Korean Culture

Again, we have been neglecting to post anything new, sorry about that everyone!
We have done a lot of things since we last posted and I hope we can get you all caught up on everything.

I felt like it is only suiting to make a post about something we have learned a lot about and that is the Korean culture. Now, when I am talking about Korean culture, I don't mean the traditional old school culture. I want to talk about the ever day culture that we are exposed to, such as general do's and don'ts, food, and just general things that Koreans do.

Marriage:

Let me first tell you about how Korean's are expected to live their lives. Typically, Korean's live with their parents until they get married. They live in apartments since there are hardly any single family homes around here. Once a married couple moves in together, they are expected to have children soon after and the wife will quit her job to stay home and take care of the kids. The husband is expected to work long hours at a major company and have many late nights out drinking soju with other business men. It isn't rare for Korean children to rarely see their father's because they aren't around when they get home from school.

Education:

Korean children go to school year round with 2 breaks in the year. There is one week long break in the summer and one in the winter. At a certain age (usually when they are 2 years old), they will start to feel the pressure to succeed and surpass all the other students in class. This is when they will join Hogwans (private schools) like the school we teach at. A typical elementary student will go to regular school from morning (8:00 AM) until night. They will attend regular Korean school and then go to their Hogwans after school, at a Hogwan they will learn anything from Piano to Art to English. Sometimes they will be in school until midnight. Our school has after school programs for elementary students to come to for 2 hours a few days a week. Our school is basically a kindergarden where the kids come to us during the day and go to other Hogwans after school.

Being White in Korea:

Some of you may wonder how it is being white in Korea. Let me tell you... it was really hard at first getting used to all the stares and glares. I certainly have moments when I don't feel like I belong and the attention is very unwelcome at time. I am learning how to respond to the men that come up to me and ask if I am Russian and wanting to know if I am a prostitute. For Michael, he gets told on a regular basis how handsome he is by older Korean men. Being white here does have it's perks though, every now and then we will get things for free, it's called "service". I believe we are on some tourist tv show somewhere because of the cameras that have been in our faces during events that we have attended. It's normal for us to get pointed out on the street, and hearing, "Foreigner!" in Korean.

Being a Korean Female:

I feel the pressure sometimes that I have to look my best everywhere I go. Korean females have a lot of pressure to be perfect, that is why plastic surgery is so cheap and popular here. Many Koreans get their eyelids and noses done, men too. Walking around here it is easy to see how important looks are to these people because there are mirrors everywhere! Is it very normal to see someone staring at themselves in a mirror for a long time poking at their face. I just shrug and look away.

Food:

Korean food for the most part is pretty good, we have been staying away from seafood though. We really enjoy Korean barbecue and the different types of soups/stews. Korean food usually comes with multiple side dishes and kimchi or course, which has grown on both of us. If we don't have kimchi for a few days, we will find ourselves craving it. Here is a list of some of our favorite Korean foods. 

Kimchi: Spicy fermented cabbage

Pajeon: Pancake with green onions: made many different ways, with seafood, kimchi, beef, or pork

Galbi: (our favorite) Grilled short ribs that are seasoned with korean soy sauce. Served with a lot of vegetables to make your own wraps. You cook everything yourself.

Samgypeopsal: Thick fatty slices of pork belly, not marinated or seasoned. Cooked at the table and dipped in sesame oil with vegetables you can make your own wraps.

Korean Ramen: Absolutely delicious! It's cheap and easy to make just like the ramen back home. This ramen is spicy and comes in so many different flavors. I like to make mine with just a little water and add a slice of cheese and hard boiled egg in it. yum! 

Rice Cake: These little balls are filled with sweet sesame seed syrup. They are very chewy and made from rice. Not my personal favorite. This is only one type of many rice cakes.

Fried Chicken: Korean's make the best fried chicken I think I have ever had. A lot of places a dish that is sweet and spicy and that is my favorite!

Tteokbokki: This is made with cut up pieces of rice cake in a spicy red sauce. You can find it at many street food vendors.

Kimbap: Korean "Sushi" very cheap rice and seaweed roll filled with loads of vegetables, sometimes tuna, crab or cheese. 

Alcohol:

Koreans drink quite a bit. It isn't unusual to find someone passed out on a park bench at midnight on a Tuesday night. The drinking culture here consists of eating and drinking together, usually a apart idea. However, it may be hard to just find a bar to have a couple drinks at. That is when you head over to the corner store, buy a couple beers and sit outside on the plastic chairs and watch the people walk by. Korean alcohol consists of beer, soju (very high alcohol content 16%~20%), and plum wines for the most part. Or course you can find all of the other good stuff here too.

K-pop:

K-pop is a music genera that is widely known for their audiovisual elements. If I where to try to compare K-pop to any musical group from the states, I would say it's close to the Backstreet Boys or Spice Girls. Make all of the wardrobes identical, hyper sexual hip thrusts, identical plastic surgery, and some singing talent and you've got yourself a k-pop group.

Well this has turned into quite the novel, but there is so much to share! We will continue to take pictures and post on the blog when we come across the different sights, sounds, smells, and tastes in Korea.

Deokjeokdo

Hey All! Sorry it's been so long.

Albeit a long while since we've blogged, it has mostly been due to lack of time rather than lack of blogable activities. One of our first excursions happened weeks ago when we had a few extra days off for Buddha's birthday and Children's Day. We decided to join a bunch of our co-workers on an island excursion. The island was called Deokjeokdo and was located off Inchon where the airport is.

It took a while to get to Inchon via bus and then we had to take a ferry to the island. This trip was a few weeks after the tragic ferry incident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_MV_Sewol) so we made sure to sit on top of the boat. It was a very pleasant trip there where you could buy ramen and beer from a snack stand inside.

The island itself was beautiful. Note some pictures we took:

We stayed in a "pension" which consisted of a room and two floor mats to sleep on. In Korea floor mats are very common to have instead of beds. Here, the heating in many buildings is done via floor heating so people just sleep in floor beds. With a warm blanket on top and it is like being in snuggely buggely pita pocket that is nearly impossible to escape. It also some sort of kitchenette where we had a beautiful view of a broken down toilet in the lot beneath our window. It appeared to have been used just before it was disconnected.

Despite being frigid at the time we hung out at the beach nearly every day. We did a ton of grilling of samgipsal (which is essentially 3 fat bacon). 

There was also a ton of opportunities to hike all over the island. Chayla and I went hicking one day as well as me and one of our co-workers, Rory.

It was a pretty intense hike at points...

 ...but the views were beautiful.

We really enjoyed our time on the island. On the way back some of the kids were being super rowdy and, being teachers trying to get away from that aspect in our lives for a weekend, this was unacceptable. So Rory whipped into Pied Piper mode and played the "Let it Go" song from the movie Frozen, on his guitar and serenaded the kids into a comatose state. Over here, Frozen is still being sung by kids in school despite being over 12 months old. I've added a bonus picture that one of my kids drew.

Thank You Mary!

Thank you Mary Henle for the amazing care package! We love you!

Sunday Hiking Adventure

We are taking a well deserved break from school today and we went a long hike in Tapgol park, near our home. There was a lot of little surprises along the way. We walked about 20 minutes to get to the park and found a steep incline walking path that went straight up the side of a mountain. We made it pretty far above the city, very quickly.

We kept walking and got onto a normal path, which led us up to an exercise park... These exercise parks are very common here. They have exercise machines just kind of in the middle of nowhere, you wont be far from a good workout anywhere here in Korea, even at the top of a mountain... :/ (as if we didn't burn enough calories just getting there)

After our brief workout, we went forth and came across another very interesting thing, A path that is made of small rocks. The purpose of this is to walk on it barefoot for pressure points. I gotta say, it hurt!

About ten more minutes of walking, we turned a corner and saw a really cool modern looking building and a glass tower, it was an amazing view! Pictures do not do it justice. We found out after looking around more that it was a church. You can see the cross on the tower. We climbed the tower and it was about 100 degrees inside there.

So, that is what we did today! Back to school tomorrow. I hope everyone is having a good weekend, wherever you are.

Chayla

Let the teaching begin!

Hello there wonderful people,

Much has happened since our last post. We are now two weeks into the school year and getting along splendidly. We have now settled into more of a routine and have pretty much caught up on all our planning and organizing our classrooms.

Chayla has 4 girls and 3 boys in her AM class. Each has their own little personality and are cute a bugs (the cute kind, not roaches or something). Here is proof:

Personally, I don't know how she manages to teach four year olds. I imagine it is like herding cats. Yet she is doing an amazing job and the kids love her. In fact, on White Day (Korea's version of Valintine's day for the women folk) she got a ton of chocolates, gummy bears, macaroons, and candy. I think I even saw a gold encrusted truffle peeking out of her knapsack, but she keeps denying it. Anyways her kids love her a ton.

Chayla also has a shorter, PM class which I don't hear to much about other than it has 4 kids, but she is getting more.

I have my own AM class of first year 6-7 year olds. It is quite a class full of some real personalities.

My PM class is a more advanced, elementary class where the students can write their own stories. We also did a little project where students make up their own carnivorous plants. (my favorite being a plant that sends plant ninjas out to attack prey and bring it back to eat.) This class is right up my alley.

Our co-workers are pretty awesome as well. We've been our with them both weekends so far and we can tell they are going to be some lifelong friends. The Korean gent in these photos is dating one of our coworkers, Shannon. He is quite awesome and had taught me a bunch of Korean words I should know (and some I shouldn't). He has been very helpful translating things too, as our Korean is atrocious.

Finally, our area, Bundang, is awesome. We talked a little about it last time, but as we continue to live here it just keeps getting better. Hit the link for an awesome (and lengthy) tour of our neighbourhood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C52hmgqpQk