Waygooks Wandering

On Friday, we went to the final game of the season for the Samsung Lions. We had such a good time at the last game that we wanted to get in one more before the season was over. We assumed that it would be just like the last game, not too many people, lots of enthusiasm.Unfortunately, we were wrong and there ended up being way more people than fit in the stadium. It didn't help that we showed up late after trying to get a pizza. It turns out that we weren't the only ones who thought of getting a pizza before the game. The woman at the restaurant told us it would take an hour so we quickly nixed that idea and decided on some fast food. Unfortunately, the fast food wasn't so fast and we had to wait around 15 minutes for our food. All of this caused us to show up late to the game. Our friends were inside and one of them had to run out and hand us the tickets as we waited in a huge line. There were so many people in the stadium that we couldn't even find two seats together. The back wall of the stadium was covered in people who stood the entire game. We finally found some open space on the ground near the bottom of the stadium, along with a whole lot of other people. It's crazy to see there is virtually no policing of where people can and cannot sit. The game was pretty fun, although we ended up loosing by one at the end. I did get some nice Samsung apparel on our way out though. I guess because it was the end of the season they had everything half off. I got a jacket, and Abbi bought me a hat. 

And I got a jersey-like shirt for myself before the game! It was only $10! Despite the issues we had, we did come more prepared for this game than the last one. We went to Emart and got beer and snacks to bring into the stadium. Although the snacks at the stadium aren't grossly overpriced, like at home, they are still cheaper to buy at a grocery store first. It was a great game, and we were sitting next to some people who have been here for 6 months so far, and they helped us a bit with the cheering. It was kind of like a weird picnic sitting on the ground. I had a great time, again. We'll have to go to another game next season!

Last night was quiz night again! It was the first time we actually had a real team! Maria and Matthew joined our team, and keeping with the Boston theme, we went with "Hahvahd" as our team name. Niall was reading the questions this time, and he had to ask us how to properly pronounce our name :)

The first section was about metals, music and actual metal substances. Maria rocked it with her random knowledge of things! We were in maybe 4th place after the first round. The first beer challenge was an imitation of a Bond villain. The second section of the quiz was about romantic comedies, so, naturally, Maria and I had that one in the bag. This for the second beer challenge, we watched a movie clip compilation and had to name as many movies as we could from it. We won!!! I can't say I was really of help. Maria, Matthew, and Gianni made it happen. I think we were only like 5 off of having them all! We got a pitcher of beer and shared it with our friends from orientation. More people we know have been going to quiz in the last few weeks, which is really nice. After the second round, team Hahvahd was in first place! Only by two points, but still. The third round was a complete the lyrics round. There were some really tough ones in there, but it was a very fun round. We did okay, but not great. We weren't so sure of what the results would be afterwards because we only felt okay about how we had done. We finished the game in second place! We won about $50 to share between the 4 of us. Good winnings! It seems like Maria, Matthew, Gianni, and I are good at coming in second together :)

It was a really fun night. After the quiz, I picked up a scale I was buying from someone for $5, and we quickly went to Home Plus. I got the teachers at my school some cookies because, after your first pay check (which we got today!!!), you're supposed to do something nice to show your thanks. I think cookies are a nice way to thank anyone.

I wanted to give you all a little time to process the Seoul post because it's so ridiculously long, but as it's been a few days, I feel we need to write about the Korean game show Gianni and I appeared on. We will, hopefully, have the video of it by next week when it airs.

I received a somewhat mysterious text from Mr. Hwang, our taekwondo instructor, when we were in Seoul, saying things like "indoor photographing," "singing," and "dancing." Needless to say, I was immediately nervous about the prospect of having to sing, and I had no idea what "indoor photographing" was. Anyway, I texted another foreigner at the gym who had gleaned the same thing from the text that I had: there is some sort of competition, involving singing and dancing and physical challenges, that we would be one of the teams for (foreigners team!).

Needless to say, we had no idea what to expect when we showed up for our second taekwondo class on Monday. Serena and Max (the other foreigners at the gym who have been here for about 6 months) picked us up at Daegu Station, and we all headed to the gym together. We arrive and are immediately accosted by a small girl who seems as though she has is the Korean version of me at my old job as a producer! It was kind of funny to watch her and think about going back to my TV career. We were then asked by three different people if we spoke Korean. They seemed to think we did and were disappointed when we couldn't. Then, we had to choose songs from a karaoke machine to perform. The main gym room, which isn't very large, had 3 cameras and a jib no less!!! I couldn't believe it. We were actually going to be singing and dancing on television! UGH! Worst nightmare!

So we taped a few of the segments for the show with no idea what was going on, basically just being shepherded around the gym. Then it was time for the first competition: singing. We had to sing two songs and Serena went first with "I Love Rock and Roll." I stepped in to help her, and at least the entire team was allowed to stand together. Then it was my turn to sing. I did "Dancing Queen" because it was one of the first ones I saw in the machine. When the other team sang, there was a little boy who started dancing with the, which was really adorable. It turns out the little boy is Mr. Hwang's son. Cute! The hosts of the show gave the boy a massive bag of cabbage as a prize for being such a good dancer. It turns out that we tied in the singing competition!

The second competition was a dance contest. First, they had both teams dance at the same time. Then, we had to dance-battle another member of the other team by ourselves! Mind you that the other team were all black belts in taekwondo! Still, a few of them barely danced at all, so Serena, Max, and Gianni definitely beat their competition. The guy I had to dance-battle was crazy though! He was an excellent dancer and had tons of moves. I couldn't even compete! Oh well. I still think we won that round, not sure though.

The last round was a small obstacle course that they put together right there in the gym on the spot, using the gym equipment. First, we had to hold hands and pass a hula hoop around us, down the line. The person at the end then had to hula hoop 10 times. Then, two people had to jump rope 10 times while the other 2 people spun the rope. Then, one team member had to break 4 plastic boards (they have a seam in the middle, so if you hit them right, they break by themselves). Lastly, one team member had to get at least 1 ring to land around a cone. Max hula hooped and broke the boards. Gianni and I jumped rope, and Gianni tried the ring toss. The other team went first and did the obstacle course perfectly! Then, we did ours and things seemed to be going really well...until we got to the ring toss. Gianni could not manage to land a ring! If you made a mistake, you had to start from the beginning again, so we did it more quickly through one more time. Even on the second try, he couldn't land a ring on the cone! We had the male host assigned to be our team leader. He was hysterical! He kept saying "John" in a really disappointed voice after that. He and the female host were talking about Gianni because that was the only word we understood from what they were saying. It was hilarious though. We all started saying "John" with the same tone the rest of the night. Turns out, we didn't win that round, so we lost the game :( . Oh well, they gave us a consolation prize anyway. We all got massive bags of cabbage!!! More cabbage than anyone could ever eat before it went bad. We tried to pawn some off on some of the other people at the gym, but no one wanted it! I finally gave one bag away to a co-teacher this morning.

After the game, Mr. Hwang was nice enough to take us all out to Daegu Chicken for dinner. We got beer and big plates of fried chicken. We both still have to get used to eating meat with bones using chopsticks. It's a bit complicated. It was delicious chicken though. After dinner, since it was too late for the subway, Serena and Max drove us home again, which was really nice of them.

It was definitely a fun evening. The show is set to air sometime next week, and I really hope my students can't watch it! Mr. Hwang is going to download it for us. It was probably the most ridiculous evening I've ever had! More pictures, and possibly a video, to follow.

When we arrived in Seoul, the next step was to find our hostel. We stayed in Itaewon, which is a big foreigners area near a US military base. Seoul has so many train lines! It's not like Boston where things you want to go see and do are typically on one or two lines. The sights to see are all sort of close together, or most of them are, but they are all on different lines! We had to transfer twice (so we took 3 different lines) just to get to our hostel! It was like that the entire vacation--transferring to get to the stop you wanted for sightseeing. We got to Itaewon without a problem, and the directions to our hostel were very clear and direct. It was very close to the subway station, but there was a massive hill leading up to it--that was not fun with all our bags. Apparently, it had been a really awful staircase, but it had been ripped out to make a new, better one, so when we arrived, it was just a hill with some wooden slats nailed in to use as stairs! It was a really crazy hill. We braved it and got to our hostel only to be informed that, due to a problem with one of the rooms, we were going to be moved to the newest of the buildings that SP Itaewon Guesthouse owns. They have 4 buildings in total. The person who basically runs that building, Dasha, helped us bring our bags back down the hill to the other hostel. I'm really glad we didn't have to walk up the hill every night. Our building was right down the street from the subway and not up any hill at all. Dasha was really great. He is very chatty and social. I feel bad for him because he is basically the only person at this hostel all day. He must get really bored. We settled in to our room, which we shared with a man from Massachusetts named JT! He had been in the army a while back, and in August, he and his buddies had a reunion, but he stayed. I think he is moving back to Korea permanently, but he had been in the hostel like a month already. He was really great and told us a lot about the area and what to see and do. We were in a 6 person mixed dorm with our own bathroom. It is a really clean and nice place to stay, so I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a hostel in Seoul. The one night, it was only JT and us, but the rest of the nights there were other people staying in the room also. By the time we got settled in the hostel, it was already pretty late. We went out to grab some quick food and then hit the sack for our first real day in Seoul.



We met up with Jonathan and Lily, two people from Daegu who we knew from orientation. They woke up really early and took KTX to Seoul that morning. We got them to their hostel building (they stayed in another building of the same hostel), and then we all went to Gangnam to get the bus to Everland. Everland is like Disney World. There are so many cool things to see, but not a lot of big rides. They even have their own little lion mascots: Laciun and Laila. The bus ride was about 40 minutes long and then you get a shuttle from the parking lot area to the front gates of Everland. We weren't able to sit together on the bus ride up to Everland, which was kind of annoying. They were doing a promotion for foreigners during Chuseok where all foreigners get 50% off, so each ticket was only 25,000 won! Great deal! The entire park was decked out with Halloween stuff, which we thought it was a little soon for, but it looked cool. We walked the entire way around the park, and our first stop was Zootopia. There were a ton of really cool animals like kangaroos, different birds, polar bears, and lion cubs! We even got to feed some cute little birds from our hands. Sometimes the animals were in cages that were really depressing and small, but other times they were outside in pens I'm sure they could have escaped from if they tried. The kangaroos were just in a an open, and I'm sure they could have hopped right over the fence, so that was a little weird. The birds we were feeding were just free to fly around the place, and there were other sections like that as well. In addition to the cool animals, there was one area that had rabbits, a sheep, a big, and even some puppies on display in cages. It was really depressing and strange! I didn't like that part very much. I didn't know farm animals and puppies were considered exotic. After Zootopia, we ended up in the European section. We went on the wooden roller coaster with the highest drop in the world. It was actually a really smooth ride, not rickety at all. The drop was huge, and the ride itself felt like it lasted a while. We also checked out a four season garden they had and a village made to look like Holland. As we were walking around, a parade with the characters started. It was a cute parade featuring some ghosts that looked rather unhappy. It was really funny. We took the cable cars back up the hill to another section of the park near the front gates, and we walked from there to the America section. We went on the Columbus ride, which was one of those pirate ships that swings back and forth. Instead of a pirate ship though, they called it the nina, staying with the Columbus theme. I actually didn't like that ride much at all. We got a little dizzy! That never usually happens to me, and I used to like those rides as a kid. Honestly, I know the middle doesn't go up as high, but it means you're going back and forth in the ship more quickly, and it was that motion that was making me dizzy. So when you go on those rides, don't sit in the middle! After that we walked around Aesop's Village, made to look like some of the fables he wrote. There, two people were dressed in Lacium and Laila costumes doing photos, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity! Our last stop for the night was dinner. We got steak burgers and fries from one of the restaurants at Everland. Something we now know about ordering food at a fast food restaurant: if you order the meal or "set," it automatically comes with Coke unless you specify which drink you want. One thing I noticed about baseball games and amusement parks and things like that in Korea is that they don't mark up the prices! They have reasonably priced food and drinks for you to buy. Throughout the day, we had pizza rolls, corn dog bites, and a corn dog in a baguette (called a French hot dog). We ate and then got back on the bus to Gangnam. We had to wait a while before we got on a bus, and we had to push a little to get on, but on the way back, we got seats together. We got back to Seoul and then back to our hostel just fine. We had kebabs and really delicious, thick Turkish ice cream at a Turkish restaurant. Itaewon is also a big area for multi-cultural food. You can find real American breakfast, Turkish, Irish, Italian, Indian, etc. It was really nice to have good food that wasn't Korean for a change. In addition to good food, there are also, randomly, a lot of antique store in Itaewon. We didn't go inside, but I was really surprised because they are the first antique stores I've seen here. After dinner, we just crashed for the night.

Gyeongbuk Palace and mountains

Gyeongbuk Palace Gate and skyscrapers

The next day was the first of two major site-seeing days in Seoul. Even in the two days, we weren't able to see and do everything I had planned. I'm a very ambitious vacationer, as Gianni told me many times. I know. I know. I need to cool it a little and enjoy things more. I just get so excited! We did get to see a bunch of really excellent things though. It was Thursday, which was actual Chuseok day. There were cultural events happening around the city, so we went to some of those. We started at Gyeongbuk Palace. We realized all the palaces were free entrance for Chuseok! Gyeongbuk Palace, and all the palaces in Seoul, were from the Joseon Dynasty, the last dynasty in Korea from 1392-1910. Gyeongbuk Palace is the largest palace and the primary one of the dynasty. All the palaces were burned down during wars with the Japanese, but they were rebuilt a few hundred years ago, so they are still pretty old. At the palace, we watched the changing of the guard ceremony, which is a much smaller deal than the changing of the guards in London, but still really neat to see. We walked around for a while before we got to the National Folk Museum, which is right near the palace. Above the museum was a beautiful tiered building that was, we were told, for the dowager Queen. There, they were having cultural activities for people to take part in. Gianni and I played a few traditional Korean games, which were all explained to us by a woman named Submarine--I kid you not! That's what she said her name was. First, we played a game where the board is the palace, and all the pieces are either soldiers or generals. If you roll doubles, you get to put your piece in the general's circle. If you roll other numbers, you place your soldiers on that number. Once you get two pieces on a number, that number is full. The goal is to try to get all the soldiers in the palace and then back out of the palace before the other person by rolling the dice. The next game looked really complicated. It had a whole lot of boxes with Chinese characters in it. Really though, it was similar to chutes and ladders. If you roll a number, you check the box to see what space to move up to when that number is rolled. It could be forward or backwards or even outside the main box. You may also roll a number that makes you lose up to 4 turns! The goal is to get to the top of the main box before the other person. The top box represents getting to the highest rank possible in society. I won the first game, and Gianni won the second, so it was fair. After the games, we walked around to see the other cultural activities. I paid 3,000 won to make a goose using straw. It was pretty fun, but they did most of it for me because I was hopeless. After the games, they had some music going on outside that we watched while trying some Korean food and alcohol. Songpyeon is a rice cake stuffed with some sort of sort of sweet, dry filling. They are a traditional food eaten at Chuseok, and we got to try some. We also had baekseju, a rice wine that tastes like soju but a bit fruitier and more palatable. After spending a good deal of the day at Gyeongbuk Palace, we went to Changdeok Palace for the last hour it was open. Seoul has 5 palaces, and on this trip we were able to see 3 of them fully. The palaces were all burned, damaged, or destroyed by the Japanese during different invasions and are now restored. Still, even the rebuilt versions are a few hundred years old in some cases. Gyeongbuk is the main palace, and Changdeok Palace is to the East of it. The name "Changdeokgung" means "Palace of Prospering Virtue" while "Gyeongbukgung" means "Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven." The word "gung" just means "palace." Changdeok Palace was built in 1405, but it was rebuilt in 1610 after the Japanese destroyed it. The two palaces were so different. They had all the same beautiful, ornate paint work, but Changdeok was so peaceful and it was laid out differently. It was also much smaller and had way less people, which is why I might have liked it better. Changdeok Palace and Gyeongbuk Palace each had the same general structure in the sense that you walk through an archway into a square area with a building in the middle of it. That's how the palaces tend to be laid out--walls that form a square outside, no landscaping inside the walls, and a building at the center of the square. This layout is then repeated a bunch to form the entire palace. Sometimes this isn't exactly the layout, but I noticed this pattern of buildings and walls repeating a lot. Changdeok is very famous for it's secret garden, which the kings used for relaxation and entertainment. It's the secondary palace, and I was told it was built as a kind of escape in case there was an outbreak of disease or war that threatened the main palace. I'm not sure why this palace would have helped though because it is only 1 subway stop away from Gyeongbuk, but whatever. We walked around for a bit and into what we thought was the secret garden. Turns out it was actually just a garden at the back of the third palace, Changgyeong Palace, which joins up with Changdeok. Changgyeong Palace means "Palace of Flourishing Gladness." That palace was built for the dowager queen. We walked around it's back garden for a bit. There is a pond and also some old monuments. The monument was apparently where they buried the placentas of the royal family when someone was born. It was a custom meant to wish them a long life. We didn't have time to look at the actual palace before they closed, so we left and went back to Itaewon. That night, we met up with one of my friends from my TEFL class back in April, Lish, and a few of her friends from Jinju where she teaches at Hogwon. We went to a kind of expensive Indian restaurant in Itaewon. I didn't know it would be so expensive. Still, it was really good Indian food, but a little on the spicy side for me. Even some dishes that, in the US, aren't spicy, were spicy here. After dinner, we went to High Street Market, a store that sells food items from English speaking countries. They even deliver to anywhere in South Korea. There is definitely a price differences because these are specially imported items, but it is nice to know that if I am really in desperate need of some food from home, I can get it. Also, if you wanted to get me something for Christmas, it might be worth ordering from there and having it delivered because at least you avoid the shipping fees from home, even if the food is a little pricey.

Yesterday was excellent! First of all, a few of the teachers came around and brought snacks to all of us, which was really nice. My coteacher brought every pieces of banana and another teacher brought around these rice wrap. There was red bean paste in the middle and the rice cake was wrapped around it, and there as a leaf wrapped around that. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to eat the leaf...so I took a bite before someone could tell me. WOOPS! It was ok...I don't mind the chewy texture of rice cakes, but I didn't like the bean flavor in it. Still, it is really nice for teachers to bring things around to everyone else. I'm going to have to make something or get something to share after my first pay check. My classes were pretty good also. There was one class that I didn't know I hadn't introduced myself to yet, so I'm going to have to do that next week, but that's ok.

After school, Gianni and I both went home and started packing for our big Seoul trip today! We'll be in Seoul for Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving), so we'll be home Sunday evening. Gianni came over, and we ate the last of the chicken and made some pasta to go with it. Hopefully soon, we'll make some chili in the rice cooker or something more interesting for dinner. I think we're all packed and ready for our trip now though.
I'm very excited to be going to Seoul. Getting the traveling started early.

I have been looking around for a taekwondo class for adults, and I found one of facebook the other day! I set up to do what I thought would be an observation class last night. We met the teacher, Mr. Hwang, at Daegu station, and he drove us to the gym from there. He speaks a little bit of English and is a really funny guy. We got to the gym and were given guest uniforms to put on, so we could try the class! Thrown into the deep end I guess! There was another couple from the US (not English teachers), so they were really helpful during class. They helped us learn the moves. The first half hour was a warm up, the next hour we did some kicking and punching of hand-held pads, and the last half hour we spent some time learning the first poomse (form) of taekwondo. It would be one of the things we'd have to memorize and perform if we wanted to move on to the next belt. The class is supposed to go from 8:30 to 9:30 and then 9:30 and 10:30, but most people stay for both classes. They are more like a continuation of each other apparently. We stayed the whole time and then got things figured out to sign up after class. Gianni realized that it was close to 11pm when the trains and buses typically shut down. Our new friends from class, Serena and Max, drove us home after a stop for some dinner at McDonalds. It was my first cheeseburger in weeks, and boy was it good! We had a really great time at taekwondo, and I think we're both really looking forward to going back and starting up for real next week!

This weekend, we had a bit of a lazy time. We woke up late both days. It was one of the only weekend for a while that there are no festivals happening. Still, we managed to have a really fun time. Saturday, we stayed in during the day, but we tried two new foods to us. First, this guy sells these things that are in the shape of a fish and look like fried dough on the outside. We figured there would be some sort of fish inside, but no! There was red bean paste for some unknown reason. Whatever. It was pretty good. Then we went to bapburger for lunch. They use rice as the "buns" of the burger, and they put things in it. I got a tuna and ramen one, and Gianni got a bulgogi one. They were actually really good. You eat them with a spoon, and the guy came over before we started and smooshed it down a little when the burger was wrapped in tin foil. Interesting. I liked it though. We then went to CNA, which is just a store that sells random things. I found the most awesome thing I've ever purchased! They had a pillow puppet that you slip over your arm in the shape of a duck. That way, you can more comfortably sleep at your desk. In Korea, people don't really take sick days. They come in even if it's just to sit at their desks and sleep. And we also have a lot of desk warming hours because we are required to be at school even if we don't have class or anything to do. This is perfect! Gianni also got a Plants vs. Zombies hat that is really cool.

After that, we ran an errand at Home Plus before rushing off to the Camp Walker US military base for an event. The Daegu Compass is a magazine for foreigners with things to do in Daegu and South Korea in general. They sponsored this event on the base that was like wine and jazz. They didn't publicize the date you had to register by though, and after a long walk from the subway, it turns out that we weren't on the list! We waited for like a half hour to get in and met a friend and some of her other friends who turned out to be really nice. One of them knew a girl whose husband is in the military in Daegu. She called her friend who then took us in as her guest. We only stayed for a little bit, but I bought a bottle of wine!

After leaving the base, we went downtown with them and got some food at this really great pasta restaurant. It was actually great food, good portions, and really cheap. Then they took us to gogo bar where we could get capri sun bags full of drinks. The girl who made my mango soju drink even offered to make it stronger if needed! When has a bartender ever offered to make a drink stronger!? We walked around downtown with them and checked out a few bars. You can just stand outside bars and bump into tons of people you know and drink your drinks from whatever bar you went to. It was really fun. We went to MF Bar, and it was someone from our orientation's birthday. Apparently, if you friend the bar and tell them its your birthday, they will print large posters for you to decorate the bar! The posters were so cute and really funny! I want to do it for my birthday. We hung out for a bit, and the trains and buses stop in Daegu at 11pm, so we got a taxi back for only 11,000 won, which wasn't bad because we went pretty far.

This morning, we got up kind of earlier. Maria and Matthew were planning on coming over a little later in the afternoon, but their plans got messed up, so they came over for lunch. We got lunch at the shabu shabu place we went to the other day because I loved it so much. When I went to pick them up from the train station, we walked past a man selling tons of socks for only 500 won! So after lunch, we stopped by there for Gianni to pick up some more simpsons ones. He has 3 pairs of socks now. They are so funny. I got some funny ones myself. I got ones with Obama on them. I couldn't pass them up. We had a really fun day playing Settlers of Catan and watching The World's End with them also. We went to a pizza place that has been recommended to me called Pizza School. We got pepperoni, which was the most normal. We also got cheese, but it came with corn, and we got sweet potato, which had mustard on it of all things! It was actually really good pizza. They are small, so we got 3 pizzas for 5,000 won each--not a bad price at all to feed 4 people.

It was a really fun/lazy weekend, which is just what we needed because our big Seoul trip is coming up in a few days! I can't wait!

The Samsung Lions are the baseball team in Daegu, and they are currently the 1st place team in the league. They are also the defending champions because they won the South Korea World Series last year. Yesterday after school, we rushed over to the stadium to catch a game. Tickets were only 7,000 won each (like $7). Most of the seats are general admissions, so you can sit wherever you want. I think it would be harder to get seats if we had gone on a weekend, but since we went on Friday I wasn't too concerned.

We had a little bit of trouble getting to the stadium because it's a bit of a walk to the subway station. We kept trying to ask people, and I think the people didn't speak English enough to tell us, so they didn't want to try. We decided just to try a taxi, and I said Samsung Lion and baseball to him. I showed him a picture of the team and the website (in Korean mind you!), and the driver kept saying no. I have no idea if he meant "no, I don't know where that is" or "no, I don't want to drive you there." Sometimes taxi drivers in Korea will refuse you a ride, especially if it is far away because they won't get cab fare back, but it is, technically, illegal. Even so, the stadium wasn't even that far away! How can you not know where the baseball stadium is. So annoying! Anyway, some teenager walking near us heard that we were having problems and told us to follow him. He pointed us in the right direction and got us to the stadium. Thanks kid! Whoever you were.

We met us with a group of our friends from orientation (Maria, Matthew, Kat, Maria, Jake, Stefanie, Josh) and got our tickets. At Daegu stadium, you are allowed to bring outside food into the stadium. They sell all kinds of friend chicken outside, so we all loaded up with chicken and beer. I guess chicken is the snack of choice at baseball games in South Korea, or at least in Daegu. Some people brought TONS of food though. I saw people with full pizzas and boxes of beers. That's definitely the way to go next time. We started out sitting down by right field, which, we soon realized, was the territory of more of the Giants fans. We could see that there were Samsung fans cheering and doing chants across the field. Maria and Jake went to scope it out first, and I came later because I wanted to take pictures of the mayhem. Finally, we got everyone over there. For a while we were sitting in some empty ticketed seats, but them someone came over to claim them. Apparently, it's ok to be fashionably late to a baseball game. Oh well! Matthew, Maria, Gianni, and I found other seats right at field level. It was a great view. Besides chicken and beer, I got a few other snacks from one of the vendors inside. I got the milkshake in an IV bag that I had at orientation, some Bugles corn chips (they weren't bugles I don't think, but they were the exact same thing), and some chocolate-filled, small, square, biscuit things. The snacks were really delicious, as was the chicken.

Sitting near the Lions fans was awesome! During the entire game, they had amazing chants happening throughout the game. They also had mascots and cheerleaders on a stage in the stands dancing and getting everyone excited. The best part was the MC of the baseball game. There was a man dressed in a Lions uniform who was leading chants, giving away prizes, and being generally awesome. It really kept everyone going. At one point, we did the best wave I have ever seen. It went all the way around the stadium like 4 times, and there was a slow motion and a super fast motion wave! So much fun! The man sitting behind us with his wife and two sons was kind enough to answer my questions when I wanted to learn more about the chants. I didn't learn many, but one of them said the players name and then "get a hit, please." Hit is "aunta" in Korean. Baseball fans in Korea really know how to enjoy watching a game. We had a great time, and we would definitely go back again! Also, Samsung played really well. They won 10 to 5 in the end, I believe.

This is TOP

Yesterday in class, I had one group of kids who were really funny. They wanted to ask me a lot of questions, so we played the game. First they asked if I had a boyfriend then what my favorite Kpop group was. Then I got who was my favorite band member of Big Bang (TOP naturally). Funniest question of the day: Do you like your fiance or TOP better? LOL!!! I said Gianni, obviously, especially since I can't get married to TOP because he's a celebrity.

Tonight we ended up at a Japanese restaurant near my apartment. I got some really delicious tempura chicken. It came with something like a BBQ sauce, which was also good. It was a chicken and noddle combo, so I also got these brownish colored noodles that I was supposed to dip in a really cold sauce--I think it was soy sauce of some kind. Gianni had miso ramen.

It was a really good dinner, but some girls sat down next to us and I swear they were taking photos of us. They weren't being very subtle, and they were holding up their phones in our direction. It's so rude! I know they are curious about us, but taking pictures of random strangers! And these were not old people, so they definitely have had English teachers before. We aren't the first white people they've ever seen. This was the second time this happened to me too. At the body painting festival, I was taking pictures and an older woman had her phone out taking pictures of me. That time I put my hand in front of my face, so I think she got the picture. Thing is it's weird because they see no problem taking pictures of random strangers, but when I'm taking a picture of food, and there happens to be a person in the shot also, they get mad. Yet they don't think I might get mad about them taking a picture of me. I don't understand the logic there. Whatever.

The people at the T World near my school totally lied! After the teacher dinner last night, I saw the same girls who were helping me at the cell phone store yesterday, and I told them that I got it all set. They said I could change my plan right there, and so they did it for me. I'm not on unlimited data! I think that's a better option for me. Actually, it comes with more free minutes than the other plan I was on too, so no idea what that's about. Whatever.

Random things I've noticed:

Yesterday went well. I only had 3 classes, so it was kind of an easy day. I've been trying to get some planning for next week's Korea Around the World culture topic. It's kind of vague, but I think I'm going to talk about Kpop coming to the US, Koreatowns, and Korean movies in the US. I believe that is what the topic wants me to cover, but it's a bit hard to tell. I made a presentation on the website prezi, and it looks pretty good. Lots of videos, but I probably won't show them all.

I got my ARC card yesterday! YAY! That means I finally get to have a real cell phone. Korvia was great in providing us with a prepaid phone as soon as we got to the airport, and it's been really handy, but it's NOT my iphone! So after school I went and spent about an hour and half getting my phone sorted out. I went to Olleh, which seemed to only have two plan options, and I didn't want to choose between only 2, so I went to SK instead. These are both the big cell phone carriers in Korea. I was deciding between two options: one plan was for 1GB of data and 130 minutes of cell phone use and calls between SK phones is free, the other was unlimited data and calls between SK phones is not free. I ended up going with the 1GB that was slightly cheaper, but I think I'm going to change that because this afternoon, we figured a few more things out. My coteacher brought me to the bank to give them my new phone number and my ARC card. Last night, the cell phone people couldn't set up automatic payment of my bill through my bank account because the records at the bank didn't match. I got that all set up now. After setting up the banking, we went to the cell phone store this afternoon. They got automatic payment set up, and they told me a little bit more about my plan and the other one I was debating between. I tried so hard last night, and so did the person who was helping me at SK. She was really great, and we tried our best despite the language barrier. Anyway, my plan is 1GB and 130 minutes, unlimited texting, the other plan is unlimited data and 300 calling minutes. What the heck! The unlimited is obviously the better option, and it's only 7,000 won more! I have to wait 1 month to change it now though, so I'll get that figured out next month. For the time being, at least I have a phone number.

Gianni was already at my apartment by the time I was done with the bank, and he made some really good pasta. He mixed some veggies into the ready-made pasta sauce, and we had that for dinner. It was really good. We went out for bing su (shaved ice) again last night too. It's delicious. We got dutch coffee, so it had coffee in the shaved ice and some chocolate bits around it. Gianni made a video that I'll post later.

Today is listening test day at school, so I had one class cancelled because of that. I have two more classes, and then it's my first teacher class tonight. I am going to be doing a conversation class with the non-English teachers in the building. I'm excited, but also nervous. I'm not totally sure what is expected of me. I think the topic is going to be something along the lines of the differences between Daegu and Boston and South Korea and the USA. Hopefully it goes over well. After school, we are having another staff dinner. This time it is a welcoming one for the new teachers and vice principal. I'm not sure yet where we are going, but hopefully, I can make it to quiz night at Traveler's again too.

Today went pretty well. I had 4 classes, and I taught mostly the same stuff I taught last week. I'm a little worried about making sure the grade 2's get through everything they need to for exams, but one of my coteachers reassured me that the Korean teachers make sure. I spent most of the time last week doing my introduction game, so I didn't get to do the textbook work. I don't want my students to be behind is all. I think it will turn out alright. Some of my classes were talkative today, but others had serious cases of the Mondays. Oh well! It's to be expected. I think I am getting better though. I adapted to the fact that my flash drive didn't work for one class, and I am teaching them more vocabulary. I fell into the rhythm of concept check questions (not just saying "do you understand?"), so I think that's good. Still, I need some more practice. I started my sticker reward system today. Some of the kids seemed to enjoy it. We'll see if it actually makes them pay any more attention. Ugh. Sleepers. It's difficult to make this text book more interesting and still get everything done that I need to. I am still doing my intro game with a few classes since I have some classes once every other week. It's really funny; whenever I talk about my "fiance" they say "beyonce," and I get to say, "no, not the singer!" It makes me laugh.

The teacher who sits next to me helped me order snacks from the snack lady! I will not get a different flavored yogurt every month, which will cost about 12000 won per month ($12). I just won't buy yogurt again. It was good this morning for sure. In one of my last classes, there was a boy wearing a Boston shirt. It had dates on it that I didn't get to verify, like the founding of the city or something. I didn't want to stare at him. I did catch that it said "Massachubetts" on it though! Oh man! If I find that shirt somewhere, I'm totally getting it! So funny.

I did some lesson planning for next week though too. I'm teaching how to give your opinion and ask others for theirs with one class, so I think I'll do a debate. In the other class, the topic is something having to do with Korean culture all over the world. The textbook is really vague on this topic. I think I'm going to spend some time talking about Koreatowns all over the US. I have to find something else to do also. I start my Teacher classes on Wednesday, which is excited. Teachers in the school come to practice their English with me. It's a conversation class. The teachers have been very nice so far, and I think the school nurse who helped my headache is coming!

Tonight, I got home from school and cooked dinner. We had chicken with pasta and tomato sauce. We bought a big thing of chicken, so we need to make sure we cook it. We went on a walk and got bubble tea tonight. It's interesting to look around our neighborhood. There's a lot going on. Also, I notice that in Korea cars randomly park on sidewalks all the time because there's like no parking around, and U-turns are totally legal. There are even specific u-turn lanes! crazy.

I forgot my camera today for the first time so far! So mad at myself. Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post, but maybe I'll go back to Seomun Market sometime and take a few. Seomun Market is a really well known and HUGE market in Daegu. It's a traditional kind, and vendors sell anything from street food to textiles to jewelry and clothing. It's a crazy maze of shops that you could totally get lost in. There is a main archway the serves as the entrance, and there are people selling food all down one street, but if you walk down any of the alleyways, you get into a covered area where there are people selling food and others selling clothing. There are also people selling typical street food that you walk with, but some people were sitting at make-shift restaurants, which were basically just old women making food in front of a few benches. Gianni and I didn't know the protocol about going to one of them, but the food smelled delicious no matter where you went. There's an outside part of the market, a covered part, and an inside part. Inside, there are at least 4 floors of clothing, jewelry, ceramics, and textiles, including a fish market and food court type thing on the bottom floor. I bought a far too expensive jacket for me to be buying right now, but it's soooo cool. It's like a sort of trench on the outside, but you can zip it up, and it has a hood like on a hoodie with stripes on the inside of the hood. Anyway, really cool, but I should have haggled. I got a bit nervous to though. Woops! Live and learn.

After looking around the crazy big market and not being sure if we'd walked past something before or not, we decided to take the train back to banwoldang and go downtown to get some food. My feet were killing me by this time. We ended up at a sushi buffet place. There was tons of sushi on conveyor belts. They just brought sodas over to us, even though we didn't ask, which was a little weird. They gave us tea bags, and I think we found the hot water dispenser on the table, but the water didn't seem to be hot...Anyway, we ate a little, but this was before we knew it was a buffet, so we didn't want the bill to be really high if we ate too much. When we paid, we figured out it was a buffet, so we should have eaten more. Oh well. It was a little pricy for lunch, and the sushi was only alright.

Our feet were dying, so we're back at the apartment now chilling until dinner. I think we are going to cook chicken tonight :). Oh! Forgot to say: I made pancakes this morning. They turned out pretty good in my opinion, and I had some maple syrup at home to eat with them, so yay!

As I said in the last post, we went to the Daegu Sharing Life festival with our friends on Saturday. The festival is to promote cultural diversity in Daegu. The 5 of us were a team for the photo scavenger hunt. We took the train to banwoldang station, met with everyone at the underground fountain, and hoped in two taxis to take us on a quick trip to Gukchae-bosang memorial park. It was our first taxi ride, and everyone was kind of counting on me to lead them in the right direction! I was a little worried, but we all got there easily. We checked-in, and we all got free white sharing life festival t shirts, which was awesome. While we waited for the event to start, the whole team decided to go out for lunch, and we ended up at a kebab place in downtown. It was actually delicious, unlike the Korean mexican food we got at Dos Tacos last weekend. Gianni and I got some wraps with lamb that came with french fries. Also, I found out at the street right outside the park must be wedding dress street. There were like 10 wedding dress shops right there, so I might have to do a little looking...

After lunch, we headed back to the Sharing Life Festival area where things were getting underway. Before starting the scavenger hunt, we got to hear a Korean band called Project DAN play traditional Korean instruments. They played Hey Jude, and it sounded really cool.


Things got underway, and we were given a list of all the pictures we needed to take. Our team decided to do all the tasks that were in the park where the festival was, thinking we could get more done that way. Sometimes we had to find Koreans to help us with tasks, but other times the list said "strangers," so we could use people we didn't know on the other teams. We made a human pyramid with one team, and Sian was really nervous to be the top! The best experience was when we did the can-can for a few old Korean women and made them clap and cheer for the task. One of the women even started dancing with us! It was adorable. Because we chose to stay in the park, we also got to do all the cultural booths. There was soap molding, paper crane making, writing chinese characters, playing traditional Korean games, wearing hanbok, and making braided bracelets. The challenges were really fun. We had two hours to complete as many tasks as we can, and we seemed to complete a lot. Still, there were a lot we didn't do. There were many tasks that involved finding a specific Korean person that we just didn't get to. We did find a matching Korean couple, which brings my couples clothing count up to 8 so far! We got the guy in the couple to dong chim Matthew, which was hilarious! I don't know if you remember, but dong chim translates to "poop needle." We heard about it at orientation, and its basically making a gun shape with your hands and shoving your fingers up someone's butt. Elementary school kids like to do this to each other and their teachers. Anyway, we only had the guy pretend to do it to Matthew :) Hysterical still!

After the scavenger hunt, I turned in our memory card, and we were able to try out some of the food from the different cultures represented. It was good, but we have no idea what any of it was. After about an hour, they were ready to announce the winners of the scavenger hunt. Team Hot 6 took SECOND PLACE!!! We were soooo excited! We were only 2 points away from the first place team also. We won a bunch of cute socks, which they sell all over the place here. They love their socks in Korea. We had a great time with it, and I was so happy with the result.


The last part of the festival was a holi party. Holi is a holiday in India where they throw colored corn starch into the air and at each other. They also had paint at this festival. I hung back taking pictures for a bit, but then I got in there myself. People were hurling paint and corn starch at each other like crazy. One of the guys from another team with the paint was a little too aggressive with it. Kind of mean. But whatever, it was still fun. The organizers of the festival put wet wipes everywhere for people to clean off as much as they could. Matthew, Maria, Gianni, and I went into the bathroom to change into our other shirts and wash off also. After such a great day, we went home and relaxed the rest of the night.

There are a few new albums on the photos page, so check those out. We have decided that there is going to be a new "foodventures" album with photos and videos of all the foods we are trying. Also, there will be a random album with things I notice around Korea, so definitely read the descriptions on those to figure out why I posted them.