Rotten Pumpkin Porridge and Cheesy Bites at Pizza Hut

Happy Halloween!

Wow, it was a scary scary day! Well, Brendan was scary! We will post pictures as soon as we can. He was a terrible vampire and scared all the kids! We just had a fun day of twister and trick or treating at school. The kids don't celebrate halloween outside of english school here, so it was fun. It is weird not seeing anyone dressed up though.

We carved jack-o-lanters on Monday. Well, Brendan did all the grunt work, but he loved it! They don't carve pumpkins here either so it was a real treat for the kids to get their hands in the pumpkin. Well, Brendan and I got our hands all dirty, the kids used a spoon.

The gross part about the pumpkins is that the teachers at the school disregarded our advice to put the pumpkins outside where it was nice and cool. So, Tuesday morning the pumpkins had already started to rot and smell. Of course, the didn't put them outside last night either. Here is the Grossest part:

The cook is going to make pumpkin porridge out of them.

We drew with marker on them, left them rotting in the heat for 3 days and now we are expected to eat them! Whatever. We will enjoy watching the others eat the pumpkin porridge.

We have just accepted that nobody will ever tell us anything at school. Now that we have our own classrooms, Brendan and I are extra left out, which has its benefits. Since Brendan's new classroom is the best one with windows, we just chill out together in there with the door closed. All we need is a radio and we are set! We also have the two classrooms that are furthest away from the rest of the school - coincidence? Probably not.

We found out that our water bill is crazy. The whole building's water cost is split up between all the apartments. What you pay depends on how many people live in your unit. Its ridiculous! I guess we have to live with it though. Its really, really obnoxious that we conserve so much water and have to pay for other people who may not be conserving at all. But, oh well. We can't do anything to change it. We have yet to find out how we pay for electricity, gas, or the telephone, or how we can get internet service at our place once we buy a computer (hopefully by this weekend!!!), but we'll keep trying...

The good news is that the school has actually applied for our medical insurance! Holy Cow! Apparently we can go to the doctor in the meantime and just give them our alien registration number until we get our blue medical card. I (Tara) have come down with another flu-like cold that Brendan seems to be getting at the moment, so it is nice to know that we can go to a hospital if we need to.

Okay, Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut is not the same here as it is in Canada. Pizza is very, very different. Usually, its covered in mayonaise, spam, and potatoes. But not at Pizza Hut. We had this chicken Cheesy-Bite pizza, which is essentially cheese filled crust cut up into bites along the edge of the pizza. It came with pasta. (They LOVE carbs here. Holy cow.) The waitress was the best part. She was sooo cute. She kept coming to our table saying things like,
"Excuse me...uh,...oh...uh...where are you from?"......"OH!!! You're from, Canada?! Oh, I love it there...I love it. I think, uh, that, uh, umm, it is very, beautiful there."
"Oh, You've been?"
"Oh, uh, ooo, no..But I had this english teacher...oh, he was, uh, oh, he was so nice, uh, HE was from Canada, oh, I like Canada."
"You should go!"
"Oh, yes, uh...you, are very beautiful, and you are very handsome...uh, oh, well, enjoy your meal!"

So once again we just randomly got on a city bus, knowing that it goes past our apartment, eventually, but not really knowing if we will be going in the right direction. Everything here kind of looks the same. The same kind of resaturants, lots of SK telecom stores. Anyway, so on our bus ride home from Canada Buddy we totally didn't see any restaurants or SK Telecoms after we turned onto a dark road. We couldn't get off the bus because there were no more bus stops. Just a rural, one lane road with a swampy canal on one side and fields and trees on the other.

Hmm. Where were we going? It was kind of scary.

We finally arrived at a kind of bus depot, totally in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, it was only past 8pm, but dark out. The bus driver turned the bus off and looked at us.

"Hello?" He said.

"Uhh....Bucheon Yok? (station)" We look confused.

"Ohhh..." He says. "Over there." (there is a bus waiting to leave.)

So, an hour later we arrived at Bucheon station. At least we know a little bit more about where we can find more barbecue restaurants and SK Telecom stores.

So, even I thought I was exaggerating a bit when I said that riding the bus gets crazier and more dangerous every day, but today was by far the most life threatening day on the road yet. Yesterday, the bus driver merely ran a red light to turn left and almost caused an accident with a car turning right from the opposite direction--nothing compared to today when the driver started driving on the wrong side of the road, before running the red light and turning right across two lanes of traffic. The whole ride we could see him chewing gum, literally looking like he was possessed by some demon, yelling at taxi drivers, honking at pedestrians crossing at the cross-walk, all the while speeding at at least 80km/hr.

We made it to the school, though, in two whole pieces, and in only 10 minutes (when it usually takes at least 20).

As I mentioned in the mass email that everyone reading the blog probably received, we got our Alien Registration Cards yesterday, so we have some identification now and our passports back again. Now, we can get medical insurance (hooray!!), just in case of any bus accidents, or if a motorcycle hits us, and can now leave the country, though that isn't likely to happen, barring some unforseen disastrous turn of events (e.g. an invasion by China or Japan, which is as likely as Canada invading in my opinion). My Uncle said that we got our Alien Registration done just in time to be aliens for Halloween, a tempting idea. I really want to scare the kids, though, so we'll have to see.

I read in the paper that some analysts believe a peace treay would be possible with North Korea within the next 5 years, after only 59 years since the end of open conflict. Maybe then the Demilitarized Zone would cease to be the one of the most heavily armed borders in the world, though I will miss the wonderful paradox. We plan on heading to the DMZ at some point, to catch probably the only glimpse we can of North Korea. Apparently you need two guides and an interpreter at all times in while visiting, and therefore it gets really expensive. The two leaders signed an agreement a few weeks back to open an industrial freight train between the two countries, and if passenger trains were soon to follow, it would be theoretically possible to take the train from Korea all the way to Britain! Why someone would remains the question.

Anywho, I'm writing about News because we haven't really done anything latley except ward off sickness, survive traffic, and the Alien Registration Cards. We had to do a fair amount of school paperwork this week, which occupied a lot of time, and the rest we spent making a Halloween board game for the kids on Monday. The Evil Witch stole all the candy, so the kids have to chase her around the board shaped like a Witch's Hat to get it back, avoiding Ghosts, Werewolves, Haunted Houses, and Vampires in the process. I hope they enjoy it. Sometimes, they really just don't care about going to school, after they've already been in school all day.

Tomorrow, we believe we're going to a Halloween party, but we don't know where or when exactly. We'll find out, and report any spooky details.

Ah. Its Friday. Sweet, sweet Friday.

I (Tara) have the best new class in the world. Okay, so there is one kid in my class. He is 8, and very good at English. The best part about him is he laughs at my jokes. Yes! Thats the best thing ever! He has won my heart.

One of my kindergarten students made me a note that said, "Tara, I love you!" She gave me four red heart stickers. It made me feel very good.

I have a problem with another kindergarten class of mine though. They just don't listen and most of it is facilitated by one student in particular. The principal watched all of my classes earlier this week and told me I was a great teacher and she liked my style (Yay!) but I was too kind. I need to be more strict. She thinks the kids think I'm easy. I suppose this is the truth. I hate being a meanie, but I know she is right. So, today I tried it with my difficult class. They were startled when they hear me yell at them. I kind of scared myself too. I don't know how long this tactic will last though. Once, I put them in different corners of the room - they really didn't like that. I just feel that I need to be careful with discipline. We are the "foreigners." What happens when a parent complains? What if a child makes false accusations about me because they don't like me? It's a sticky situation. I just want the kids to learn what they need to learn and I want them to have fun doing it. I want to have fun doing it. Actually, I need to have fun doing it. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I suppse we don't really have too many plans this weekend. Only that we are having our phone installed tomorrow morning! This is very exciting. We have been waiting a while! We found a phone at emart that plays various little songs as the ring tone. Brendan and I had a dance party to them the other night. It lasted about 6 minutes. We thought about creating a Canadian stereotype and dressing up like really bad canadian dancers for halloween, but nobody would get it but us (though that isn't really a problem for us).

Brendan's turn. I've got a new class as well, with two kids that don't really know much English at all. It was a little daunting at first, but I'm getting excited now. I gave them English names today, something I really hesitate about doing, but it's a necessary evil. Unfortunately, I can't usually hear or understand the kids' Korean names, mainly because they're too shy to speak to me louder than a whisper. They don't really understand what louder means, so they usually just repeat it when I say it to them. It's cute, but frustrating. My other classes are going well too, though I seem to have the opposite problem as Tara. I'm the strict, difficult teacher, though I do have completely different students than Tara so they can't compare the foreigners, or anything. Today was one of my best teaching days yet, so hopefully it will just get better. I would also appreciate any suggestions.

The dance party was indeed fun. Everytime we get a call (wink, wink), we can have a fun dance party. It will be an added bonus to talking with the people we love.

Fireworks, People, and Garbage (oh my!)

So...

What do a series of colourful explosions, a crowd of quite literally 1 million people, and a sea of garbage all have in common? They shared our company on the Han River in Seoul this weekend, for the International Fireworks Festival. The show started at 7:30pm, but there were people reserving spots as early as noon that day. We should've done the same, but we felt like getting some food instead.

We met our friends, Tom and Jess, around 2:30 and had some lunch in Yeouido. It was a nice lunch of lettuce, rice and frozen tuna. Knowing we would be attempting to meet someone else later that night, we refrained from joining the ever growing mass of people at the park, and aimlessly wandered around the area until around 6pm. It was a mistake. By the time we got settled, the crowd was all you could see for hundreds of feet around you, excepting the occasional tree. Poor Jess had to go to the bathroom, so she left, then Tom left to go find their co-worker Annie, and Tara and I remained to keep our spot safe from the rampaging mass of Korean festival goers.

Tom returned soon after the fireworks began, minus Annie whom he couldn't possibly find at the meeting place, but Jess didn't come back. We then spent the next two hours trying to enjoy the show while people stepped on our hands, feet, backs, and the poor little girl behind us, trying to force a pathway through a crowd of people sitting down. I was forced to tell everyone to f--- off, which actually seemed to make them stop moving for a brief minute or so. Tom continued to look for Jess for most of the show, when he was able to move around during the intermission, and Tara and I held the spot in hopes Jess would return.

We didn't find her until much later, after the park had mostly cleared of people (though the garbage left behind might as well have covered the same amount of space). She did the right thing by returning to the subway station where we met that day, in hopes we would come looking for her. Despite some minor freaking out, the situation ended well, and we're better friends with Tom and Jess now for it. All's well that ends well, I guess, though I worry that being around so many people will make us get sick again. Tara thinks it's already happening, but I will hold strong and attempt to ward it off.

Friday, our first day after getting paid, we enjoyed some highly delicious BBQ at a restaurant near Canada Buddy, and then retired to the bar for a few beers to celebrate being millionaires. Sunday, we slept.

Since, the best news is that we got in touch with the phone company, and we're getting service on Saturday!! Now, we can call home from the comfort of our indoor apartment, rather than the dirty and busy street where we've been conducting our phone calls for the past month. Hooray for telephones!

Last night we had a spectacular dinner out our principals house. She made spaghetti and Korean BBQ. Its was a cozy enviromnet with our co-workers. It was quite nice to see everyone outside of school. It gave us a chance to really meet them, which has been somthing that's been much needed. We met our principals husband, who was a very nice man. The first thing he asked Brendan was, "Do you drink?" Oh man. The pressure. They had homemade strawberry soju. I sipped mine slowly (Tara). Brendan was encouraged to do it the Korean way - shot after shot! I told our principal that she was the boss and needed to tell them when to stop! Our principal said Brendan could stay the night if he got too drunk! Haha. It was a joke. Then her husband got out some crazy chinese alchohal. Everyone thought it smelled bad - it wasn't too bad.

Brendan was fine this morning.

School today was quite pleasant. We all talked at lunch and one of the teachers told us that she was very happy that we ate korean food. She said none of the other foreign teachers did, they just went to Mc Donalds. Mmm. We had rice and kim(seaweed), dried squid, some delicious soup, radish kim chi, and bean sprouts. Its a pretty typical lunch. There is a cook at the kindergaten school so we get delicious, homemade food everyday. The cook is super nice. Actually, there are two cooks. We always say "magissossoyo" to them - "It's delicious!" Then they say thank you! Usually, we eat downstairs, but if, for some reason we are late to lunch, we get to go upstairs and eat with them. They always offers us "american coffee" (not instant with dried cream and sugar already in the package). Its really a pleasure.

Brendan is still studly. The principal introduced him to two of the kindergarten teachers that are afraid to say hello. He said "Nice to meet you!" and they just giggled. He said, they wouldn't even look at him! Our principal said "they think you are very handsome!"

Brendan also said this one girl in one of his classes, said that he was very handsome, like the bird picture they were looking at. I think its cute. He thinks its wierd. Maybe its a little wierd, but they really like words like handsome and pretty here. A lot of the students think my jewellery and scarves are pretty. One girl told me my hair was pretty, which was really nice.

Oh! There is a flashcard with a picture of a blue-eyed baby on it. Some of the students think it looks like Brendan because it has big blue eyes. So now, they say "It's Brendan!", instead of baby. Funny.

Teacher Training (at last!), and Spaghetti Sauce

So, we finally had some training. We weren't sure what to expect, but it was actually very informative. We have a much better idea of what kinds of lessons to plan, and of the resources available to teachers online at the school's website. We still can't access those resources, but we're getting there.

Training was in Seoul yesterday, at the building we found last week when we were sent on the wrong day. Luckily the train wasn't as busy as last week, so we didn't have to fight our way off and through the sea of people to transfer to subway line 2. Training lasted about 5 hours, with a sparse lunch to keep us mildly energized, and everything wrapped up around 2pm.

The highlight of the day was meeting the other foreign teachers working for ILS. We met an English couple from the London area named Tom and Jess, as well as their Korean co-worker Annie. They are all nice people, and hopefully we'll see them again this weekend.

On the weekend there's an international fireworks festival (yay!), which is supposed to last an hour, so it should be quite spectacular. If we can find Tom, Jess, and Annie, as well as some Canadians who also live in Bucheon, we'll probably go out somewhere afterwards. We'll definitely let you know what happens.

The most exciting news of the week is that we get paid tomorrow, as long as everything happens as it should, so we won't be the broke, boring foreigners we've been so far (well, we're not really that boring anyways). We're also taking another day trip into either Seoul or Incheon (not sure which yet), to apply for an Alien Registration Card. We will then officially be aliens, but unfortunately not the far-cooler silicon-based space aliens I've heard are very nice to hang out with once and a while. After, we'll head back to the school, do a modicum of teaching, and then head out to our director, Eunice's, for a nice evening of dinner and strawberry Soju. It should be fun, but I'm a little worried about Eunice's husband trying to get me drunk. Thankfully, I've been practicing.

Oh, and spaghettie sauce. We had a delicious dinner last night, and I though I would share it with you. It was spaghetti with a yummy sauce we prepared the night before, with diced tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, garlic, mushrooms and olive oil. We didn't eat too much yesterday, unfortunately, so we were still hungry at night. We decided to head out for some chicken wings, but settled on a noodle soup and a beer.

I hope thanksgiving was good for everyone. We climbed a mountain on sunday, and found a nice little suspension bridge to another hill with the usual exercise equipment placed in clearings in the forest (chin-up bars, sit-up benches, elliptical trainers, and various stretching poles). The mountains seem to be very well maintained, and despite the evidence of civilization, they are still beautifully scenic.

One last thing. We're still getting word that people can't comment, so if you could email us to say exactly what is happening or not happening that might help decipher where the problem lies. The comment window is a popup, so it might be a popup blocker preventing it from opening, but it might be something else entirely.

Cheers!

Yesterday we found about 8 middle school girls ( all dressed up in uniform) with their heads in a popsicle freezer digging frantically and screaming. Brendan and I were going to buy an ice cream cone (500 Won!) to ease our frustration, and found this amusing sight. We just stood there, and one girl popped her head up, looked at us, covered her mouth, and all the other girls did the same shortly after. They all turned red and they started apologizing and laughing. We started laughing too. They told us they lost money in the freezer and couldn't buy ice cream without it! We told them we would wait, but they insisted we go first. I asked what they would suggest, they said Mocha, or Vanilla with a chocolate cone. I went for mocha. Brendan went for this tripple chocolate crunch thing. Later we saw them walking in the street and they told us they found their money. Yay!

Today we saw a bunch of crazy people advertising Soju. They were all dressed up in animal costumes wtih breasts. Brendan shook their hands. I got free Soju sugar-y additive stuff and hand wipes. Don't ask me why I got handwipes.

We met one of our neighbors today. She was very nice. Much nicer than the man who yells at us from his window and makes a huge X with his hands and says, "an-yo! (no!)" over and over again.

We also named the dog that is always by our front gate. We called him, Mr. Kim Kae. Kae is korean for dog.

We had a yummy dinner at this really cheap resaturant we go to quite frequently. The owners give us free soup every once in a while, which is really nice. The servers aren't quite as afraid of us anymore which is nice. We shared a big bowl of bibimbop (비 빔 밥) and some "angel" noodle soup. They gave us a complimentary bowl of this delicious soup. We dont' know what it is. Its spicy and garlicy and maybe tomatoe-y. It has some kind of swiss chard like veggie in it. Yum. We also get unlimited kim chi and pickled radish. This cost us 6ooo won. About 6 dollars canadian.

It has been sunny for two days. No rain! Yay.

Oh yes. many of you will be suprised about this. We ate korean barbeque yesterday. It was very yummy. You take the bbq'd meat off the grill infront of you, wrap it in lettuce, or some kind of tree leaf, add chili, marinated onion and carrot, grilled mushroom and garlic and then pop the whole thing in your mouth. You know, people who aren't vegetarian seem to think korea is a vegetarian's dream. Its really not, unless you want to eat plain tofu (its usually in some kind of beef or seafood broth) with sidedishes like kim chi (formented cabbage) and bean sprouts in sesame oil on top of rice everyday. Or you could eat plain noodles everyday. Or you could make spagetti with really, really expensive sauce. A jar of tomotoe sauce is like, 4 dollars, and we have yet to find anything but corn and peas in a can. There is no frozen veggies to be found either. Any suggestions on where to find these things would be nice.

Okay. An young he kay se oh! Bye!

No typhoid allowed!

Sooo....

We're not quite so sick anymore, which means we probably don't have typhoid (hooray!). Typhoid is usually found in the south-west of the country anyways, but there are an aggravating amount of mosquitos in our apartment, feasting on us when we sleep. The only thing we can do is try our best to seal off the windows at night, difficult especially when the front door has gaps you can almost put a finger through. At least we have a sliding glass door for the bedroom half of the apartment.

What else is new? We indeed found Canada Buddy without much trouble, but were a little dismayed at first by the menu prices. After considering, we figured they weren't too outrageous, and settled down for a couple of burgers (Tara had a super-delicous Tofu burger), some lemon-pepper chicken wings, a moosehead (and oh, was it delicious), soju (of course), and a much-needed English conversation with the owner, Lance. Lance is a Canadian who's been in Korea for 6 years, and was quite bored with teaching English to kids, so he opened a little Candadian pub where, unlike most Korean places, you can have a drink without being expected to order food. The bar, apparently, is the only real foreigner bar in Bucheon and becomes quite the hotspot on Wednesdays (thanks to 2-for-1 happy hour), and Fridays in particular. We were told that last Friday night the place was completely packed, and people were there partying until 7am! There's no last call in Korea, and places stay open until the last person leaves. Sometimes, that can be noon the next day, apparently. Crazy!

We also had a wonderfully interesting conversation with a friendly Canadian named Justin (from Montreal/Toronto), and his Korean business partner, Michael, a super nice guy that wasn't too much of a mesogonist or too full of himself at all, oh no. All I will say is that Justin apologized profusely everytime Michael got up to get a drink or go to the bathroom. We met another really nice couple as well named Chris (from Michigan) and Sook Yi, who did their best to rescue us from Michael. All in all, it was worth it.

Since, we've mostly been sleeping to recover from our mutual illness, though yesterday was the longest, most frustrating day so far. We were told we had a teacher training session at the school's head office in Seoul, about an hour and a half on the train from our house. They gave us some rather vague directions about which building it was, saying only that it was across the street from a high school. They failed to mention that the high school was huge (and thus, there were many buildings across the street), and that the office had no sign on it. So we had to keep trying buildings and asking directions until we found a very nice security guard who called the phone number we were given and arranged to have someone from the office come and find us. Then, and only then, did we find out that the training session is actually next week, so we basically wasted an entire morning and around 10,000 won. Oh well. At least we know where the place is now.

There was something else I had to say, but I can't remember, so I'll sign off now. It's National Foundation Day today (Wednesday), so we're off work again to celebrate the founding of Korea in 2333 BCE. We wanted to find some interesting stuff to do in honour of the ancient birthday of Korea, but we have no idea what's going on. We'll take a look, and let everyone know if we find anything. Cheers!