1 month in Ulsan, wigging out and Alexis the American

Other teachers have told me that time here passes quickly, and they're definitely right. Yesterday was my 1 month anniversary of arrival, and although it seems like I haven't seen all of you in forever, it also doesn't seem like I've been living abroad on my own for a whole month! It feels like college time did - although individual days could be long and arduous, looking back revealed a semester that slipped by before we knew it.

Adding hapkido to my schedule has certainly quickened the passage of time. Now I'm busy from 9:30 am until after midnight every weekday. Our halloween costume project has also been gulping down evening after evening. We're spending tomorrow (Friday) night finishing up the last bits of the lion, toto and scarecrow, and will be putting Dorothy and the tinman together then also. Nicole (very nice, Canadian, will take her black belt test in Gumdo on Saturday), who loaned us her apartment and sewing machine last Sunday, has inifinite costume design and execution ideas. We've taken to calling her the "costume guru" and are exploring printing a shirt for her to that accord. Thanks to her, the sexiness was accomplished and the lion will look more like a lion and less like a meal at the Roadkill Cafe.

Last weekend, while halloween costume shopping (again - but with success this time) we found ourselves in a wig shop, looking for a brown wig for Dorothy (who has changed from Phil to Patrick - "Patty"). As girls are wont to do in a wig store, we each tried on several styles and colors. And instead of leaving with a wig for Dorothy, we left with a wig each for Michelle, Kate and Alexis! One of the ones we bought would double for Dorothy, but we were going to get our fun out of it first. So - a week before Halloween, Michelle, Kate and myself donned wigs for a going away party (for people I didn't know) at Bench. I was nervous to do so at first, but after some liquid courage at Kate's pre-Bench, I put on my game face and headed to the bar... with a glossy, long, brown, curly wig securely fit onto my head. Michelle went blond and Kate was a burgundy/maroon redhead. Our arrival to a packed bar was any and everything we could have desired. Instant conversation and popularity, combined with admiration from other girls for our pluck and good taste in headgear. We had a wonderfully good time, and although Michelle's wig was pulled off once, and mine fell off while being dipped dancing Paedar's version of the cha-cha, we made it through the night without ill will or mishap ruining our lovely locks. We also reminded one another that Sunday was sewing day, so were able to get ourselves home by the comparatively decent hour of 4:30, after drinking water at the bar for over an hour.

Sunday was tedious, and our first real rain since I've been here. It was nice to have the rain, both because I love it and because we were stuck inside sewing all day anyway, so nice weather would have just tortured us. We worked and worked on our costumes and didn't make it home until around 1am. We also met a couple guys in the Airforce who were down visiting Nicole and Dee (writes for the foreigner paper, rock climbs, rides a motorcycle, very nice), who pitched in some with our costumes too.

Monday at Hapkido he went easy on us, which was nice after such a hectic weekend, and then at work I started teaching my new middle school class. That caused me to spend Tuesday looking up ways to get middle school students interested and involved, and also to find discipline ideas... they have a lot to learn about Alexis Teacher! Tuesday night was more late costume work, and yesterday, Wednesday was - BINGO NIGHT!

I love bingo night. I relish in being able to hang out with all the other foreigners and chat during the game. It's quieter than the bar is on weekends, but more busy than it would be during the week on an off-bingo night. People aren't as drunk, and intelligent conversation is easier to come by - plus, it's a way to meet and get to know new people, since on the weekends we tend to gravitate toward our friends who we haven't seen all week instead of making new ones. Last night I didn't win at all, but Kate and I shared the entry fee so I was only out $10. I was exhausted, so took off as soon as bingo was over (2am), but ended up talking to a friend until very late and only getting a few hours of sleep before my alarm went off at 8:45 this morning~ yes, I had to get up extra early and make myself presentable because my school was holding an 'open house' to recruit more students. Our enrollment needs to increase quickly so we can still bring in Gino and Andrea, and parading foreign teachers in front of prospective parents is the way of it. I asked yesterday if there was anything I should prepare to do or say, and was told by Grace (wonderful Korean co-worker who lived in New Zealand for 8 years and speaks great English) that all I needed to do was "show up, smile, and be a tall, pretty American." So I did, and then hurried to Hapkido, ran home to change, and then got a free lunch from the director out of it. After lunch (which was delicious!) we went to a coffee shop where they sell smoothies, and I had a mango one for dessert.

Now it's 4, I haven't had classes all day, and I'm sleepy. The only class I'm teaching is my middle school group at 8pm.... so I'll be twiddling my thumbs until then!

Cheers :)

Hapkido and odd bits

Yesterday my friend Vicky and I followed vague directions to a Hapkido place (dojo? studio?) and were somehow able to negotiate a class schedule with the Korean instructor. Luckily we had our trusty Lonely Planet phrasebook along, and ended up agreeing on private lessons, 5 days a week for one hour each. We start tomorrow (Thursday) and my schedule will be changing quite a bit, since it's 20 minutes to the Hapkido place, 20 minutes home, 45 minutes getting ready, then 20 minutes to school. When one is walking everywhere, one's time tables inflate tremendously. Not that I'm complaining at all - I'm quite enjoying the exercise and reflection time provided by a pedestrian lifestyle. I've also been working out with Kate after school (9:45p-11:30p) and trying to adjust to the English teacher's odd hours. After being up so early all the time in NJ, I feel like a lout if I sleep past 9:30... but with work ending at 9:10 and working out afterwards, it's a good night if I'm asleep by one. But I suppose it will all settle into some sort of workable rhythm after a couple weeks.

I want to thank all of you who have asked about care packages - it's so nice of you to offer. I have to tell you first, though, that it's very expensive to mail things here. Please don't feel obligated if you get to the post office and it costs too much. Just eat the cookies yourself and send the card ;)

BUT if you really would like to send me stuff, I would totally appreciate it. For right now, there isn't anything I'm craving from home or need desperately, but when there is, I will definitely post it. Looking ahead to the holidays, I would like to be able to make enchiladas for Thanksgiving but enchilada sauce and refried beans are nonexistant here. They're also very heavy. Perhaps a bunch of you could go in on one package together? Or each person could send one can? I do have tortillas and can buy cheese at Costco.

And of course letters, cards, photos, etc are great to receive. :*

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This weekend we had an absolute blast - Friday night was a busy one at Bench, and the Intra-national King's Cup group will be happy to know that we had a huge game going at the bar. Saturday night we went to the other foreigner bar, Tombstone, to meet my future coteachers, Gino and Andrea. Gino's band was playing their last gig so we hung out for that and between sets - more King's Cup. I have to be sure to carry my cards in my purse with me now because people are requesting "that fun game with the cup."

On Sunday the girls and I made a foray into the shops downtown searching for costumes for the big halloween event (downtown parade and costume contest), but came up empty handed. Luckily, since then we've been told of a couple of fabric stores and have been lent a sewing machine for the weekend, so instead of being at the bars we'll be cutting and sewing... okay maybe in addition to the bars. ;) We're going for the group prize, and have 7 (+?) people in our troupe. We are -

The Gender Bender Wizard of Oz

It's pretty self-explanatory, but we hope it's a good time. Obviously, the scarecrow (me) the tinman (Lindsay) and the lion (Kate) are girls... and Dorothy (Phil) is a guy. However, after that it gets blurry since our witches are both girls; Glinda (Katie) and the wicked witch of the west (Wendy). But we bring it back to the theme with Toto being played by Michelle, who will make the cutest little dog ever. And, as obligated, the girls' costumes are going to attempt a measure of sexiness. This is all being done, though, in a country that doesn't celebrate Halloween, so we are without the aide of costume shops and Party City. We're currently trying to recruit a couple flying monkeys and perhaps a bit or two of the yellow brick road. As some of you may know, I happen to be an expert Wizard of Oz skipper, so instruction will begin for the rest of the crew soon. We're hoping this comes together this weekend, but if it doesn't, we'll move to Plan B: A Korean pop band.

We just ordered dinner at work - we order everyday because it's actually cheaper to order than prepare and bring your own food here. $4 for dinner includes the dish you order and plenty of side dishes (panchan) to share. The side dishes vary with the day and the restaurant from which we order, but usually there is one little plate of kimchi, and then an assortment of spicy vegetables, tofu, pickled radish, potato strips, sauteed greens with spicy sauce and always some sort of egg. Sometimes it's a fried egg, other times it's cold scrambled eggs (surprisingly good), and my favorite times it's omelete-type egg strips with vegetables or crabstick in it. The side dishes I don't eat - EVER - are the dried whole anchovies, dried squid strips, dried squid strips in a spicy sauce and the like.

Today I have some sort of soup coming that I haven't tried before, but is apparently spicy and filled with vegetables and some kind of dumpling. To date, my favorite soup is a spicy miso based soup that also has some kind of tomato base. It's served with big pieces of tofu, bamboo, scallions and potato in it, and I avoid the sea squirts that are also in there. Sea squirts are the weirdest things. They look like what I would imagine the little creature in a barnacle does. (Wikipedia has something on them I think).

Gotta go! Food's here!

Mailing Address!

Finally ... here is my mailing address. This is my school, not apartment so packages/letters will be safer here. At my apartment they have a very complex "drop-the-letter-into-the-rack-on-the-wall-that-matches-the-apartment-number" system which leaves my mail out and vulnerable. Not that anyone would take it, but when you all start sending those gi-normous care packages full of American goodies I'm sure that will be tempting. wink wink.

Alexis Newman
Baejae Institute E'Park
1546-8 Samsongdong, Namgu
Ulsan, South Korea
680-020

I have to run - I have my two studious boys (Jeff and Jimmy) in class in 15 minutes. We're reading a story about Billy's pet frog, Slimy, who causes trouble by jumping onto teachers. Somehow this is teaching them prepositions. Don't ask me!

Nuclear testing

I know you Westerners are worried about Kim Jong-il's recent nuclear test and curious about the response here. So far, the sentiment seems primarily nonchalance predicated by the belief that Mr. Kim wouldn't be so stupid as to fire any of his weapons when the US response would be total annhiliation of North Korea. However, when the US proposed removing a percentage of our troops up at the DMZ earlier this year, South Korea reportedly admitted their relative weakness and requested the same contingent remain to protect the border against potential North Korean attacks.

I spoke with an American today who said that the American reaction is much more fearful than it is here. It seems to me from the reports I've read that Kim Jong-il is more interested in proving his capability of defense if attacked than planning an attack himself. For years he has been wary of superpowers upsetting his regime, and with his country in such a downtrodden and weakened state, it wouldn't be hard. Although the North Korean army is the 5th largest worldwide (behind China, the US, Russia and India), it is poor, hungry and outfitted with old soviet tanks and artillery. Their nuclear power is the only factor that even lets them consider playing with the big boys.

Plus, all reports state that North Korea's weapons are pointed at Seoul ... hopefully that would give us Southerners enough warning to get on a ferry to Japan or a plane home before the real fighting broke out.

In general though, life is going on as usual here. I haven't heard any discussion of the threat, there are no bomb drills at school, and we don't have any disaster plans that I know of. So for now, we're all okay. I am, however, beginning to see myself as a bad luck charm. I moved back East just in time to experience 9/11 ... although I did miss the giant NYC blackout and the rolling blackouts in CA.

I've got to run to work, but I SWEAR I'll catch this up soon :)

safe tidings to all of you! xoxo

Busan

As promised, here's the weekend catch-up (on Tuesday ;) )

When we went to the immigration office on Thursday, my director asked that I come to the school at 1 on Friday. I assumed it was just for a few hours to train, but I ended up being there until 9:10 when everyone else left. Only an hour of it was training, and the rest of the time I sat at my desk and tried to look busy, reading student reading/activity/workbooks and then Ulsan Pear (foreigner newspaper). During training, though, I found out exactly how cool my school is. First, the curriculum is all set, so there's no work for me to do there. Secondly, it's all very advanced technologically. The kids all have workbooks that correspond to cds. Each classroom has a computer hooked up to a huge flat monitor mounted on the whiteboard, and for lessons the teachers have a remote that moves us through the material. Some of the illustrations are hokey, and the stories can be a little weird ("why doesn't daddy live with us, mommy?" "he left us a long time ago because I made a very loud fart"), but it seems very effective.

After getting home from work around 9:30, I tidied up my already spotless apartment (more about living alone soon) and waited to hear from Kate, who gets off later than I do. She came over, and we intended to watch a movie I'd borrowed from Mark (the sad one) but didn't get to it, and instead gabbed over wine until the wee hours of the morning.

Saturday, Kate and Lindsey and I met in my neighborhood and walked to the bus station by the ferris wheel together. After some confusion about what time the bus was leaving, we were able to get on the right bus and were on our way to Busan! An hour later, the bus dropped us at Haeundae beach, where we started looking for a "Love Motel." Cheap and (usually) clean, Love Motels are recommended in Lonely Planet, and all the teachers use them bc they're affordable. Ours was a few blocks from the beach, and we just had to overlook the red sconces that made for some serious mood lighting, and the 2-pack of condoms laid out with the mouthwash and little soaps. Other than that, it was fantastic, with a California-king sized bed (perfect for 3 girls), a bathtub, a mini-fridge stocked with free orange juice and chilled glasses and a ceiling painted with clouds. After we checked in, we freshened up and went across the street to an Indian restaurant (Ganga) which was a major reason for our visit. After introducing Lindsey to curry, we relaxed for a bit there and then went back to our hotel and got changed for a night on the town. Kate wanted to meet up with some friends with whom she had gone to high school, and who had spent the previous year teaching in Korea too. The girls were leaving Monday (one of them with a torn ACL from a Hapkido accident - second one I've seen since I got here), so Saturday was their going-away party with their local friends and other teachers. We met up with a big group (20ish) at a roof-top bar, where Lindsey and I were fondly called the 'newbies,' and presented with our very first taste of soju. I've heard stories of soju hitting foreigners hard, and I've also heard that it's a 'sleeper'... you don't feel anything until suddenly you're hammered, so we took it fairly easy and sipped light Korean beer between shots. From there Lindsey and Kate and I set out on our own to find somewhere to dance. After one club being unexplainably closed, we found another place, called "Foxy" and headed there. Foreigners get in for free with local ID (which I now have :) ) and we were whisked to the front of the line. The club was very cool and swanky with dark tables and two floors. Upstairs was hip hop, and downstairs was techno/pop. "Downstairs" was actually the 7th floor, and upstairs the 8th. On the 8th there was really cool balcony with a great view of the city lights, where we started hanging out once it got really crowded and hot inside, around 3.

On the way back to the hotel, we ate some street food (well, I did - Kate and Lindsey got McDonalds). Delicious, but fried food at 4, 5, whatever AM is never a stellar idea. We managed to wake up at 11:45 and slowly packed up and got ready to leave. Our first destination: Dunkin Donuts. YES! It was a beautiful thing to have the same iced decaf light and sweet that I used to get in the dirrty Jerz. After that, we had to head to Starbucks because Kate's addicted, and then we walked to a Thai restaurant Kate knew about for lunch. I've had better pad thai, but it was good enough, and the service there was great. Since we were all still pretty tired, we did some window shopping and hopped a bus back.

And now - I have to get out into the beautiful day. I can't wait until I have a computer at my place so I don't have to sit in a basement to type to you people!

OH! My phone number: 82-52-227-8740. I don't have an answering machine, so if I'm not there, I won't know you called. Sorry... and I still don't have a calling card, but hopefully soon! This week will be a bit chaotic, since I'm off and it's the last of the nice weather, so we're traveling. But next week I'll be on a schedule and it'll be easier to reach me. Thursday we're heading to Gyeongju, and on Friday might go to Daegu.

I'll post about teaching and my many other observations soon. Cheers!

America needs a vacation

Read this, and bring it to your employers... http://frommers.com/articles/3928.html

xoxoxo,

Lex

"Next I'm going to make one for loneliness!"

If you haven't seen that commercial, you're missing out. Sorry.

Well I just beat my first bout of homesickness/loneliness. And all it took was 3 hours and 2,700w (~2.85) at a PC bang (pronounced 'bong,' it means 'room.' The karaoke rooms are called "nori-bangs") !

It was really my fault - after returning from Busan this evening, I showered and put on a dvd I'd borrowed from Mark. He said it was very good, but warned me that I should have tissues nearby. Stupid Alexis, watched it alone, at night. It's a Korean film with English subtitles, "A Moment to Remember." And since I'm such a sensitive sap, I was crying like a baby for the last 20 minutes of it, and when it ended I just wanted to call home, but couldn't since my director hasn't given me the phonecard information yet (that, and it was 4am Sunday morning in CA, 7am in NJ). So, I took off for the PC bang to read the weekend's emails and look at myspace. Ah, myspace. What a lifesaver for those of us with itchy feet!

But I'm very happy to report that I'm much better now and will go home to get some good rest before my first day of teaching tomorrow. I'll also be posting a blog about our weekend adventures tomorrow, so look for that.

G'night!