Elevator Drama

So today I got into the elevator to go down to school. As I was going down it stopped on the 13th floor and three teenage girls got on, looking rather sad. They each had a stack of books in their arms. Almost as soon as they stepped onto the elevator one of the girls starts moaning and whimpering in the corner. Then she starts hitting her head on the wall and moaning some more. Then the flailing and more whimpering starts. This continues all the way down. I keep thinking "oh my goodness, what's going on with this girl!? Something must be horribly wrong!
Finally at the bottom I realize what's going on.....the new school year has begun and they just got their new textbooks.

A Lesson In Meaning

Korean's have a difficult time pronouncing the "f" sounds so it usually comes out as a "p". To their ears it's the same thing. Needless to say when my students talk about coffee they say "kopee". I, as well as the other teachers have tried time and again to correct the pronunciation but to no avail.
Today my students informed me that "ko" in Korean means "nose" and "pee" means "blood". So when they tell me they are drinking "kopee" it could also mean they are drinking "nose-blood".........that's gross.

Sidewalk Ministry

There's a lady who stands in the middle of the sidewalk on my way to work. She has a handful of pamphlets for the local Presbyterian church. She stands there for hours bowing and offering a paper to anyone who walks by. 99% of those passing her just ignore her or say something rude. But she persists, and I see her there a few times a week, time after time. She's been doing it longer than we have been here and I have only once seen someone stop and talk to her. I used to take the paper when she handed them to me until it felt like too much of a waste, then I awkwardly said no, then a few times I shamefully ignored her and walked on, adding to the rejection she receives from everyone else. I mean, was I really in so much of a hurry that I couldn't pause and smile and take the paper, or explain that I already have a church?
Today I caught her eye before she could approach me and smiled and said hello. She offered me a paper, and still smiling I said no, but tried to give her encouragement in my limited Korean. Mostly I just communicated with pointing and a "thumbs up". (It's so hard to say what you want to say when you can't speak their language).
I think this will be my approach from now on, because this woman has a faith that's stronger than all of that rejection heaped on itself. She goes out and stands on that sidewalk time after time and humbly offers strangers an invitation that could change their life, knowing the majority will look down on her for it. And I can't help but ask myself, would I have the courage to do that?

Sometime Korea don't quit get there englishy write......

Some of you have already seen this....but for the rest of you....the sign speaks for itself

You want me to buy what?

So while we were in the subway trying to open our locker (previous post) we saw something shocking to our eyes. It was a giant advertisement on the wall. It appeared to be advertising a new kind of skin product.
It was a nice picture of a baby and it's mother. The baby was holding this new skin product in it's hands.....and eating it!

It's important to remember your phone number.....

This weekend being Valentines Day as well as Lunar New Year in Korea brought many fun activities. Among them were, ice-skating downtown, watching a movie, eating some delicious Mexican food and , generally just taking advantage of the fact that we live in a large city with a million things to do. On Saturday we headed down to the "electronics district" in search of a coffee pot which was our gift to each other for Valentine's Day (our old one is very small and leaking grounds into our coffee). We spent some time wandering around looking at everything from computers and video games to blenders and home decor. Somewhere in the mass of options that were provided for us, we found a perfect little coffee pot in our price range. Now, if we were to get a little stereotypical here you'd think that Korea was more of a tea-drinking country than a coffee-loving one. We have been surprised to find that Koreans LOVE their coffee. This being said we thought it wouldn't be a problem to find a coffee maker. This is true, it wasn't super difficult to find one. The shocker though is the price. The cheapest coffee pot we've seen in Korea is a small (unknown name-brand)4cup machine for 45,000won(about $38)! So, we pulled a "Dave Ramsey" and dove into negotiations, cash in hand. Success! We were able a get a nice 10 cup machine for about $45.
Now, coffee maker in hand we headed out to meet some friends for ice skating. Since we were going to be busy with skating we didn't want a lot of extra stuff to hold on to, so we safely locked our purchases and whatnot into a locker at the subway station. Then we headed out to find the rink. It was a nice outdoor rink in the middle of downtown where it only costs $1 to skate for an hour! We enjoyed our time but after our hour was up we were pretty tired, after all, we had been running around most of the day and it was already 9:30p. So, we headed back to the subway station to collect our things and go home.
Much to our surprise when we got back to the lockers we couldn't figure out how to get our locker open. It was an electronic system that requires the input of your phone number to lock it instead of a key. Since everything was in Korean and we really couldn't understand it we just started pushing buttons and entering numbers....this did not work. Needless to say, late in the evening the day before Lunar New Year was not a good time for this to happen. There was hardly anybody around and definitely no helpful subway workers. We spent the next 1/2 hour asking just about anyone that came along if they could help us, to no avail. Finally, we spotted a subway worker who was helping another lady. We followed him around until he was finished, because we weren't about to let him escape back into the recesses of the subway. He walked over to the lockers with us and stared at them for a few minutes and then started pushing buttons himself. Keep in mind that he spoke exactly zero English, so we had to play a little game of charades before he could understand our problem. After a time he left and came back with a second subway worker. The two men pushed buttons on the machine and had us enter our phone number a few times and still....nothing. They finally called the company that runs the lockers and told them of our problem. The helpful man on the phone had us enter our phone number(which serves as a code) a few more times to try to unlock the locker. Apparently, all the phone numbers entered into these lockers are saved in a giant database....eventually he told us to type in a different number and Voila! our locker opened and I got my purse back along with our purchases. Turns out, I switched two of the numbers in our phone number.....as my students say "I am genius!" We finally were able to go home....unfortunately it was already almost midnight. ...

Sometimes when watching Korean TV we come across some rather shocking commercials. Most of the time they are about the same kinds of things you would see on TV in the west. Such as fast-cash, vacuums, new coffee drinks, etc. The Korean style of advertising however is pretty unique. To be plain there is no end to their bathroom humor. I could go on to describe many strange commercials....but I think I will just let you experience one for yourself.

This commercial may start out as being kind of "cute" but just wait until you see some of those questionable dance moves! Korea LOVES this commercial and it has been expanded on many times over. It has been running since before we arrived in Korea. And I can imagine some of you asking..."what is the commercial for?" Well from that dancing and cute yellow dress you might think it's some new cleaning gadget or something for the home.....but no, it is for a "fast-cash" place where you can go and get cash before your next paycheck. Take a look and enjoy! :)
Oh Korea....

You Know You're In Korea When..... (pt.1)

...the stairs are different heights (so you almost die every time you walk down them).
...you ride your bike (and motor scooter!!) on the sidewalk instead of the street.
...the smell of the sewer randomly taints the air as you're walking down the street (and at those times you kinda want to choke)
...it's okay to wear socks with your high heels.
...you park your double-parked car in neutral so someone can push it out of the way when they need to get out.
...everyone turns 1yr. old the day they're born and 1 more year older on January 1st.
...there's random emotional outbursts on the subway or in the street.
...there's two drunk men sitting on either side and falling asleep on you when you ride the subway home in the evening.
...Dog meat is an acceptable meat to eat with your meal.
...dried squid jerky is a common snack you can find at any convenience store.

Costco Adventures

A trip to Costco is one of our regular adventures here. Yes, they do have Costco over here, and WE LOVE IT! :) It's kind of like a little taste of home. However, since we don't have a car, making a trip to Costco requires either a subway ride or a taxi ride. The subway is the best because it's the cheapest but we also have to pack everything into bags and haul it up and down 3 flights of stairs.
This can be daunting, especially when hauling "Costco sized" items. When taking the subway it also means we are subjected to stares and the unabashed attempts to look into our bags to see just "what the foreigners buy at Costco." Having Costco close by affords us the luxury of some treasured items though, such as ground beef, cheese, tortilla chips and olives....everything we need for tacos! :) yum!
If truth be told, Costco actually allows us to eat like a Westerner which we love. Korea has some delicious food but it can be incredibly spicy and it's always nice to have a taste of home when you're so far away from it.

Speaking of Koreans and their food. We found ourselves surprised when we first visited the Costco food court. They had pizza, hot dogs, and ice cream like usual, but we found the Koreans did something unique with the condiments. For example if there were two people eating together they would buy a piece of pizza and get an extra plate. Then they would split the pizza and take the other plate over to the condiments area. Then they would pile on an ENORMOUS amount of onions and equal amounts of ketchup and mustard. Then they would mix it all together and eat a delicious meal of pizza and raw mustard/ketchup onions. I wish I could say this was a single phenomena, but it actually occurs on virtually every table in sight, on every trip we take to Costco. (Really wish I had a picture to insert here)

Also, at the food court they have napkin bins on the walls around the food court so you don't have to walk too far to get your napkins. During one trip to Costco we noticed a man stopping by one of these napkin holders with his cart.....he then proceeded to pull handfuls of napkins out and hide them under his purchases. He then continued on with his hundreds of ill-gotten napkins and walked right out of the store. This was strange, not only because this man stole a ton of napkins, but because napkins are not a common item in Korea, so we were wondering why he wanted them in the first place?
Alas, that's a question for another day.....

This is Korea

As our first post we'd like to introduce you to Korea. To begin, Korea is a peninsula in between China and Japan. As most people know it is a nation that was split in two during the Korean war(1950-1953). Although, in 1953 both sides agreed to a cease-fire the two countries are still technically at war. The DMZ(Demilitarized Zone)was created at that time and is a strip of land that divides North and South Korea and is about 2.5miles wide. It is heavily guarded on both sides. South Korea has flourished into a country of about 50million people. 10million of which live in it's capital, Seoul.

Koreans are inherently proud of their country and the things their ancestors have created. Among them are Taekwondo and Hangul (the Korean language). Hangul was created for the Korean people in the mid-1400s by King Sejong. Before Hangul was created the Korean people used the Chinese characters to write. This proved to be too challenging for the "commoners" so King Sejong had the Korean alphabet created so all people could learn to read and write. When I asked my students last fall to write a paragraph about what they think is the greatest invention in history, 70% of them said "Hangul". They even have a national holiday to celebrate the creation of Hangul.

We live on the Northeast edge of Seoul in a neighborhood called Nowon. It's what is considered the "education district," so when someone wants to learn how to drive, or learn English, or taekwondo, they usually come here. It is also considered a "family suburb" type area and so there are MANY apartment buildings spanning for miles. One of my favorite things about Nowon is that we are almost surrounded by mountains. We live on the 15th floor of our building, which also happens to be the top floor and so we are afforded a nice view of the mountains from our patio. This view has saved me many times from feeling lost in the sea of concrete.

So here's our little introduction to Korea. We hope these pictures will also help give you a sense of where we are living.