Recent Happenings.

There are many times I find it difficult to convince myself that I need to publish a blog post.  On one hand it makes it easy to tell people who care/know about my blog/know how to use the internet what we are doing in SoKo in one fell swoop as opposed to telling roughly the same story numerous times.  There are also times, however, when I am too lazy to write a post and I feel like I don't need to update on much.  One thing that I find to be true and most common for all travelers is that there is an air of arrogance and boasting between them.  Most travelers have this incessant need to tell other people where they have been and what they have done.  If you get a handful of travelers around a cocktail table you'll know what I'm talking about.  While I find myself in that category I try to curb my enthusiasm when sharing stories with people who have never left state side.  That is why I decided to write a blog in the first place because I can brag all I want and nobody has to listen.  

I digress.

The month is April, and the last I have written a post was April 1st.  Twenty days has been a good break for me but terribly long (I'm assuming) for my readers.  While my writing style hooks a reader faster than J.K. Rowling, I figured it would be apropos to allow some time to pass before anything significant happens in our lives.  With that being said, I will start this epic post.

The Others

At this point Kelly and I have been living in Korea for about 4 full months and the possibility of having people come visit us was about as mysterious and unpredictable as "The Others" from Lost.  We have had the pleasure of having Ms. Meghan Donner and Mr. Drew Gernand visit us for about a week.  The living quarters were tight but it was comfortable.  Drew visited us from Thailand and Meghan flew all the way from Minnesota for the week.  It was a great time.

Cherry Blossom Festival

One cool thing about coming to Korea in the winter time is that we are able to see the sweet transformation in the spring.  Blossoming trees are a boomin.  Two trees in particular are in full bloom and they look beautiful.  The first of which is the magnolia and the second is the cherry blossom.  Cherry blossoms, like in Japan, are everywhere.  The cherry blossom festival is a pretty big festival, however, Korea is having their worst/longest winter in a long time rendering a late blossoming season.  One of the perks of living here is that we are able to see them regardless of how late they are.

A couple enjoying the festival.

This is a common food vendor stand.  Octopus.  I will never eat it, but will certainly take a picture of it.

Korean Baseball

We were able to experience our first baseball game this past Saturday.  We have heard a lot of good reviews about baseball in Korea, and let me tell you that it is an experience much different from the MLB.  The first aspect of this game that I very much appreciated was that it was my first outdoor baseball game.  I know that sounds crazy but I have only been to Twins games in the Metrodome, not an ideal place to watch baseball.  The second aspect was that we went with some good people.  We were able to go to the game with Mr. Reuben Haggar, Sir Erik Johnson, Miss Holly Schoephoerster, Count Drew Gernand, and Mme Kelly Freeburg.

 

The enthusasim at this baseball game was unlike anything I have experienced at a sporting event.  Well, I have experienced a lot of energy and excitement at a baseball game, but not for 9 straight innings.  Before we went to this game a fellow coworker of ours stated "every pitch is like the final pitch of the World Series."  While I took that comment with a mega huge grain of salt, he was not too far off.  If the batter made contact with the baseball, I thought people were going to charge the field, only to find out it went foul.  There were cheerleaders and guys who flamboyantly stood on a deck and led chants.  People were going crazy.  It was the most fun I have ever had at a baseball game.  (Those bags were our version of rally caps.  They were passed out to everyone and the visitors side was a sea of orange bags.)

Lake Park Musical Fountain

As mentioned in a previous blog post we live near a big attraction called Lake Park.  It is allegedly the largest man made lake in Asia.  At one end of this park lies, what I believe, the 8th wonder of the world.  Not really, but it is incredible.  There is an enourmous musical fountain.  When Kelly and I first got here in December, we noticed this attraction.  We have been greatly anticipating the debut of this musical fountain for 4 long months.  The show is 1 hour long and from April-June it is only on the weekends.  Througout the summer it is everynight.

The debut of this musical fountain from a lifetime in hypernation lied on the same weekend that our friends visited us.  The first night we missed the show by an hour, coming at 8:30 which was the exact same time it ended.  We then decided to come back the following night but it got cut short.  We were, however, able to go back the next weekend and were able to watch the full show.

The show was amazing.  It was very relaxing just to be able to sit and watch this show for an entire hour.  If we were not mesmerized in the streaming lights and flowing water we could just relax with good conversatoin. 

We certainly will make regular visits to this fantastic show.   Click to view a short clip of the fountain, or look on our web album.

Or click this one.

Scouring the land

Make no mistake for those who know me well, know that I am an advocate of adventure.  I'm also an advocate for documentation of adventure in a skillful and craftful manner (I mean photography, a world in which I do not fully understand but am beginning to consider).  One reason why Korea is a perfect match for Pete Freeburg is because it caters well to my obsessions.  I love being married, check (wife is here).  I love traveling, check.  I love hiking, check.  I love taking pictures, check.  I love awkward moments with people I cannot communicate with, check.  I love trying to observe cultural complexities and mysteries that seem to make no sense, check.  Korea houses many of my opiates.

Korea's national sport is Taekwondo.  I know this because I see gyms all over the place and nearly all of my students practice Taekwondo.  They even wear their uniforms to school to prove it.  I am convinced that one of my students has his Taekwondo uniform sewn onto him, because I have never seem him in anything other than that uniform for weeks.  The reason I'm discussing Taekwondo is because hiking, as it appears, is more popular than even their national sport.  Boo ya.  I love hiking, too.

Korea is a very mountainous penninsula such that you do not have to look very far, nor travel very far to see mountains to hike them and enjoy their beauty.  North Korea is actually more mountainous and scenic in that dimension, which is why prior to the Korean War, North Korea was actually more prosperous than their democratic counterpart on the basis of natural resources.  North Korea had more natural resources and factories (such as ore and so forth), which made it appear that they were the prevailing country, where as South Korea was doing miserably.  It was up until the 60's or 70's when South Korea realized they needed to funnel their energy into a working economy to prosper, specifically in technology development.  To this day, North Korean leaders have also lost their minds, which in no part aids an already failing economy. 

Regardless, I knew that hiking was popular in Korea but I just didn't know how to get my hands on it.  I could see the mountains and I knew if I got on the right subway or the right bus, I could get to them. I just have the problem of not being able to talk to anyone who knows the answers.  **Introduce a legitimate functionality of Facebook as a powerful networking tool.**  There are many Facebook groups that cater to foreigners in Korea, one that I found (with direction from Holly Bonnema and Kaley Eastman) is called Seoul Hiking Group.  This group does a lot of hiking and adventure type things on the weekends and are very cheap.  So cheap, in some instances they are free.  Boo ya.  It is also a great way to meet some other cool (and sometimes lame) foreigners in Seoul.  

                                                         Suraksan and Bulamsan

The last weekend of March we got our first taste of hiking in Korea.  We went to Suraksan and Bulamsan, about 1.5 hours away from our apartment but about 25 mintues via subway outside of downtown Seoul.  So it is relatively close.  We met some great people and had some amazing hiking.  It was really awesome.  One problem, I might add, is that whenever Kelly and I plan to do something fun outdoors on the weekends it usually is very cloudy and hazy.  This is OK, but usually 9 out of 10 times the next day in which we are not planning anything, it is really sunny and about 10 degrees warmer.  Korea is playing hard to get...and I like it.  We are very much anticipating Spring and Summer, as it will be a completely different experience.  While it pains me to say this, I cannot upload any photos on this blog of that trip because I shot all my pictures in RAW, rendering the file size very large.  They are, however, up on the Picasa Web Album.  If you are not too lazy to click on the link on the right of the blog then you can see them there! :)

                                            Yeosoo, Suncheon Man, odong do, Youngchi San

This past weekend I went with the Seoul Hiking Group to southern Korea for a day of hiking.  We left a subway station in downtown Seoul at 11:30 p.m. on Friday night and rode a bus for about 5 hours through the night.  We started a sunrise hike at 5:20 am and hiked until around noon when we had lunch.  It was so nice to get outside of Seoul and see some more landscape of Korea and some smaller towns. 

What makes this particual trip so appealing to many hikers is because there are some areas of the mountains that are completely covered in Rhododendron flowers.  In full bloom,  the hills appear to be purple.  It was very beautiful for us even though they were not in full bloom. Still, there were many blooming flowers.

 

After lunch we went to this island that was completley tourist-ized.  It was a beautiful island, very small but developed.  It was more of a big park but covered in trees.

The shoreline of this island.  The island itself takes about 30-45 minutes to walk around.

This is the singing fountain.  I have a video of it, but I can't seem to find it.  The fountains were, at one point, in rhythmical coordination with Queen's, "We Will Rock You."  Remember cultural oddities I try to observe?  That was one of them.  Why Queen with a musical fountain on a tourist island?

After the island we went to a nature reserve.  It was once a huge bay but has since dried up.  It is now, according to our hiking leader who organized this trip, the 5th largest swamp in the world.

The view of the wetland from the highest observation point.

Once again, all of the pictures are on the Picasa Web Album.  If you want your life to be changed forever, if you want something to tell your grandchildren, if you are looking for ways to acheive world peace, then I suggest you check them out.

Hypothetical Situations

One of my evening classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6:20-7:20 consists of 9, 13 year old girls.  These girls can be very loud and can be obnoxious, at times.  Today, during class we had to go through a list of several hypothetical situations, and we had to make up our own answers.  The situations started off simple, but as we went on, we were required to make our own answers.  The first few were simple.  "If you were on a crowded bus and you saw an old woman standing, would you give her her seat?"  These questions then turned into more imaginative ones such as, "If you were invisible, what would you do?"  These girls, to me, had some hilarious answers.  While there were a host of strangely humerous answers, I only chose a handful (as my memory permits) to share.  Keep in mind that these are all girls.

me: "If you won a million dollars in the lottery, what would you do with it?"
student a: "I would buy everything in the world..."
me: "That's impossible. A million dollars is not that much if you want to do that."
student a: "I would buy everything I want."
me: "What if you want something that's more than a million dollars?"
student a: ".....I would buy a computer."

me: "If you could travel back in time, where would you want to go?"
student c: "I would want to go back to when I was 1."
me: "Really?  You could travel to any time in history.  You could travel to see the dinosaurs or live during the Jaeson dynasty.  You would really want to go back to when you were 1?"
student c: "Ok ok I would want to go back and see the dinosaurs."
me: "What would you do once you saw them?"
student c: "I would find a tyrannasar and (in a boxing motion) fight it."
me: "You would want to travel back in time to box a T-Rex?"
student c: "Teacher, how old are you?"

me: "If you had any superpower in the world, what would you do?"
student b: "I would punch Peter Teacher."
me: "That's the first thing you would do?"
student b: "Then I would fly."

me: "Ok, if you were able to turn invisible, and could do anything you want, what would you do?"
student d: "I would travel to Boston to see my cousin."
me: "But you would be invisible, he wouldnt' know you were there!"
student d: "That's ok, I would just play with myself."

Birthdaypalooza

March 15th was Kelly's birthday and we had an entire weekend of festivities to celebrate her day.  Living in such a large city such as Seoul has its many perks.  There is much availability of fun things to do.  This weekend, like a couple of swashbucklers, we spared no expense in celebrating Kelly's 23rd.  On Saturday we spent the day with some friends from our alma mater.  We met at Gwanghwamun Square and visited the Gyeongbokgung Palace (see below).  We spent several hours walking around the palace.  It was much bigger than we thought it was going to be and involved a great deal of walking. 

The entrance of Gyeongbokgung

This is "The Blue House".  It is the President's  home.  It is not quite as cool as The White House, but it is still a beautiful home and at the base of a mountain.  Security is not as crazy as The White House, but it's up there.

Kelly and I in front of The Blue House.  It is the only place you can get a picture shot of it.

Cooking Nanta

In the evening we met up with a couple of ladies of whom we met on our Adventure Korea ski trip.  We went to a show called Cooking Nanta.  Essentially, this show was like STOMP, the Broadway rendition.  There was a cast of 4 and they were all chefs.  They made rhythmic music from their kitchen utensils while following a story line and cooking real food.  The premise of the show was simple.  They had an hour to make an entire meal for a wedding, and throughout that whole hour they had to rhythmically deal with romance, rilvary and numerous other perils involved in a kitchen.

Kelly and I bought matching sweatshirts.  Photo courtesy of Holly Bonnema.

Waiting for Cooking Nanta to begin

Kelly had the privilege to participate in the show.  The audience was divided into two teams.  Red team and Blue team.  The cooks needed to make some mandu for this wedding party and they needed the audiences' help (clever).  They picked two people out of the audience and Kelly was the one picked for the red team.  We won.  Whoop.

Riverdance

On Sunday night we went to Riverdance at the Sejong Center.  This place was huge and the show was amazing.  Kelly had seen the show once before and she claims it is what made her fall in love with Ireland.  The show was amazing and we had a blast.  No participation from our end this time but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Kelly getting pumped for the show.

In the lobby of the Sejong Center

This was a very big place.  If you can see them, there are TV monitors behind every seat in the lower level.  I think it mostly serves for subtitles during various shows (Riverdance included).  They also show some commercials during intermission.  Crazy, right?

Outside of Sejong.

Feel free to look at more pictures in our Picasa Web Albums.

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.

Korean Living

    

     After two weeks of teaching under our belt, Kelly and I can say that we are getting use to Korean living.  We are finding ourselves more in a routine, working standard hours (10am-6-pm) and even creating grocery lists.  Near our house is a grocery store called "Home Plus".  This store is essentially 7 floors of groceries and home appliances.  Consider it a Target and Lunds combined.  It is very nice and affordable.  We continue to explore restuarants on the weekends, but during the week we enjoy homecooked meals that Kelly has craftfully conjured up.  We have had some delecious meals that are very filling.  We recently got paid for our two weeks of training in December, and we are trying to use that half salary to budget the remaining months (i.e., play money, eating out money, travel money, money to send home).
     For the first time in our working lives, and lives since before college, Kelly and I now realize the true glory of a weekend.  For the first time since I was about 15, I have been able to enjoy a true weekend without work or study.  My past jobs, I worked full time and irregular hours and sometimes weekend work.  Throughout college Kelly and I either had to work on the weekends or beat around the bush with homework.  Having a true weekend is an amazing break from a full week of work. 

Kelly and I hosted our first dinner party last Saturday!  We invited a few Bethel friends over for a spaghetti dinner.  Kelly and I were very happy to host a party at our very own place.  It was very fun catching up with some friends who also live and teach in Korea.

(From left to right; Jordan Groh, Jordan Williams, Tony Hanf, Reuben Haggar, and us.)

Ilsan Living

As mentioned before, Ilsan is a satellite/suburban city located just outside of Seoul.  Satellite city means it was developed with a plan.  We have yet to see any houses.  We do, however, see only high rises.

This is our apartment building. We are on the 5th floor.  It is about a 10 minute walk from our school.  The first floor has a delicious bakery in which we buy several breaded treats.  There is also a convienience store on the first floor, epitomizing the word convience for us.

These are other buildings in our neighborhood. As you can see, all houses are apartments in these high rises.  LG is based in Korea, and come to find out, they have their hands in just about everything, including housing.

A short walk from our apartment.  More high rises.

This picture was taken not in our neighborhood, but from an observatory floor in an office building of 63 floors up (63 Square).  This is a better representation of the grid style housing located in most developed suburban areas around Seoul, like Ilsan.  They are running out of space so the only place they can build is up.  Each one of those apartment complexes are about 15-20 floors.

Lake Park

About 5 minutes (walking) from our apartment is the biggest man-made lake in Asia.  Lake Park is a beautiful, 3 mile loop that was specially designed for runners, walkers, and bike riders.  There are 2 paths, one for riding bikes, and the other for walkers/runners.  The walking/running path has a surface similar to track surfaces.  It is soft, slightly spongy and great for running on.

 

One of many gazebo type places along the paths of Lake Park.  We love the Asian design of them.

A little bit of Lake Park in the background.  The lake is frozen over now, and a lot of people love walking around on it.  I think they should make some broom ball rinks...but that concept would take some time to convey.

Office buildings lining Lake Park.

More pictures are available on our Picasa Web Album