Vonage

Hey everyone. I now have a Vonage phone here in Korea. I have a michigan phone number and unlimited calling to the USA. If you want to talk to me and want my phone number, you can email me or send me a message through here. Just to let you know. Calls to me on this phone are just a call to a Howell phone, no extra charges.

Sleep Study

Well, wednesday night was my sleep study. If you remember, I'm pretty sure that I have sleep apnea and am trying to get it diagnosed, so it can be treated.

So, I showed up to the hospital in Suwon at 9pm. I go into the sleep lab, and it's just a small room with a bed and tv and fridge, all next to a big desk with lots of computers and stuff. The man there introduced himself to me as the lab technician. I wondered if he was going to sleep there staring at me all night or what. Anyway, put lots of sensors on me, glued two to my scalp, and he put me to bed. Oh, there was a urinal jug there too (didn't have to use it).

I don't think that I slept one wink that night. I hope that I did. It was an expensive sleep. At 6am the guy showed up to remove the sensors, I drank a bottle of juice, and that was it. I had to wait for 2 hours in the lobby for people to show up for me to pay them. Oh, but while I was waiting there was a tv crew filming a Korean drama in the lobby. Strange.

I will find out my results this wednesday. Other people have told me that their sleep studies were horrible, thinking that they'd not slept at all or enough, but there was enough data. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Snap Shots

Here are some nice snapshots that I've taken over my vacation. First, some pictures from Anseong. Here we have a nice statue vignette showing Baudeogi, remember the Baudeogi festival from september? Well, this is a cool statue that you see when entering the city.Next, here is an example of some of the very "soviet" like apartment buildings that are springing up in Anseong. These buildings are everywhere in Korea. On the way to Seoul, you see hundreds and hundreds of these buildings all in a row. All indentical. All the same. How boring. Anyway, Anseong is growing and so are these buildings.

Of course I spent some time in Seoul. This of course means that I spent some time in Itaewon, the foreign sector of Seoul. Remember my talkings about Hooker Hill? Well, this little shop is on Hooker Hill. I'm not sure if it's affiliated with that famous coffee chain from Seattle or not. What do you think?

In a bar called Gecko's in Itaewon, they sell beer that is either made in North Korea or is made from water from a stream in North Korea. Anyway, this is the advertisement for the beer. I found it funny. The caption on the picture says "where is all our beer?"

Outside of the express bus terminal in Seoul there is a huge department store. Here is a pic of a girl who was painting spring flowers in the storefront windows. I twas pretty good.
So, here are the pics from my couple of weeks vacation. Sorry for not keeping you all up on everything. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed.

Copyright Infringement

I've gone down to Songtan a few times on my two week vacation. Songtan is the city where Osan Air Base is located (not in Osan which is actually one town away). Here are some of the highlights of these trips.

First, ever since I had the stomach exam a few weeks ago and swallowing the camera and all of that ugliness, I am now very susceptible to car sickness. I only experience this on the local buses. The bus to Seoul is just a straight shot to the city. The bus to Songtan is 2 separate buses, making lots of stops and turns. I get so nauseous on these buses. Now I have to take some Korean dramamine (strawberry flavored) before I take off. Oh well, it works.

In Songtan, you find that everything caters to the soldiers that are there. You find restaurants that serve Mexican, Indian, Chinese, American, Philipino, etc. You find Subway, McDonald's, Popeye's, and Baskin Robbins. You find shops selling shoes in big sizes. There are discount shops that sell leather goods, blankets, luggage, designer purse knock-offs, nice Asian pottery and wood goods, etc.

One shop takes photographs and transforms them into paintings. Now, the ones on exhibit range from tacky to very nice. I liked the painting taken from a nice wedding photo, very sweet. Well, some of them were so tacky. This is a painting taken from a photo of a shirtless guy looking very serious. The painting was under glass, so it didn't come out too well... but this is it. He is sitting surrounded by tigers in the jungle. There are no words.
On one trip to Songtan, Brandon and I had Indian food for a late lunch. By the time we finished ordering almost everything on the menu, we had an $80 lunch bill in front of us. Wow. It was good but not something that I can afford every day!

The highlight to visiting Songtan are the bootleg DVD vendors around. Each sells the newest movies out there. But, the best is the shop that virtually sells about 2000 different dvds. The walls of the shop are covered with pictures of the dvds and a number. You just write down the number on a post it, and turn it in to get the dvds. They even have books of dvds that you can look through. Thank God I don't live in Songtan... my whole paycheck would end up at this place. Anyway, as I'm in this store I can't help but wonder if the police in Korea do anything about copyright infringement. Oh well.

Pomp and Circumstance

The next to the last day of school was graduation for the seniors. I have no idea what happens at Korean graduations, and no one told me what my role, if any, would be in their ceremony. So, I prepared by dressing nicely, wearing a tie, and being ready to go to a Korean restaurant and sit on the floor (this means make sure you have clean socks on).

So, I get into work. Eventually, pink ribbons are passed out to everyone, with a straight pin. The ribbon has some Korean gibberish on it which I was later told says something along the lines of "congradulations on your graduation." Each teacher had to wear this.

I asked my co-teacher what our role was in the ceremony. She said quite simply, the auditorium where it's being held is small, so the teachers just stay in the teacher office. That's it. I didn't see any of my graduating kids, not that I'll miss any of them really. I saw only maybe 3 seniors. That's it. I spent the morning on the internet and doing some work.

Afterward, the teachers were taken out to lunch for galbi-tang, which is beef rib soup. Very tasty. The floor was not so comfortable. God, I wish that just once we'd go to a joint with chairs.

Well, the way that the graduates celebrate, is to fight in the street with raw eggs and flour. Here is a pic of some other kids, not my students. My kids did also manage to get several of the fire extinguishers from the school and were fighting with them. Really, I didn't find it appropriate, but in Howell it's all about shaving cream and stuff. Who am I to judge? Happy graduation.

Travel Expo '07!

Saturday, Victoria and I went to Seoul to visit a travel expo having to do with travel within Korea. We met up with Dini and James (who take us to the military base sometimes) and Jude and Lindsey, 2 more teachers in the Pyeongtaek area. It's nice to get together with people from other cities and to do things that aren't too related to school.

The expo was at COEX, which is a gynormous mall/convention center in Seoul. It was so incredibly busy and obnoxious, if I was run into yet another time by a Korean I was going to scream. At any rate, we were at the travel expo. It turned out that each booth/district had little to offer in terms of English. Apparently, given the governments huge effort to bring thousands of native English speakers to Korea to teach and live, the Korean tourism industry has decided that only Koreans will want to visit the various regions. This got Victoria's goat, and she did make a complaint that they need to bring some pamphlets in English.

Anyway, it was a stragne kind of expo. Lindsey and I went around visiting the booths, but mainly drinking the free booze that was offered up, some strange mint water which tasted like toothpaste, and generally looking at everything through sarcastic colored glasses. So, here are the pics. Enjoy.

Here are a couple of really cool paper lanterns. The one drumming was animated, they were pretty cool. Reminded me of my dad's Christmas lights. I miss that.

Here is a pic of me trying on a replica of the most famous crown/artifact from the National Museum. Man, if I wore this in class, my kids still wouldn't look at me.I couldn't get enough of the people in the big head costumes. How cool are they? Oh, it was hot as sin in the expo too.

And here are just some strange pics from the expo. Some robot sculptures made out of junk, and some fun stuff. What a strange trip to COEX it was.

A Whole Week's Work

This week was my return to work, from a 3 week vacation, which was actually a 5 week vacation for the students. We have only 7 days of classes, then it is the end of the school year, with vacation until the beginning of march. So, this week we have had nothing but half-days. The students had their final exams almost 2 months ago. Needless to say, everyone is aware of what a complete waste of time this actually is. That said, very little was accomplished. However, I have started getting things prepared for the new school year. I made this clock, laminated it and everything. Obviously, it's to practice time in English. All of the Korean teachers saw it and asked "Oh, what is this for?" What do you think it's for? It's a paper clock, I'm going to put it on my desk and move the minute hand every minute so that I have a clock at my desk. Geez. I am way too proud and happy about this clock.

Some Pictures To Enjoy

Now, just some pictures from around town, around Korea... things to tickle your funny bone, things that are strange, things that are just interesting. So, here is a glimpse of my life.

First of all, did you know that it's the year of the pig? Well, it is. You can buy pig shaped things everywhere. I bought a golden pig lighter that you push down on the tail and fire shoots out of the rear. Classy. Apparently it's good luck to have a baby in the year of the pig. I've read that the sale of birth control is down this year. Anyway, here is a nice pig shaped cake that was not available before new year.

Last week I went with Victoria and her winter English camp kids to Building 63 on their class trip. Building 63 is, you guessed it, 63 stories high. It has a mini mall in it, observation deck, IMAX theatre, and small aquarium. Here is a picture of a soap store in the mall. Why is it called "Lush?" Is it a soap boutique for drunkards?In the aquarium they had this habit of putting stupid very fake plastic things in the tanks. For instance, origami cranes. Are they native to jelly fish tanks? Well, here are a couple pics of the big tank with a plastic jeweled diver in it. How tacky is that? The diver is the green guy at the bottom of the tank.

So, Koreans are really racist. However, it's equal opportunity. Koreans don't like anyone who isn't Korean. So, to prove this, here is a very racist (in my opinion) stereotypical alarm clock that I saw in an underground store. Oh my.

Bad Choices

If you ever get a chance to live in a foreign country, one where English is not spoken at all, maybe you will relate to this entry. When I'm home, I tend to have the television on and turned to an English station. Now, there are 3 stations at least that play movies, mainly in English, sometimes in Korean. I also get a strange version of Fox that shows some good things, and In Style, which shows some good things. I also get AFN and Discovery. The most annoying thing with Discovery is that it's geared toward Asia, so it often has programs on China, which are subtitled in English, but with Korean subtitles directly on top of the English. Now, that's annoying.

Anyway, because of this habit of having the TV set to English stations, I have viewed so many things that I would never ever watch in the U.S. Here is a brief listing of the guilty TV viewing... please, be kind and don't judge too harshly.

Princess Diaries, both the first and the second one.
Maid in Manhattan, J.Lo and Ralph Finnes, a classic.
The Tyra Banks Show, only occasionally.
America's Next Top Model, which is still all about Tyra.
Oprah, only when it's an interesting topic.
American Idol, it's a season behind, but I never watched it in the U.S., so it's new to me.
Hell's Kitchen.
Top Chef.
Project Runway, oh the drama!
Bring It On.
Spiderman, it's on all of the time, no more!!!

The horrible movies that I've seen are too numerous and shameful to name. But, suffice it to say that they are the kind of movies you see on a lazy sunday afternoon on the USA network or something.

Stop judging me!