Field Day

Last week, we were going to have the school festival on Thursday and a field day on Friday until everyone came down with swine flu. So, only teachers came to school on those two days. On the upside, though, we still had field day.
Here is our badminton tournament. Isn't the gym nice-looking? It is brand spanking new - I went to the opening ceremony on Wednesday. We also played some very intense games of ping-pong.

After all that strenuous physical activity, we needed to re-energize with some nutritious food.


And, of course, rehydrate.

For the record, Chinese food in Korea is so, so different. (during an after school class on food, one of my students told me "I like Chinese food the least because they eat insects." I didn't see any insects in the chow mein but I was nonetheless a little underimpressed.

Snakes, Pigs and Male Virility

Korean schools have school festivals a few times a year, where the entire school decorates, kids compete in games and show off their various non-academic talents. They usually look something like this:
This is not my school but you get the idea.

My co-teacher had mentioned a few weeks ago that our school festival was coming up and asked if I wanted to perform. I chuckled heartily to myself and set her straight on the facts. The facts being:
a). I don't even sing in the shower, much less in public (usually - thanks for the emotional scarring from that one night, Eric), and
b). people tell me that while dancing I am dangerous to wander near as one of my awkwardly flailing arms might sock them in the face.

Maybe I should have explained all this at the time but I just went with "haha, no."

This past Monday, the week of the festival, my co-teacher approached me and said "you need to end your after school class early today."

"Why?" I asked, thinking I was going to score some extra lesson planning time.

"We have festival dance rehearsal after school."

"What? That's a bad idea. I can't do that," I told her.

"I think you, uh" she hesitated, as if trying to find the right word, "you must do it. You must do it."

And what song and dance were we practicing? Well, I just happen to have this music video.



As my fellow teachers/dancers explained (or from what I understood, anyway) the song is about a girl who finds a bunch of snakes. Koreans traditionally believe that eating snake will increase a man's stamina and virility. So, the girl sings that she will take them home to her father and he will be so happy.

Since the band, Kara, wears school uniforms in the dance, the other teachers thought we could all just wear some old student school uniforms left by graduates. I love my school.

In all seriousness, though, I wasn't at all sold on performing, even after I saw the music video. But if I get to wear a cute school uniform, hells yeah, I'll dance and sing my ass off.

(This last comment may have sounded creepy. Please understand, getting to wear a school uniform was a childhood dream of mine.)

Oh, Sailormoon brainwashing.

(I'm not sure that explanation made me come off as less creepy...)


Anyway, just when I was really beginning to get into it (I'd finally memorized the opening lines I was supposed to sing!), they cancelled the festival because a few kids are sick. Swine flu, you ruin everything.

Americanos, I Miss You

Not to be a hater but Korea loves bad coffee. I thought that finally, five years down the road, the coffee snobbery instilled by my employment at Peet's Coffee & Tea had finally died. It has not. I realize that until this point I've been living in an insular community of coffee appreciators.

In Korea, the coffee of choice is Maxim.

They come in little sticks of instant coffee crystals and a shit ton of sugar and dehydrated creamer. The particular one pictured here is mocha flavored.

There are starbucks and espresso everywhere in Seoul, too. But I don't like Americanos enought to pay $4 for them (I mean, come on, it's mostly water anyway).

I admit, I am starting to enjoy the coffee here, though. I'll never like Maxim coffee sticks but my school has a coffee machine that makes supersweet mini lattes. They call this coffee but hey, potato, potahto, right?

I'll sound ignorant but before I came here I had assumed Koreans would have similar flavor palettes to my Chinese friends who don't really like sweet things. However, I've found the reverse - Koreans love sweets. I don't think Koreans actually like bad coffee, they just really like sugar and don't have much appreciation for bitter flavors. Wine isn't big here either (though this maybe more because of affordability and market dominance of soju). Most foreign foods taste sweeter here, even the ones that aren't necessarily supposed to (spaghetti sauce? garlic bread??).

Puppy Cafe

On Sunday, Eric, Bobbie and I met up at a cafe in the big college area of Seoul, Hongdae. The cafe was named Bau House because you can play with dogs while you enjoy a latte.

Bobbie was very popular, probably because she bought fried rice.

You can also bring your own dog to play with the ones owned by Bau House. Some poor dog was wearing a dress and bright pink blush.

Here's a shot of the cafe area. The little gray dog near the bottom of the picture peed on Eric's bag shortly after I took this picture. We decided it was about time to leave after that.

Seon Yoo and a Korean Wedding

On Saturday, I took Eric to Seonyoodo, the island park I visited with some teachers from my school. I thought it would be nice to see it in daylight.

The island has a very pretty park with lower and upper levels.

Eric liked the playground a lot. I think he might have scared the Korean kids though.

We ate lunch in the cafe there that looks out over the Han River.

The principal of my school invited me to his daughter's wedding so Eric and I attended it together with some of the other teachers from my school.
Unlike in the west, Korean weddings are built for speed. The wedding ceremony lasts about 20 minutes and happens in the banquet hall so guests can start eating immediately after. Also, instead of buying something from a couple's registry with a Hallmark card, the standard wedding present is an envelope full of money with your name on it. I enjoy the efficiency. Or, maybe this just shows how much I hate finding cards.

Here is Kyeong and the head English teacher of our school, Ms. Kim (Kyeong is also a Ms. Kim; it's a common name here).

Eric was very excited about wearing his suit. Everyone said he looked very handsome. Two of my male co-workers were joking I should watch out since all three of Eric's co-teachers are women in their 20s. Hah.

Chuseok Holiday

Last weekend was the Korean holiday of Chuseok, which is roughly like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined except with less Jesus and more ancestor worship. Most Koreans return to their childhood homes to see family and perform traditional Chuseok ceremonies to honor their ancestors. So, I got a four-day weekend in a somewhat deserted Seoul.

Since we had Friday off, some friends and I decided to go to Lotte World.
Here is Eric with two other friends from EPIK SMOE, Ryan (left) and Alec (center).

Lotte World is a theme park build by the snack food conglomerate, Lotte. It's sort of like a petite Disney Land.
Here is the Lotte World Castle.

Both Kyeong and Yeong Deuk told me Everland, Samsung's theme park, was better but no one felt like taking a train the hour and a half to get there. On the upside, Lotte World has both indoor and outdoor rides so you can go there in winter too. Also, they have brilliant children's rides.
This ride is supposed to be a mini-drop zone - it moves up and down vertically but doesn't fall for as long as the big ride. In practice, it just kind of shakes the riders up and down. All the kids looked a little nausious and confused, which reminded me of myself as a kid.

Eric used to go to shooting ranges with his father and grandfather so he got really excited about the shooting games.
Here he is with a stuffed flower prize from the game. He is posing with it and trying to look manly because I schooled him at the game and won the stuffed flower for him.

Afterward, we played around in the children's section of the gaming area.
Eric and Ryan played with the train. Aren't they precious?

They also had huge mechanical stuffed animals for kids to ride around. Eric got very excited.


I was very tired by the end of the day and whinged about going home for the last hour. So, I guess we both relived our childhoods.