School Trip!

Last Friday our school , a.k.a 'Best Hagwon in Korea!!!!', took our six and seven year olds on an overnight school trip. We were headed to a resort hotel in the Gyeonju, a beautiful city about an hour north of Ulsan.
My brief peek as I passed through Gyeonjus has me salivating to return on a proper day trip and really explore the place. The building codes for the city state that ALL buildings must conform to traditional Korean architecture. Which is how you get petrol stations that look like this:



but that's an adventure for another day!

Meanwhile, back at the resort, we got the kids unloaded and unpacked and settled into their rooms for their packed lunches.
I gotta tell ya, Asia has really cornered the market on packed lunches! No soggy sandwiches here! Best of all, the kids shared their food with us teachers! Mmmmmm! All the kimbap I could handle, it was lush! Even better than the food was the kid's delight in feeding the Waygookin (foreigner)! I was helping to take care of one class in particular, most of whom are in my Afterschool English class, so they were familiar faces - it was great spending time with them outside of school - mostly cos I could cuddle them as much as I wanted!



After lunch we herded everyone into a massive conference room for a puppet show. I'm not kidding when I say the place was awash with children - five different Kindergartens were visiting the same day.

I understood nary a word of the show but I loved every second of it for the reactions of the kids and teachers alike it was brilliant!


After the puppet show it was time to hit the pool, or I should say pools, as there were four different ones for them to sample, as well as the hosed down bouncy castles that looked like; castles, Boeing 747's , a spaceship and a pirate ship. The kids were so excited it's only thanks to the constant hosing that they didn't spontaneously combust! After the bouncy castles they got to ride around on pedal operated horses, after which they had a well earned rest in the shade with some complimentary slushies. I got a real kick out of seeing the fashion parade that was the kids swimwear, or just Korean swimwear in gereral, or rather the lack of it. The kids were in great swimgear, but all the adults in the place were rocking the joint in t-shirts and shorts. I even saw one woman wearing three layers of tops - it was delightfully and bizarrely Victorian!
The Life Guards on the other hand were vintage Baywatch, MmmmMmmmm!


After an afternoon by the pool we dripped back to the rooms and once there I experienced a phenomenal example of Girl Power: myself and three other Kindy teachers showered, dried and dressed 22 7yr olds in 15 mins! We formed an assembly line, one to shampoo, one the rinse and two to dry. For 15 mins all I said was, "Next! Arm. Other arm. Leg. Other leg. Next!"

After dinner there was a kiddie disco, which was out in the courtyard with fireworks and lots of synchronised dancing - I wish adult discos were as much fun!!

But the single best, favouritest, highest high point for me was when the kids were settling down to fall asleep. The girls were all in the bedroom of our unit and the boys were with us four teachers in the living room. It was screamingly cute watching them snuggle and tangle together like puppies in a litter! I dare you to contradict me!

Dear God in Heaven, but I love, love, love my job!

Peace out!

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!

The Tuesday before last my social life in Ulsan took a giant leap forward when I screwed my courage to the sticking place and joined the Ulsan French Conversation Club.
It's so me, when you think about it - for years I dreamed of moving to France but was too chicken about my language skills - now here I am in Korea, gamely trying to learn a whole new alphabet, and I join a club to practise my french!

I was very nervous going in, as it's been a good ten years since I was fluent and these days I am barely above tourist level. However the gods were smiling on me and when I went into Momo's Cafe in Mugeodong I met four lovely Americans with great french and forgiving natures!

This week at French club one of the girls announced that she could not stay long as she had a Tae Kwon Do belt test later on and would any of us like to come and watch? I jumped in with an emphatic "Mais oui, bien sur!" (But of course!)

I got the chance to watch white, yellow and orange belts testing and best, oh by far the best of all, I got to see four black belts sparring! They were frckin' amazing!!
At the close of the session there was meditation, which joined in for. I sat cross legged on the floor getting all Zen to the sound of Korean traditional music and couldn't help smiling to myself. It felt like I was in one of the opening scenes for the make-over montage of a martial arts movie: Irish girl does Karate Kid!


Anyway, I was hooked, and as we left I told the Sah buh nim, (Master), "I'll see you on Thursday!"

And so it was, on Thursday I duly returned.
I was shocked and giddy with delight to discover that he had a uniform that fit me. You would probably have to be here to realise quite how suprising and delighting it really was!!
I was called up to the front of the class to introduce myself and got a round of applause merely for saying "Annyong ha sayeo" (hello). Talk about an easy room! Though it will make practising my Korean much easier if it greeted with clapping rather than giggling!

Then as class started, came the surprise bonus - it turns out that my years of ridiculously infrequent yoga and pilates have done enough good that my Sah buh nim wa impressed with my flexibility and balance. Go me!

Later on, when we were practising forms (the punches and blocks), as I was the only White Belt (total beginner) one of the Black Belts came over to coach me individually. I had seen this guy sparring on Tuesday, this guy was a regular Jet Li! After a few practise runs he looked over to me and said, and I swear I'm not making this up: "You watch a lot of Kung Fu movies, don't you?"

Ha ha!! NOW tell me that TV is uneducational!

I had my second class on Friday night and I am thoroughly loving this sport. It's a good hard workout without the boredom of the gymn. The class is roughly half foreigners and half Koreans, so I get to make new friends, both domestic and international, as well as having a safe place to practise my Korean.

AND, on top of all this is the reason I wanted to learn Tae Kwon Do in the first place: access to the culture. It seems to me that Tae Kwon Do is to Korea what hurling is to Ireland - an integral piece of the national identity.

I have always wanted to learn a martial art and it seems deliciously efficient of me to learn one that will also give me an 'in' to Korean culture.

So watch this space - in about a month I should be reporting the acquisition of my Yellow Belt! Huzzah!!

Etiquette and Dried Squid

For the last few days, I have been pondering two topics that are vitally important for any tourist, traveller or indeed pilgrim: manners and food.

Let's start with manners - it should go without saying that the first thing which should be packed into your suitcase (metaphorically speaking) is a sense of tolerance, or at the very least, the ability to take a breath and count to ten before reacting to a situation.
If asked to differentiate between a tourist and a traveller, most people would probably say timespan. 'Tourists' head away for weekend and fortnight breaks while 'Traverller' has long term connotations.
For me, however, the difference between the two has always been that of attitude rather than duration. I don't want to wax too philosophically about this, so I will try and be brief!
It seems to me that the Tourist goes somewhere to relax and collect photos, sights and souvenirs as if they were on a scavenger hunt. This is probably coming off as derogatory, but it is not I assure you, I have been a tourist myself in the past and will again in the future - in fact my best tourist experiences were in my own capital city!

In my book - which has often been wildly different to everyone else's - the Traveller goes in search, not of souvenirs, but of insight. What makes a culture tick? How are we different? How are we the same?

This coming Saturday I will have been in South Korea for a sum total of eight weeks and in that time I have found tolerance and simple manners to be invaluable allies for a smooth transition.

Now, don't let the word 'smooth' fool you. I'm not some sort of Zen Travel Master who can move effortlessly and seamlessly around the world! It's been eight weeks and I still haven't crossed the threshold of a Post Office (that's a story for another day) and on Saturday I travel down to Jirisan for some hiking and that will involve....gulp.....getting from Ulsan to Daejeon on several types of public transport all by myself!

Where was I? Oh yes, manners! Mail and trains aside, those are phantoms of my own brain. When it comes to actual relations with actual Koreans, I'm playing a blinder!
This is because as a seasoned and dedicated Traveller, I pay attention to the details.
I am painfully and incredibly slowly learning Korean.
My pronunciation is probably excerable, but they are so delighted that I am making the effort, that even while they are laughing at me, I can see how pleased they are.
I hand my money to the till assistant in my right hand, while gripping my right forearm with my left hand. ( I don't know why they do this, but I do not need to know, a simple case of 'When in Rome....')
I bow slightly when greeting people, older, in authority, or simply because they have bowed first!

And segueing gracefully into my second topic, the biggest area for displaying your manners or lack thereof is at the dinner table.

I remember when I was about nine or ten, my Uncle Jim explaining to me that one should always accept food gracefully, and even if you think it is hideous, don't let your face reveal it. Be polite, and swallow! I have no earthly recollection why we were having such a conversation, but Uncle Jim had been to deepest, darkest Africa and therefore was the authority on eating strange food politely! That lesson stuck in my head and I have to say it's reaping dividends here in Korea.

At our Hagwon (private school) a cooked lunch is provided for the staff everyday by a very skilled Cook. For the first six weeks I was eating meals of which I recognised about 20% of the food. I plunged in gamely and soon had the Cook, via a translator, complimenting me on my chopstick skills and asking if the food in Ireland was like this, because I was eating so well!
Slowly I am starting to recognise the food, and lovable, beady-eyed Cook is quick to notice what I like and serve it up again! Sometimes though, knowing what the food is, only makes it stranger, so far I have eaten:

• three kinds of seaweed
• a salad leaf which in Europe is considered a roadside weed
• tree shoots - boiled - I kid you not!
  
• mountain bracken - surprisingly tasty
  
• cubes of acorn jelly - tricky blighters to pick up with chopsticks!
• a curry that no Indian on the planet would recognise
• sweet potato noodles

Today at lunchtime, I hit the jackpot. Sticking to my policy of eating and then asking, I dived into one of the seafood side dishes. Twelve hours later my mouth drools at the mere thought of it! It was delicious! I asked what it was - dried squid in thanhchan sauce (the sauce used in Bibimbap - Korean stir fried rice dish).
I love squid, but if I had been told before eating, the word 'dried' would have conjured up images of chewing leather, and I would have left it after me.

Not only did I get to meet my new favourite dish, I quite unwittingly earned the obvious and loud approval of everyone at the table. They are used to, and approve of, me trying everything, but that I should so clearly and unmistakably like this seemed to warrant an undue amount of congratulation.
To be honest, I thought they were overdoing it a bit!
My co-teacher Lucy explained that Ulsan, being a coastal city, is naturally big on all kinds of seafood but that all the previous foreign teachers didn't like the squid.
Aaaaahhhh, so it was the rarity value provoking the outpouring of approbation!

Lucy complimented me, saying "Oh, you have a very Asian taste!" I was able to tell her that I had eaten squid quite a bit in Europe, that it is popular in Spain, France and Italy, just that I had never had it dried.

So there you have it peeps, with manners and an iron stomach you will never fail to win friends and influence people!

Ciao for now!