Ahhhh... The Weird Shit I Have Eaten

This is Ddukbolki with "cheese". Yep, that's a slice of processed cheese thrown on top. Ddukbolki is quite delicious; spicy red chili sauce, big rice noodles, egg, some sort of processed fish that has the look and consistency of tofu, and some mixed veggies.

Last night was another night of welcoming teachers; i.e. the entire staff gets together to drink their faces off at a nice restaurant. It seems that every restaurant is less about taste then trying to out-weird the other establishments in the area. "Live octopus eh? Well, tonight we're serving various animal intestine and fish egg sausage, with a lovely grey-black tasteless sesame soup". Yep, that was just a sampling of the many delicacies which I partook (hahahaha... I don't think that's even a word...) in last night.

And so, a list of the Weird Shit I have Eaten:

- Just last night I had some sort of stew which involved fish intestine (actually not too bad), and these little sausages with some sort of fish egg inside.

- "Black Sesame Soup"- it's a mottled grey and black colour with a gritty non-taste. My co-teacher said to me "It's very good for your health. Just trust me".

- Every sort of raw and cooked fish you can imagine. Octopus (still moving), squid, from small little snails you can find on the beach to the big escargot-like snails, sea slug, skate (the fish that smells like urine... that one was an unfortunate accident), eel etc. Dried fish is also very popular; my favourite being the little whole minnows. Very crunchy!

- Chunks of cooked blood. One afternoon Alex and I had lunch in a restaurant in Naju and we were served this mystery soup that had strange chunks of brownish red stuff... we thought it was some sort of mushroom at the time (it almost had a hard tofu-like quality).

- Every sort of leaf you can imagine, including underwater greenery as well. Koreans love to wrap rice, meat etc. in leaves, any sort of leaves.

- I'm pretty sure I've sampled every sort of kimchi by now. I love fresh, just made kimchi, but Koreans especially enjoy it after it has been fermenting for A LONG FREAKING TIME. Kimchi is cabbage and spices and good ole red chilli peppers (sometimes with fish guts if you're lucky!) all mixed together. Then the old ajummas put a crapload of it in a big pot and let it sit outside for a while. Then it'll need to sit in the Kimchi fridge for even longer, and voila! you have delightful, sour pickled kimchi. I know now what the older stuff looks like now (extra floppy and brown, emitting a strong odor), so I can avoid it for the most part.

- Goat stew. Very stringy.

- Various street meats. I shudder to think of what could be in some of them. It's best that I don't know. Whenever I go out with friends in Gwang-ju there is always the obligatory "street meat run" at 3am; always delicious and just a little bit questionable.

- This is kind of boring, but every kind of rice you could possible think of. Before I moved to Korea I had no idea that there were so many possible variations. Have you even eaten rice that was purple?? Black? A strange yellow colour? A very popular soup in Korea is, of course, "Rice Soup" which consists of burnt chunks of rice in water. Mmmmmm... a party in my mouth!!

- Now for the bug category: ummm... just silkworm larvae I believe. Although I've had ants and grasshoppers before (covered in chocolate!!), it wasn't in Korea.

- Drinks!! Soju is a sort of vodka all the teachers at my school delight in making me take shots of. Some sort of murky, evil rice wine. Pomegranite juice, persimmon juice, "Nostalgia Drink" (which I think consists of sugar, water and chunks of rice from the taste of it), aloe juice (with actual chunks of aloe in it, my personal favourite) and the evil ginseng drink to name a few.

- I think it's meant to be a desert: apple, raisin and cucumber all tossed in mayonaisse. ??

- Chopped cabbage with ketchup on top; on the side, sliced cucumber with ketchup. (This was at a "Chinese Restaurant" in Naju. I think maybe the owners thought since we were white we'd appreciate ketchup on everything??)

- Pickled radish slices (used as a dessert and a veggie wrap).

- Soy bean soup (kinda smells like feet, but very healthy I'm sure).

Typical Lunch At My School: Yesterday on my plate there was (in clockwise order) simmered and sauced octopus tentacles, new kimchi, old kimchi (I didn't eat any of it), some sort of salad which was meant to be the desert), seaweed soup with mussels, and rice.

A Bit of a Whiner Moment (Feel Free to Skip This)

I know everyone who reads this is going to think "boo-frickin-hoo Cathy", but I'm feeling a bit of the post-excellent-and-very-long-vacation blues. I'm back at work (but not teaching yet) so I'm just kinda sitting around in the office being useless and dwelling on my boredom. Now that I'm back from my various adventures and counting up how much I've spent, I realize that I should also start saving some money, which means I'll be doing less fun stuff.
Then I talked to Alex and he made me feel better: "awe c'mon, you know you're looking forward to seeing all those cute little faces again and being called beautiful and Candy and mixed-race" (that's a direct quote).

That Was Japan

As with the Thailand pictures, for chronological order, scroll down to get to my first Japan entry. Here's a final picture of Laurel and myself waiting for our Beetle to go back to Korea. It was hella busy, so our boat was late and we had to wait around. Our faces looked like this.

Japan IV Miyajima

Just a three minute ferry ride from Hiroshima was an island called Miyajima, which was a bit of a tourist and deer paradise.

This one's a view of the island from the ferry. Yeah, I've got photographic skills aplenty. The island seemed to have a strong focus on buying stuff, but the tourist items were so expensive that we didn't buy anything. Then when we went to lunch at this little restaurant, Kristen and myself ended up ordering some sort of rice and meat with raw (and I mean completely raw) egg dish. Mmmmm... delicious.

There are a bunch of deer that inhabit the island, wandering around, sitting on picnic tables. Some Korean tourists decided to try to feed some, and they became completely surrounded. The deer were trying to jump up on them as well, so they had to stand on top of some tables. Being the good samaritan that I am, I took pictures as they yelled "Hajimmmmaaaa!" (stop it!) at the deer. It was funny.

This is the Otorii Gate. I'm not sure what it's significance is apart from its role as a big fat tourist attraction in the water.

Japan III Hiroshima

I could never live in Tokyo, it was a bit much, but Hiroshima was beautiful. Much thanks to the US for bombing Hiroshima so they had to rebuild everything so nicely!! Yeah, my angst towards American politics and military was only heightened on this trip. Not that I think Japan was blameless, but after seeing pictures of everything, models of what was left of Hiroshima, accounts of people who were disfigured, children who died, mothers who gave birth to disabled children etc., I was a little bitter.

This is the "A-Bomb Dome". It was one of the only buildings to be left semi-standing after the bomb fell, and it's the only building that has been left in ruins as a reminder. The rest of the area is a big memorial, full of statues, museums, fountains etc.



Ringing the Peace Bell.

This is a globe that was in one of the museums which shows all of the worlds Nuclear weapons and where they are (none in North Korea, I checked). Of course the States has the most. And take a look at pristine Canada, nuclear weapon free! I love it.

Japan II Mt. Fuji

So yeah, I REALLY wanted to see Mt. Fuji. A lot. Laurel and I spent the better part of one of our days trying to see Mt. Fuji.

We took several subways and trains, and as we neared, the clouds began to part and I caught a brief glimpes of the top of the mountain, above the clouds, far off in the distance. I decided to wait to get a picture so I could get a really good shot.

BIG MISTAKE. So this first shot is a picture of where Mt. Fuji would be if it wasn't so freaking cloudy. We got a really expensive cab out to a "Mt. Fuji Lookout", but to no avail. Eventually we had to give up because we were meeting with Kristen back in Tokyo, so it turned out to be a big waste of time. If I ever go back, I'll go in the summer so I can climb Mt. Fuji. Then I'll DEFINITELY get to see it.

This is a picture of a picture of Mt. Fuji I took to make myself feel better. It didn't work.

Okay, Japan

Konicheewah! (sp?) which means hello, and is one of the three words I could almost say during my Japan adventure.

So, from the beginning; Myself, Kristen, Laurel and Kevin decided that we were bored and since we didn't have to be back to work for over a week, what better way to spend our time and money (lots of it) then by visiting the nearby Japan? So we all booked tickets on a "Beetle", which were these little boats that were almost hover crafts. They were REALLY fast (we got to Fukuokua in under three hours), but it was kind of choppy and every time we hit a wave it felt like we'd crashed into something. Some really annoying foreigners that had brought beer with them on the trip kept on claiming that we'd hit a whale (ha ha.. ha). They brought shame to Canada, but they were from Alberta, so I guess it's okay that they were being really loud and obnoxious. When we arrived at Fukuokua, we all caught a train that would eventually be bound for Tokyo. We had all bought these wonderful Japan Rail Passes, which ended up being pure gold!! I was talking to this woman who had been heading for Tokyo from the same place and she had decided to take an overnight bus that would get there in over twelve, but our train ride was about six. Saweeet.

So we get to Tokyo, and it's crazy. Here are some pictures, but I don't think they even come close to showing the huge sums of people there are!!

This is a Shinjuku District picture. It was one of the big "downtown" sections of Tokyo. It may be hard to see, but I was trying to get a shot of the mass amounts of people crossing the street.

In a lot of ways, Japan reminded me of Korea; Tokyo is a lot like Seoul. Except that Tokyo is on CRACK. I stood in the middle of an intersection as literally HUNDREDS of other people surrounded me in the centre of the street. Ever seen the movie Baraka? There's a scene of an aerial view of a busy street, and it's been sped up too look like a thousand ants stopping and going as the lights change. That's kind of what it felt like.

Here's an outdoor market in Asakusa (another district in Tokyo). This is where I bought lots of expensive trinkets and ate strange little rice cakes. After the inexpensiveness of Thailand and Korea, paying Canadian-like prices in Japan was painful. I'm going to be even more stingy when I get back to Canada. "What?? They want more than two dollars for my meal?? No way man."

And this is some sort of theatre play house that Kristen and I went to. Japanese theatre was an interesting experience. I felt like I was in the 1500's; all of the female roles are played by men and it was very traditional. As we began to watch, it was all very interesting; everything is overacted and there were all sorts of sound affects (bells and drums) to go with the action. Then people from the audience started yelling stuff in Japanese at the actors!! Apparently there are several kinds of acting "houses" and all of the different groups have different styles. When a member of the audience identifies a movement (all of the actors had these crazy, almost interpretive dance moves to go with their dialogue) that is associated with a certain group, he yells out the name of the group. But as it turns out, Japanese theatre is very slowwww. It involved a lot of talking (which of course I didn't understand), so I may have fallen asleep at some point, but I admit nothing.

We also got to see a few Harajuku* girls, which was quite interesting, but caused me to have that stupid Gwen Stefani song in my head the entire trip ("those harajuku girls, damn they've got some wicked style" etc. etc.).

*Harajuku girls are Japanese teenagers who like to dress up. And by dress up I mean crazy colours of dyed hair, bright bizarre makeup, huge platform boots, little bo-peep dresses. I'm not kidding.

Back to Work

Yep, my big long holiday is officially over. Back to the grueling schedule at Naju English Town. I don't have any classes until March 12th, so I've got some time to put all my Japan pictures up!! But before I do that, here's a random picture. It's of Stu, Laurel Alex and myself hanging out at a waygookin bar in Gwang-ju. I just thought we all looked cute.

Dinner With The Teacher's

Because it's the end of the semester over here, all of the teachers went out to a big dinner to celebrate some retirements, teachers moving on the the next school etc etc. So we all met up at a big seafood place in Gwang-ju where I sampled pretty much every kind of raw fish you could imagine. I tried sea slug (of course I didn't realize that was what it was until I'd already put it in my mouth) for the first time. Mmmmm... delicious. It was this murky, brownish orange mottled colour, but it didn't taste too bad. Then they brought out the final dish, the "piece d'resistance", freshly cut octopus. Still squirming on the plate!! I had thought I would be repulsed when I saw a cut-up baby octopus, but I was so FASCINATED! I tried not to stare too blatantly since I was surrounded by other teachers, but it was so cool! When you try to pick up tentacles, they'll stick to the plate and they're surprisingly strong. I can't even describe to you the feeling of having an octopus tentacle moving in your mouth, sticking itself to your teeth. But the octopus had been soaked in some sesame oil and chopped greens, so it was pretty good!

Sigh... Almost Valentines Day

Or singles awareness day. There are Valentines Vendors all over the place already. Selling a lot of cutesy crap of course. Not much going on in the office. Yesterday Mrs. Lee asked me if I would be willing to put labels on some new books we just bought for the English Town, but I told her I was FAR TOO BUSY to help with that. She's beginning to understand my sarcasm quite well. So yeah, no classes at all this week, and absoultely nothing for me to do in the office (apart from a bit of label making). Today is also graduation for the grade six students, so they've been coming in with chocolate. Excellent.

I'm a little worried about Mr. Yoon, my co-teacher. He's been in the hospital for a while now and no one really tells me anything. When I ask, all anyone (including Mr. Yoon) will say is that his health is "not good". ACK!

Strange Bangkok Moment

So I'm still sifting through all of my Thailand pictures, and here's another weird moment that I just had to take a picture of.

I was in the middle of Bangkok, just about to get onto the skytrain and blocking my entrance is a baby elephant with its two trainers. What the hell??? They were trying to sell bananas to feed the elephant on the srteet. On the left is a busy road, and on the right, a lot of people. Doesn't this seem like a strange place to put a potentially dangerous elephant??

So I'm at work again today, and still no classes. I won't complain because I'm being paid to do nothing, but I really don't have a lot going on at the moment. I'm thinking of writing a novella over the next few days just to pass the time. I just need something to write about.

More Tats

Hello there. I got a request for some more detailed tattoo pictures, but I haven't got much. I don't know why I didn't get some pictures of the final product. So, this is Kristen getting her tattoos (notice all of the bug bites on her legs! hahahahaha):

This is a "before" drawing, although the entire design hasn't been drawn on yet (that's my foot on the right).

Here's an in-progress shot.

Oh My Buddha!

As annoying as this is, if you want a cohesive story, scroll down and start at Thaliand I.

Thailand VIII

On the 30th we flew back to Bangkok and Monique stayed at the airport because she was flying back to Korea. So I had a couple days alone in Bangkok, and I spent it shopping and checking out the sites. It's really easy to get around Bangkok; I mostly just used the sky train then I'd just wander around all day looking at stuff.

Went to see the biggest golden buddha in the world. It was big alright.


Since I didn't get to see any sharks on the islands, I decided an aquarium was the next best thing.

Here's the entrance to China town. I'd visited Chinatowns before (like in Toronto), but this one was HUGE. Everything was red and gold and being sold at low low prices "What you pay? What you pay?? Discount!".

Here's a typical Buddhist Shrine. You can't really see it in the picture, but there were a bunch of people hanging around, and the air was think with incense.

After all of this I was ready to go back to Korea and sleep in my own bed. My plane ride home was much more eventful than on the way there! There was a short stop off in Hong Kong, and after going through security I was sitting in the waiting room near the entrance gate. I was just doing my regular people watching, when I see a pilot walk up to the gate entrance, presumably waiting to get on the plane. He appeared quite professional, except that he looked about sixteen years old. Then the flight staff approached him, and I couldn't understand everything (because they were speaking in Chinese, Korean and just a little English), but I heard one of the flight staff ask him to take off his jacket. I started laughing at this point, realizing that it was just some crackpot who was REALLY into flying.

Shortly after I was let back onto the plane, and who do you think was to be sitting next to me for the next three hours? The crackpot of course. He starts talking to me, and by this point I'm pretty amused by the situation, so I asked him what was going on. It turns out the crackpot is a young Korean man who wants to be a pilot, and he was in China visiting his father. His English wasn't so good, but he definitely got the point accross that some day it was his wish to become a pilot. He made sure to show me his multiple folders of flight plans, airport terminal maps, China maps, Korea maps etc etc. As the plane was taxi-ing down the airstrip he pretended to be "the ATC" (air traffic control) all in English, so I thought it was for my benefit, but when I tried to respond he acted as though I was interrupting VERY important business. "Take off in one.. two... three". Then we had a semi-literate talk about politics "Bushie... Bushie no good. Bushie stupid", before he tracked our entire flight, pointing important factoids out to me as he read.

I'm not sure if he had some sort of disability; he seemed like a smart guy, and he spoke three languages which is more than I could ever do, but man he was WEIRD, kind of an Asian rainman! But hey, he didn't have a homemade bomb on board, so I was happy. And even though the flight attendants thought he was a psycho he got to take a picture with the pilot in the cockpit (which he reminded me of about five times. "Yeah, you told me! That's great! You're very lucky!".

So I arrived back at Incheon airport in Seoul at about 10pm and was able to take a train to Naju arriving around 2:30am. Back to my Korea home.

Thailand VII: Oh Crap, I Still Have So Many Pictures

During our stay at the Wang Sai, we decided to check out some elephants, and went for a ride, which just wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. We were strapped in there pretty well, and our elephant was only interested in eating palm leaves.

Monique and I on an elephant. The elephant handler guy stopped to give the elephant a hosedown at the top of a big hill and took our picture for us.

I bought some bananas to feed to a baby elephant and the elephants trainer had him stand up on his hind legs as a thank-you. When the baby did this, he let out a huge elephant fart. Isn't it nice how classy I try to keep my blog?

After this fun stuff, we headed back to Koh Samui for a couple nights before we had to had to head back to Bangkok. Koh Samui was waaayy more expensive, and in my opinion, not as nice. I really wanted to see some monkeys, so we went to check out a "monkey theatre"



There was the cutest little baby monkey that was crawling all over me (trying to steal my peanuts). I want a pet monkey!!! During the show you could tell how bored the animals were though, and they were not treated well. In between each "set" they would turn on this really loud, really bad music, and at first I was just vaguely annoyed by it, then eventually, when the monkeys weren't behaving so well, we realized it was to hide the sounds of the monkeys screeching as they were hit by their trainers. Nice. That just made me want to steal the baby monkey, but I don't think I could have gotten the little guy on a plane to Korea.

Thailand VI

After a few days of Haad Rin, we needed to get away from the rampant tourism, and the incessant beat of the Euro-pop that was constantly being played on the beach. So we travelled to the other end of the island and stayed at the Wang Sai Resort (for about $3 each per night). This area was equally if not more beautiful, and was a big site for snorkelling, which I was REALLY excited about. I'm not a good swimmer, but snorkelling was amazing! All kinds of tropical fish, choral and these disgusting looking but totally fascinating big black sea slugs. At first they were kind of freaking me out. At one point I was swimming around in some really shallow water and something brushed my foot. I'm ashamed to say I had a bit of a mini-panic-fit; I was utterly convinced that it was a sea slug, trying to eat me (hahahahahaha... it was actually a strap from my life jacket). What I'd really wanted was to see a shark, but it was a no go (which is for the best because then I REALLY would have freaked out!). A tour guide had claimed there were sharks in the region, and I heard a diver talking about seeing a tiger shark on a dive nearby, but I saw no shark.

This was our bungalow at Wang Sai. The walls were made of woven bamboo, so when you were inside the light shone in through all of the holes. This also made it quite easy for the geckos to come and go as they pleased. Geckos were EVERYWHERE. You could just look at the walls or ceilings of any of the restaurants and you'd see a few crawling around.

The view one night from the resort restaurant.

sigh. palm trees.

Thailand V: The Tattoo Parlour

It turns out that going to Thailand is synonymous with getting a tattoo. Kristen got two designs tattooed onto her feet, Monique got a gecko, and Vanessa, alittle design on her wrist, so we spent A LOT of time at "Dong's Tattoo Palace" (or whatever it was called. Hahahahahahaha... that wasn't it's name at all, but the owner's name was Dong.

Everyone had their tatoo done using the bamboo method, which was really amazing to watch; usually tattoos are done with gunns, but the tattoo artist had a bamboo rod with a needle attached (it was clean, don't worry). Dong, the owner, was hanging around the entire time entertaining us, for example he had taught his three year old son to say to foreign girls "me love you long time". How wrong is that?? But it was very funny, and that kid was so cute (no tattoos yet though).

And no, I didn't get a tattoo; I couldn't decide on anything. I really only knew what kind of tattoo I WOULDN'T want: like a dolphin, or a butterfly, or a snake wrapped around a naked lady.

Thailand IV

Sorry this is in little chunks; blogger can be a bit of a jerk when you try to upload multiple pictures. So, while in Haad Rin we sat on the beach, shopped, and drank delicious watermelon shakes like there was no tomorrow. I think that I ordered some sort of fruit shake at every single meal, in fact; they were delicious. We also made a very large mistake: drinking "buckets. The place we were staying at in Haad Rin was very famous for it's "Full Moon" parties, and all you had to do was walk along the beach to get to the "bar" (i.e. low tables on mats on the beach) and buy yourself an entire bucket of alcohol.

Here's Vanessa with one of them. Thailand is also the home of Redbull, and when you mix alcohol and Redbull, things can go wrong. The next day I was not feeling well at all. So that was my first and last time drinking in Thailand. It was a lot of fun though; lots of people to see, and free fire shows on the beach.


Very hot (aren't my puns hilarious??). Those crazy Thai boys with their piercings and tattoos. Speaking of tattoos...

Thailand III The Islands

So, after about two days in Bangkok looking around, we decided to catch a flight out to the island Koh Samui to sit on the beach and meet up with Kristen and Vanessa. After a quick one hour flight, we were on paradise. The kind you see in movies and think, "I'm never going to see a place like that" (if you're from farm country Ontario, like I am). When we landed at Koh Samui airport, I kept asking "so... where's the airport?".

So THIS is Koh Samui airport; a series of grass huts made with bamboo and palm leaves. We were driven from our plane in buses. Very cool! From Koh Samui we took a Catamaran to Koh Phangan, where we hired a "taxi" to take us to Haad Rin (which turned out to be the big tourist town on the island). Eventually we found our hotel, "Paradise Bungalows" which was right on a beautiful beach, and cost us about five dollars each per night.

A view from the plane on the way to Koh Samui. Our plane left the Bangkok airport at 6:30am, so we had arrived at the airport at least two hours before that. EEEKKK! But they served us breakfast on the short flight, so I wasn't too difficult to deal with.


Various views from the area around Paradise bungalows. The weather was mostly sunny and ridiculously warm while I was there, so thankfully, I was able to work on my sunburn and multiple tan lines.

One morning I woke up to a bit of a downpour. This picture was taken from the front porch of my bungalow; it's one of the many buddhist shrines that are all over the place. This one is very simple and rustic looking compared to the others I've seen (I'll have more pictures later).

Thailand II The Grand Palace (Wat Phra Kaeo)

Words and pictures cannot describe how truly ridiculous the Grand Palace was. It was a beautiful place to be; and yet it was so freaking gaudy and over-the-top. Everything was gold and mosaic; every building glittered and shone in the sun in the name of Buddha. It was by far the largest palace or temple I have ever visited, and there are some pretty large ones in Seoul.



There's me looking like a tool in the last one. There were also a LOOOOOTT of tourists of course. Strangely enough, there weren't a lot of Canadians, or even Americans; it all seemed to be big European men in their speedos (although you wouldn't be able to wear just a speedo to the Grand Palace because there's a dress code).

I just had to add this guy. He looks so jaunty.




By far the best part was the temple of the Emerald Buddha. The exterior of the temple was like all the others: grandiose, gold and ridiculously big, but inside was really interesting. To enter the temple there were a lot of rules: we had to take off our shoes, our toes couldn't point directly at the Buddha, we weren't aloud to take photographs, and we had to be silent. So upon entering there's a sudden silence, and the inside is equally ridiculous. The Emerald Buddha itself was so high up on an altar of sorts that you could barely see it. The walls (which of course were immense) were covered in a beautiful, ultra-detailed, gold-illuminated paintings. The actual Buddhists were kneeling and praying, but tourists such as myself who just wanted to see pretty things, felt like they didn't belong as they sat in the back, looking at everything.

Thailand I

Sawaadeekaa! (hello in Thai, the only thing I learned while there, which is shameful)

So, yeah, I'm back in the office but I don't have any classes, so it's time for my major blog update. I know you're excited. Thailand was a lot of fun. I left on January 20th via Thai airways, and everything was pretty standard. It ended up being about a six hour flight, with a nice little stop in Taipei to break things up. After flying from Canada, fourteen hours straight, this felt like no time at all. I arrived at the airport in Bangkok at about 11pm and met up with fellow Najuite Monique at a hostel she was staying at. The next day we did some touristy stuff. There's a big famous river in Bangkok, so we went for a boat ride to see the sights.

This is just a random boat. There were a bunch of them on the river, kind of like taxi's for the richer tourists.

Another nice looking boat. There were all sorts of tours going on. Thailand makes a lot in tourist dollars.

Featured here is a picture of the King of Thailand. There are billboards of him absolutely everywhere, signs hailing the King, he's on every Thai Baht as well etc. etc. On certain days Thai people wear yellow t-shirts with his insignia in his name; I guess he's a pretty cool guy. His reign has lasted 60 years, so he's also a very old guy.

The Bangkok River (Mae Nam Chao Phraya) was a dirty dirty river, but there was lots of interesting buildings to see. Seeing palaces and temples next to skyscrapers is always very jarring.

A Quick Hello From Thailand

Hello all! Thailand's been awesome so far. There'll be lot's of pictures and details later, so this is just a "Cathy's still alive" post. On New Year's (before I left for Thailand), some people set off some bombs in Bangkok, but when I arrived I noticed absolutely nothing, so I haven't been worrying. Most of my trip so far has been spent on two very beautiful islands called Koh Phangnan and Koh Samui. More details later!

Second Week of Camps

The second round of students had a much higher English level, which made things infinitely more pleasant. Add to that the fact that they also brought their mothers, making them a much quieter and eager bunch of kids. The mom's were shy at first, but eventually a couple were even willing to play "Pin The Tail on the Donkey" (the kids loved it, and even wanted to play some more after class. I'm pretty sure it was because I made everyone spin around then try to pin the tail. After a while, they were coming up and spinning themselves before I could put the blindfold on them)!!
Yesterday Mrs. Lee was talking to a bunch of mothers standing around in the office. They were all gesturing at me occasionally as they talked; of course I hadn't a clue what was being said. After they left Mrs. Lee explained to me that they were saying how surprised they were that I was a nice person, and how in the future they wouldn't try to avoid foreigners if they saw them. Hahahahahahahaha. Foreigners can be pretty scary for a lot of Koreans. Whenever I'm walking around Naju, I can get lots of smiles and hello's, but I sometimes get just as many stares and old ladies giving me a wide berth so they don't have to come near me. I've also startled my share of old guys as well. There's a little path between really old houses that I like to take to get to Geumsong Mountain, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only waygook that has ever walked down that street!! Once as I passed a really old man on that path as he came out of his house, he looked up at me and gasped. Then stared for a while, of course.

And I'm waaaay off topic as usual. So yeah, I've really enjoyed the winter camp, even though I'm jealous about everyone else already being on vacation. Now that I've done actual classes for the winter camp, I'm NOT looking forward to going back to the usual English Town schedule! So boring!! Monotonus!

ps: tomorrow I'm flying to Thailand. This is verging on inane, but last night I had this weird ream that I was at a party in my bathing suit (of course I was the only one, just to add in that embarassment element!)... an omen of things to come?

In Three Days I'm Going to Thailand!!!

In three days I'm going to Thailand!!

So Darn Funny!

A few girls from last week's camp showed up wanting to go to my house and "play computer games". After a while of not understanding eachother I resorted to an online translator, which as it turns out, doesn't do a very good job. First they were asking about my hair; is it permed, dyed etc. Kids never believe me when I say it's not. Then I get a translation from them that says something about my two parents in the bedroom and "maybe you mixed race?". Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. So entertaining.

So Darn Cute!

A note I just recieved from a student:

Cathy Teacher,

Hello.

Kind immigration inspector.

Perfect Cathy Teacher.

Love

From Ha Jin Sil student.

The corner I teach is immigration inspection. She also drew a picture of me. Apparently curly hair is called "ramyan noodles" (basically mr. noodles but Kimchi flavoured) over here in K-town.

Random Incidentals

Thanks for the DVD Tracy! And Mom, I finally got those pictures you sent me. The one of Grandma sniffing the octopus treats I sent home is priceless.

So, after a week off I'm back in the office for "winter camps". In Naju English town, winter camps mean half days teaching kids games, when all they want to be doing is playing outside. There are about ten boys in the class that spend the entire time repeating a bastardized version of my name in the back of the class: "Candy! Candy! Candy!" and trying to beat eachother up. Drives me up the wall. Apparently kids here call me Candy because there is some sort of old-school anime character named Candy with blond hair, "Who was very nice and beautiful" (or so says Mrs. Lee), but it still drives me crazy!!!

So, what did I do on my week off... hmmm... I went to Seoul with Mrs. Lee and her family (her husband, who speaks a lot of English and her really cute but-crying-a-lot baby Ka-young). We went to Co-ex and did some shopping, then split up so that Mrs. Lee could visit an old university friend that lives in Seoul. So I tried to find myself a hotel to stay in, which is harder than one would think!! After wandering around the train station and finding only sketchy pink-light districts, I ended up finding a motel in a shopping district in "downtown" Seoul. In Korea there are two kinds of hotels:

1. Really expensive hotels catering to the travelling businessman.
2. "Love Motels" catering to married men and their mistresses. They often come with mirrors by the bed, porn on tv and condoms in the drawer. But they are cheap. There isn't a great deal of Tourism in Korea, so cheap hostel-type places can be hard to come by unless you know where to look.

So I stayed at a love motel that night, then later when I went to Gwang-ju with Alex, we tried to find a place to stay and ended up booking ourselves into the shadiest motel in the history of love motels. We should have gotten an inkling of foreshadowing when we found that the entrance to "California Motel" was down a small alley (not even two feet wide- I shit you not). When we got up to the room we found nothing less than a circular bed with mirrors on both sides of course. The furniture was Palace of Versailles meets Rocky Horror Picture show. Then when we pulled back the sheets and found multiple stains and fresh lipstick on a pillow case. When you're fighting over which stain you don't want to sleep on, it's time to get another place to stay!! So when we got our money back and had finally found what looked like a reputable place, we were awoken at 7am to the sound of... think about it. I believe the first thing I said was "You've got to be kidding me".

So needless to say, I'm all love moteled out.