Oh, and did I mention?

Remember the mystery soup I posted a photo of in my Hong Kong slide show? Well, I cast out my net and reeled in an answer. Thanks to Kevin and Caitlin for being addicted to Food Network!

You may find it difficult to see the difference between my picture...


...and this one.


The two photos might as well have been taken of the same bowl of soup. That soup is bird's nest soup. The nests come from a particular species of swift. Unlike a normal nest, these are not made of twigs and leaves but rather of the swifts cement-like saliva. The saliva is pasted onto the inner walls of caves by male swifts in China and Indonesia, and is then harvested for the many mythical health benefits it provides. Though considered to be a delicacy and normally quite expensive, there is a garden variety for the every man, and thus it was the 2 dollar soup of the day.

A lesser man would wish he didn't know that he had eaten "nutritional", congealed bird spit soup, but a truly admirable one relishes in the discovery of the truth and the adventure of trying new things. He is not disheartened by the culturally myopic notion that something scraped of the inside of a cave wall should never be boiled, soaked, and eaten, but knows full well that knowledge is empowering and that there is no "right" food. In this situation, I believe I am the former of the two.

Changes

If you've detected some blog silence you would be right. Lots has been happening in the office and I'm struggling just to tread water! Well, tread water when the water is rising, so swim up? Let me explain.

I am now foreign head teacher. This means that not only do I have a full class load, but I also handle a number of other duties. I'm primarily responsible for communication (i.e. the bad news from the management and the complaints from the foreign teachers). Consequently, I've found a certain distance grow between me and my coworkers since I'm seen as "one of them" in a way. Disappointing, as I'm constantly working to improve the work place for us while making the management more satisfied with our performance and increasing the quality of education for the students. What a juggling act!

I've also been given a number of special scenario duties, including interviewing new potential employees as well as training new recruits. I also act as universal substitute, and (increasingly) curriculum supplement-er. This makes the fact that I have 2 periods off almost irrelevant.

I never realized how needy and difficult we were until I had to manage us on an individual level. I have to repeat myself constantly. I'm always reminding and (what seems like) micro-managing, and yet the minute I stop there's a crisis and a complaint. It's incredibly taxing, and yet fulfilling in a way. I finally get the feeling that I am respected and have a certain autonomy over my destiny. The freedom and recognition have more than made up for the long hours and low pay thus far.

How am I coping with the hustle bustle of two new teachers and a half new curriculum? New episodes of The Office and How I Met Your Mother sure aren't hurting. Mostly though it's been a strictly "head down, power through" approach. Don't get distracted and don't realize that you're as busy as you are. How long before I burn out? Well, as long as things continue on a track of improvement all around, I just may be motivated enough to keep up the pace, but I fear that disappointment will take the wind out of my sails pretty quickly.

On a lighter note, apparently I need to shave. This I've known since well before I came here, but my students have been making it increasingly prevalent in our exchanges. Last week, the students told me that when I don't shave I look like a homeless man. Of course, they want to make sure that I understand the meaning so they tell me as many ways as they can think of. Teacher! You know Geoji? No home man? Live in subway station? Dirty? Sleep in newspaper blanket? Always always ask more money? Thanks, I get it. 2 weeks prior, a 6th grader tried to scrape hair off my arm with a razor blade. Don't we expel for that sort of thing???

Hong Kong

It's not the beginning, but a good place to start would be here: on top of Victoria peak, looking out over the glittering landscape, overwhelmed with accomplishment. I stood there on top of Hong Kong in more ways than one. With no regrets, I came off that mountain and back to Seoul.


That was, of course, the high point. I was seriously questioning my logic the night before I departed Korea. There's something just plain ominous about buying a ticket to China in my mind. It's not something to be taken lightly. I was equal hours from confirming the purchase and boarding the flight, breaking down as I imagined my bags packing themselves. The situation was going to get worse before it got better. My developing head cold was in full swing by morning, and I forgot to shave (which I've made a point of doing before every flight since 9/11...). I took a cab straight out of work 15 minutes before I was allowed to leave, because I wouldn't make the flight otherwise. There I was, having scurried from one end of the city to the other, in an airport, with a Muslim appearance and symptoms of swine flu. As you can imagine, by the time I got onto the Airport Express into the city proper, I...well, you don't have to imagine.


My hostel was in an overwhelming area after all that. I rode the cab (British style backwards) to the heart of the madness, where I was accosted by groups of people attracted to my baggage and trying to get me to stay with their hostel or hotel. If buildings were humans, this one would have been a zombie. The room was beyond minuscule. I've seen more spacious janitorial closets.

When I eventually went to the history museum, I learned the bizarre geological history of the area. It was once a swamp, when sea levels rose and it became ocean. As land changed it was just a lake, until it was a bunch of volcanoes for some 200,000 years. Then it was a desert, then a bunch of mountains. During the ice age it was actually glacier, and when everything melted it became the bunch of islands it is today. But for my duration there, it was 100% a jungle. The first morning I shook myself out of slumber and snot and drug myself into the oppressive heat. More oppressive than anything I've ever imagined. Hong Kong is as far south as Hanoi, and parts of it look like what I imagine Hawaii would look like, particularly when I left the city proper.

On a few occasions I took bus around to the south side of Hong Kong island to a pair of small towns known as Repulse and Stanley. As opposed to the city itself, which faces north into mainland China, the south end of the island opens up straight into the South China Sea. There were some beautiful beaches and plenty of ritzy places to live. It was here I really experienced some of the wacky weather of the island. It would go from sunny to ten minutes of downpour completely unannounced. Then it would clear up and be lovely for an unpredictable amount of time, when rain would again materialize for ten minutes.


I didn't mind the unexpected rain. It gave me an excuse to duck into buildings, especially restaurants. I surprisingly only ate Chinese food less than half of my meals. There was a wide variety of noodles+ (from beef and veggies to more questionable supplements) and there was Cantonese barbecue. I had pork, duck, and goose. The birds were a bit disturbing, but the pork was excellent. The reason I ate such little Chinese food was that the options were so abundant! I was in a former British colony, and the global feeling of the city was present in every aspect of my stay (I spent 30% of my culture shock on the Britishisms everywhere). I was so not the only foreigner. Never was I stared at (unless I was coughing) since there were Indians and Africans and all sorts of Europeans everywhere. This of course meant that there was excellent foreign food in Hong Kong. I mean excellent. I ate Indian food half of the time. The absolute best of my life. It didn't even survive long enough to be photographed. I had top notch sushi, great fish and chips with an actually good Guinness, and just about popped in for a real steak.

When I wasn't eating or window-shopping, I was walking. Due to my worthless Korean bank telling me there was no way to access my account from one of Seoul's only nearby major cities (3rd world banking quality imo), money was much tighter than I first expected. I accepted the challenge optimistically and cut back on paid transportation. I took the ferry (it cost about a quarter) and hoofed it most everywhere else. In this way I got lost several times (the most frightening time in some sort of steel working part of town on the mainland peninsula of Kowloon) but always managed to right myself more reliably than I thought I was capable of. I also managed to walk/bus myself to some very peaceful temples and such. In the end I was glad both for the enforced budget as well as for forgetting my iPod in the rush out of work on Tuesday night. I was forced to experience a greatly different group of sights as well as sounds.

Hong Kong had it's quirky times as well. Take, for example, the fact that on literally every busy street corner three Indian men offered me a tailor. I was in a t-shirt and cargo shorts. Did I look so bad that everyone in the city wanted to make me a suit? Were I there much longer I would have been approaching Indian men myself and preemptively offering them tailoring services just to throw them off. "Excuse me sir, can I interest you in a tailor? Prices very cheap! Very good quality! Please just come and see my location, perhaps you will change your mind!"


As far as just the flat out crazy times, I think the hostel getting raided by the police took the cake. I came back at the end of the day to find our humble tenements surrounded by cops. They let me in without a second glance, but then I couldn't get out without presenting papers. I was disallowed from using the stairs, and my papers were again checked when the cops came around banging on doors in the hostel. The word was that twice a year it's legal for the police to just blow through and check every foreigner they can until they find illegal ones. I witnessed the biannual panforeign screenings!


In the end it wasn't what I had expected (though I had only really left myself about 12 hours to build said expectations in the first place), but it was an adventure. I was mostly in such an international place that English was always readily understood, so I didn't really get that lost-without-a-sole-who-can-understand-me experience that I had wanted, but I think this was a good toe in the water. The trip did garner me an overall feeling that my job thus far has been worth it, as I had hoped that finally reaping the benefits of my labor would. With more to come, I turn my mind now towards surviving more Avalon until I can take my 9 day trip to who-knows-where at the end of November.

A Quick Word

Just got back into the apartment, and I have to work early tomorrow so I'm gonna hit the sack. I couldn't leave you without a taste of the mania that was Hong Kong though. So, without further ado, a billboard:

'LEMON TEA' has been nerdy, and it has been gangster.
Never before, however, has it been so nerdy and so gangster simultaneously.

The Real Trip

Well, I'm finally off. Half of the reason I came out here was to polish my Korean, but I could do that with a Korean girlfriend and a textbook anywhere in the world. The other half of the reason was to continue my travel, and tomorrow that's just what I'm going to do. I just flash packed for a flight to Hong Kong that I booked not 24 hours before it departed. It's probably one of the scariest moments of my life. I'm alone, I've not prepared one bit, I speak ZERO Chinese, and I haven't even checked the weather. This is the trial by fire. How well can I survive in a totally foreign place? I guess not totally foreign, since there should be a great deal of English around. I think. Anyways, in 16 hours, the first stage of my real trip begins!

www.KoreanEssays.com

I enjoyed this book very
much, because I love ha-
rry potter and 'the whipping
Boy's carectors are similor to
potter and, Hagreed. My opinion
is change carectors name. And
it is not funny. It is complex.
please more funny. Like Harry
Potter or Transformers or Terminators.
This book is short, so essay is
short.

I Want To Go To Prison!

In the Philippines.

www.KoreanEssays.com

All I have for you this time is one essay. But it's incredible!

Topic 2: "A helping hand"
How would you feel if you saw an injured animal on the road?
What could you do for the injured animal?

I feel is so excited. and. so
suprised and I like
animal for eat meat becuuse
It is so good. but
I like eat grasses for animal too.
because It is so
cute

Tha Walk to School

Since it was so popular last time, I decided to give you a visual day in my life. Lets start in the garage.


I enter and exit my building through the garage. The actual entrance to the parking area is on the wall across from the one you see here. That silver circle on the floor is for rotating cars that pull in so that they face that entrance and can drive down the ramp to the parking spaces below the building.


Here you can see the local Buddhist temple. Unlike most of them around the world, this temple has found its way right into the heart of a city as opposed to the mountains or forests.


Turning left at the temple, I get to experience the contrast that is this city. This disgusting, grey building has been under construction for the whole 4 months I've lived here. It'll be nice to see a gleaming monolith to man's dominance of nature rather than this noisy, dirty mess.


This is our chicken place. Best fried chicken I've had in the city. You'd be surprised how many miles away from the South you can find some kickin' fried chicken!


What three block walk through a major metropolitan area would be complete without passing at least one Starbucks? What's more interesting is that immediately next door was a place called "StarBeer Coffee." Even in a country without copyright laws, however, the crack team of Starbucks lawyers can shut that operation down.


Immediately across the street you'll see the entrance to SeoGang University. I didn't even know there was a fourth university right around the corner from where I lived! This picture accidentally captured one of the phenomena I've mentioned before: notice the motorcycle using the crosswalk.


This stretch of the walk has some of the only trees I've seen in the city, so in that respect I'm pretty lucky.


Here is a terrible shot of our Ministop. It's right around the corner from Avalon, so its easy to run to between classes if you need a drink. Notice that the vehicle that slid into this photo, which is the only thing like a pick-up truck they have here.


This is probably the most important building in our lives: The orange restaurant (actually called 'KimBap Heaven'). It is directly across the street from Avalon, and we use our pre-planning time to eat before work every day. These women know us too well, but the quality is pretty good and the prices can't be beat.


Cross the street and we've arrived at the Avalon building. The first floor is a comforter store, then the 2nd-5th are dedicated to us. I don't know what all is on the rest of the 10 floors of the building, but I do know that one of them is an elevator repair company. Guess who's elevator is never out of order!


Finally, the hallways of the 5th floor. This floor consists of (from front to back along the left) the principal's office, the break room, the elementary school office, (from front to back along the right) the computer lab, the middle school pricipal's office, the middle school office, and finally the detention room against the back wall.


And now that I've walked you to the office, I'm going to leave it and head back home. I can't stand to be here any longer.

www.KoreanEssays.com

It's essay time again. We had a grading party at my apartment this weekend. Here are the greatest hits:

The lowest level had a series of half sentences that mirror the reading chapter exactly (supposed to have been about seahorses...). All they had to do was copy the second half of the sentence straight out of the book. Instead, Fiona decided to get creative:

She is a small kind of fish.
It is smallllike a airpline.
It has a fly.
A seahorse is as small as old shoes.
It looks like a very old.
There are many kinds of seahorses find.
They are really swimmers.
They move as slow as windand airrprane.
The can also fly.
They are different from hair.
The male seahorse keeps its babies .

That is .


(Eventually, Fiona decided to just quit and leave the ending blank.)

If you were looking for the definition of confused, Daniel in the upper level has got you covered:

"These cities like Seoul are mostly in Korea because They were made on a plain surrounded on mountain (it looks like valley) or a valley which is a plain on mountains."

This one speaks for itself.

I have 'make alphabet book' club.
It's very boring.
I don't like this.
I like music clubs.
Because I like music very well.
If I was elected leader of a club.
I'm who very many working in the my club.

Who's name is bestest beautiful.

And who has who's music.
It's very important.

The Reaction

Behold: how a group of second grade Koreans reacts when I tell them I have contracted the epidemic. I have swine flu!





Of course, I don't actually have swine flu. It's just too much fun to tell them I do.

Confession

If I were any sort of real person I wouldn't sneak out of my apartment at midnight on a desperate hunt for corn chips. In one of the trendiest cities on the Asian continent. Even Eurasian continent. In pajama pants and dress shoes. Without socks. In a country that uses corn as a garnish.

God I wish I had a casual pair of shoes. And why oh why were there *that* many people using the elevator tonight? I've never seen that many co-tenants. And did I really have to go to the Family Mart on the main street? Only to settle for these things?

Quick update

Hey everyone,

Sorry to have left the blog standing for so long. I've sort of fallen into a routine just to grind through the semester, but its finally over. Summer is about to get brutal here, and we have a new teacher from Canada just in time for him to suffer. He's replacing the guy from Savannah who has been here for a year and three months, who was sadly the closest person to me on this continent.

The previous Korean president committed suicide last weekend, so that's dominated the news rather than North Korea's latest tantrum for attention. In other news, swine flu has arrived. A westerner brought it over to another institute. Everyone there got 10 days paid vacation, but the bad news is Koreans are hysterical about this whole epidemic. The drop in enrollment, as disease crazy Korean mothers whisked their germy little brats to another school, effectively closed an entire chain of hagwons.

Cross your fingers Avalon doesn't get hit or I'm out of a job! If you never heard I was going to be an executive consultant in my free time, then you're actually on the right page. The gig fell through being that someone who held the job previously asked for it back the day after it was offered to me.

Miss you guys

The Yardstick

There are several ways through which we could measure how far Korea is behind on race relations, but since I'm supposed to be working right now I will just give you this one. The students are reading a novel about a middle school boy who has a science accident and turns invisible. Adventure ensues. When asked to write about the novel, this is one yardstick by which we can guage civil rights progress in Korea. Lifted from sentence #1:

"Justin is a Negro then his friends are banter Justin."

KoreanEssays.com

Topic 3:
Book Report "Invisible Boy" In this story, why do you think Justin wants to disappear? Have you ever wanted to disappear? Why?

Meriel:

Read 'Invisible boy' and...

I read 'Invisible boy."
I difficult to me. So I well can say answer to first qustien. First qustien is 'Why do you think Justin wants to disappear.' I think long time, but I can. So It's pass. The second qustien is 'Have you ever wanted to disappear? Why?"
Umm,I some time want disappear, sometime is because, I'm disappear, play behind, I can behind well. but always disappear and anybody can see me. So I want some time disappear or sometime not.

Oh, by the way...

This was not given to me but rather to my friend Caroline. That doesn't mean I can't share it! An Easter card, by Androied [sic].

This is the point in reading the card that I assumed Android had misspelled something along the way. Mommy?

But then:



Easter basket? Grenades, a gun, and a knife.
(The backwards 'F' characters signify a sort of laugh.)

The Lantern Festival

Lots of lanterns, old people carrying lanterns, and floats in a two hour long parade! Fun weekend activity, even though the weather kinda sucked. Check out the parade of photos, which can be so much more quickly uploaded to facebook than to blogger.

Menu Update

While in the market, we got some fresh food that's only available out by the clean rivers and such.

Bing Eo and Eun Eo:


These are minnows and some other slightly larger fresh water fish, both of which you can only get from the streams outside of Seoul. Good luck pronouncing them! We, of course, got them fried up crispy. I ate the big fish's heads. Kinda a psychological barrier, but nothing wrong with them I guess. I'm told though that you can eat the minnows live in the winter. An adventure that awaits me!


Clams:
Special southern clams! We ate them two different ways: once as some sort of room-temperature spicy salad (kinda like chicken salad I guess)...

and once boiled in broth.

They were really tiny, but so delicious.

Acorn Jelly:
The translation always sounds gross, but its literally a jelly made from acorns, so what am I supposed to do? I've had this in Seoul on several occasions, but this was a specialty of the market's. I've never seen it with so many veggies stirred in. Particularly good!

The Conclusion of the Mystery Trip

It started, of course, like any good trip starts: me, running across the platform, unshowered and unkempt, to a train that is going who knows where. That's not actually how it started per se. It started with a phone call ten minutes before the train was scheduled to leave, 1 minute of clothes, 8 minutes of terrifying taxi, then running across the platform to the train going who knows where. I literally boarded the train and the guy on the platform was holding it. As soon as I stepped on, the train left. Couldn't have cut it closer!

holy crap what is all of this?!?!

I was glad that I made it though, because we went to a southern province to see some cherry blossoms. Though the blossoms were about a week past prime and thus unimpressive, the weather was beautiful and it was nice to get some fresh air for once. We went to a big outdoor market where I got a bunch of grain (for mixing in with my rice at home to liven things up).


We then walked to the nearby Buddhist temple for some quick photo ops.








Fun trip! Thanks Inhee for planning it all!
PS The bus was hilarious

Mystery Trip

I am less than three hours from leaving on a trip. I have no clue where I am going. Wish me luck.