Gangster's paradise

As always, I am fascinated by cultural differences, and I think I should post more about them. For example, a building close to us was bought out by some Korean mob group and they kicked all of the tenants out without notice. A day later construction equipment was there and they began tearing down the whole building. No one really knows what is in it for the mob, but the newly office and store-less tenants obviously didn't like it and began protesting and using fire extinguishers to break through the security and fight their way back in. I know, this happens everywhere. BUT, when I asked, "so aren't they afraid of getting shot by the mob when they break in?" I was met by strange looks and then a Korean said "no one here has guns."

What? What kind of sick world do we live in where gangsters don't even have guns? It really makes us good folks seem less good. So, I thought I'd buy the Godfather, parts 1 and 2, and offer free "English Lessons" to those poor wanna-be's and teach them a thing or two about gangstering. Honest to Pete.

My new Kitchen!

Gone are the days of throwing something on the BBQ, coming home to the smell of baked cookies, putting something in the oven to keep warm, sticking the dishes in the dishwasher, cleaning out the refrigerator only 3 times a year, and making large meals for guests. These are the things I miss about having an actual kitchen. But as I have been told, whenever there is a struggle there is opportunity. So hello to take-out!

A Night on the Town

I've been told that I need to blog more (as if 4 posts in 3 months isn't enough), so alas, I've made a commitment to myself to blog once a day everyday until tomorrow. And I plan to come through on that promise.

So let me tell you about our nice Sunday yesterday (complete with pictures, because when I say I'm going to do something, by golly I do it well). This was really our first 'guided' tour around Seoul. After church, one of Maria's students, Mo, and his girlfriend SueMi picked us up and took us to two large open markets. It was a great place to walk through as everything to buy was very cheap (and also a head-ache to large brand names such as Nike, Levi, Chanel, and Gouchi). But along with cheap knock-offs came some amazing street food, full of live octopus, dried fish jerky, snails, and of course, french fries. Nothing new there, just some fried up potatoes that looked good. I will have to go back and eat each one of these things, but as for yesterday, I didn't want to ruin my dinner.

And speaking of dinner, Mo and SueMi graciously treated us to a traditional Korean style meal. I've heard that there are some Korean style restaurants in the states, but I've never been to one. Most Korean food I like(bulgogi, fish soups, even the seafood-vegetable soup that I couldn't tell which ingredients were vegetables and which were seafood), some I can do withough (Bipimbap is a little too much). Mo said we would surely like what they got, and he was right! They ordered for us Samgyeopsal, which is thick pieces of pork. Here's a little picture:

Traditionally, Koreans sit on the floor criss-crossed (I'm still sore, not joking), and open cook their meat and vegetables on a cooker in the middle of the table. Side dishes are placed around the table (which are free if yo want more) and usuaully include lettuce to wrap the meat in, garlic, some vegetables, ALWAYS kimchi, some pickled radishes, hot sauce, salty sauce, peppers, and maybe tofu. By the way, fried Kimchi is MUCH better than cold. Add that with a little soju or a cold beer, and it was like heaven. Soju is like vodka, but much weaker, cheaper, tastes much worse, and everyone drinks it, often too much. And to top off the meal, some cold noodles in some sweet water for dessert. Ahhh, so good.

So after we all (ok, just me) ate way too much, we headed back on a crowded bus through a tunnel, over a river, and home. It was a great evening and so much better being with someone who knows where they are going and what to order on a menu. Next time I told Mo that if he took us to get Dog soup next, we would treat! That will be a good blog!

Costco experience

Did you know that there is a Costco in Seoul? Actually there are 4, but only one is pretty close to us in our part of town. There are many good things about Costco here, but the one I find dearest to my heart is that the labels are in Korean AND English. It really takes the guess work out of what it might taste like when you open it!

Someone told us to get to Costco all we have to do is hop on the Green line bus 4424, and get off right in front of Costco. Sweet deal! So Maria and I headed to the bus stop and hopped on a very crowded bus 4422 eagerly anticipating Costco's sweet smell of cement floor. But do you know what? Bus 4422 doesn't go to Costco. We began to realize that about an hour later when the bus was empty and we are looking out the window at the outskirts of Seoul. All of the sudden the bus stops, the doors open, and then stay open. The driver looked to us and said something in Korean, which we took to mean by his tone that we needed to get off now.

I suppose everyone needs a "got on the wrong bus" story when they visit a new place, but it sure isn't so fun when you don't know where you are or how to get back. Luckily, we ended up finding another green bus line that stopped close to where we started, so two and a half hours later we ended up where we left off, and still no Costco.

As our dreams for the day began to melt away in the smoggy afternoon sun, we checked our directions again, and realized we got on the wrong bus. Oops. At least, we figured, we got a cheap tour of Seoul! So we decided to get on the right bus, and a sure enough, it went right to Costco. So now Maria and I are proud owners Costco cards! This is the big time. Unfortunately, we found out the hard way Costco doesn't take credit cards, so we could only use the cash we had left. I suppose some people would be discouraged if they were gone for 5 hours and only came back with rice, some muffins, and a rotisserie chicken. But not us, we took good pictures on our membership cards.

I'm off my meds!

One week into being in Seoul, and I am proud to say that I have adjusted to the time change, and no longer need to take a sleeping pill to get through the night! Quite an accomplishment! The funny thing is, no matter what time schedule you're on it is still hard to wake up early in the morning. I guess it is one of those universal things.

As many of you have noticed, I haven't blogged in a couple of months. It is because I broke my wrists and can't type. Not really though, I actually don't have an excuse. If you would like some more information on our teaching experience in Seoul, Maria has been much better at blogging. She is so good at stuff like that! Check it out at: maria-kelley.blogspot.com

For me, I am very much enjoying our first week here. I have started doing "1 on 1 Native English Tutoring" and am enjoying it. I see around 10-15 students a day, some are in college studying theatre, some are older CEO's, and the rest are everything else in between. I love meeting new people everyday, but also look forward to making some relationships and remembering their names when I see them next!

Wikipedia? Over-rated

So here is the thing about Wikipedia. According to their own website, Wikipedia has 683 million visitors annually reading over 10 million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.74 billion words for all Wikipedias. The English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000-article mark on 9/9/07, and as of May 1st, 2008 it had over 2,395,000 articles consisting of over 1,034,000,000 words.

Some would say that since Wikipedia has such a wide range of contributors it is one of the best sources of knowledge in the world. Oh yeah I say? Well I couldn't even find out how to skin a cat and eat it the other day. So in my mind, Wikipedia is still elementary. Elementary friends.

I'm entering the Blogging world!

So I was watching a documentary on Harry Truman the other night on PBS. For those of you not in the "know", this is what you do when you don't have cable and Letterman is a repeat. I can't quite recall any details about Harry Truman's life or accomplishments, but I do know that he kept a detailed journal in which he wrote in every night. The fact that this is what stuck out to me about the man leading our country at the end of WWII and gave the final yes to dropping the only 2 nuclear bombs (3 if you count the practice run) in the history of the world... made me wonder if my life would be better if I kept a journal.

Of course, the answer was an immediate "no" because honestly, who journals anymore. Girls do. About crushes and feelings. Boring. But alas, I do have to concede that there probably is some benefit of having a place to write your thoughts, life milestones, and current events. And what safer place than the World Wide Web? As a famous psychiatrist once said, "Just blog it out." So here I go. This is more for me than you, but I hope you are entertained anyway.

My only commitment to this blog is that I will not say anything too controversial that others may point to in the future in order discredit my credibility. Because you never know if you're going to wake up one day and run for president.