens the gym in the morning when I go.

December has been filled with baking and more baking and me trying not to eat it all before I give it away to people.
Classes have been really slack at school and I think I've watched Merry Christmas Mr. Bean about 30 times.
Today is my second last day of school and I cannot wait to be finsihed and enjoy my vacation.

While like many of my friends, I would love to be jetting off to Thailand or other warm, beautiful places, I have to work a teachers camp in January and will then go to Canada for a few weeks in February.
It won't be laying on the beach but at least it will be a change and a nice trip and I can't wait to see my folks and just hang out.

That's been my life for the past 2 months. Exciting hey!

Merry Christmas all!

xoox

Gross

Something I have NEVER been able to understand is people cutting their nails with nail clippers at work.
WHY do you need to do this at work!

Is your life SO busy that you have NO time at home to cut your nails!?

The rest of us don't want to listen to the clip, clip, clipping of your nails or have to keep our heads up to watch out for flying nail clippings!!!

so gross!!

It's the little things

So Friday night at TKD we sparred. It was great. But in the process my ankles seemed somehow drawn towards my partners elbows.
My feet were sore but it's to be expected so no big deal. I had an errand to run after class and they were still sore, but again, to be expected and stop being such a Barbie about it.

When I came home I iced and relaxed on the couch for a while and when I finally got up I couldn't even walk on my left foot.
Again, suck it up princess.

ok, this sucks but just take some Tylenol and go to bed as you have to get up early tomorrow to go to the island school to teach.
Tylenol did nothing and I ended up in bed moaning from my stupid foot.

It wasn't all that swollen so I called Darren and had his AT friend give me some ideas of what it might be. From that I searched the internet of possibilities.

Still sore and now it's midnight. crap.

I have broken my one ankle twice before so I know what that feels like and I knew that it definitely wasn't something as severe as that.

Ok. Princess decides to go on an adventure to the hospital. This is the first time I've gone to the hospital for something like this.

I arrive and the taxi driver was nice enough to let me hold on to his arm while I hopped to the admin desk.

While the reception lady is taking down my info I'm looking at my surroundings. There is some hammered guy with blood all over his preppy suit while his buddies are pulling him out of the hospital. Damn that soju.

Next there is some poor guy who is a cook of some sort who had sliced his fingers open and required stiches. I was definitely glad I wasn't him.

As I was sitting on the bed waiting to get an x-ray I notice the lovely blood stain on the floor which has obviously been there for quite some time. hmmmm, ok.

Then I notice the extreme lack of cleanliness of this hospital. It was aweful! The floors and walls were terrible. Stains, dirt, disgusting.
I wouldn't want to go there for any time of major surgery.

Anyway, the Dr. looks over the x-ray and comes up with "not broken". That's great and I already knew that so WHAT is it?
He had barely any English and I barely have any Korean so I had no idea what he was saying to me. This sucked.
He ended up putting a half cast on my ankle and sent me on my way. I played some charades in attempting to get a pair of crutches but the nurse said "no, they don't have any".
Ok. I did come to a hospital right? you DON'T have crutches.

The main reason I came here is because it hurts to WALK! The walking boot you gave me isn't going to do me much good right now.

So after watching a drunk man, some poor kid get stiches and the nurse trying to stick a needle in my ass when I asked for a pain killer, I was on my merry way.
Home within an hour and in bed by 230am. I had to get up at 630 to go to the island school.

awesome.

So, I still don't know what's wrong with my ankle but on the positive it does feel better.

Maybe my school will feel sorry for me and I'll get to go home!

Taegeukgi

Taegeukgi is the name of the Korean flag.

A few weeks ago I had taken a lesson off of the waygook.org website where us foreigners can collaborate and share lesson ideas.

It's great for obtaining lessons when you really don't want to make one yourself or your brain is not coming up with any cool ideas of what to do in class.

This lessons has the teacher, me, go over the meanings of their flag which is quite beautiful I think. I have always loved the Korean flag when I was training Tae Kwon Do in Canada.

Now I will NEVER forget what each trigram means as I have taught it about 20 times already!

Anyway, after we go over the meanings and they make fun of how I say Taegeukgi, the students are to make a new flag as if they were the new president of Korea and the North and South reunited.

Here are some I like.

My favorite flag, which is a little hard to see, is the one where the Korean peninsula is eating the American and Japanese flags.

There were many flags that had kill Japan, Korea #1, Korea wins on it. It is quite clear the feelings Koreans, even young students, have for Japan.

While the boys were making their flags I played the ever popular Wonder Girls song, "Tell Me".

Before I took the picture, those boys were all up dancing to the moves of the video. It was hilarious.

Almost 3 months

In about a week or so I will have been back in Korea for 3 months. (I can count on my friend Samuel who always let's me know what week we're at)

When I decided to stay for another year I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Would all of those things that irritated me irritate me even more? would I start to dislike the job? the city?
Will I be really home sick?

So far, so good. I feel like this second year I am much more calm, accepting, focused and just more happy and content. I am trying to get more involved with the culture and learn the language and I am genuinely interested.
Things irritate me less and I smile more.

I love my apartment, I like my job and co-workers, I love my gym and do-jang and I have several really nice friends.

Overall things are just really good and I am really happy. I hope that most people can feel that way about their life, job and other stuff.

Tae Kwon Do in Korea

Being able to continue my training in Tae Kwon Do was one of the reasons I came here.

When the do-jang I had joined last year proved to be less than stimulating I was left feeling ummmmm, sad! And frustrated.

It felt as if you had gone to Canada to train hockey only to find out that the training was totally bunk and not even worth your time.

I only trained at that club for 3 months before I just quit. I'm not a fan of quitting so I was on the hunt for a new club. I asked my co-teachers, other Koreans I knew, wandered around my area peeking my head in at clubs and came up with nothing.

Finally, one day as I was walking home I noticed a flyer taped to a pole.

TAE KWON DO FOR FOREIGNERS!

blah blah blah blah, call blah blah.

So I called. I met this Korean army guy who was very nice and he took me to the club. I watched a class and met the master. The master is this cute little Korean woman who could most definitely kick your ass. But she's so darn cute!

So I joined and I LOVE it! The training is great and our class is mostly adults with the exception of 2 young brothers but for the most part they are great too.

The training reminds of the clubs I trained at in Canada and I almost always leave class soaked and wondering how sore I'm going to be the next day.

It makes me really happy to have found a good do-jang and to work towards something that I came here specifically to work on.

Next year I will test for my 2nd dan and I hope to compete in a tournament soon. I'm sure I'll get my ass kicked by some Korean but oh well. It will just be another experience!

Halloween in Korea

Finally I have some time to sit down and update my blog for those of you at home who actually read it.

Halloween in Mokpo was great. A big party was held at a local bar where most of the foreigners go to get drunk.

The "social committee" of Mokpo put up awesome decorations with prizes, 50/50 auction, carved pumpkins and lots of goodies.

It was one of the best Halloween parties I've been to in a really long time!

I went as an aerobics chick. Take your pick of what kind. An instructor, Jane Fonda, whatever. I was mostly trying to go for the Korean look of the aerobics woman who wear those shiny tights and leg warmers and wear make up while doing their pelvic thrusts in the mirror.

Bad Things

On my way to park my bike at my favorite tree this afternoon I heard a huge THUD!What the heck was that? Then some screaming. Oh my gosh, what!?I look to my left, to the busy street in front of my apt. block and see a young girl lying on the road.
I can see blood oozing from her head from where I'm standing. I threw my bike and groceries down and go over. What the hell am I going to do but I just went yelling at everyone on the way to call 119, fumbling for how to say those numbers in Korean which would normally come to me quite quickly.

The lady bus driver is over the young girl crying and crying. My brain went back to all of those boring weekends spent in CPR courses and first aid re-certs.1. 119 - Thank goodness everyone in Korea has a cell phone as when I hopped on the bus to tell people to call, everyone was on their phone already. good!2. Scene survey. Cars were actually trying to drive around the poor girl and me and the bus driver who were beside her.
Hmmmm do you think you could take a different F-ing route right now!!3. ABC's. She was moaning so she was breathing so that was good. Her front teeth had been knocked out and the frontal lobe of her head was gashed open and blood everywhere. I just tried to keep her from moving and in the "recovery position" in case she was going to vomit. I was trying not to vomit myself!She never did, and neither did I.
She tried to move around and was moaning but this other Korean woman told her to keep still.

FINALLY the ambulance arrives. It seemed like forever. By the time they arrived, her eyes had swollen shut.This poor girl.
Imagine, you are just crossing the street, doing whatever, going wherever and bam! Everything in your world changes. Think of this poor bus driver. Will she quit? get therapy? It was so aweful and I felt so terrible for these people involved.
We piss and moan about such trivial things so often, imagine you are hit by a damn bus!

I heard once last year, that something like 49% of all childrens deaths in Korea were due to pedestrian accidents.
So this was the excitement of my afternoon and definitely one of the worst things I've ever seen and felt. My insides are still shaking and I can't get it out of my mind.

Maybe I'll do some sort of safety lesson at school.

School Festival

Yesterday at my second school, a mixed middle school, was their annual school festival.

This is a HUGE deal for the kids as it gives them a chance to show off their talents and compete against other classes for prizes.

I was able to leave my boys school early yesterday to watch part of the festival.

Talent included, classes performing plays such as Cinderella and Grease, singing and playing instruments, Korean drumming on traditional instruments and made up ones such as water cooler bottles, desks etc. And of course, dancing.

My personal favorite. Not just dancing dancing. Sexy dancing. VERY sexy dancing performed by girls between 12 and 14.

We had pelvic thrusting, booty shaking, shoulder/booby shaking, slapping body parts, you name it.

It reminded me of the time in grade 6 when some friends and I did a lip synch to Madonna's Papa Don't Preach, much to my mother's dismay. Now I know what we must have looked like! Although I don't think we were as sexy or talented as some of these girls.

Some North American songs made their way into the line up including JT's Sexy Back, the unedited version with includes "Mother Fucker" and Missy Elliot made the cut with a brief interlude which also included "Fuck".

The funny thing is that my Korean co-teachers would say "oh, so cute". Hahhahaa. That's not how I would describe their dancing but whatever.

Overall the performances were awesome and there were some very talented kids there.

Another bonus, I get today and tomorrow off for the sports day portion of the festival. Yes!

I posted 2 dance videos from the festival on Facebook.

Smoke anyone?

At my boys school, in the photocopy room, sits this.

A big old nasty jar of cigarette butts. It is so disgusting.

Whenever one of the male teachers feels the urge to have a smoke, this is where they come. They bullshit and hang out.

So when I want to do some photcopying or laminate stuff, I always check to see if anyone is having a smoke. So gross.

A big F U!

Goes out to the jerk who stole my bike last night.

After leaving a friends house I go to unlock my bike to find that it's not there. The bike lock that has been ripped off is there though.

Uhhhhh, I thought I got away from the thieves when I left Winnipeg!

Jerks!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving with their friends, family or whomever.

This weekend I had to make a trip to Seoul to re-new my passport and had a quick visit with Darren's mom Arlene. Who has a great view from her apartment. I'm jealous. Come on Arlene, you don't want to trade your beautiful hills, trees and birds for my concrete, garbage, men horking up phlegm and kids screaming!?

Highlights were:

* new books

* oatmeal, Dentyne gum, chocolate bar I like, Kashi Go Lean cereal, chick peas.

* taking the subway all by myself. Whoohooo!
* seeing races other than white and Korean!

* oh yeah, and Arlene's pink bathroom

Unfortunately I missed the big waygook T-giving dinner here in Mokpo but had a little vegetarian Thanksgiving of my own and invited my friend Nicola over, a fellow veggie.

This is a lame blog entry. Mostly I'm excited about making a kick ass veggie meal for my Thanksgiving. It was so good!

What massage therapists look like in Canada

While back home during the summer I pampered myself to as many "real" massages as I could afford.

While in B.C. with my folks I visited moms therapist.

This is what he looks like.

I'm not really sure which one he is but he's bad ass and he gives really good massages.

Half a dozen

Yep, tonight I ate half a dozen butter tarts! so gross!!!

They are the first butter tarts I've made in Korea, and possible ever, and they were delicious!

Now they must leave the house or I'll eat the rest of them.

Excitement at the Grocery Store

While browsing through the cracker aisle at Lotte Mart this evening I notice something that resembled pretzels.

Naaaaaa I thought. I pick it up, and to my surprise it is a small box of preztel sticks!!!

I'm so happy!!!!!!

More Chuesok

5 of us hiked Mt. Hallasan on Chuesok day. It started off rainy and we weren't too sure how the day would turn out but it ended up being beautiful out. Hot but not deathly hot.

The trail is rock, rock and more rock and my Asics weren't doing the job. I was slipping all over the place as the ground and rocks were all wet. I made it through without wiping out so I was happy.
My calves on the other hand have not been very happy for the past 2 days.

When we finally finished after hiking for almost 6 and a half hours, we all wanted a sweet, delicious ice cream. We go to the store at the bottom and they are all sold out. Oh no!

So the hunt for the Baskin Robbins that we had driven by before began. We punched in some number on the GPS and started driving. It felt like we were going in a big circle. It was a beautiful drive though.
Finally, after almost driving all the way back to the cabin, JP was able to direct us to the BR and we all had 2 servings of sugary goodness. It was great.

Why I love working in Korea

I just had a great vacation and only had to work Thursday this week.

Next week has a National holiday on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday I have off due to the students writing exams.

Yes!

Oh yeah, all paid for. Me likey.

Chuesok in Jeju

Chuesok is the biggest holiday in Korea. Everyone heads back to their home town and pays respect to family members who have passed and eat a lot of food.

It is the equvialnt of Thanksgiving to us in North America.
Anyway, to foreigners, Chuesok means a chance to get away for a few days.


This year I went to Jeju island for 4 glorious days. Jeju is called the Hawaii of Korea. I have yet to go to Hawaii and I'm sure it's even more beautiful than Jeju but the island definitely has a different feel than the mainland.



There are farms, REAL farms, horses and cattle roaming around free from thick chains and small spaces. Green, green hills and mountains and of course the ocean.








My friend Jessica rented this cabin/lofty type place that over looked the ocean that 7 of us shared. It was great.


Our island activities included:

* visiting Loveland/Sex Musuem in the rain

* waterfall* random stop along the road to look at the ocean

* ATVing = AWESOME!

* day at the beach! yes!
* art/sculpture park


* climbing Mt. Hallasan, the highest peak in South Korea.

Everything was awesome. My goal was to have 1 day at the beach and swim in the ocean and I was able to do that and left with a burn. Not so good, but kind of good! The water was amazing and just what I was hoping for.

Now we actually have to work for the next couple of months until winter break begins at the end of December when I will hopefully be going on another lovely vacation.