Dragon Fruit

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a dragon fruit. I was introduced to them while I was in Cambodia and Vietnam. I've tried to find them in America and I only found them once in two years. They were $16 a pound. Thus, I didn't buy them. Since I'm on the other side of the world, they're much cheaper. This bad boy went for 5,000 won. They don't carry them in super markets and had to buy him on the street. I found him in a giant international district where I'm going to back for salmon cuts later. I personally think it look like a dragon egg, if those in fact existed.

This is a knife. The bride and groom have smooched, let's cut this cake.

This is what the inside looks like. it's sort of like a kiwi, but with different flavoring. It's wonderfully delicious because it's soft and cold. So good.

Sliced and diced into more manageable bites.

Another angle...wait, what's that there?

Oh my goodness. I found some international delegates while wandering the market as well. These were priced better than in America and thus it was a wonderful find. I still don't have any quality tonic water. Or limes. We're going to try and make our own, but we require Cinchona. Amazon trail anyone?

Simply lovely.

Time for a test drive.

No crashes or fatalities.


Also, I met Tane for sushi near his house. Afterwards, I boarded the subway and was stopped by a man named So Cho. After talking for a while, several handsome compliments, and confessing that I wasn't married he invited me for draft beers at a place called Starfish on Saturday. I'm not sure what to make of it. He told me that i reminded him of his grandson who was going to college in Switzerland. He told me to call him and gave me his business card. Apparently he works as an advisor for the "Busan International Environmental Design & Cultural Forum." Their website is here http://www.biedfo.org/forum/symbol.html . I'm not sure what I'm going to do. That organization seems like a major advertising firm that deals a lot in public art. He might be a fascinating contact and good person to know. On the other hand, he's someone I talked to in broken English for three stops on the subway. By the way, this is normal behavior to foreigners in Korea. When Danny, Tane, and I go out, we always get approached by old men who want to talk to us and tell us about the time they lived in America and were stationed at a Virginia army base. Most of the time teachers get propositioned to teach peoples children under the table. So, tell me what you think.

Where am I?

Geography time! Let's take a look at where I am.
First, I currently reside on the continent of Asia. I've circled the location of my city.


Here's a more close up picture of the Country. I've kept the labels on just in case you aren't familiar with the city layout of Korea. Once again, my city is circled.


Here's a nice shot of the topography of the area. Most of the country is mountains.


This is the city of Busan. 3.6 Million people live here. It's the 3rd most visited sea port in the world. The big red circle is the island on which I live. The whole island is really just two giant mountains.


A closer look at the island. In the circle is the Dongsam district where I do most of my snooping.


The top right circle is the location of Dongsam Middle School where I work. The other one is the apartment building that I live in. It's right along the course and it's gorgeous. It's in the middle of no where on an island of 400,000, but it's so majestic.


That's the uphill climb that I have to take to school everday. I'm used to it now, but just to get to the little spot in between those first two buildings, it's about a 14 story climb including lots of stairs and a graded slope. The route to school is colorful and has some great views. I'll post some pictures of the route sometime.


Thanks for the lesson. There'll be a quiz later.

And Yet More Questions are Answered

Yet again, here are more questions from the forums and their answers.

"this is amazing! How did you get this job?

-chrisb"

Easy. I found out about it from people on the Something Awful forums. There were a bunch of people teaching in Korea who frequented the forum and put themselves up for questions. I didn't know what I wanted to do after I graduated. I didn't have a career track in mind or know whether or where I wanted to go to grad school. So this is more a reflection time for me. I'm chilling out, it allows me to travel around in this part of the world for cheap. Plus, Korea spends the most on English education per capita than any other nation in the world.

What does that mean? That means I get paid bank. They cover my basic costs of living. I've got to play utilities, but find suitable housing for me and furnish my apartment with anything I need. They supplied a bed, wardrobe, TV, a couple of desks, pots/pans, utensils, rice cooker, dishes, glasses, washer, drying rack, easy chair, hot water pot, coffee maker, refrigerator, toaster, oven, gas stove, iron and board, chairs, shelves, racks, and more. They also give me health and dental insurance. Because I live in Busan, I get 1,800,000 won a month (I don't have an accurate adjustment to dollars because there's a lot of inflation) I just posted some pictures of where I live on www.grooveoninbusan.blogspot.com. The view and scenic area is a million dollar view.

As far as getting the job, I went through EPIK (English Program in Korea). This is one of the Ministry of Education organizations. EPIK is specific to Seoul, Daegu, Jeju Island, Busan, etc. Other organizations such as GEPIK are in charge of other areas. Other options include Hagwons (private schools) and Universities. The requirements to teach English in Korea aren't strict. I can only speak authoritatively about the public schools, but all you need is a degree and not be an insane criminal. I went through a recruiter, Footprints, which did a lot of the work for me. I submitted documents and talked them first. Think of a recruiter as a pimp. You jump through their hoops and then they shop you around. Pimp is perhaps the wrong word, maybe Agent is better. Their job is to get you hired because then they get a finders fee.

So I applied last February and did a lot of phone interviews and submitted all the necessary documentation. So that means copies of my passport, background checks, my degree, letters of recommendation, transcripts, and blah blah blah. Then I went through some phone interviews with people in Korea and you're in. You then apply for a Visa at an embassy and then buy your plane ticket (which they reimburse, there and back).

Dude, those PC gaming areas sound so rad. It is weird how that business model works so well in that country and refuses to spawn in this one. Then again, I don't think that I will ever grab my friends and head to Des Moines to ever use a service like that.

What other things can you pull out of the vending machines?

Also, I bought Vice Guide to Travel, what did you think of it?

-rempresent

They really are. They're extremely convenient too. While walking around the Nampo-dong city center one evening, we weren't sure where we were supposed to meet some people. So, we went to a PC Bang, paid a dollar, and looked up their emails and found the spot on google maps. Sure, you could get an iPhone and pay several hundred dollars for spotty service and glitchy software, but we just went upstairs and paid a buck. They're really nice places and I know they have PC Bangs in some larger cities in the US. They're more gaming centers though and offer consoles as well. I don't know how much they cost, but I'm sure they don't even touch the Korean prices. The other day when I bought some saltines at a GS-25 (just a corner shop, gas station without the gas) the attendant was grinding away on World of Warcraft. The whole centralized model of MMO's I think can be attributed to Korea. It doesn't work for people to save their information locally on the machine because they may not play on that same computer next time. It works better to log in and have your info on a server.

It's weird that you said drive to Des Moines to use one. I guess because there's so many here. I could go downtown and spot three just standing in an alley. They're across the street from each other and I must admit it is pretty cool to see giant Night Elves or Hydralisks drape the side of a building, advertising their wares. A few weeks ago Danny, Tane, and I went to one after dinner and brought a flask with us. We bought some OJ inside and just gamed online while swigging back every now and then.

I haven't really been to many arcades here. I did spend some time in one after going to the Busan Aquarium. House of the Dead 4 and Time Crisis 3 for $0.40 a play is really cheap. The other places I've stayed away from though. I looked in one arcade and it was 40 machines that were all the same. They only had this Aereo Fighters style game, but some people loved it.

As far as vending machines go, most of the time it's the standard crap. fake guns, light up toys, bouncy balls, or candy. But in some locations it's impressive as to what they have. One machine I saw sold Pokemon style DS styluses. Another sold DS skins and others had power ranger action figures. I need to go to more high class areas to see more vending machines. I haven't seen any that make Ramen, just beverages. I haven't seen any "Japanese" style vending machines, if you catch my drift, nor have I seen vending machines big enough to sell vending machines. Lots of coffee machines have pictures of football tackles on them. Go figure.

In reference to the Vice Guide to Travel, I liked it. Some bits were a lot better than others though. I feel that in too many of them, they promised the moon and didn't deliver. The hunting of radioactive warthogs sucked. Not only did they not get one, you couldn't even see them. It was just a giant let down. The same thing with the dinosaur. I'm not sure what they expected with that one. I loved the Brazillian favela one and thought it was hilarious. "The last man that filmed was put into a tower of tires and set on fire." "So, what do you think of us going to film it. (As he smiled, fighting back the laughter)" Genius. The Nazi one was interesting and not bad, but it would have been better if they met Nazis. The suicide boyscouts was fascinating and sad at the same time. The arms bazar was really cool. I did feel it was far too short though. I think I've seen different videos online. I remember watching a series of youtube videos where they went to North Korea and that was amazing. I can't find them anymore though. They also had one where they go to this South American region where supposedly all the men lose their virginity to donkeys in order to prepare them for marriage. Really funny. So I'd give it 3 stars. It was good, but disappointing as well.

"Right now, 1 Won = .000862 Dollars. That is awesome.

-chrisb"

It used to be a lot better. Last year, it was around 1 Won = .001400 Dollars and when I bought my plane ticket it was hovering around 1000 Won = 1 Dollar. Now, it's hovering around 1140 Won = 1 US Dollar. It's not much on a day to day level, but at the end of this when I send several grand home it's going to hurt to the tune of several hundred dollars.

Some Photos

Here's a few photos that I've taken that I wanted to share.

This is a picture outside of my front door at night.

This is out my front door, to the right.

My backyard at night.
A close up on a ship.

My backyard during the day. To the left.

Directly behind me, day view.
View to the right.
This is where I keep my shoes at school.

An octopus I saw at the Busan Aquarium.

More Questions from the Forums

See the previous post for an explanation of why I have quotes.

you must tell us how the entire country shuts down when Starcraft 2 launches.

-j0e

I just hope I'm here when it happens. If blizzard gets their act together and puts it out I'd love it here. Work will stop. It'll cause the highest rate of absenteeism schools have ever seen. I am going to try and go to the Blizzcon that they have here. I don't remember what the dates are, but I would gladly go just for the grab bag that they give you.

I'm living in South Korea now. It's just called SUV in Ames though.

-rempefiesta

I don't get it.

Brandon, thanks for your fast response. I guess MY love of Japan led me to believe that everyone loves those girls dressed in school girl costumes (and are japanese). Guess I was wrong.
This is sort of a weird question BUT in the "black market" type areas (if such things exist) or even in the rural markets that sell live food, have you ever come across anything exotic? I'm talking animal wise. I know this is asking a lot, BUT I'm wondering if anything that "shouldn't" be sold or is highly prized here, is sold there. Just curious.

-jahee

Just remember that those are all school girls. They have the uniforms here too. I admit the students are really cute. They're really silly a lot of the time. It's odd, but the smallest boys are often the naughtiest and have the most energy.

The black market is different over here. While it's the same as any other country and has illegal wares, it has it's own flavor. Example, I've been looking for limes while over here for Gin and Tonics. I had one coteacher call every 8 story department store in the city looking for them and no one has them. I asked my students and they all shouted "Lemon!" I'm to the point where I'm going to buy a lime tree and grow them myself.

But anyway, she mentioned that I should try and buy them on the black market. Lots of western and international goods are sold on it. I know where the district is. It's a 15 minute bus ride away from me and it's called, "International Market."

But you asked about animals. I know of a couple giant fresh seafood markets. They keep all the critters alive or on ice. The living ones make their homes in laundry tubs or giant aquatic serving platters. Think a large fish tank overflowing with critters, the fish laying on their sides, or half out of water just gasping for scratching room. Everything seems standard. I don't know the names of all the fish, but I can't say that I've seen anything illegal. It's the standard tuna, squid, mackerel, black and striped fish, flounder, oysters, conchs, escaped octopus wriggling on the floor, weird red fish, shrimp, and the occasional shark. Live octopus is a delicacy and I saw a dog soup restaurant the other day. How did I know? It had a picture of a dog on the store window and they had a small cage full of dogs inside. They don't eat any dog, only mangy yellow ones. It's a specific breed. They get rather offended if you ask if they'd eat Benji or Lassie.

That fish market is a big touristy place though. I've seen a couple of pet stores that traffic in the standard parrots, hedgehogs, hamsters, and fish. People sell dogs and cats on the streets though. The only dogs they have here are little yappy dogs. Nothing bigger than a purse, well, except for the eatin' dogs. I have seen several rare and expensive lizards and chameleons that might be illegal in the states. I desperately want one, but I don't know how to take care of it if I go on vacation. I thought about fish though, because they seem more durable to starvation. I'll be on the look out for shady districts that traffic in monkeys and polar bears though. It would be so cool to ride a tiger to work everyday. I'd be better than He-Man since his shows were never educational despite what you may think about learning to handle a blade.

Comfortable

I've been here month now, so I'm starting to notice the little things. For example, in the teachers office, all of the heavy furniture has folded up pieces of paper or discarded books under the corners to keep them from damaging the wood floor. We don't get any beverages with our lunch so I've been using cooked rice to put out any fires or to cleanse my mouth. Also, the grapes here taste just like grape flavoring from home. Meaning, they don't taste like actual grapes, but instead taste like "artificial grape flavoring" tastes like. Also, they don't eat the skin here. You just have to pinch the grape and it'll get naked. They eat the juicy center and leave the carapace on the plate. Strangely, they eat the hard seed inside though.

Here's something I sent to my dad recently:
"We went to a restaurant Saturday night that I know you'd love. It was an all you can eat shell fish place. We got as many clams, oysters, mussels, and shrimp that we wanted. They came to us raw and alive and we had to cook them on this little grill in front of us. You would get one big half shell that's about as long as your forearm and you set that to the side. The rest, you just pop on the grill until they burst open and grab them before they spill all their juices. Then, you work them out of their shell and add the soft part to the big shell. You snip them up with a scissors into bite sized pieces, add shredded cucumber, some Parmesan cheese, thinly sliced green pepper, a little sea weed, and spicy red bean paste and let them cook and simmer in that big half shell. Then you scoop it out with a spoon into a little personal dish and eat away. Once again, it's all you can eat and it's only 10,000 won ($10). Add a couple of cheap beers and some soju (liquor) and you've got a wonderful meal. We ate six of those things along with a couple of seafood pancakes (an odd pancake mix with vegetables and shrimp, it's fried). So if you come and visit, we'll go to this place. Mom'll probably hate it, but I know you'd never leave."

I'm also going to repost stuff from the Goon Platoon forum, The Best Damn Crew. It's a forum for people who know/are friends with Nick Rempe. Their were some complaints about the lack of participation at the site, so I offered myself for a Q&A session. Here's some of the questions posed.

"I know this seems very generic. I was wondering, what country to they idolize? Is it Japan? America? One of the other countries that I don't yet know about? How are the corn dogs?

-jahee"

Well, right now they hate Japan. They're both claiming ownership over this little island called Dokdo. Korea raised a big stink saying, "We've had this for years! The imperialist dogs have taken it from us. We're not going to stand for this are we? No!" My students asked me about it the first day and most did not like Japan based on the polls I took. They love American junk, but hate our beef. All the girls like the show "Gossip Girl" and pop tunes and movies have always been popular. I talked to one of my co-teachers at length about The Dark Knight the other day for example.

I've seen corn dogs in the frozen section, but the blue stars and red and white stripes on the packaging aren't persuasive enough. They have lots of other fried food though. If I get a craving, I'll just go buy a dough ball with red bean paste in the middle.

"What kind of adapter would I need for my American toaster?

In all seriousness, are you really living in South Korea?

-bonertown"

The toaster you could probably just buy a new one hear for less than the cost of an adapter. But if you've got the settings just right and have to have it, I would get a middle eastern/asian adapter. It's just long and skinny plugs. A voltage adapter probably wouldn't hurt either.

And yes, I really am in South Korea. I've been here for about a month so far. I get paid today! A couple grand that I'm going to use to buy a telescope and a couple terabyte hard drives because I can download roughly 60-70 gb a day.

"What are you downloading? Food recipes? That is a dark and dangerous path I dare not tread.

-bonertown"

At first it started out very simple. I'd like the entire catalog of "This American Life" to listen to while I walk to work every morning. "9gb? This'll take forever." But a few hours later I was already drunk on power. From there I've downloaded a lot of games that I have yet to play. I'm in the middle of KotoR:II, waiting to play Prey, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Bioshock, played a few hours of Crysis and deleted it, CS:Source, and some others I can't think of. Then I thought, I'd like to watch a movie. Should I go to the video store? No! In only 20 minutes, I can download a movie. So then I got Fargo, Dune (in blue ray), Modern Times, The Deer Hunter, Rebel Without a Cause, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, all the Aliens movies, Vice Guide to Travel, the complete Adam Curtis discography, Planet Earth, 3 seasons of the critic, Gundam 08th Ms, The Wire, Entourage, It's Always Sunny in Philly, the mighty boosh (radio and tv), Batman the Animated Series (all of it), Curb Your Enthusiams (All of it), Arrested Development, a lot of music, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember because I'm at school right now. So I can barely find time to watch the stuff that I have. (In fact, I can't.) I feel safe because South Korea has given the finger to the DRM so I have no chance of reprisal. In fact, the vast majority of the software here is pirated; in schools, work places, and anywhere else, chances are it's cracked.

Which brings me into the next area. PC Bangs (pronounced bahngs). These are just internet and gaming stores. Get rid of your old concept of an arcade, because for a 0.75 cents an hour, you can play from a choice of around 80 different computer games. No need to have a LAN party when you can just go to the store and everyone together pays $20 for a whole afternoon of fun. The PCs are top of the line and all have anti-glare glass to make sure that your neighbors gaming doesn't dampen your own experience. They also sell popcorn, ramen, and every kind of non-alcoholic beverage around. South Korean kids have died in these from 72 hour gaming marathons. They didn't eat, sleep, or drink for that time period for which I cannot imagine why. So, every now and then Danny, Tane (a friend from college who is teaching as well), and I go to a PC Bang after dinner to play some Warcraft III or Brood War. It's just simpler and more fun than playing in our respective homes.

I apologize for the lack of paragraphs. Also, I'm supposed to get paid today. I hope to buy a telescope. That is if they can pay me. Apparently they need my Alien Registration Card number, but I don't have that yet. So, who knows.

Skype

If you want to contact me while I am over here, the best method is probably Skype. Skype is a program that lets you use instant messaging and free Skype to Skype calls. So if you're on the computer and so am I, you can call me and speak to me directly and if you have a webcam we can even see each other.

One ability I don't know if I want to pay for is for a fee I can make phone calls to land-lines, ie calling your phone. I'd rather just talk to you on your computer and save the $130 a year instead. But things might change and I'll let you know.

So to get Skype, go to the website listed above. You can download the program here.

Then just add me by searching for my name. I hope to hear from you soon.

Time and Time Again

It's been a while since I put anything up. A lot of the time I've either been too tired or thought that I'd just do it later. Last weekend was Chuseok, which is just Korean Thanksgiving. It's more similar to Christmas though because there is a lot of gift giving and I got three days off of school. I meant to write some that weekend, but I went out a lot with Danny and Tane and then thought it would be best to put on an episode of The Critic or watch the Vice Guide to Travel. Also, I've become a bit addicted to playing Knights of the Old Republic II. But, I've found that I've been able to keep in contact with most of you on an individual basis. I don't think I've outright neglected anyone. You've either emailed me or talked to me on Skype.

I guess to tell you what I've been up to. On Wednesday I went and submitted the information for my Alien Registration Card. It's supposed to take three weeks. Bastards. Mrs. Kyoung says they're lazy. After that I went to Pasta Vanita with Danny and his co-teacher Jey. It was a really nice pasta place and at $10 a plate it's very good. I had seafood pizza for your information.

Thursday was the day before Chuseok vacation began. The students were all on edge and the teachers were excited as well. I gave the Principal a bottle of Johnny Walker Black and he seemed astounded and very grateful. He held it above his head and waved it while the other teachers oohed and ahed and said, "well done" or "great gift." I then gave the vice principal a bottle of Chilean red wine that she seemed to enjoy. She felt sorry that she had not gotten me anything. So I got a cleansing collagen mask. Apparently, the male principal was in charge of getting a gift to all the men and the female vice principal was in charge of the women. So the males got a bottle of red ginseng which is supposedly a healthy stimulant and a cure for erectile dysfunction. So I packed away the boner juice for later that night in lieu of coffee. At the end of the day, when things were winding down the entire faculty was treated to "Mexican Food". This in actuality resembled General Tsao's chicken. I've been munching meat occasionally just because I think it's impolite to turn down offered food and often it's the only food available to eat. Most of the time it comes inadvertently, because I don't know what I'm ordering.

That night, we decided to meet up with some other people in the EPIK program. They were going to meet at an out of the way bar that we didn't know how to get to. So we thought we knew and just decided to find it. Didn't work. I can read most Korean now (even though I know so few words) and had some close calls where we found Shakies or Shakes, but no shakers. So we went to a PC Bang (PC Room) to rent the Internet. We looked at the original face book directions and made our way there. No one was there and we waited an hour and a half before anyone else got there. It was a nice place, but expensive. Drinks were 8,000 won a pop. So we ordered a couple long islands, played some pool, and waited it out.

They finally arrived and it was a rag tag group: Canadians, Britons, and Aussies. We sat down for a while with some girls and everyone else immediately started complaining about the prices. I'm not sure why they decided to meet at a bar they didn't want to drink at. So we eventually left. The group schismed and one set were going to find one bar and we recommend another, The Black Inca. So half of us set out for the 1400's Peruvian theme. We sat for a long time and guzzled three bottles of Soju and 3000cc's of Hite beer. We sat, laughed, and talked about Palin and eventually left.

Tane felt his night was coming to an end, so we waved him farewell and set off for another bar. We decided to go to Cools which is a beer mart. It turns out that everyone else did as well. Westerners from all around were hunkered in a corner swapping stories. I saw two Kenyans who looked rather lonely so I went to talk to them. Big mistake. They wouldn't stop talking to me for an hour. Their English was great, but they only wanted to talk about the election. After a bit, I had a chance run in with the former Guest English Teacher at my school, Kirk. We talked for a while about different things and then he imparted some wisdom. His time was up and he was taking off. He mentioned that what he was going to miss was the excitement in life. In Korea, everything is always new and interesting. It's all a challenge that is to be overcome. The people are dynamic and everyday brought something glorious and interesting. Back in England, it all turns into routine. Same shit, different day.

Danny and I decided to mosey and went on our way. The buses were too infrequent to count on getting us home so we took a cab. While walking to a cab port, I saw a man sleeping on a grating with green duct tape all over his face and he had also fashioned some sort of cod piece. I also walked past someone pissing in the street. We had been told that's not uncommon. We got the cab and had him drop us off at my place. Only $4; brilliant. Danny didn't want to walk home from there so we had a sleep over instead.

The next morning was delicious. I tried my culinary skills and made scrambled eggs, hash browns, and jellied toast. Also available was some fruit cake that I had received as a gift. It was delicious, topped off with a cool glass of orange juice. We watched the Daily Show online and parted ways.

I lounged around for the rest of the day. We were supposed to have some sort of date with Tane's co-teacher and two of her friends. We weren't sure if it was just showing new people the area or if anything else was implied.

We met them after walking, the bus, the subway, and walking. Then we took a cab. We arrived at a large fish market. I don't recall if I've mentioned the markets, but think of something similar to a fish store. Lots of open tanks with fish swimming and writing around. You walk up to a tank and choose what you want. Each section corresponds to a store above you. Instead of wrapping the fish in a plastic and taking them home, the woman chopped each in the head with a meat cleaver until they quit wriggling.

We then went up stairs and waited. The eventually brought all the food, raw, prepared on little platters. I thought it was OK, but not great. A lot of the stuff was downright bad. Sea cucumbers? It's like eating salt water flavored cartilage. Other weird shit was put in front of us as well. The clams and oysters were delicious. Then we got a giant platter of raw white fish. It was ok, but I prefer salmon and tuna a lot more. These were all accompanied with vegetable dishes, large pickled roots, and kim chi. Then came dessert, fish head soup. It was delicious and I know most of you wouldn't be able to get past the floating head in the teok (mini cauldron) to try it. Far more pricey than I have would liked, $25.

Afterwards we went walking along Gwangali beach. There was a large "viking ride" which was like Adventureland's shooting star; just a large boat swing that went back and forth. Tane said he'd vomit so we decided to go to a bar. The area was gorgeous. It was well kempt and the decorations were nice. The gardens were well tended, the light posts were an ornately shaped metal, and art and interesting light installations dotted the area. You could also buy fireworks on the beach to shoot into the sea. We eventually settled on a place called Thursday Party. It had moderately priced drinks and was good. This area was just a hub for other whiteys. Up down and all around had bars filled with westerners.

We soon found out that the girls with us were extremely narcissistic. They were concerned with their looks at all times, constantly posed for pictures and deleted the photos taken by us that were deemed unflattering. I've always considered posing for photos bizarre. Just watching people hold a certain position for a little while someone tries to work a camera. As a historian it's bad history. They're trying to influence posterity and make an impression on the future people who look at it. It's dishonesty for portraying a natural look. Which is what they kept doing. Endless pictures of them looking disinterested were taken. They'd perfect these portraits until they were satisfied. Fluffing their hair or touching up their face if necessary. That's most of what they wanted to talk about as well. C'est la vie.

That covers the first two days of break. More later. My mouse isn't working at school at the moment

Hanging Decorations

I saw this article and since it took place in my city, I thought I would share it with you.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/09/117_30795.html

"The dead body of a man who lived alone lay unnoticed for 11 months in a one-room flat in Busan.

According to police, the new owner of the flat found the body of the previous owner, 49-year-old Sohn, Monday morning and reported it to police.

Sohn seemed to have hung himself from a pipe in the kitchen, police said. The new owner, Kim, had mistaken the body for a mannequin twice before realizing that it was a dead body.

``The body was dried up like a mummy. We suspect he died about 11 months ago, considering that his last phone call was made on Oct. 5 and that he was wearing fall clothes,'' a police officer said."

Editing and Grammar

After looking through some of my posts I've realized that my grammar is pretty bad. I apologize for that, as I usually do not edit these once I type them. I may go through and reword some sections because I think the writing is a bit off in some cases. I can't believe how many times I use the word "so".

So anyway, the teachers office was robbed last night of about 350,000 won of money and cell phones. It seems that this is a fairly big deal. First period was delayed today so that all the students and their bags could be searched. There was a 10 minute pep talk by the principal that I walked in on, but I couldn't understand a word of it. The searches turned up nothing, so the thieves remain anonymous.

I went out for dinner with my co-teachers last night at a place called VIPS. They called it the Korean version of TGIF Fridays. I have to say that it was good. I would consider it abhorrently expensive by western standards but I can understand the pricing for Korea. There was a large mix of American food: pizza, tacos, steaks, Caesar salads, and the like. One of my co-teachers is tiny, only like four feet tall, but she put away three plates of food. The other teachers asked her if anything was wrong because usually she eats six! She found my amazement funny. So we sat and talked for a long time about a variety of different things, crime, teachers unions, food, teaching styles, the administration, places to visit, and whether or not Tane's co-teacher is hitting on him. My teachers are a lot older than I had assumed. Mrs. Kyoung (Jang) is the one who has been helping me with everything I would guess is in her 50's to mid 50's. A Young who looks no older than 24 is in her thirties and has two daughters. Ae Ran is only 27. They did complain about being housewives an awful lot. They said that an unmarried girl is a princess and a married woman becomes a maid. They hate cooking for their in laws and think that old women rule the country.

I'm going to get my Alien Registration Card this afternoon. That means that I'll be able to get a cell phone, leave the country, and get Internet in my future apartment. When I returned home from dinner last night, I had just sat down when I got a knock at the door. Two women were standing there and handed me a yellow post-it note that said, "I am a licensed real estate agent." They then snooped around the place and asked me questions about any problems. I fear I may be moving very shortly.