MaryAnne's Birthday in Seoul

We headed to Seoul this past weekend to celebrate MaryAnne's birthday! We left early Friday morning and go to Seoul by about 1pm. We checked into our hotel and then did a bit of wandering around the area of Itaewon which is the "foreigner's area." In the evening, we headed to the theatre to see the musical Hairspray. It was fantastic although a bit strange since it's a show about race. The music and dialogue were in Korean with Korean actors so the black characters wore brown face paint and afro wigs and the white characters wore blonde wigs. The singing and dancing was really great though! The really cool part was at the end when two guys got up on stage and the crowd started going crazy. Everyone was screaming and cheering. The two guys performed a few songs and dances and after the show, we found out that they were very famous Korean popstars.

After the show, we headed back to Itaewon to go to some clubs which were really fun...the area is nice because it's the most diverse we've ever seen in Korea. There are tons of people there on business, in the army, local Koreans, you name it.

The next day, we went to Yongsan which is an area of Seoul that just sells electronics. You can get any electronic product for MUCH less than you'd pay in a retail store. It's just rows and rows of technology. We picked up another computer for the online course we started last week. You can also buy really cheap DVDs with movies that are still in theatres for $2 each. We got a bunch of movies that are playing at home in the theatres now. Afterwards, we went to Myeungdon which is the shopping district. It was packed! It was difficult at times to move through the crowd! We had dinner at a great Chinese restaurant (the same one we ate at last time) and then went to the bus station.

We missed the bus by 15 minutes so had to wait four hours for the next one. We found out that there are "DVD rooms" where you can select a movie, go to a private room and watch a movie on a big screen tv for a really small amount of money. In the bus terminal, there are also private coin operated karaoke booths. For 50 cents, you can sing 3 songs! We went to a PC room to kill some more time and then got on our bus and returned back to Pohang at about 4am.

Today the new school year starts so we have all new classes. Grades switch over now in Korea so we'll be starting new textbooks with new students.

Christmas in Korea

We've been trying to keep busy here which is hard to do since we're in this small town...anyway, Santa paid us a visit on Friday evening and left us some presents as well as a very non-traditional Christmas dinner. Then we went out to the karaoke bar and sang some very non-Christmas-y music. The next night we went out with Misty and Brian to play some pool and had a great time! The Koreans are really fond of billiards but they don't have pocket holes. The pool hall has bright lights, no music and many older, Korean men pushing balls around on a table. They'll wear special gloves, drink and smoke. Anyway, there was one regular pool table so we played, or tried to play there.

The next time we post may not be until 2010 as we leave on Friday!!!!!! So we wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Deagu Part Two

We went to Daegu on Saturday for the day to do a bit of shopping and just to get away from Pohang. It was a fairly chilly day, but sunny. We arrived at about 11am, had some coffee and then headed to the shopping area. Compared to last time, we found way better deals and we now know the stores that we like and actually look forward to going inside them. There are certain stores here which you can tell are supposed to be the equivalents to GAP, Old Navy, Abercrombie, etc. The insides of the stores look and even smell the same as certain stores at home. Anyway, we sometimes joke around with each other about clothes we've bought, like "Oh my god! Is that coat a COAX?" "Sure is." "And it's not a knock-off?" "Nope. It's the real deal." Obviously, it's the small things that amuse us here in Korea.

We went out for lunch at the best pizza place we've found to date. Most of the pizza here tastes a bit off...with globs of mayonaise, large chunks of mashed sweet potatoes and other curious things for pizza. This restaurant was called Poppa Johns and tasted almost identical to pizza at home.

In the evening, we went to see New Moon which we thought was really good, but not great. This was probably mostly due to the crazy foreigner who sat beside me and kept staring at us every time he laughed. At one point he turned to me and said "do werewolves eat vampires?" to which I replied "I'm not really sure." He smirked and said "cause I never learned this in high school." There is something to be said about foreigners who choose to stay in Korea for longer than a year. They all seem to be crazy!

We headed back to Pohang at about 10pm on a bus which was about 150 degrees. The Koreans seem to prefer extremes when it comes to everything and temperature is not exception. A room will either be freezing or unbearably hot.

Anyway, it was nice to break up the time between now and Thailand. 11 days and counting!!!

Conversations with Koreans

Yesterday I asked my high school student about Christmas.
Me: Do you celebrate Christmas in your family?
Student: Yes
Me: What are your Christmas traditions?
Student: I play with my friends
Me: Oh...okay. Do you have a Christmas tree?
Student: No
Me: Do you exchange Christmas presents or have a special dinner on Christmas?
Student: No
Me: Oh. What religion are you?
Student: I don't know.
This is the part where I switch to another subject trying to get more responses. Usually in my high school classes, the only noises are the sound of my own voice and the ticking of the clock.

Also yesterday, I was talking with my grade 5 class about how food gives us energy and how some foods can give us energy in a very short amount of time. They were having trouble thinking of what types of foods these might be so I said "these are foods that kids REALLY love, but are usually not allowed to eat often." Several children shouted out: "Meat!"

Two Thanksgivings in one week?!

Yesterday was the American Thanksgiving and we were lucky enough to have two turkey dinners in one week! On Saturday, Dan and Nicole made a turkey dinner which in Korea, is very difficult to do. You can't really buy turkey here as it's not popular, not to mention stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, etc. They had a turkey delivered to them and then heated it up on a large toaster oven since nobody here has an oven. Everything was made from scratch including the pumpkin pie. It was SO delicious and we had an amazing time!

Yesterday, our school took us for another Thanksgiving meal at Postech which is the University here. It was buffet style and had everything from turkey to sushi to kimchi to fried rice. We went for lunch and everyone had to teach afterwards so we spent the rest of the day feeling so full. Nicole came to the Thanksgiving lunch even though her due date was yesterday.




As you can see from some of the pictures, it was a very different kind of Thanksgiving meal, although still very tasty. One dessert was a piece of cake with a large piece of zucchini stuffed on top. The stuffing inside the turkey was a mixture of eggs and bread. It was really interesting to see what the foreigners put on their plates as opposed to the Koreans. We took up two large tables and there were 8 foreigners and about 15 Koreans. The Koreans put WAY less food on their plates and mainly took things like vegetables, raw fish and fruit for dessert while the westerners piled up turkey, meat, fried foods, etc. The same thing happened when we went to a sushi buffet with my adult class. They all took very, very small portions and mainly things like vegetables. All of the westerners wished however that we had worn elasticated waistbands and desperately wanted a nap after our meals!

Hiking

We went on our first hike last week and it was really great. It's about a 2km hike to the top of the mountain and the incline was much steeper than we had imagined. The weather here goes back and forth between winter and fall weather. Yesterday it was 16 degrees and a few days before it was 5. It's been consistently really sunny though which is great and we're only about a 2 minute walk to the mountains so we plan on going once a week. The Koreans take mountain climbing very seriously. They're always decked out in the proper gloves, walking sticks, jackets, hats, shoes, etc. We met a foreigner at the top who told us he had once been chased down the mountain by a dog. There is apparently a dog farm (and by dog farm, I mean slaughter house) on your way up to the mountain so we were a bit scared that we will run into one next time we're climbing. Some other people told us though that we shouldn't worry as they take their dog to the mountains all the time and the other dogs would not hurt people.

Anyway, we're just about to have a Thanksgiving meal with our school so we will be sure to post pictures tomorrow!!!

As promised....

here is the link for our new movie, "Cooking With MaryAnne Enjoy!