Pete's Run and Jump

Pete's Run and Jump

Lunar New Year

"Lunar New Year"

(sung to the tune of The Mamas & The Papas)

     Lunar New Year.  A such important holiday for the Koreans to celebrate.  The custom in Korea during Lunar New Year is for everyone to leave town and visit their families, taking a day or so off of work to do such.  Kelly and I used it as an excellent excuse to do something fun with our 3-day weekend.  There is an organization in Korea called Adventure Korea, and it caters to the foreign crowd here in Korea.  Adventure Korea offers many trips around Korea doing special, unique trips such as the Lunar New Year Ski Trip.  Because everyone is visiting their families, ski resorts such as Pheonix Park is not as populated (although still very busy in Korea standards) as most weekends. 

This ski trip was my very first time skiing, and Kelly's second.  Regardless, we went into the slopes for the first time not knowing what to do or how to do it.  Kelly and I picked it up very fast and the trip turned out very fun.  We skiied from 12:30-4:30pm and 6:30-9:30pm on Saturday, and from 8:30am-4:30pm on Sunday.  So we skiied for about 15 total hours.  Towards the end of the ski trip we got very good.  I attempted a few green squares and one of the slopes I went on was actually part of a black diamond.  The max slope I went on was 25 degrees.  It's hard not to be a little proud when I was able to do a semi-real black diamond. 

This was just before my green square/black diamond run.  I only fell one time after going down this slope 4 times!

I didn't really know what to expect from the mountains in Korea.  I was unaware of the mountain range being in Seoul since we are only able to see a little bit.  Pheonix Park is about a 3 1/2 hour bus ride out of Seoul.  When we arrived at the resort I was surprised to see the beautiful mountains.  My best comparison of these mountains would be the Appalachian Mountains?  They were pretty tall.  Regardless, the slopes were much higher and steeper than Minnesota.  After talking with other foreigners, from what I understand, the rating system of slopes in ski resorts are very inconsistent.  A black diamond in Minnesota could be similar to some beginner/intermediate slopes at Pheonix Park.  Some of the runs were pretty long.  There was a gondola at this ski resort that took you to the top of the mountain.  It was about an 11 minute ride and it was almost twice as fast as the normal chair lift. 

For lodging we stayed at a youth hostel.  As you can see the rooms were bunkbeds and housed 8 people.  We met some really cool people during this trip and shared a room with them.  You could walk outside of the hostel and be within 100 feet of some chair lifts.  Our window overlooked the slopes.  We were able to see some sweet tricks in the extreme park (half pipe, grind rails, etc.).

Our hostel group.

In conclusion, Kelly and I shredded some serious gnar.  I was happy to spit some powder from my skis once in a while.  I think Kelly and I fell less than 15 times between the two of us during 15 hours of ski time.  We cannot wait to get home, buy some skis for ourselves, and hit up the gnar again.  More pictures of the ski trip are on our Picasa Web Album.  Feel free to check them out.

Classroom frustrations

I love teaching here in Korea and there are sometimes when teaching is better than others (i.e., the kids are not as wild, they pay attention and they are pleasant to be around).  There are other times, however, when teaching can push your patience to the limit where even the Dalai Lama could not resist an explosion or two.

Here are some examples from this last week alone. 

me: "what continent do you live in"
students : "....................."
me: "do you live in Africa?"
students: "Mexico."
me:" Mexico is a country, you don't live in Mexico, look at the map.  What other countries are you near on this map?"
students:".....Australia."
me: "oh come on, you live in this continent.  Don't you know what continent you live in?  You live in Asia, you are Asians."
students: "yes yes teacher."
me: "ok, so China, Japan, South Korea, the Phillippines are all in what continent?"
students: "..............teacher.....what?"
me: "YOU LIVE IN ASIA!!!"
students: "teacher what?"

*same class*

me: "ok, were going to play some hangman (to kill some time).  I will think of a word and you guess letters."
student 1: "amphibian"
me: "no, thats not the point, do not guess the whole word, just guess letters."
student 2: "zoologist"
me: "no, do not guess the entire word, I know we are reviewing the unit words, so don't just go through the word box and guess the words.  The point of the game is to guess the word by guessing letters."
student 3: "microscope"
me: "ok I am going to start deducting points to the next person who guesses the entire word without guessing a letter first."
student 4: "Q"
me: "just out of curiosity, why would you guess Q?  We are reviewing our unit words and none of them have a Q in them?"
student 5: "X"
me: "again, there are no words with an X in them.  Do you guys understand what we are doing here?  Here's a hint, try guessing either A, E, I or U.  There is a good chance the word has one of those letters in them."
student 6: teacher me teacher...V."
me: "didn't you just hear what I said?"
student 1: "reptile"
me: "ok, we're doing something else..."


Billy: "Peter teacher do you live in Korea?"
me:  "Billy, do you think I commute to Korea everyday from America?"
Billy: "....no"
me:  "then where do you think I live?"
Billy: "....I think you live in Korea."

Korean Fun

Ode to the Gimbop

     Recently, Kelly and I have decided to try to become "regulars" at a hole in the wall restaurant near our place.  We discovered that if you eat out every night at "hole in the wall" restaurants, you can save a lot of money.  At a good hole in the wall, two people can eat quite a bit of good, authentic Korean food for about 9,000 won (around $8).  If you do the math, thats like $32 during the week.  Cha Chiiiinnnnngg.  Anyway, many of these restaurant's specialty is "Gimbop" (note the picture above).  Gimbop is a clever character.  It has disguised itself as an apropos meal for all three meals.  While I can only stomach it for dinner, and maybe a lunch, some people (Kelly included) can eat it for breakfast.  It's a fairly simple concoction.  It consists of some type of egg, fish, kimchi (occasionally), some type of pickled something, rice, and it is wrapped in seaweed.  It actually is very good.  It took me some time to warm up to it. I, on the other hand, like the dish called "Kimchi Jigae", an incredibly spicy soup that will clear out your nose for months (in my case seconds because I seem to always have a stuffed nose in Korea).

Eating Gimbop and Ramen with a coworker

Ode to the Norebong

To put it quite simply, Koreans love to sing karaoke.  There are tons of "Norebongs" around Korea.  "Nore' means to sing, and "Bong" is room.  Singing rooms.  They are quite fun.  Usually it is about $16.00 to sing for an hour.  These rooms are usually very nice.  They are private rooms in which your party can sing and act as foolish as they desire.  Some Norebongs are nicer than others.  The one we went to in the picture above was the nicest one I have yet to see.  We were very suprised and pleased with the place.  I would like to post a video of us singing, but to keep our pride intact, I think I will refrain from doing so.

This Norebong had it all.  Flashing lights, light beams, a flat screen, an excellent sound system and...

 

 Snoop Dogg. This is Reuben (Snoop), singing his heart out.

Ode to the Jim Jil Bong

I will keep this one brief, and I do not have any pictures for a good reason.  The other day Kelly and I (in our seperate ways) went to a place called a Jim Jil Bong.  This is a Korean spa.  It was a great time and an interesting experience.  When I heard the word spa, I thought to myself, "sure, I'd love to go get a healthy sweat on with some friends."  When I got there, I soon found out that it was a huge (very nice) room with about 150 naked Korean men.  When I say naked, I mean the only thing that was covering these guys was hair.  I took a step outside of my comfort zone and sat in saunas, hot tubs, cold tubs and showers with my naked, Korean friends.  It was a great experience.  I can now say that I have been in a room naked with over a hundred men for over an hour.  Someone else tell me they have done that.