Reasonably Well-Dressed Korea Guy (and other tales)

Does everyone recall Mysterious Stranger???

  It was maybe October last year that I first spotted a Mysterious Stranger. I won't go into too much detail, but basically it was an attractive foreign guy who had no business being in Songtan. I say this, because he clearly wasn't military, and I try and make it my business to know all the teachers in my immediate area. And he was off my radar. Stealth mode. Mysterious. 

  I would give daily reports whenever I saw him (always headed towards the station in the morning, I never saw him any other time), things like what he was wearing and what level of interaction we had. He vanished from my life after winter, maybe when it started to get warm again. I remember this because he had gone back to wearing the black trench coat rather than his thick snow jacket. So I am guessing it was maybe March he disappeared, never to be seen again. 

  I pass many people in the mornings, they have become fixtures in my daily life. I give some of them weird back stories, and personalities and all that, but I never really thought anyone was quite as interesting as MS. And I still think this. But as the weather gets colder, I feel the need to add more excitement into my morning ritual of people spotting/watching. I need to start blog-stalking again. I need to write about a person in the morning. And the person I have chosen in Reasonably well-dressed Korean Guy. 

  Let me tell you a bit about our new, unlikely hero. He is approx. 5'5, and had more of a heavy build (which is a bit different from the skinny Korean norm) but I wouldn't exactly describe him as fat. I would put his age at around 30, but you can never tell with Asians. He could easily be just in uni and only 21. He has short hair and small eyes. I would not say he was especially attractive, more just general looking... In fact you wouldn't give him a second glance except the fact he is generally pretty well dressed. For a slightly chunkier guy he wears pretty cool threads. 

  For example, this morning he was wearing a tan blazer over a woolen jumper (sweater for our North American readers), black pants and brown shoes. I know, black pants with brown!!! Most would say its a faux par, but he pulled it off nicely. He looked suave. And here in lies his interest factor - he makes weird fashion choices that work. 

  And so, from here forward, I will keep you all updated as to what RKG is wearing.

Changes to this blog

  I have been doing some reading of other peoples blogs, and just stalking of people in general and I can kinda see a trend... The blogs that are popular and get many hits have more structure, or at least more structured content. You know if you hit up "Jimmy's" blog its a travel blog... Or "Sally's" blog is a cooking blog. I know I have mentioned that mine if more of a random life blog but still, I will try and give it a bit more of a frame by adding in sections. This hopefully will increase traffic to my blog and make more people like me... My life in an endless struggle to get people to like me. I acknowledge this and reaslise this is not what life is about. 

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. And I have one. 

  So I will put different content under School, Life and Thoughts. Hopefully I can still keep a running theme but if not oh well. Shit happens. 

  I have had some questions coming in lately about life in Korea from people reading all over the place. Please, keep them coming to either my email or in the comments section. I am more than happy to help out where I can, and give you my honest opinion. I love getting comments and emails (unless they are mean, keep it to yourself then) its like getting a hug from afar. 

  Some feedback that I have received (regarding content) that I will start adding into the blog is overwhelming regarding my sex life and dating in Korea. I thought about it for a long while and decided that yes, I will share some things with you... Not gonna name any names, and if the story involves someone I know directly don't worry I will ask you first. But I have some mega funny stories that can only happen in another country and at just wouldn't be right to keep these gems locked up for myself. 

- Mum, and the rest of my family, please consider this fair warning. 

 

 

 I also plan on adding more information about places I visit. I have seen some amazing places while I have been here, but you wouldn't know because I never finish what I start. I noticed the other day I never even finished telling the story of when Mum visited and we went to Busan, and I hardly even mentioned Gyeongju the weekend before last. Korea has a rich and colourful history that I talk nothing about, so I want to enlighten you. 

  So I hope you enjoy the future posts, the snow has started here in Korea so photos are on their way! Here is a summary of things I got internet shopping last week to keep you entertained until then:

• hooded short coat (in a lovely blue colour) - Gmarket
• Adidas hoodie for Milky (to match my coat, but it's too small so I will bring it home for Peach) - Gmarket
• black long jacket - Gmarket
• black leggings with fluff on the inside for added warmth - Gmarket
• brown long warm coat - from the recycle group on stalkbook... 35,000 won bargain!
• curry - iHerb
• weight loss pills - iHerb (and useless... took them for like 3 days and didn't get skinny at all)

xoxoxox

  

Exploring Songtan

  I have lived in this town for more than a year now, and I regret to say I actually haven't explored it much. I just walk the some tried and measured tracks and don't really try anything new. I eat at the same places and order the same things.... Until recently. It's all part of my "see Korea" mentality, and what better way to see Korea than to start with my own town? I have wandered around Seoul more than Songtan!!!

  Milky and myself went for a walk yesterday, and can I just say, Fall is such a nice time to explore. The weather is pretty cool here, but the place looks amazing with all the colours. Some trees are still holding onto their leaves with a death grip, and some are even still green! So in my area I have a lovely mix of leaf colours - green, brown, yellow, orange, red and all colours in between. No purple or anything like that, which is unfortunate.
  Anyway we walked up the street and I decided to go to the park off to the right instead of the left where we usually walk. I like to go to the left because there are a shit load of stairs on that side, and I tend to walk that path with intent (my idea of exercise). Seeing as we were just strolling on Sunday, I figured we may as well check out a new route. And I am so glad we did.
  The park on the right has the same things as on the left, in terms of exercise equipment strategically placed around, but the thing I right away preferred about it was the distinct lack of path. Its as if this mini park/hill/forested place is trying to be a mountain and you can trek and hike it. We trekked in and followed the track up to the top, past all the oldies doing their routines in the bars and leg swingie thing (it can't possibly working any muscles, I have no idea what the deal is) and up to the top. I saw a clearing through the trees and came across some burial mounds.
  WTF BURIAL MOUNDS IN THE MIDDLE OF SONGTAN??? Yes, thats what they were, complete with little grave markers and trimmed grass. It was weird, I never knew that it was up there... On one side was the park/forest and then a clearing with graves,

and then a house! And a bathroom :s TOTALLY WEIRD! I am not sure what the deal is with taking pics, so I quickly snapped one and went on my way. We continued strolling through the park and I decided to take us down a slope which opened up into another clearing. Ahead were new buildings, apartments and a new road. To the right of me was another grave, but this one was bigger, like a full on shrine. And it was recently tended to, there were fresh flowers there. And to the left was a cleared hill with more grave mounds at the top. Now, I have so many questions about this so I need to get asking, but are people just allowed to buy their family members anywhere they like? Are there people in there? Or cremated people? In jars??? And, the land around here is pretty hard to get at the moment I would think. There is always a new building or something going up... So do the families own these plots? Or does the council? With so many people living in Korea it seems unlikely that everyone would have their own little park for graves, so is it only rich people??? Sooo many questions!
  Either way it was a peaceful place, out of the way of other houses and the road, and away from the park too. I want to include the area in my walks now...

  The next place I want to talk about is the new cafe that has opened basically across the road from my apartment. Me and Jess went there the other day for coffee and decided it was the best, and then I went with Ben on Saturday and we ate. The food was amazing, its all organic and they cook it all there and you can tell that it tastes better than the usual fare. The price kinda reflected that, Ben's salad was something like 13,000 and my pasta was 15,000 but it was sooo tasty. AND YOU GET FREE BREAD so bargain!!!
  Its also a gallery, and whoever the owner is has put pics up from around Songtan, and I liked trying top guess where the photos were taken. The photographer has also been to Paris and taken some fab photos there, and the Paris pics are all on display upstairs. Its really trendy and looks like the whole place would fit in better in one of the trendy Seoul areas, not in Songtan. But I am glad it is there and I am totally gonna eat there again!!!

The free bread (eaten lol) and Ben's huge
salad.
And the cool coffee :)

 
It makes being in Songtan more fun, going and finding new things to do and see... I a few weeks I am planning a mini trip to another province to see some more interesting things. To be honest I was feeling a bit stuck in a rut of late, and I needed to get myself out. I mean, I have great and fun friends so they are always handy but you need to be able to get yourself out of a slump too. I think it was the initial change in weather - it is getting really chilly. And I felt like I didn't do enough with my Summer... I spend too much time doing the same things. So first I started planning other things to do. And then decided to explore my area. And I plan to continue my adventuring! Time is going by soooo quickly and I don't want to look back on my year and feel like I have wasted it.

  So I am mega saving... After I get back from Aus I want to put cash aside for a trip to Hong Kong, and of course I want to see more of Korea.

The cheesy pasta - 15,000 won

  Hope everyone is having a stellar day, and not freezing. Even though outside it isn't too bad I am in my classroom with a blanket wrapped around my legs. No lie. And I forgot my lunch. And looking at my food pics is killing me.

Sigh.

xoxox

It's Cool in Fall

What is this?

  What type of blog is this?? 

I read on some page somewhere that all blogs should fall into some sort of category... Which got me thinking. Is this a travel blog?? I certainly talk about my travels, but I don't know if the whole content falls here. It's def not a cooking blog, although I do post what I am eating and have been known to add a recipe here and there...

Lifestyle blog? Maybe... But I feel that implies I need to either have kids or talk more about my sex life (gotta have one to talk about it I spose...)

So what will I call this? I think it is a "life experiences/conversational/mind dump" blog. Hope this title is ok with everyone...

*mental note to change the blog description*

#wantsmoretraffic

#missuseofhashtags

#hashtags4lyf

What really happens in Johto...

  Myself and a friend got chatting the other day, and for whatever reason our conversation turned to one of my favourite topics - pokemon. He raised some disturbing points that I want to flesh out here on my life experiences/conversational/mind dump (henceforth called ECMD blog). 

  First, I want to say that these are questions that can be applied to all Pokemon regions, not just Johto, but as I am playing Pokemon Ruby on my phone atm, note that I am referring to the Johto region and all Pokemon I mention will be from there. 

  Ok. So, you get given a Pokemon by the good Profession Littleroot, and you start catching Pokemon. You battle with them, and end up a champ. Let's apply this to a real life situation. You capture an animal and train it to battle until it passes out. Some of them you keep in the back of a van in the dark, others are sent to a warehouse where they are kept in dark cages and never seen again. The ones in your van you train to fight, and regularly challenge people and are challenged in return. You right your animals for money. You force them to grow up with growth hormones (yeah, "rare candy" my arse) or prevent them from growing. You do this repeatedly for your own personal gain. And yet people tell you that your animals like to battle. 

  Let's now look at what is happening in the world of Pokemon. I used to watch the show. It was good. Here are some interesting observations - 

You never see any farm animals, or see any regular fish or birds. 

You see Ash and his friends eating burgers and pizza and other things.

Sometimes you see Pokemon doing hard labour. 

Here is what I think:

They are eating pokemon. They need meat, and there are no cows or whatever so they have, as my friend put it, "pikachu steaks"... And for sport, do they hunt the deer Pokemon? And shoot the bird Pokemon? 

Is there illegal fishing of the sea Pokemon? WHO MANAGES THESE THINGS?

Do people keep goldeens in a bowl like a normal goldfish?

What about that Pokemon that kinda looks like a giraffe? I wonder if someone out there has pelts hanging on their wall of that one... 

  And we who are playing are like sick hunters... we look for the most rare pokemon, the ones where there is only ONE LEFT IN THE WORLD and we try to catch it. And then we force it to fight. What the hell are we turning our children into??

  As you probably know I am eagerly awaiting the next Pokemon game to be released. I will be all over that like Asians on rice. 

In other news...

  I was mega emo last Friday, just missing people who have left Korea and also home... I have had so many dreams lately where I am in Australia. Its prob cos of all the planning for my trip back in January. I will be home for about 3 weeks before heading back to the land of kimchi, so hit me up if you wanna hang. Anyway I had too many drinks and ended up yelling at some poor guy I know (overwhelmed him with English and girl tears. He was suitably freaked out), and then went and had a cry to Steve, Jinsook and Shanda. Sorry everyone... I am not usually a teary drunk, but I was feeling kinda overwhelmed. And lonely. I miss my old friends sooo much. Korea isn't the same without them. 

  I want to buy a new camera. I have pretty much decided to get the Sony NEX 5T, it seems to have all the cool features I want. I don't know much about cameras and stuff so this is a decision based of recommendations by friends. I will let you know when I get it and start posting stupid pics and hopefully doing some new videos. 

Ok, I think thats all I have for now. Let's talk again later, ok??

xoxox

Kids say the darnedest things...

Conversations and observations

  Taking into consideration language/age/experience barriers, you would think that the conversations I have with many of my students would be, well, stupid. And for the most part they kinda are... At the same time though they crack me up, whether it be what they are saying or what they are trying to say. I love how the kids often want to include me in their conversations and tell me about what they are doing. Often they just wander over and tell me their stories in Korean, knowing I might only understand a tiny portion of what they are going on about (in my head I am like "ok, I think he is talking about his mum...").

  I have a perfect example from today. 

"Teacher, this boy is fat"

  One of my grade 5 girls is reasonably high level (by comparison to all the others) and sits next to this little boy who is a little chubby. They help each other out with their work, and get along pretty well. I walked up and was standing off to the side of the boy when I saw him rubbing is tummy. I asked him if he was sick.

"No, Bonnie. Not sick. Hungry."

I giggled and told him he should have had breakfast... At this point his neighbor chimed in.

"Bonnie, he had breakfast. He had 2 breakfast... He is a pig and he is very fat." 

I told her she shouldn't call him fat, and that he is still getting taller. She shook her head sadly and looked at the boy and gave him the most pitying look I have seen a child give another.

"Bonnie, he will always be fat, even if he is tall. His face is fat, and he loves food too much. His weight is 57, and my mother is weight 45... He is much much fatter and still hungry." 

The boy is watching her, trying to piece what she is saying. She writes something on his book (the weight of him and her mum) and then he nods and starts agreeing with her. He tells me that yes, he is fat, and he loves food. He looked so sad as he was saying it... He grabbed hold of his tummy and started shaking it. He stopped, both the kids looked at each other and the boy started pissing himself laughing, all the while saying "Nooooo so fat!"

It was the funniest conversation I have had in a while. The 3 of us were giggling like crazy, trying to be quiet during class. 

HE DID IT

I have never know a bigger group of "dobbers" in my life. These kids rat on each other relentlessly, and then just get over it. 

2 boys were up the back with their books propped up. I wandered over to see and lo, they were playing with their phones. So obvious. I just told them to put them away and left it... They put their phones in their pencil cases and that was it. But they left their books up... I don't know what they were doing but it wasn't phones. The next thing you know one of the girls from the front of the room has her hand up and is telling Co that they are playing with phones. He naturally goes ballistic and kicks them out of the class and takes their phones. 

Whenever there is some giggling or screwing around in class Co will stop teaching and demand to know who the culprits are. In Australia, all the students would be dead silent. They would rather die a painful death than give their class mates away. Not so here. All fingers are pointed (literally) and names are called out until the students responsible for the disruption are standing up and shamed out of the classroom. Its totally bizarre. 

Compliments???

I know I have mentioned some compliments I have received in the past, but this week they have been cuter than usual...

"Teacher, your hair is like a doll"

"Bonnie I like your nail colours"

"You are wearing nice blouse"

"No lense? Good colour!"

In Other news...

  I am blown away by what is happening in Australia at the moment. I don't wanna get all political on everyone, but Kevin Rudd is the PM again??? What the hell happened? I know Julia wasn't popular, but Labour Party please - YOU GOT RID OF HIM LAST TIME. And all of this just happens...

  To be honest, the Kevin 07 campaign sold me. I voted for the guy - I DID NOT vote for Gillard. So I was pretty mad when they ditched Rudd as the leader of the Labour Party and the counrty. I did not vote for Labour in the next election, mainly because the party proved they could not be trusted. They strike me as a bunch of back stabbing morons that do not follow through with party promises. Anyway now it seems yet again the Labour Government are playing with Australian voters. It's stupid. Sooooo not gonna vote this time. Fine me is you want...

  Some democracy - its illegal NOT TO VOTE in Australia. Ugh.

  Tickets are purchased for my flight to Japan in August!!! I am meeting Jess and Nay (Melbourne friends) in Osaka and we are touring around from there. I am super excited waaaahajdkfofknsabdflkjocaidhnfav...

  I will be flying with Asiana Air I think (shout out to Heejin for booking my ticket) so I will do a write up on them at some point... And I am planning on taking my camera AND camcorder to get some nice memories of Japan. So I am on a super tight budget here now preparing for the trip. 

  I had to say more goodbyes this week - Big goodbye to Heather and Michelle. Heather is from the UK and Michelle from Ireland... They are great people and amazing friends. 

Heather stayed at mine before she jetted off (she is headed to Australia the lucky bitch) and I love her so much... I feel like I have known her my whole life not just a year. So I spent the morning crying about that... This is the hardest part of doing this teaching abroad thing... You leave friends from home, come here, make new friends, then they leave you! I don't want to even think about what I will be like when I leave.

I am in the process of signing a new contract to stay here at the school in Korea for another year. I love this place too much, I can't leave yet.

Anyway, extra class time! Better go educate some kids.

xoxoxox