“You’re almost Korean!”

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Many good times to be had this week and weekend with it all coming to a head in Seoul. Cass’ week, school, and situation is getting better with a little old fashioned ‘seating chart,’ making everything else seemingly better as well. Maybe our good fortune just came with the rice cooker… but I don’t want to give away any of the story.

Monday, the male teachers at school put up nets in the gym and invite anyone who wants to, for a round of the national sport, outside of Tae-kwon-Do, badminton. This isn’t the brand of badminton that you set up in the backyard during summer BBQ’s to keep the kids occupied, this is competition. There are usually ten or so teachers from different schools that come and play for a few hours and then meet for dinner afterwards. I thought I’d join them. The last time I played, my shoulder took over a week to be functional again, so I took a bottle of pain killers, and got my game face on. There are teams of two, playing to fifteen, best of three games. I ended up winning and losing a game each, but more importantly, I didn’t make a fool out of myself. Afterwards, we went out for Soon Dae soup and went home. I couldn’t help but think that, after playing badminton with Koreans, and dog sledding with Alaskans, all I really need to do is maybe blow dart an animal with a tribal leader in the Amazon and I’ve got it all covered.

Meanwhile, Cass was playing volleyball with some of her teachers. She must’ve reverted back to the good ol’ days of Whitehall High Trojan Power, and was voted the MVP of the night. Apparently talent crosses all cultures, as well. She got some kind of blanket as a prize.

Wednesday was the rice cooker fiasco (see previous entry), but before that, I had to teach my second teacher’s class in the afternoon. I am totally responsible for creating a curriculum for this class and teaching it to the staff of school. Since this is the first time for the school to have an English teacher, I am focusing more on fun and destroying their fear of English than on teaching pure content. That’s more my style anyways, so I’ve been having a good time being creative. I let the staff choose the next theme that we are to learn about and I prepare the materials; this week was food. I made an English menu and had them practice ordering food as if we were in a restaurant. I changed into an apron and came in to take their orders. I don’t think this happens very much in their teaching style, because I got a rousing round of applause from everyone, including the principal! After I took their orders, talked a little about tipping, customs and courtesies, I left to get the three pizzas I ordered to share with them. It was a very lesson which I hope eliminated some of their dread and insecurities about the English language. Next week is movies… I’ll let you know how that goes.

Thursday saw the sequel to that. Cass’ friends were worried the rice cooker from the used appliance store was less than trustworthy. I was rather happy about it, but they weren’t. The three of them, Cass, Eun Hee, and Mrs. Moon, stopped at the electronics store, after school, to buy a new cooker. I can only speculate how things went down, but the storm which is those three women, burst into the apartment with a brand new, smaller, but cleaner, version of the one sitting on our counter. I have to tell you, it makes some of the best sticky rice that has ever entered my mouth.

Friday, we got together with our friends Reagen and Leandra, an engaged pair from Capetown, and met another married couple from Canada, Jason and Rachel, to go bowling and play some Phase10 after. We needed to waste about a half hour before the league finished up, and went to a nice small coffee shop downtown that will most likely see a lot of my Won this year. There was definitely not the best of scores posted bowling, and you can never beat a late night game of Phase10, so fun was had all around.

The next morning, we got up early because we were signed on to help the YES program (Yeoju English Stars… that festival our first week was the same sort of thing). My co-teacher heard we were interested in going to the Korean Folk Village so he called and got us hooked up with the program. As is typical, that is really the only information he could get us, besides having a student’s mom pick us both up outside our building.

Our ride picked us up with a small fifth grader hanging out the window waving at us, "Joan Week, Joan Week," as well as my name written, in both English and Korean, on the frost of the back window. We pulled into the meeting place downtown, and soon found out we weren’t the only ones left in the dark regarding the day. Luckily our Reagen and Leandra were working there as well, and helped as much as they could. Since we were an afterthought, we weren’t assigned a group of kids or given any materials. They simply just divide the already existing groups by six and called it a day. The remaining hour bus ride to the Folk Village was filled with a song and game on the loud speaker. From that point on, John Denver’s Country Roads will always remind me of this day.

We pulled in, and after many questions Cass and I joined our separate groups (don’t tell anyone), found a map, and off we went to wander around this huge place for the morning. We quickly learned, at the first official stop, that teaching the kids from our sheet we were to read to the group, was not going to happen. We settled for just going to each planned destination and sightseeing. Maybe it was just before we had two crying children on our hands and no way to communicate with them, or perhaps it was just after the souvenir ninja sword was taken away, that we realized we were in for a day of work, not sightseeing.

Luckily, it is a very cool place. It is an entire historical village, with people going about their daily lives as if the world around them hadn’t advanced passed the Stone Age. There are different dwellings, from each region of Korea, palaces, historical shops and stalls. It is quite incredible to see people, dressed in traditional clothing, weaving baskets, making paper they paint your name on in Korean Hangul, stoking the blacksmith fire to make knives, and so many other things that escape my memory right now only because I’m trying to think of all those things. I hate when that happens. The afternoon was filled with keeping our little wanderers at bay while we watched some phenomenal traditional performances, music, dancing, a teeter-totter slingshot thing (imagine standing on one side of a teeter totter and having Andre The Giant jump on the other side… yeah, cool… it was like a boy’s childhood fantasy come to life), and a tightrope walker- or dancer- it was all so cool and they were so ridiculously talented!

Exhausted from the long day outside, we jumped on a bus to meet Renata and some other friends in Seoul for the night. Rumor has it, Itaewon, an extremely foreigner friendly (i.e. American because of an army base in close proximity), area in the city would be extra fun because of the election. After getting our hotel room and wandering around the city trying to find a specific bar recommended to us, we stopped for a drink at a nice looking place. On the menu… Long Islands. Now, L.O.T.’s (as I have christened them with my friends the Byars’) always instantly transport me to the Pinnacle Lodge on top of Big Sky Ski Resort, where the only thing better than the LOT’s and the trash can lid of nachos, is the skiing. This drink, I’m afraid, never took me slopeside, but more towards the gutter, because of it’s potency. Yahtzee… I’m pretty sure I can speak for Cass and Renates on that, as well.

Later we met up with some other English teachers from Yeoju that just happened to be on the same bus. We most definitely did some two-stepping, ate some mash-ee-so-yo (delicious) pork dish, and went to a much deserved bed. It sure felt like our Saturday had about 72 hours in it.

Sunday, after the crackers and club soda (you know what that means…) it turned out to be quite a nice day. We went to a market in Seoul, where we found a vertical mall. Really, it was build up, not out, and the food court took up the ninth floor. It was as if we were in a huge tube; the stores surrounded the escalators clustered in the middle of the building.

After parting with Renata, who had to be back early, we joined Reagen, Leandra, Jason, and Rachel coming into town to go to church and dinner. They attend an English church, which was nice, not only to be in a church atmosphere, but to be surrounded by a community of English speakers. It was very comfortable.

Afterwards, we went to an American Diner. The first officially ‘American’ meal I’ve tasted since coming to Korea. I ate… drum roll please… a bacon cheeseburger! Most likely the most expensive, average burger I’ll ever eat, but it was worth it. I never thought I’d say this, but I really don’t miss the nasty greasy style of food. Here, you need to search for that kind of food.

I’m also willing to say, I love Korean food. Throw down some Kimchi and I’ll gobble it up. Bi Bim Bop, a rice and veggie dish, mash-ee-so-yo! I will definitely fill my annual quota of cabbage and radishes, but I’m going to take advantage of it while I’m here! So once I figure out how to prevent random food from ejecting itself off my chopsticks onto my shirt (ahem... today...) that will be a plus. Besides, we have a rice cooker and I’m learning the language from another teacher at school, so as the locals so eloquently put it, “You’re almost Korean!”

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