Northern Antics

You might have read a few things in the headlines, as of late, that have to do with North Korea. Something along the lines of 'Nuclear Bomb detonation', 'Short-ranged missile test', and 'North Korea no longer feels bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War'.

While these are all scary-sounding headlines, I'm not taking the stance of
overzealous Wikipedia editors. Frankly, the general mood at the moment seems to be somewhat more apprehensive than usual, but no one's terribly worried (even given our proximity to the North). Frankly, there's just no logical reason for the North to launch an attack.

Some analysts think that this 'fear campaign' is being launched as a distraction, while an internal power-struggle ensues, following Kim Jong-il's stroke, last year. Regarding that, here's an entertaining, strongly-opinionated analysis.

Anyway, even with all of this huffing and puffing, life goes on. The new June-August semester is set to begin tomorrow. I'm looking forward to having a full work-load again - hopefully, it won't make those final few months pass by too quickly.

Have a good week.

Everland

On Tuesday, I went to the Disneyworld-equivalent of Korea: Everland. There are several amusement parks inside Seoul, but from what i've heard, they're mostly small, and built on levels (since Real Estate is at a premium, in the city). Everland is about an hour outside of Seoul, and really takes advantage of the extra space.

This park is a very, very well-built one. It's split up into 5 different areas:
-Global Fair, a series of shops and restaurants.
-American Adventure, where you can see Rodeo-stereotypes reinforced.
-Magic Land, where many kiddie-rides are found.
-European Adventure, where there's a really, really awesome restaurant area that has hundreds of tables, and a dozen outlets that sell European beers and foods.
-Zootopia, which houses a Safari where you can find Giraffes, Zebras, Bears, and, according to this sign: 1 Liger. I didn't see the Liger - I don't think i'd know one if I saw it.

The rides were cool, and mostly typical of large amusement parks (including large Rollercoasters). I did see one type of ride i've never seen before, though: a 'Shooting House'.

It was themed as a haunted house, but when you get to the ride, you sit down (on a cart of 4 people) and are told to shoot at the lights attached to the 'haunted' items. Not very scary, but good target practice nonetheless - and fun!

Unfortunately, I came down with a pretty strong headache, so I didn't get to see quite as much as I would've liked... but it's definitely a place I wouldn't mind coming back to, one of these days! If you ever plan to tour Korea, i'd put it on your list of places to visit.

Cheers!

Weekend in Busan

I returned to Busan last weekend, for a short vacation. We started off by taking a train from Seoul, early on Saturday morning. When taking the train in Korea, you have two options - the traditional trains (Korail - 5 hours), or the high-speed trains (KTX - 2 hours 40 minutes). The KTX trains reach over 300km/h.

Since I've never really seen the Korean countryside, we took the slower-train to head over there. I'm fairly sure that in total, I saw more rice fields than people. And I saw a lot of people.

I admit, before coming to Korea, I didn't know that rice was grown underwater:









Busan is most famous for its beaches, and so, that was the first and only stop we took on Saturday. Drinking in public is cool wherever you are in Korea, and there's something pretty awesome about just going into a convenience store, buying some beer, and staying on the beach for a few hours.

On Sunday, we toured some very interesting sights:
-The UN Memorial Cemetary in Korea
-The Busan Museum
-The APEC House

The UN Memorial was, for me, the highlight of the trip. It's a very solemn place, where soldiers from the countries that participated in the Korean War were buried, including 378 Canadians. I'm not entirely sure why their bodies were never repatriated, but I have a hunch that the 1950s logistics of transportating the dead in the middle of a war were difficult.

The Busan Museum had a mix of very interesting information (regarding Korean/Japan relations), and somewhat boring stuff (Pre-historic). I always enjoy a good museum, though, and this was no exception.

The last thing we saw was the APEC House. APEC stands for Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation - a group formed of Asian and North American nations. Every year, the heads of states meet (each time in a different country). You may remember this as 'that time that the Prime Minister goes overseas for a meeting'.

Anyway, in 2005, South Korea hosted it in Busan. They built this fantastic house to receive the leaders of 21 of the most powerful countries (including Russia, the US, and Canada). It's on a small island off the mainland, and gives a great view of both the city and the ocean. There were many pictures of Paul Martin with Roh Moo-Hyun, which really highlighted how the recently-deceased leader had been in power only a very short while ago.

Coming back, we took the KTX, which was quite cool. For something that goes so fast (it reached 305 km/h), it's a heck of a smooth ride.

Have a good week!

About Roh

The big news out of South Korea this weekend has been the suicide of the preceding Korean President, Roh Moo-Hyun - something that many Koreans found very shocking.

Roh was currently being investigated on corruption charges, that he took bribes while he was in office. In my Freespeaking class, we spend about half the class-time speaking about current-events, and four weeks ago, the subject of these corruption-charges came up. I found out that he was someone who was particularly-popular with youth voters, who had deeply dissapointed most of those followers.

One of my students had said that she had become very disillusioned about politics, because of this scandal.

Sadly, there have been a handful of celebrity-suicides as of late, this of course being the most high-profile. It compounds to a problem that seems to become more and more apparent, these days, in Korea.

I had an interesting front-row seat to seeing the reaction of the general public. I was on my way to Busan, waiting at Seoul's Central train station (i'll recap my trip in a day or two), when the news broke. Many crowds of people formed in front of numerous available televisions, with the reactions ranging from indifference for some, and looks of complete shock and grief for others.

In Busan, we came upon several groups of people who were mourning their loss in public, setting up shrines with President Roh's picture. In some, people lined up one-by-one in order to drop a white-rose by the portrait, and pay a final deep-bow to the former leader.

It was a saddening thing to watch.

Even though the scandal that drove him to suicide made him unpopular, it seems that many people ultimately still loved and respected him. To me, he seemed like a very charismatic man, one who may have just commited a mistake.

May he rest in peace.

Back Down South

My total picture count since i've been in Korea is nearing 2500, but this picture of a senior-citizen has to be in the top 10. It's not often you'll see a random old man wearing an Eminem shirt.

Next week is GEC's 'session break' - a week, in-between the end of the last semester, and the start of the next. Many fellow teachers are taking trips around Asia, but I failed to come up with a destination that was exciting enough, so instead of leaving Korea, i'll be staying in it.

That doesn't mean that i'll be staying in Incheon, though. I'll be spending two or three days down in the South of the country, in Busan. You might recall that at the end of September, I took a work-trip down there (only for a weekend), where I didn't get much of a chance to play tourist. It seems like the right time to rectify that.

The trip is planned from Saturday until Monday, which will let me save a few remaining days, for the next break session in July. Regardless of how the trip goes, it'll be good to get a short break from teaching, before starting my final teaching-semester (seems this year has gone by too darn fast).

Have a good one!~

Songmo Island

As part of our GEC contracts, Foreign Teachers are entitled to four different Cultural Trips - outings to expose us further to Korean Culture. On Friday, we went to Songmo Island; a place about an hour and a half away, famous for a Buddhist Temple.

We had to take a ferry to reach the island, where we were actually encouraged to feed Seagulls. The gulls fly continously around the ship, expecting people to throw things their way - and they're quite good at catching them in mid-air. If you held out your hand with one, eventually, a seagull would actually snatch it straight out of your hand (Check out the video at the bottom). Very cool, and very fun! Surprisingly, only one unfortunate teacher got pooped-on.

The Buddhist temple was quite elevated, and involved a bit of an uphill walk. There were many depictions of Buddha, most being statues. Some in stone, some in gold. Inside the temple were several people praying (which I didn't take a picture of, out of respect).

There were also stairs that climbed all the way up the mountain (about a 10-15 minute walk), to reach a carving of Buddha, which was another prayer-area.

Finally, after we were done, we went down to a beach, which because of the low-tide, didn't lead to the water. There was a few hundred-meters worth of mud, where people evidently scour for clams, or some sort of sea-food. It was pretty cool (though a bit dirty) to walk on.

On the ferry, coming back, some of us couldn't help but go feed those sea-gulls again. It's surprisingly fun. Here's that video:

May Days

In the past couple of weeks, it seems May has brought on holiday-after holiday. First, Children's day. Then, Parent's day. Last Sunday was Mother's day (well, not here) - and finally, tomorrow, there's one that concerns me:

Teacher's Day.

On May 15th, it's celebrated by having students present gifts, including Carnations to their teachers - well - it used to be celebrated on May 15th. According to my adult students, school is now usually cancelled on Teacher's Day, because parents were taking advantage of the opportunity, in order to bribe teachers. Korean Public classrooms have 40+ kids per room, so some parents attempted to sway the teacher's attention by giving a 'gift' of money.

Still, my morning adult-students surprised me by arriving this morning with Carnations (the flowers in the this picture), a cake, and declaring 'we're having a party!'. This, of course, being the same group that i've been teaching for 9 months - i've come to expect them to be awesome.

That's them, up on top (minus two who were absent, and one who was late).

The school administration also presented each teacher with carnations, as well as some sort of Vitamin C powder (that tastes like Fun Dip). There aren't many exceptions that will allow a man to say that he was 'touched' by receiving three colorful flower-arrangements, but I think it's fair to say that Teacher's Day is an exception.

Tomorrow, GEC has a planned cultural trip, where we'll head onto some island for a group picnic (which means no work - that's how I like my Fridays). Should be interesting.

Cheers!

Crane Games

Around every populated area, there are multiple Crane-Games, like the ones pictured here. Their main function, of course, is to suck change away from you. I've emptied my pockets for them a few dozen times, and yet the only thing i've ever won is some gum.

Still, it's one of those things i'll miss, when the time comes.

This weekend wasn't a particular exciting one. I didn't get to go out and Trek anywhere, since I had to work for the bulk of Saturday, but I did manage to catch the new Star Trek movie. It had been way too long since i'd been excited about that franchise.

The movie was great. It's absolutely beautiful, with a decent story, and a lot of nods to the Original Series (poor Redshirts!), as well as a hilarious one to Archer's Beagle from Enterprise. hehe.. My inner-geek is glad to see Star Trek rejuvenated again.

Happy Mother's Day!

Monuments, Stars, and Parent's Day

Back on Tuesday, after heading into China town, I went to a nearby Park. This park seemed to be a dedication to Korean-American relations, where several interesting monuments could be found.

The first (somewhat strange) monument was a dedication to 100 years of relations between the two countries (1882-1982). The reason I say it's strange, is that you have to consider that Korea was occupied by Japan from 1905 to 1945. I wouldn't call myself a very good ally, if I didn't help a friend in a time of need.

Another interesting monument was a Statue dedicated to General MacArthur, in 1957 (7 years after his operation in Incheon). The plaque of dedication is long, but the last paragraph really hints at how strong the anti-communism sentiments were, back in the day. It's the first time I see such direct political speech on a memorial plaque. Here it is:

''We shall never forget what he and his valiant officers and men of the United Nations Command did here for us and for freedom. And until the last battle against the malignant infection of Communism has finally been won, may we never forget. It was also he who said 'In war, there is no substitute for victory.''

Anyway - the rest of this short-week was good. Today (Friday), we had our once-per-semester 'Star Show', where kids compete against each other by giving pre-rehearsed speeches. 5 of my kids were competing at the same time, against a total of 40 other kids. That's all of them in this picture (numbers 1 through 5). Being my students, of course, they were all excellent.

Sarah, contestant #2, did me proud & pulled off a third-place win.

Well, lastly, today was Parent's Day. I celebrated by receiving a free steak at a local restaurant.
It was a little undercooked.
Oh well.

Happy Parent's Day!

Children's Day in Incheon

I took advantage of the mid-week day-off to explore a place I haven't seen very much of, in the last 8 months: Incheon. While I technically reside there, it's actually a shorter ride from GEC to go into Seoul, than it is to go into downtown Incheon. Because of the distance, and the seeming lack of attractions, I didn't make the trip 'til now.

Our first stop was Walmido, which is a popular attraction for families. It's a boardwalk with many restaurants, arcades, shooting ranges, and midway-rides on one side, and a good view of the Yellow Sea on the other.

Now, I knew that the Allies landed in Incheon in 1950, at the beginning of the Korean War, but I had no idea where. Neither do most of the Koreans that i'd asked. Randomly though, at the end of the boardwalk, I found this landmark:

Walmido, according to this landmark, was one of three landing-points for General MacArthur's landing. What struck me about it was that there's absolutely no indication, other than this fast-decaying sign, that an important part of Korean history took place here. It was dumb luck that I came upon it, but it was a pleasant surprise.

After we were done, we headed off to Incheon's China Town - which according to some Koreans i've spoken to, is better than Seoul's. It has quite a few restaurants, and many interesting shops. I had fried dumplings (quite good!) and black noodles, two of the more popular dishes on the menu.

A quick walk away from China Town was a park, with a lot of war-themed Statues and memorials. I found it very interesting... but since it's getting close to midnight over here, i'll hold off, and detail it a bit more later in the week.

Happy Children's Day!

Sleep Catchup

I didn't do anything terribly exciting this weekend, since I was pretty tired from having worked all of last-weekend. Still, I didn't let a 3-day weekend go completely to waste: Yesterday night, I went and watched that new X-Men movie, which was pretty good.

I also got caught up on Lost and The Office. Thank goodness for streaming-television.

As i'm well-rested, and ready to head back to work, I won't be heading back for very long. I do have to work tomorrow (Monday), but Tuesday is a National Holiday: Children's Day.

Children's Day is the 'Christmas' that kids look forward to, when they usually receive gifts from their parents. For that day, everyone in the country is off. Three days later, on May 8, it's 'Parent's Day' - an exciting day nationwide, where parents go about their regular chore and duties, and still have to go to work.

It's a combination of Mother's Day and Father's Day, where usually, according to Wikipedia:

...one gives a carnation with presents to his/her parents and/or sings the Parents' Day song.

I'll make it my mission this week to find out about this 'Parent's Day' song. It sounds nice.


Have a good week!