Well, it's been another good while, but guess who's back again? I can't stay mad at you forever, Blogger, and even though last time I tried to use your photo feature you basically crashed my computer, I'm willing to give it another shot. I guess I can't blame you. The pictures my new camera takes are so powerfully awesome that you couldn't handle it. It's ok. I'll give you another chance.


Ahh, there we go! Much better. This is my feeble attempt at an "art shot" based on our near-weekly poker game at Music Cafe. I'd call it "friendly," but the competition gets pretty fierce, especially considering the buy-in is 5,000 won. That's only five bucks, folks. But it's always a good time. Matt, Yakubu and I are the regulars, with occasional participation from Ryan, Alex and Ashleigh (which would then comprise the entire foreign teacher population of Seoul Language Institute - Suji). Also in this wonderful picture you might notice a rather fantastic-looking potation. That's a bottle of Grape Soju cocktail, a delicious confection that has more sugar in it than alcohol - actually, that's true of most drinks in Korea. But this is a particularly enjoyable drink to share among friends, and the bottle looks like something straight out of a comic-store magazine cover.
Here's what may be my most prized purchase so far here in Korea. When I first rummaged through my cabinets upon arrival in my apartment, I noticed straightaway that I didn't have any glasses. Oh, sure, I had cups, but I lacked a true and proper glass. You know, a glass made of... well, glass. The kind of glass milk was made for. This was a situation that demanded rectification.

Then, one lonely evening on a grocery trip to Lotte Mart, when I was browsing through the dregs (read: the bargain corner) I found this precious glass, among mugs that said "We Are Wildmen" and discolored ceramic figures of Yorkshire Terriers. "Vitamin Your Life!" it commanded me. The giddily bouncing carrot promised me the ecstatic existence available to me if I took heed of the glass' sage advice. So I bought this glass. And, while I'm currently sick and not quite in a giddily-bouncing mood, I must admit that that cute lil' carrot does make me feel like I am vitamining my life, no matter what nutritionally-challenged drink I might happen to place in it.

Lately I have found many occasions to travel into Seoul, be they accompanying Matt while he gets his suit tailored, picked up the aforementioned digital camera, or even just going into Hongdae to hang out. The most memorable recent trip was a Sunday excursion to meet up with Dylan, a friend of mine from college, and his girlfriend Naomi in Seoul for some good old-fashioned wanderin'. We met up in Hongdae and had a delicious lunch at a real taco joint (a rarity here!) that they new about. We cruised the neighborhood for a while, then headed over to Namdaemun Market where the real shopping was. Namdaemun Market is a crowded jumble of already narrow alleys split in twain by food stalls, clothing stands and hundreds and hundreds of people who are apparently quite happy to plow through you if you're standing in front of them, even if it's not that crowded. I managed to take a few pictures above the heads of the passerby:

Ginseng!

Whoa, a picture with people! Dylan took this one of Naomi and I showing off our polearm purchases. I plan to use my giant foam pointing hand to call on students in class, but I haven't mustered the mustard to bring it in to school yet. Finally, here's an interesting juxtaposition I saw by the ancient city gate (in the middle of downtown):
Good stuff! A night trip into Seoul this past weekend yielded somewhat different picture opportunities...
These "ghostmen" rolled through the crowded neighborhood of Hongdae in their tricked-out Mini-Coopers dropping some serious bass and handing out flyers for an upcoming dance party at one of the local clubs. I have decided I have a new future profession. Forget teachin'. I want to ride around in a little convertible dressed like a mistranslation of the Blue Man Group.

Finally, one last picture to share tonight, as it is getting a bit late and my sickness demands that I get some sleep for once.
This is the fine fare available at my favorite place to eat in Itaewon: Smokey's Saloon. Maybe it's just the fact that these are the only real burgers I've had since I left America, but man, this was a tasty burger. Yes, it is as big as it looks. Those are onion rings on top. It's called Kiss Me Later, and it was filled with tobascoey garlicy goodness. Accompanied by seasoned potato wedges and washed down by a tall bottle of Cider, it was truly a meal for kings.

Well, in non photo-supported news, my spoken Korean is still nonexistent, but I can almost read the language fluently. Granted, I have no idea what most of what I can read means, but I can finally order from a menu without just pointing at it! I'm still a little shaky on some of the compound vowels, but my goal is to have a fully-functional understanding of Korean by the time my folks get here so I can impress them. That goes double for if/when Elise comes to visit.

Upcoming things I'll probably write about: tomorrow I'm going mountain climbing with Matt and my new weekend employer, one Mrs. Bo Daniels, and in a week and a half I will be going to North Korea. That's right. North. Korea. The final frontier of the Cold War! One third of the "axis of evil!" Needless to say my first opportunity to set foot in a Communist country excites me greatly. I'll be sure to write as soon as I get home so you know I didn't get detained for being a capitalist pigdog.

A Cascading Cavalcade of Catching Up

Well, gentle readers, it has been a good long while again since I updated with anything actually directly relevant to my personal life, so here I am! Life continues as usual here in Suji, teaching has been picking up gradually since the Chuseok holiday, and now we're back up to full speed and full class sizes. I must confess that it's been more difficult as of late, a little bit of that "new-job enthusiasm" is waning and my stockpile of Creative Teaching Ideas has begun to dwindle, many of those ideas having been proven ineffective for the students I've been teaching.

In terms of actual events affecting my life here, it is a very interesting and important time to be here in Korea, as I'm sure everyone has heard. Here's a great BBC article discussing some of the potential implications of this historic meeting. Having polled several of my students, I've been surprised at the variety of reactions these events have triggered. One of my more outspoken and articulate students, Jason, is strongly in favor of reunification with North Korea, because he feels that rejoining the Korean Peninsula would greatly improve the country's economic standing in what is becoming an increasingly competitive and important theatre - Eastern Asia. It's hard to argue with him when nearby economic Cinderella Story China is putting its vast resources to great use. Other students weren't as optimistic, indicating a long-held bitterness toward the North Korean government. As for myself, an my outsider's opinion, I'm cautiously optimistic about these peace talks. While I am 100% behind finally ending the stalemated war along the 38th parallel, and in that respect I wholeheartedly endorse the actions of the summit, I also believe that reunification would be a sticky and expensive matter. For South Korea, reunifying with North Korea would be an economic sinkhole, and the tremendously high standard of living enjoyed here in the south would take a hit as the government would be forced to split up very uneven contributions between the very wealthy and very impoverished nations. In other words, South Korea would be contributing the lion's share of the money.

However, Jason makes a good point, and in the long run, South Korea has a lot to gain in terms of international standing by reabsorbing its wayward Northern brother, despite initial financial setbacks. Reunification aside, as I mentioned before I still think the economic shows of good faith are an excellent idea and will hopefully assist the people who really deserve help - the average citizens of North Korea.

Moving on to more personally current events, the most salient where this blog is concerned is the latest addition to my pantheon of consumer electronics - a new camera! I have named him Hermes (after the messenger of the Gods, naturally):


Taken with my old camera, here is Hermes in all his tiny little glory. He's an Olympus (of course) 790 SW, which means I can take him underwater up to three meters, and even drop him from my full height and he'll probably be ok (I'm not taking any chances, though). Best of all, he boasts some pretty incredible video capabilities. Excellent framerate and sound pickup. One of these days I'll find something worth taking a video of, and I'll post it on youtube and get it up here.

Well, I had planned on sharing some more pictures and stories, but it seems that Blogger's Photo App. is a little under the weather at the moment, so I shall return later and try again. In the meantime, on a musical note, my favorite band as of late has been the irresistibly catchy, American Indie-pop dynamo The Format. In the interest of sharing them with you, a quick YouTube search turned up several of their music videos, which I hadn't seen and which are very creative and enjoyable.

This is the music video for "Dog Problems," the title track of their second and latest CD. I always thought it sounded like The Format was channeling Queen a little bit in this song (it has moments that sound quite like "Somebody to Love" and moments that sound a bit more like parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody"), and this music video, in a very strange way, confirmed it. Watch the formation of the hands during the bridge and tell me it doesn't remind you of the iconic formation of Queen during Boho Rhapsody:


And this is "She Doesn't Get It," which I think quite nicely illustrates just how catchy the band is:


In any case, they're an excellent band, just hitting their stride, and they've got a third album on the way. If you like what you heard, try searching YouTube for "Inches and Failing" or "The First Single." Those are two of my favorite songs by the band, and there are many fan-made videos for them.

I shall return when I figure out what's going on with the photo app. (the error message is, due to my IP, in Korean) I fear it may be the rather large size of my photos, but that's never been a problem before, so I'm not sure.

A break in the hiatus for a good cause

Hey, just a quick update to let you know of a good cause I think you should support!

Don't worry, this isn't turning into one of those blogs, although I think a bit more social awareness could definitely perk things up around here. Plus, this cause is definitely related to the theme of East-West interaction I'd really like to start integrating in amongst the more mundane details of my everyday life.

I have a friend from college, one Mr. David Degeest, who has been selected as a potential torch runner for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing! David will be running for his adoptive host mother, Ms. Yue, who took him in, fed him and helped him with his Chinese when he was in China for a fellowship after he graduated from Grinnell. Now, David is still in China, and he's started a really fascinating project. He calls it the China Dreamblogue, and you can read all about it here. It's a pretty impressive project.

So what do I want you to do about it? I would love it if you would head here to vote for David's bid to carry the Olympic torch. This is a fantastic opportunity for a friend of mine and an excellent way to spread awareness about his charitable project. The other Expat contestants got a little bit of a head start on him, but I think he's due for a last-minute rally! The voting only lasts for the next four days, so get to it! Oh, I should also mention that the website only accepts one vote per IP, so tell a friend or two! It's an excellent cause and it'll only take you about 30 seconds to support it.

Oh, and if you made it through all that, I have a free gift for you! Well, that's not quite accurate. Radiohead has a free gift for you. If you're me, and you like music, check out Radiohead's new LP, "In Rainbows." The band, being those crazy Limeys that they are, have released the album 100% free on this website. That's right, 100% legal and free. While I can't say it's as good as their earlier work, it definitely is a good album worth your time and (no) money. However, you have the option to donate money with your purchase. Being the philanthropist I am, I threw three pounds their way (like they need it) because I feel like CDs should really cost about $6, which I would be willing to pay for nearly any disc I really liked. So check it out. Also, Lucid-TV made a funny comic about it.

Long time no blog

Well, it's been a serious while since I updated the blog, but it's mostly because I haven't been up to anything particularly interesting. The usual activities of teaching, eating and wandering about Suji have filled up my time the way they usually do. Sadly, despite my long absence, I can't promise anything too exciting with this update but, since I feel like I should at least share something, I've compiled a little photo series of my usual food haunts, along with a few miscellaneous shots.

This is Mi-mandoo, my favorite place to score my favorite snack: Mandoo. It's sort of a steamed dumpling (also available at Chinese places, only fried) that is filled with either pork and vegetables or kimchi. Myself, I like to get the variety pak that comes with five of each for only about $2.50. It's a delicious, filling, inexpensive and even relatively healthy meal. I'd say I should write commercials for these things, but they could sell themselves to a fire hydrant. Love 'em. This is also where I like to get kimbap and chamchi kimbap, both delicious variations on the rice-rolled-in-seaweed theme.And this, of course, is Pizza school. Delicious medium-sized pizza (feeds one for about a day) for five bucks! Can't beat that, well, that and the fact that it's right on my route from work back home and a great place to read student's essays while I wait for the pizza.


This is the interior of Music Cafe, or as we call it, "Treehouse Bar." It's located in the area of Suji known as "Dirty Suji," where most of the restaurants and Karaoke rooms are located. This place is amazing. I don't think pictures convey how cool it is. The wall to the right of this shot is one giant chalkboard on which are scribbled words in many different languages (albeit mostly Korean, English and Japanese) and the wall is hung with classic albums. Like, really classic - Elvis and Willie Nelson classic. The table and chairs (and sometimes benches) are all mismatched and scattered hodgepodge about the place. Also, did I mention the giant friggin' fake tree that is the centerpiece? The traditional Korean drinks are served in intentionally dent-riddled brass pots, and the music is an eclectic mix of hits from five years ago interspersed with Hank Williams and The Four Tops. But the real charm of Music Cafe comes from its compartmental seating options:
Here you can more clearly see the chalkboard walls, and also the cool segmented, elevated dining options available for the valued customers of the Music Cafe of Suji! This is actually where we went for my birthday, and we sat up there on the platform on the left. Here's a detail of what I wrote on the wall:
There it is, right next to the vent fan. It says

"タイラーはたんじょうびにいました。"

Which is totally Japanese for "Tyler was here on his birthday."

Well, that's about it for the pictures. This week (yesterday, in fact) was Chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving day. This means I haven't had to work all week! Unfortunately, it also means that everything is closed up and I'm really bored. I've been taking some of the time to start to learn how to read Korean and complete some other writing projects, but unfortunately that can't last me all day or I'll go crazy! Maybe I'm going crazy anyhow.

Or at least I would be going crazy if I hadn't been reading the sublimely insane Overcompensating.

The Miracle of Skype

I just got off the "phone" with Elise! I used Skype to call her mobile phone in Mali and, while it cost over 28 cents a minute, it was well worth it. You can reach me on skype at the user name "stokesty@gmail.com" If you have Skype as well, we can talk and even use video for free! It's a really good program.

I also wanted to share this picture:
This is the last thing an outdated digital camera ever sees. Look upon the future... and despair! This is a shot of one of the store displays in the Electronics Mart in Youngsan. That place is truly an awe-inspiring shopping experience. I am planning on upgrading my digital camera next month, possibly to an Olympus 725, which is what Matt was shopping for when we went here on Tuesday morning (I got a phone). Haggling is the name of the game, and often it only involves moving from vendor to vendor, displaying the price the last one gave you and daring them to beat it or throw something extra in. They also do trade-ins, although my camera is old I might be able to get a few bucks for the battery and charger.

Photo B(ack)log

Twice the pun for the price of one, haha!

Anyway, without further ado, here's a minimalistic chronicle of the cabin trip my coworkers and I took this weekend.

But first, we begin in Suji, near the huge (and hugely expensive) Shinsege Mall. This is an upper-crust kind of place - for example, they're just about to open a Louis Vuitton boutique. This is at one end of the luxurious under-street walkway. After coming up a set of escalators (mind you, this is all just to cross underneath the street, not inside the mall or anything), you are greeted by this charming little waterfall setup. I had to take a picture because I liked the post-modern feel of the bareness of the blocks and the use of concrete and plain tile, combined with the old-fashioned style in which the little turtles were carved:
They appeared to be made out of some kind of fake jade, but I appreciated the little detail that they added to the very 1970's Po-mo thing the whole waterfall setup had going on. In fact, if I were feeling academic (and I am), I would speculate that this waterfall isn't a half-bad symbol for where Korea finds itself today - an increasingly powerful country in the modern era, participating and participating quite well in the trappings of now-a-days, leading the world in electronics and communications technology. However, perched upon all that post-modern uniformity is a small reminder of the strong traditions and proud heritage that still support this country. In fact, since being here, I've become appraised of a bit of Korean history that relates to turtles, which I will in transition share with you here. In 1592, when Korea was under siege from the invading Japanese, the impressive armadas of Hideyoshi Daimyo (the then-leader of a newly unified Japan) provided one of the most significant threats to Korea's sovereignty. The Koreans were severely outnumbered on the water, yet success in this area was crucial. The innovative Korean Admiral Yi Sun-san came up with the Turtle Ships, low-riding warships that were equipped with armored and spiked plating that completely covered the deck of the ship, causing them to resemble snapping turtles and giving them their name. These were essentially the first "submarines," enclosed although they were unable to actually submerge. They were armed with dragon heads on the prow that not only added psychological warfare to the boat's arsenal, but also actually emitted toxic gas that occluded the ship's position and allowed it to use its other unique weapon - an extension in the rear of the ship that could ram into enemy boats. Also the dragon's head could be armed with a long-range Korean cannon to take down ships from a distance, in addition to the usual deployment of eleven to fifteen side-mounted cannons. These Turtle Ships were an invaluable addition to the Korean flotilla and inflicted costly wounds upon Hideyoshi's armada.

Returning to the present tense, we have a very modern institution: a typical example of a Lotte Mart, the flagship establishment of Lotte corporation. This is the Lotte mart in Suji, about three blocks from the hagwon I teach at. This behemoth is about five floors of partitioned purchasing pleasure. The first floor is a grocery store, about as big as any you'd find here (although falling a bit short of your average Cub Foods or Rainbow Supermarket), I'd say it's about comparable to the grocery section of a Super Target. It's a good place to stock up on anything you can't find at your local market (Sing Sing Market for me), or if you want some of those same things at a cheaper price. My best finds include liters of skim milk that come with free vegetable juice and a box of cereal that came with a free nalgene-style water bottle taped to the outside of it. Good cereal, too. The second floor is divided into sections - there's a department-style store that takes up most of the floor, including clothing, electronics and home appliances. There's also a little instrument store, where I found this little gem:Reform Pianos? Drat. Where can I find the Orthodox Pianos? Anyhow, on the third floor of Lotte Mart (which foreign locals lovingly refer to as "Scrotte Mart") are several more little shops, including a T.G.I. Friday's and a pet store. It's kind of like a mall that's all owned by one huge company.

But you didn't come here today to hear about my life in Suji, did you? You came with the promise of hearing about the Korean countryside and my adventures with my coworkers.

Ok.

Eight of us hopped into J-Bomb's van at about 2:20 on Saturday afternoon. It took us half an hour to get to Lotte Mart. I should mention something. That's about 3 BLOCKS. The traffic was absolutely insane on the part of the highway that goes from downtown Suji to over where Lotte mart is. Once we got out of downtown, it was smooth sailing, however, and soon we left the bustle of Suji for the rolling mountainous countryside of regions south of Seoul. Korea is about 77% mountains, and it really shows. The narrow valleys between the gorgeous peaks were at first filled with sky-rise apartments much like the ones we left behind in Suji, only less omnipresent, but those soon gave way to smaller housing complexes and gravel pits and eventually, finally, gloriously, open country and farmland. We passed the exit for "Everland," Korea's largest theme park, and I made a note that it's pretty dang close to Suji and I should visit sometime soon. We eventually made a pit stop at some sort of weird restaurant/rest stop/zoo, where I of course snapped some pictures of the animals in their cages. They had quite a variety, from this proud peacock to a huge hare to, um...
Rottweilers? Ok, I guess that makes sense. These little puppies and their rather dejected-looking mom were penned up between the Hare and a bunch of exotic-looking fowl. Dad was in a cage next-door, and the intrepid puppies had found one peg of the cage bars between them that was bent up enough to crawl though. It was kind of sad. Anyhow, after we all got back in the van, we continued up into the mountains and through several small towns (and over several speed bumps that send my head into the roof of the van on two occasions. Finally, we came to the resort, which was much nicer than I had anticipated. There were a couple of very friendly (insistently so) dogs that wouldn't leave us alone the whole time, and the owner was very friendly as well. We began by playing some soccer in the small field by the house, climbed trees and played a game of kickball. The cabin came equipped with a set of badminton rackets and a shuttlecock, so that saw some use as well. All in all, at first, there were nine of us at the cabin: Myself, Matt, Bobby, Korean teachers Ross, Kelly and J-bomb, and secretaries Han-sun, Somi and Eun-jin. Later we were joined by Yakubu, Mr. Lee (the big boss), Mr. Park (the lead supervisor), Jay (the director and organizer of classes), Mr. Lee's girlfriend (who used to be a secretary) and another teacher. Here's a picture of the cabin:
As you can see, it's two stories, with plenty of lovely windows and seating available. This picture was taken when we first arrived, it was probably around 6 or so in the afternoon. When all the others arrived, we started playing some Presidents and Assholes, and we even taught Mr. Lee how to play. Nothing like being able to call your boss a "Vice-asshole." We had a wonderful dinner of Galbi (which is lettuce, rice and grilled meat, held in the palm of your hand) and grilled shrimp, cooked by Mr. Lee and Ross. The next few pictures won't require as much description, so I'll probably just caption them as I show them.Here's a view of the other side of the cabin. That's Mr. Park on the left, then Somi and Eun-Jin. The TV there has a karaoke machine built in to the DVD player, which we utilized later in the evening.
Here's Yakubu and Bobby (in front) and Matt on the other side of the table.
Here's the gang playing a Korean drinking game called "3 6 9" You count around the circle, clapping instead of saying any numbers that contain 3, 6 or 9. The fact that we were allowed to count in either Korean or English complicated matters significantly, and plans were laid to get people to mess up.

The next day, after a night of karaoke and games and lots of fun, we packed up and got ready to head out to the mountains.Here's another picture of everybody in the field outside our cabin. That's Matt over near the soccer ball. The two actually looking at me are Ross and J-Bomb, from the left. Behind Ross is Bobby. On the far side of the triangle of girls is Eun-jin, the closest is Somi, and the one holding her hands together is Han-sun.Han-sun and Somi in front of a mountain by the cabin.


Here's the gang underneath a gate at the entrance to the path going up a mountain. We "climbed" this mountain to the top of the paved path, which was very beautiful and ran alongside a mountain stream. At the top was this marvel, presented in three parts!
This Ginkgo tree is over 1,100 years old! They know this because it was a gift to the emperor of Korea at the time, and has lived ever since. It's also monstrously huge! At the top of the mountain path was also this lovely shrine:
We also got to drink some delicious cold fresh mountain spring water and generally be touristy. This was kind of new for the secretaries, as well, since although they are all from Korea they are big-time city girls. They even wore heels to hike up the mountain. Whoops.

We stopped to play around in the stream for a while on the way down. I made a traveler's shrine:
Anyone who passes this shrine may now add a rock to the top and make a wish! Good stuff. Finally, down at the bottom of the mountain we indulged in a somewhat more modern pleasure:
That's right, a viking ride. You can see Matt, Eun-jin and Ross enjoying it on the other side.

After the ride, we piled back into the car, stopped for some bibibap for lunch/dinner and made a long, long, slow ride back to Suji - it took five hours. Much of this was spent crammed in a corner of the van fitfully sleeping while listening to Con Brio. All in all, a fantastic weekend.

Photo-a-Day Double Dose Payday Special Extravaganza!

That's right, Wednesday was payday. You know what that means - too busy spending money to put a photo up. But seriously, I was really busy yesterday, and only some of it involved spending money. So I have for you today, gentle readers, a double dose of photographs, rather different, including my first photograph actually involving people. That's right, real, live people. Korean people! And one American. But first, this:
This is a shop that I saw out the window of the 500-1 bus that travels from Suji to Sunae (in Bundang) this bus is the fastest way to travel between these two cities and, as I'm beginning to expand my network in that city-I-almost-worked-in, I think I'll probably end up riding it quite a bit. I took this picture on the way to play poker at a bar by Sunae station with David and some of his coworkers at SLI - Bundang on Wednesday night. Specifically, this lovely little restaurant is in the neighborhood of Migeum - kind of like Suji plus. It's fairly big, very modern, lots of great shops and restaurants. The name of this one caught my eye as a particularly illustrative example of the way English has infiltrated the culture here. All I know is that I would definitely patronize a restaurant named "I love you." You can also see a Chinese character on the right of the neon sign. This is also a common tendency, especially in banking circles, where Chinese has heavily infiltrated the language. Also, I would definitely enjoy spending some more time in Migeum.
This is a photo of me and a few of my students. From the left, there's Tom, me, Christine, Jin Su, Chris, Andy and Michelle. These are a few students from Global Leaders 1, probably my favorite class to teach. They're among my higher-level students, lots of fun and very interested in learning English. Today in class I gave the class a really difficult crossword to do based on their vocabulary review (words like consequently, obtain, phenomenon and conflict). The group that finished with all the correct answers the fastest would be treated after class to a bowl of Ddeokbukgi, or rolled rice cakes in pepper sauce. Delicious! I also treated myself to a "chicken bar" which I think was actually fried pork in the same pepper sauce. Also delicious! I even got the kids to pose with me for a picture. I chose this picture over another, more posed one that we had taken because I think it shows the kids' personalities a lot more. Tom on the left is really quiet, Christine is a model student (she even helped me organize the order and taught me the numbers two and three so I could order properly), Jin Su and Andy are quite goofy, and Chris and Michelle fall somewhere in between. It's classes like these that are the most rewarding to teach, when they pay attention and actually seem interested in what I have to teach them.