Couple Of Pictures From Seoul

This might not look like a lot people but this protest went on for blocks. It's hard to see but right below the biliding that says "Kumkang" there are some white colored riot buses that the police used to block off the streets so the protestors could not march down certain streets.

Routine Month

Every single day the students ask me questions about the "USA" naturally they are curious but I seem to be getting the same question on a regular basis from just about every different class. So I told them I am going to answer it one last time!!! Here is the answer "Yes I know Britney spears, she is a close friend but we like to keep our friendship quiet." "There you have it, now stop asking about her, we respect each other's privacy."

Now on to normal life, I went to Seoul this weekend and for one second I thought the city I lived in way was fun but the whole time I was in Seoul i was like, "holy excitement Batman," this city is bananas! There were what seemed to be like millions of people walking around, Tons of street vendors selling different things from food, clothing, purses, shoes, watches, to stuff you don't want to know about. They had huge stages set up on the sidewalks every 200 hundred feet having dance competitions to give away free clothing.

One piece of advice I feel like I should give to everyone is do not march in a random street protest if you have no idea what they are protesting about even if they are going in the same direction as you want to go. It is not a good idea, as I looked around and saw that I was the only non-Korean I started to wonder what "WE" were protesting about. It turns out I was marching with people that were mad about some sort of bad free trade agreement with America! I thought the dirty looks everyone was giving me was instruction on how to look at the non protesters, nope it was directed at me! "yeah guys it's my fault, I personally signed the bill that is screwing you." So I hauled ass out of that group of people, and stood with some other foreigners and tried to look pissed at America so I wouldn't get a knife stuck in my side. After that we just walked around for a while took in everything and eventually found our way back to the bus stop. All in all it was pretty fun and I am for sure going back.

Finished my first week

I finished my first week of teaching, if anyone has ever seen the movie "school of Rock" with Jack Black the part where he finishes his first day of teaching the bell rings, he jumps up runs up and down the aisles between the kids giving them high fives and yelling "yeah we made it, whooo," "i'll see you cats on the flip flop," then sprints out of there. Yeah that was me on friday I was pretty much pushing kids out of the way to get to the door.

No it really did go smooth for the first week, except when I called a kid named steve "steve-o" he got mad and started crying, I said I was sorry but now that I think about it you know what i'm not sorry STEV-O! Ha Take that.

After relaxing on friday night a friend and I went to Seoul to hit some bars and stop in to look at the shopping district, this was the original plan. What actually happened was we went to the casino, the guy I was with got really drunk and we ended up staying for eight hours. It reminded me of being at Greektown in Detroit with a certain "someone" (you know who you are). But this time I couldn't threaten that I was going to leave them there because I didn't know how to get home. "Son of a bitch" I was mumbling to myslef I come halfway around the world to be stuck in a casino watching someone else play, so I tried to make the best of it and had a decent time.

Anyway Since I am a teacher I feel like I should end this blog with a lesson, so here it is.

LESSON 1

Don't ever jump the subway gate without a ticket. I didn't know this but in Korea this is how the subway works, you buy your ticket stick it in the machine and I thought that was it. NO when your done on the subway to get out of there you have to again stick your origional ticket in machine, well I didn't know this and I left my ticket at the entrance after it was scanned. So the person I was with says "just jump over it" I'm like "no way i'm not breaking the law". He then explains how long it would take to go back and get a new one, so I said fine and I jump over the gate. As soon asI did he goes "whoa," and i'm like "what". He goes "I didn't think you were actually gonna do it," "But you told me to," I said, he goes " I wasen't serious, it looks really strange when someone does that and your a foreigner so it looks twice as bad." "Thanks" I said as we ran out of the subway with people staring at me giving me the look like "you make me sick you stupid foreigner".

That's all for now, "I'll see you on the flip flop."

Shoppers paradise, they have every imaginable store you can think of

Nightlife

First day in Korea

Well my first couple of days was interesting to say the least. Starting things off my plane ride, what was supposed to be a 45 minute ride to Chicago ended up being a 3 hour wait while we were on the runway in Detroit because of ice in Chicago. Don’t worry though I was entertained by a loud mouth traveling salesman who if I had to guess sold shower curtains rings, whatever he sold he was convinced, “this is gonna be my week.” You give’em hell Bill this is your time. Plane finally landed in Chicago Bill high fived me and I hauled to my next flight barely making it.

Next was my plane ride from Chicago to Seoul 15 hours of pure heaven, my legs are still numb from sitting. Thankfully I had an aisle seat next to get this, 2 Koreans it was the strangest thing. No really the entire plane was all Koreans, except across the aisle directly next to me surprisingly there was a 24 year old American “Steve” who was from Kansas and in the Air Force. I don’t know why out of all the seats he was next to me, I guess they keep the minorities segregated so we don’t disrupt the other passengers. I couldn’t sleep but the flight actually was not bad, they served lunch and dinner I also watched Joe Dirt 3 times and laughed hysterically every time, the Korean next to me looked at me like I was an idiot for liking such stupid humor.

The plane landed we exited and headed to customs, (by the way I bought a “How to speak Korean” book that I was going to read on the plane and since it was such a long flight I was pretty confident I was going to master it) I went ahead of Steve in line looked back at him and said “watch this,” "annyong Haseyo", which means hello in Korean then the customs lady shot back something in return and I said “what, slow down your talking to fast.” She kept talking in Korean and giving me the evil eye, I nodded my head and motioned that I’m going, surprisingly she stamped my passport and said go without me answering a single question. (Jordan 1, Korean customs 0)

I then walked out of the airport and saw drivers holding up signs with peoples names on them I found mine a man greeted me and we hopped into his van. He held up a CD and said something that I did not understand. The music started playing and it was none other than that techno song sandstorm, he turned it up real loud and kept looking back and giving me the thumbs up, and I’m like “yeah I’ve heard this song before it’s really really great” in my real sarcastic voice but he had no idea what I was saying.

It took an hour but we finally got to the school, I walked in and met with the director. She started asking me some questions and she could tell I was about to fall asleep so she took me to what I could have sworn were the “projects” but no it was my apartment building. She told me we had a staff meeting tomorrow at 3 and left. I looked at my 2 gigantic suitcases and said “let’s light this candle” and then proceeded to pass out after getting my zipper on one of the bags open.

Day 2
I woke up unpacked and headed to the school or tried to head to the school, the streets looked totally different than when it was night and I hadn’t slept in 30 hours. I was having trouble finding the place so I decided to ask a guy on street, I said lets try this again “annyong haseyo,” he said something back and I said “what, slow down.” Needless to say I’m done with the Korean for a while. I asked where the EG school was and he couldn’t understand me so then I thought if I talked really loud and yell it he might understand, nope nothing. I eventually found it myself and went in met everybody, the director immediately had me “test” some of the children by asking them questions and grading their verbal responses. I felt terrible for these kids they were obviously scared out their minds it was one on one situation, a new teacher and hard questions like what is your view on the war in Iraq and about terrorism. The first kid sat there blank did not say a word almost shaking; I repeated the question still nothing. I decided to simplify the question and said “ok what’s your name,” he said “Hubert” I said great A+ you pass, that put a smile on his face and he loosened up after that. See this teaching stuff is not that hard after all is it?

After the “testing” I left the school around 4:30 with a coworker named Nicky. He was born in Korean but his family then moved to Australia so he speaks very little Korean and has an Aussie accent. Anyway he asked if I wanted to go dinner I said “sure,” but little did I know this was going to be an all night experience.

He asked what I wanted to eat and I said “anything,” that was my first mistake. Now just to put things in perspective within 2 square miles of where I live there are probably about seriously 200 restaurants that we could have gone to. But Nicky had a better idea, he knew of an all you can eat restaurant for only $4.00 that’s right 4 bucks (but also keep in mind all other dinners are only like $4 or $5, there just not all you can eat), only problem with his restaurant is we have to take the bus for 30 minutes and then the subway for another 10. So we take and incredibly crowded bus and sub ride, we get off the subway walk through a maze of alleys in between tall buildings to what is obviously the poor side of town. Come to what looks like a door but is a piece of plywood with hinges on it. Nicky looked at it and said “Uh-oh they might be shut down,” but then pushed the door open and walked in (guess they must have remodeled). Inside it was ok looking but a far cry from Mongolian Barbecue, every table had a burner on it so you could cook the meat yourself. We had beef, pork which were both pretty tasty and miniature crab legs that you chewed for the juice and then spit the shell back out into the ashtray which was ok, the Soju (Asian form of liquor) and the beer made everything taste a little better and helped me not to vomit when Nicky was spitting out huge globs of crab.

He then asked if I wanted to go out and get a drink at either a Korean bar or a western bar for Americans, I was feeling pretty saucy so I said ok a Korean bar that was my second mistake. We get to the bar which was playing Korean rap music (which I thought sounded funny) and sat down. It was a nice place and at each table there was a mini couch on each side so you could take your shoes off and relax there was also a buzzer on each table which called for the waiter in case he wasn’t bringing you drinks fast enough. By the end of the night everybody in the place was hammered, people getting carried out, guys throwing up in the bathroom, and everyone was slamming glasses together, boy did I fit in. After countless hours of drinking and wondering what the hell time does this place close we decided to take a taxi home because we did not want to deal with the subway or the busses. All in all including dinner and tons drinks we only spent around forty dollars each, and best of all there is no tipping here AT ALL, you don’t have to tip anybody not cabbies, restaurants, or the bartenders, that's my favorite part.

Finally got back to the "projects" oh I mean my apartment, Sorry I keep getting confused, and passed out. That's pretty much it so far I'll try to keep everbody updated as often as I can.

Jordan