I love food toilets

Wow! I am almost finished with my 2nd day of teaching in Korea! I woke up yesterday feeling very sick and thought for a minute that somehow, after all this time, I still managed to get the swine flu. It was scary. The cold shower didn't help much either. As soon as I started teaching however I felt great and everything was fine. My first class was excellent. The students were absolute angels, they listened respectfully and even though many of them had very limited English they did all the assignments and waited patiently for all of their classmates to finish their work before moving on.
The second group was a little more difficult in terms of management but there were no major problems and during the breaks I got to talk to Ian over IM in my classroom. I was feeling super excited and ready for the evening activities after dinner. We went to the auditorium to play a game called "KABOOM" -it is like jeopardy only sometimes there is a bomb or a missile behind the paper. Our team won, they answered some pretty hard questions all by themselves. Afterwards they had waaay too much time to write in their journals (a very short fill-in-the-blank worksheet) and then we had to pick a song to perform for "Camp Idol." This is when things got frustrating. They wouldn't pick a song and finally I just had to decide for them. Then we had over and hour to practice and they got really bored and tired. Oh well.
After dinner we were finally granted permission by the camp principal to go out with our Korean buddy from quarantine, Ethan. He took us to a nice seafood restaurant in downtown Mokpo. As we entered there was a tank of live octopi, we took off our shoes and sat Kris cross at the tables. They ordered us a dish with many kinds of seafood mixed in with many small side dishes (several kinds of kimchi of course). Linzay is very brave and tries everything so I figured I might as well just go for it and not ask what things were until after I had tried them. I discovered that I really like to eat octopus and jellyfish (yeah, that's right, jellyfish!), the fish intestines were actually really good too...the only thing I had to spit out was this weird little clam-like blob. When I bit it juice squirted all the way across the table, it was hard and chewy and tasted TERRIBLE.
I am learning a lot about Korean manners. If you want to hand someone something you always have to use 2 hands...which can be very awkward when reaching far distances. Also you can never fill your own glass of alcohol, an older person with (usually the oldest man) has to notice and fill it for you (which you accept with both hands). When you cheers you have to touch glasses lower or higher that the other person depending on where they are in the hierarchy. It's all very confusing. There are so many times during the day when I'm not sure how to respond to something going on around me.
Afterward we went across the street to a bar, I guess it is famous in Mokpo because you can buy your beer in a glass made of ice, then when you are finished you throw it at a target and break it. I think if you hit the target you win another beer but I'm not sure. It was really fun to get out and see the city. I wish we could do things like that more often. I think Jeju island and Seoul will be very fun....I just hope they give us our stipend or I can find an atm that works...I am completely out of won! We got home at 1am and I passed out before my head hit the pillow.
They play really loud morning music here to wake up the kids so I woke up at 6:50 and took a cold shower. Teaching went well again. I am already bored teaching the hospital unit but at least it is easy, I barely have to think about what I am doing at this point. The lessons go by very fast. The students were great and we played another fun game in the gym today. Everyone had to tie a balloon around their ankles and then each team had to chase another team around trying to stomp on their balloons to pop them. My team won again. They are awesome. After that we played a relay game and went to dinner. The food here is really good, I think it is much better than Wando's food. We get lots of variety and the facilities are very nice.
The first day we were here I was fascinated by the food dumping machinery. First we dump our garbage and leave our spoons and chopsticks then you step up to a trough and water begins to shoot out down to a drain, you dump your food and the water carries it down. I think it is recycled or fed to animals or something. Anyway I named it the "Food Toilet." The girls liked that one. They made me do lots of cheers last night "To food toilets!"

culture shock

Wow...today was intense. I jumped out of bed and realized that the battery had come out of my clock, I scrambled to my ipod and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that it was only 7:20. After my cold shower (no hot water here) we headed to breakfast and the opening ceremony. We found out that we would still be getting health checks because now they are really worried that the children will bring swine flu to the camp. Everything is so crazy. The schedule changes literally every 5 minutes and the Korean's English leaves something to be desired. I am in a constant state of confusion and I've been trying to ask as many clarifying questions as I can but the Korean culture is very indirect so they always say "maybe" before they answer our questions.After the meeting we headed outside and were greeted with a torrential downpour. We ran through the rain and I managed to get a 2 big blotches in the shapes of a sperm on my new white camp t-shirt. At lunch I sat with my class and they refused to speak to me despite my best efforts. I did get them to tell me their names but the rest of the time I listened to them giggle and wondered what they were saying. After lunch we met with our groups to play some icebreaker games. I have 6 girls and 4 boys in my class and at first they wouldn't stop talking. I had the same problem throughout the day, when the teacher talks here they students don't stop talking and no matter what I say they do not stop talking. It was very awkward for me. I even pulled out the evil stare. After playing some games they took a pre-test and we gave them a break. If you tell the children what time to be back they just leave and come back on their own. We don't need to supervise them at all. Weird. After the break we met again with the goal of creating a team poster and a team cheer. We played Duck, Duck, Goose and Down by the Banks and then the kids were in a good mood. Our team name is the "Shooting Stars" and our cheer was to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle little star. I feel like today was so overwhelming I am having a hard time even describing how odd and alien everything was teaching them. I have 2 boys that never listen or participate in anything that we do. They were playing fighting games the whole day and I had to keep taking away the things they were using to fight with (my hospital supplies, markers, chalk...). After dinner we had to go to the auditorium to describe the posters we made and perform our cheer. My group had the best cheer in my opinion :) At the end we were informed that the native teachers had to vote on the best team poster (the cheer didn't even count!) It was really awkward and I felt really bad voting because only the top teams would get a prize. They also informed us that we would be responsible for performing songs in front of everyone. On the spot we decided to sing "Take me back to the ballgame," and "Stand by me." It was so weird. I can't stop saying how weird it is here. Sorry I don't have a better adjective. Afterwards I noticed that most of the American teachers were not looking too happy. In the elevator the horror stories started to come out and I realized how lucky I was to have such a semi-cooperative homeroom class. Many of the students were completely unresponsive and negative the entire day...to say the least. Too bad, it makes me nervous to get all the other rooms if they hate being here. I hope I can get them excited. Tomorrow is the first day that I will teach my Hospital unit, I hope it is OK. It is definitely one of the hardest lessons in the whole book. I found out today that it was written by a middle school teacher. The students can barely speak as it is let alone describe their ailments and draw an entire hospital floor plan. Ummm, so even though it's 10pm I was just told that we have a meeting...

Mokpo camp

We have finally arrived at our camp, Mokpo Maritime University. We are right on the ocean and surrounded by beautiful mountains. We were greeted very warmly off the bus by a group of Koreans who had even drawn us a sign with all of our names on it. We got our room assignments and discovered that Wando wasn't so bad after all. The rooms here are very small and don't have bathrooms attached, we were also informed that bedding is not provided here (THANK YOU SUSAN! -she gave me her sheet), oh and no pillows. We have a community shower room and toilets, the wash machine doesn't work and there is no dryer. As I went to use the bathroom I noticed a very interesting lever on the side of the toilet, "what is this?" I wondered aloud to Christine as I bent over and pushed it down...SQUIRT! Water came out in a large arc and got all over my leg. Now I know it is a bedae (I hate French spelling) On the plus side we do have air conditioning and internet in the rooms...
I finally got to meet my Korean co-teacher. Her name is Ji Hye and she is very nice and a little shy. We practiced our lesson and made the materials we will need to teach. She is basically my assistant and will help me act out the lessons and help the children if they cannot understand what to do. Christine's co-teacher is very nice also, his name is something hard so we just call him "Sik." He insisted on buying us ice cream, when we first said no he said "Please, it is for my happy" and then we couldn't say no to something that cute. After dinner the Koreans brought us beer and fried chicken and we had a little celebration to help us introduce the people of the camp. It was really funny when some of the head teachers and discipline teachers spoke because we couldn't understand anything they were saying. I guess I took for granted how good we had it with Sherry (a Korean-American girl who came from Mizzou and did all of the translating) around. Anyway what I think I am supposed to do is get up and go to breakfast at 8 and then he said a bunch of stuff I didn't understand so I will just see where everyone else goes. Ji Hye informed me that my suspicions were correct about parents getting wind of our swine flu quarantine and not sending their children to camp. She told me that our class size will now be about 9-10 children per class. I won't even know what to do with so few of them! She also told me that the Korean teachers were nervous about it too...I pretended to sneeze on her after she told me and she laughed but there was definitely some fear in her eyes, hehe. We got shirts so we can all be matching tomorrow for the "opening ceremonies" woo-hoo. The Korean couples are so funny because many of them will wear matching shirts to show that they are together. We were joking that now we are like couples. They also mark the time they have been together by counting the days. 100 days is a big anniversary for them and they thought it was very strange that we don't celebrate our 100th day together. I told her that Ian and I have 3,000 days and she laughed. I wonder how many days it has actually been. It is a full moon tonight and out my window I have a view of a big rocky mountain, it is completely lit up with light of different colors. Hopefully many pictures and funny stories to tell soon. We don't actually start teaching our units until Sat. but tomorrow we meet the kids and come up with a team name and a cheer, I can't wait to meet them, I hope they can understand what I am saying! We teach our units for 6 days in a row, 2 times a day. I think the days will feel really long and get boring pretty fast. The schedule is like this:
8am breakfast
8:40am meet w/ homeroom students
9am begin first block (3 hours--I teach the "Hospital" booth)
12pm lunch
1pm begin 2nd block
4pm practicing song/dance...then I get fuzzy on what we're doing but I don't think we finish working until 8 or 9pm. Whew. Better get some rest for tomorrow!

I am a lotus flower

On the agenda today was breakfast at McDonald's, a trip to the beach, lunch at a Korean restaurant, Buddhist temple and Damyang camp. Christine and I woke up in our sexy motel with a loud obnoxious phone call. We rushed through our showers and got ready to go. At McDonald's Christine informed me that I had been talking in my sleep apparently I told her very frankly that she had just "grabbed my butt." "Sorry" she told me and went back to sleep. Hahaha, I guess the motel got to me a little. The Koreans warned us in advance that the beach had "black sand" but when we got there we discovered that that just means gravel and small rocks. We laid in the sun for a couple hours and moved on to our next destination. Lunch was pretty standard and then it was time to head to the Buddhist temple. To get to the temple we walked along a quiet river path with large trees and bamboo growing all around. The entire place (which had many buildings) was hand painted with designs of bright, vibrant colors. I cannot even imagine how much time it would take to complete one small board let alone entire huge buildings. Beautiful hillsides surrounded the temples and monks walked around with their shaved heads and baggy clothes. We learned some history from a tour guide and then had an hour or two on our own to explore. We entered the main temple. It had several very large Buddhas in front, we took off our shoes, grabbed a mat and sat quietly while people came in and out to offer money and do their bows and prayers. It was so peaceful and beautiful to look at. We ate at one of the many restaurants down by the parking lot (all vegetarian!) bim bim bop (it is a rice dish with lots of stuff added it). After dinner we headed to one of the other camps called Damyang. There are community bathrooms here and community showers, I think this is the camp we heard about that the teachers had to sneak around when the kids weren't around to shower. Glad I'm not staying! Today we meet with our Korean co-teachers and then head to our own camps at noon. I'm excited to see where I will be teaching but kinda nervous to teach my lessons! I guess the first time through will be a little spotty but will be great by the 8th time! I'm supposed to teach the Hospital booth and there is a lot of vocabulary involved...Kinda wishing I picked a different topic. Sigh.

Out and about in Korea

Freedom at last! We finally escaped our quarantine in Wando and made it out to see some of the country. It was the first time in a while that I had to wake up early in what seems like a long time. Nevertheless I was up and ready to go in time to eat breakfast and hit the road by 9am. We all got on to our respective buses (there are 3). Our bus is purple inside and out with little dangles everywhere and a big flat screen tv. It made me really happy. After only about an hour drive we stopped at the DaehanDawon green tea farm. The farm spread out over all of the visible hillsides in long green rows. We climbed to the top of the largest hill where we had an amazing view of all the nearby hillsides and the ocean. There were many Koreans there as well, it is fun to say hello to them and they try to say the things they know in English like "See you tomorrow, hehehe." After some great photo opps we hiked around a little and ended up in the gift shop. I found a really cool ceramic mug that has a little insert that filters tea leaves. I also bought some of their most famous green tea and got a green tea latte, mmmm. After that we rounded up all 70 of us back on the buses (I feel like a big time tourist on this trip!) and drove another half hour to eat at a Chinese food restaurant. It had some interesting options including raw octopus (a lot of sashimi) and grape doughnuts. I got a few really questionable items that I ended up having to spit out but most of what I got (it was a buffet) was edible. The next stop on the tour was at a traditional Korean folk village. It remained intact after the Japanese invasion and many Koreans were there visiting as well. We had a small tour and then we had a couple hours to wander around on our own. It was very beautiful in its simplicity. Only grass roofs are allowed with stones and mortar holding up the walls. They are not allowed to have televisions but telephone wires have been placed under the ground for the many people who still live there in the traditional style. Many of them are farmers or do a craft such as ceramics or a blacksmith. The wooden bridges were hand painted and maintained with the utmost care.
At one point Christine and I found an area (probably for children) that had a teeter totter-like board so each of us got on and rocked back and forth slowly (standing up). Finally after staring at us a gentleman came over with the intention of helping us play the game correctly. He stepped on my end and tried to get us to jump up and down. It was so funny because every time I jumped Christine would "WoooooP!" and get really scared. I guess we're not meant to master the game. It was funny though. The Koreans are all so helpful and interesting. There have been people all day who just want to talk with us and help us in any way they can. I ended up accidentally stealing Aly's parasol and felt like a Korean princess, hehe. I got to hold a tiny puppy--soooo cute!
As we were wandering through the beautiful ceramic crafts tables and admiring the vases and bowls and things we came upon a table filled with ceramic penises. Each one was a little different in size and shape. It was odd. I thought they would at least be salt shakers or something. We also saw another table in a different area that had little people with very enlarged organs. Seems like you see the same types of things when travelling to Mexico or Hawaii. Interesting. After a couple hours we were all very ready to leave and got back on our bus to head to dinner. Dinner was the best meal I've had in Korea so far, we all had to take off our shoes and sit on the floor. The waiters brought out several different bowls of kimchi and other items. They then turned on a little grill in the middle of the table and a large plate of sliced pork (it looked like bacon). We cooked our own food with onion and garlic and then put all the sauces and pork into a leaf of lettuce like a taco. It was sooo yummy. Afterwards, smelling of cooked bacon, we all checking into our motel rooms and went out on the town. I have to pause here to explain what the motel situation is like. It's called Motel Lexus (yes, like the car). It was all very dark and mysterious as we walked down the hallway entrance. The place where you pick up the keys is a small window where one can remain anonymous and the elevator is filled with mirrors. As Christine and I entered into the room everything was dark and obviously placed with a couple in mind. In the other rooms condoms were left on the table next to the bed. On the floor above us there is a vending machine selling paraphernalia. Margaret informed us shortly thereafter that we are staying in a hotel that charges "by the hour." The lights are very low and remote controlled, as we walked in we placed out key in a slot which automatically controls the mood lighting and turns on the tv (naughty channel). We cracked up laughing and are now sitting in the room thinking about how gross and uncomfortable it is to stay here. Oh well, it's all part of the experience, right? Btw there are only rooms with queen sized beds so we all are sharing...which is fine and dandy with me but makes me giggle that all the boys are in the same situation.
We got free time to explore the city and go shopping so we made our way to the "home plus" store where I finally got to buy the hairdryer I've been dreaming about. I also got to buy some t-shirts with nonsense English phrases on them. We've all been laughing about some of the shirts we've seen since they don't make any sense. I bought two, one of them says "Peaseful world" and the other says "American tourister: You make a fabulous jack." On the downside I tried to use 3 different ATMs and none of them are accepting my debit card. Uh-oh! Hopefully we can stop at a bank soon. I really wanted to buy some sunglasses but the cheap ones cost $50 USD! No way! The only pair I brought was a cheap pair someone left in my car once and I accidentally stepped on them and broke the temple. Bummer.
We ran into Quinlin and our Korean hosts afterwards drinking a traditional rice wine and so we joined them for a small snack (egg/fish omelet style dish) and some of the drink (I wish I could remember the name, it was milky in color and tasted somewhat like saki). After an hour or so they headed out to sing at a karaoke bar and Christine and I decided to head back to our motel (not hotel) room to try and sleep. We found some English tv channels which helped make us feel a little less uncomfortable. I am going to try and sleep while imagining I am somewhere else. Oh well...this will be funny later. Christine pointed out how odd that they are such a reserved culture in terms of their dress and actions yet it is perfectly acceptable to bring a group of tourists who've never seen Korea to a "by-the-hour" hotel the first time they go out to a city. Tomorrow we go to the beach and to visit a temple. Then we stay over at one of the other camps called Damyang. Hope all is well back in OR. Hugs to you all!

Tonights gonna be a good night....

It is officially our last night in Wando! It feels good to know we are getting out of here but on the other hand it will be hard to leave some people behind as we all split up into our 5 prospective camps. Even though there have been many ups and downs during our 2 week stay here in close quarters we have grown into somewhat of a "quarantine family."
Yesterday we went on our big hike to the top of the mountain. Christine was a trooper, it was the first time she'd really had a chance to get out and exercise since her 5 day stint in a quarantined hospital room. At one point she mumbled "this sucks" but seemed really happy once we made it to the top and we had a view of the entire island. It made me giggle. We got to hike with Kristen our head teacher and Eric, both are teachers in Oregon. It was really fun being with them as we didn't get a ton of time to get to know each other before. We got to tell stories about our funny experiences as teachers which are always fun and entertaining to other teachers :) Another plus is that Shannon didn't get lost this time, hehe.
Our activities coordinators, Erica and Laura mostly I think, organized a "Farewell Formal" dance. It was very prom-esque. At first I really didn't want to go but then felt like a party pooper when I realized everyone else was going. Christine's awesome roomie/quarantine buddy Megan was nice enough to let me borrow a cute shirt as all I brought were very "teachery" (dare-I-say matronly) outfits. It was the closest thing to an asian princess outfit as I am going to get I think. They organized superlatives (awards) for everyone, I got "the most dependable for when your bff is stuck in quarantine" and Christine got "best hula hooper." When Christine accepted her award she made sure to announce that she "just learned how yesterday." It was funny. After that we danced to some really interesting songs (I'm blue, Barbie girl...among some classics like Sweet Caroline) and drank soju with grape drink. It was a good time and a good way to cut loose before we head out of Wando.
Today was a lazy day. Not a whole lot to tell except that we had to have a big group discussion about an incident that occurred last night...it involved lighting off fireworks in the hallway in the middle of the night. Not the best decision. I'm pretty glad I was on a different floor and dead to the world with my earplugs in. It was a big problem for a lot of people though which I totally understand. Two of the people who did it are going with Christine and I to Mokpo camp...I think we might need to have a camp meeting about appropriate behaviors. We'll see. It seems like people are still upset. I just hope they don't plan on continuing the party once we get around the children.
On a really happy exciting note, Ian and I got to pick out the puppy we want. We had to choose between 6 females. It was really hard without meeting them but we ended up going with the smallest one, she has really pretty coloring with a cute little swiss kiss on the back of her neck. I can't wait to meet her! The breeder named her Annie but no worries, so far I like Bella or Nena. I think we need to meet her before we make any final decisions. Any other ideas?
We go on our cultural tour tomorrow for 2 days and go to our camps on Thursday night. We begin teaching Friday. So for you, my faithful blog followers, this means I will no longer have such a large amount of time to dedicate to writing long drawn-out blogs detailing every moment I spend in Korea. Much love to you all! I'll write as soon as I have internet!

Hoop-dee-doo

Alright, it's been a couple days since I posted anything so I will try to remember what has happened. I have lost all track of time here...
The day before yesterday was spent being lazy. Susan (and the other 4 to go home) found out they would be leaving the next morning so she packed her things and got really excited to go home (I am now without a room-mate). I decided that I was going to re-teach myself how to do cartwheels and round-offs and as a result I am really sore. Too old for those things I guess. After dinner was the highlight of my day, I brought a hula hoop outside and was happily hooping when Linzay came out with a whole bunch of hoops and joined me! Since then it has been a hoop-a-thon and even a lot of the guys can keep it going. Mike came up with the brilliant idea to make a game of tag using the hula hoops and he named it Hoop-dee-doo. I guess that's just what happens after 2 weeks of quarantine with nothing to do and nowhere to go. To start the game we all have to scream "HOOP-DEE-DOOOO" and run at each other with our hoops trying to hoop our opponents.
Just as it was getting dark a van pulled up and stopped in front of the building. We all squinted in that direction until someone screamed "The girls are back!" I sprinted over to the van and saw Christine, we did the movie style run and hugged each other. It was a magical moment. It was so good to see all of them. I am really glad that they are back and are relatively unscathed from the experience. I still can't really imagine how alien it all must have felt. I'm glad they had each other.
Yesterday we finished our last doses of Tamiflu and are officially "un-quarantined" HOWEVER we are still stuck at Wando until Tuesday morning so things are basically the same minus the mass hysteria and mask wearing. Some of the villagers found out about our situation and were protesting at the bottom of the hill (damn foreigners bringing swine flu into their country!). That means that we're still not able to go down to the village. Sigh. After sleeping in and eating lunch we geared up to hike to the arboretum again. It was packed with families who were all very friendly, the little children are SO cute! We saw a group of guys playing a really interesting game, it had a net like in tennis and was basically volleyball only they touched the ball only with their feet. So soccer-volleyball. It looked fun. I had to use the bathroom and the only style of toilets they had were the squatty kind! I can now say that I've had a real Korean experience peeing into a squat toilet. Yay! Actually I don't like public toilets and hope I don't have to do that again.
After that we brought Christine back to the waterfall you can sit under and we all swam. It was cloudy and started to rain but still felt really refreshing and nice after our hike. When we got back a barbecue was already underway (it was Seth Goldman's bday after all). We showered and headed down to be greeted with Korean style potato salad, corn, rolls, shish kabobs (sp?), hot dogs, these cool rice tube things, shrimp on a stick, beer and soju. After eating, in true Korean style, they brought the karaoke machine outside and went out to buy fireworks. I spent most of the evening hula hooping with everyone, I can now go from my neck down to my waist and hoop with multiple hoops at the same time. I love it! I jokingly suggested that I should sing Super Freak since a lot of the people here think I am really shy and polite. So of course they wouldn't let me get away with not doing it. It was really funny since I don't actually know how the song goes except for the beginning and the chorus. I hula hooped throughout the entire song I might add :) I think it shocked a few people. Nice.
Today I think we will go on a long hike after lunch, tomorrow is our last day here and then we leave for our tour at 9am on Tuesday morning. I don't think I will have access to the internet during that time but I'm not sure. We get to go visit a green tea farm and do some shopping among other things. On Thursday we get to meet our Korean co-teachers to prepare for teaching which begins Friday! Once we get going this whole trip will go by super fast. We teach for 8 days (it's the elementary school group) and then we go on another cultural tour to Jeju island and Seoul. That is also when we will be having a farewell dinner with the governor of the province. Fun stuff. For those of you still reading: The Bridge of Apollodorus over the Danube was a roman bridge, the first to be built over the lower Danube. For more than a thousand years, it was the longest arch bridge in the world to have been built, in terms of both total and span length. The bridge was constructed by the Greek architect Apollodorus of Damascus.