Update By Photos

So my multiple attempts at consistently updating my blog have failed time and time again and I want to tell everyone what has been going on over the past couple months since my last post. But rather then tell you and make you read all that, I figured I would just show you. I've been taking lots of great pictures and instagram makes it so easy for me to edit photos and upload right from my phone. So if you have a smart phone and have the instagram app, you can follow me, becbla, and see all the photos I've edited via the app.

But here you go, the last couple months in photos.

We've had sports day  at school. A day where classes are cancelled and the school yard is transformed for games, races, dances and sing alongs to Gangnam style. 

We've celebrated birthdays in style. With costco pies, homemade cupcakes and western
brunches complete bacon, eggs, beans, toast, potatoes and pastries, birthday's are our favorite excuse to eat like we did at home.

  

There's been a beer festival where we all got beer steins with mustaches. Definitely my favorite mug and one that I hope I always manage to hang on to.

 There have been good times...

 

....And sushi dates at our favorite spot. 

An enjoyable trip to Seoul. Beginning with an afternoon sunset in Busan.

Enjoying the markets, beautiful fall weather, bubble tea and street art in Hongdae.

Sometimes I forget how beautiful Korea can be. It's easy to stuck down in the city, getting bumped into on the subway, kicking through trash left on the street, going to same bars and restaurants over and over, forgetting that there is so much to see. These next pictures are from a hike we all did a couple weeks ago. I forget the name of this temple but it was built into the side of a mountain....pretty amazing.

 And sometimes you don't need to hike up a  mountain and to a temple to find beauty.  These shots are from the park where I run. Views like these certainly make running more enjoyable.

Take Cover! How South Korea Does the Beach

First, I know what you must be thinking...two blogs in one week?! What is happening?! But now that summer is coming to an end, I thought it would be a good time to talk about how South Korea does the beach because, by western standards, it is far from normal.

It's hard to put into words the hilarity that takes over the Gwangalli and Haeundae Beaches when beach season hits. I think the biggest difference, and the most bizarre to me as a beach loving American, is that most Korean's will not be in swimsuits at the beach. If they are swimming in the water, they are usually swimming while fully dressed in the clothes they came to the beach in; pretty much the polar opposite of spring break last year in Miami Beach, FL. In China, the "face-kini" is gaining popularity and even though this craze hasn't made it's way here (or least not that I've seen), I wouldn't be surprised if it soon took South Korea by storm. Check it out!

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-08-24/news/33371840_1_kini-summer-accessory-yuan


In other efforts to keep themselves as white as possible, you will rarely find a Korean lounging in the sun; something we westerns soak up as if it may not come back after winter. Once it has been declared "beach season" (and Korean's really only go to the beach during beach season) the beach is suddenly taken over by red umbrella's, stuck up in the sand as close together as they can possibly be. The small amount of beach left untouched is usually taken over by tents. That's right, tents, full on "let's go camping in the woods" tents. I've even seen them full of pillows and blankets with a whole family packed in there. Generally speaking, Korean's avoid the sun like it's the plague. Even though they venture to the beach from time to time, they expose their skin as little as possible to the sun. This can be attributed to the Korean idea of beauty, the lighter the skin, the better. This also makes it difficult to find sunscreen under SPF 50.

Enjoying vacation with Alex and Laura

We found that getting to the beach around mid-day you can still find a good spot, far enough away from the umbrella's and general chaos that surrounds them. However, it's also not uncommon for a Korean family to come park their tent almost on top of you, even if there is a completely wide open stretch of beach. I've found that the idea of personal space doesn't seem to faze most Korean's.

I caught a little fishy!

But for me, the real kicker that takes the fun out of beach season, are the lifeguards and buoy's that suddenly appeared in July. Depending on the tide, the buoy's keep you in water that is waist to shoulder length deep, well for me at least. But rarely have I not been able to stand where the buoy's are. Should you come anywhere close, or god forbid, go beyond the buoy's during "beach season", you get whistle blast's your way from the lifeguard and usually two more "water rescue" guys on jet ski's that come tell you to go back in. Being a swimmer most of my life and having a group of friends largely from California, this really got on our nerves. I get that this is their way of regulating the beach and water safety, but now that "beach season" has ended, there is no regard for that safety any more. The guard stands have been taken down and the "water rescue" guys have stored their jet ski's until next year. So I guess for about another month, we are free to tempt our fate in the water until it gets too cold to swim.

Summer Vacation Busan Style

Well it's my second week back at school after summer vacation and I'm desperately missing the shortened school days and time off. With the end of the spring semester in July, I began 2 weeks of English vacation camps and then had 2 weeks of vacation.

English camps were by far the best teaching experience I've had here so far. Basically, these camps consisted of three, forty minute periods each morning with the basic level students for the first week and the intermediate level students for the second the week. I was responsible for the whole second and third period; 80 minutes of English with Becca teacher. Given that I usually don't get more then 15-20 minutes of teaching time per class during regular school days, I was really excited to take advantage of the time I was given during camps.

Me and Dom in Haeundae

I taught with a great co-teacher who hardly ever jumped into my parts of the lesson unless I really wasn't able to communicate something to the kids. Even though I was required to teach a story every day recommended by the office of Education here, I tried to have as much fun with the kids as possible. I incorporated in a games day/ scavenger hunt, superhero day, cooking class and ice breakers over the two weeks. Each week I could see a visible difference in the kid's confidence and speaking abilities from the start of the week when they were more hesitant, to the end of the week where everyone in class was participating. These two weeks of teaching have really been the only time when I've felt very accomplished in my ability to interact with and teach the kids. And on top of that, my school was kind enough to let me leave early some days to go enjoy the day.

Eating Ice Noodles

Gangnam Style!

Following camps, I had two weeks of vacation time to soak up the sun and enjoy Busan. Lucky for me I also had a visitor from the states; Dom came all the way to Busan from the 'burgh! We had a great 10 days seeing the city, hitting the beach, trying lots of different Korean food, visiting Seoul and the DMZ, and just enjoying our time together.

The DMZ has by far been the best cultural experience I've had here in South Korea. We did the USO tour which took all afternoon and went well into the evening, getting a full tour of the actual DMZ and surrounding area. The tour was so informational and interesting, there was never a dull moment. From the sad and slightly eerie Dorason Station- the pristine and hardly used train station that will connect the North and South upon reunification- to Camp Bonifas- the actual DMZ where we got to cross the line into the North- we listened in awe as we learned about each site and heard stories from previous tours.

A view of North Korea's Propaganda Village

South Korean Soldiers guarding our tour

North Korean Soldiers came to take pictures

But now I'm back in school and already counting the days until my next vacation. Until then I'll keep myself entertained with one video in particular, maybe you've seen or heard about it back at home as it's gone viral. If you haven't seen or heard of the Korean K-Pop song Gangnam Style by Psy you need to watch it now! RIGHT NOW! It'll make you want join in dance and pretty much sums up everything you need to know about K-Pop music and Korean dancing.

 

And I'm back!

Well my "pledge" to be more efficient with my blogs and at least keep short updates coming weekly has been an epic fail. It's been almost 2 months since my last update and honestly, not a ton has happened. There have been a few highlights though. At the top of the list, I had the unique opportunity to attend a talk given by a North Korean escapee, followed by a truly American July 4th celebration, a trip to Korea's famous Mud Festival and more problems in the classroom.

Since it's by far the most interesting thing that's happened in the last 2 months, I'll kick it off with the North Korean talk. First some facts about North Korea: there are an estimated 40% of children that are malnourished, about 200,000 political prisoners, most of the aid that comes into the country is sold for profit rather then rationed off as it should be, and public executions are a very really part of everyday life. The North Korean Economy is made up of three equal parts: aid, exports, and crime. At the beginning of the talk we were urged to think of North Korea as a criminal enterprise with a rigid, top down government headed by a godfather or godmother figure.

"Ms. Kim" escaped to South Korea about 3 months ago now. The reason I use quotations around her name is because she couldn't give her real one. She stressed multiply times throughout the talk that should the North Korean government learn she has escaped, they would essentially murder any and all known living relatives. Her story is truly heart breaking. Her life so far has consisted of oppression, great loss, famine and terror. Even though she spoke only in Korean you could feel her pain in the way she sobbed and sniffled through what she had prepared. She described what it was like to live through a famine, to see her father, who had always worked hard, continue to be beat down by the government only to be diagnosed with lung cancer after losing his job. Her mother and sister have disappeared as they attempted to travel to China to ask relatives for help as her father neared death. And after the cancer finally did kill her father, Ms. Kim found herself along in the most feared country in the world. It was time to flee. She couldn't tell us much about her escape route as it's still used by many, but essentially she crossed the river into China and hid in the mountains for about 2 weeks before she successfully made it into South Korea.

Aside from the obvious, here are some things that I found the most interesting:
1. Ms. Kim is undoubtedly an incredibly strong women who was able to acquire enough knowledge and courage to understand that there was no life worth continuing in North Korea and flee. And not only that, but after she had been here for only 2 months she shared her story with an audience of foreigners- a group of people who look physically different then anythings she's ever known. What else can I say but, What a woman! But really, between the censorship, the oppression, the personal loss and life that has been nothing but incredibly difficult, where does that strength come from?
 
2. During the question and answer time, she was asked: what is the best way to help North Korean's? If we had the opportunity to advise our government on this, what would should we say? The answer: although aid makes up 1/3 of the North Korean economy, it doesn't make it's way to the majority of the citizens like it should (no surprise there). Therefore, rather then continuing to spend aid in the usual monetary or food form, what really makes a difference is media that's smuggled into the country. Given North Korean media control and the unfathomable amount of censorship in the county, smuggled media is the only way for North Koreans to discover that a world beyond what they know exists. And it is due to this media that Ms. Kim was motivated to escape.

3. I'm not sure South Korean's care at all. This thought might be unfair and totally off base, but one of the first things I noticed as I found a seat on floor of the small lecture room was that the audience consisted of about 98% foreigners. I counted maybe 5 Korean's there. When I or my friends ask our co-teachers or other South Korean's about North Korea they brush it off like "so what else is new". Remember in April when news programs around the world were reporting that North Korea was set to attempt a new missile launch, which the US believed was an attempt to test ballistic missiles? Well this was hardly news here in South Korea, in fact, I'm not sure it made the news at all. I only learned about it because of facebook. It seems that South Korea hardly feels threatened by North Korea....and they share a border with them!

It's really hard to describe what this experience was like and I know I hardly did it justice, but I hope this gives you a taste. On to more uplifting experiences.

We spent the 4th celebrating on the beach... as if we would celebrate anywhere else. And our night (and my stomach) was filled with pizza and apple pie from Costco, Budweiser from Family Mart, and complete with over sized roman candles and sparklers. We celebrated the 4th in true American style. Last weekend I headed to the city of the Boryeong for Mud Fest. This is pretty much exactly how it sounds, a festival where everyone gets really muddy. We spent the afternoon running around the festival, getting dirty, and washing it all in the ocean. Now I'm back in school, and it's the last week of the semester before Summer camps start next week. Then just two short weeks of English camps and then it's finally vacation time! And I'm counting the days....

S.S. Sir Chafs A Lot > The Seoul Train

The Seoul Gang

Last weekend I took my first big trip in Korea. That's right, I hopped on the Seoul train...literally. We rode Korea's high speed train, the KTX, up to Seoul for a long weekend to celebrate Buddhas Birthday and indulge in Korea's finest Mexican cuisine, Taco Bell. I was so excited for my first trip out of Busan and anxious to visit the nation's capitol, but when all was said and done, I was happy to be coming home.

So happy to have found IPA's

In a cab on our first night in the city we were trying to get a little perspective on the size of Seoul. First of all, the population of the city is a little over 10 million people! That's more then triple the amount of people in L.A. and at least 2 million more people then there are in NYC. Actually, now that I'm looking up the numbers, if you combined the populations of NYC and LA then that's a more accurate portrayal of Seoul's population. But the real kicker is when you look at the actual square mileage of the city. Seoul is only about 233 sq. miles. Again, to put this in perspective, that about half the size of NYC, at 468 sq. miles, and less then half the size of L.A., at 500 sq. miles. That's crazy! Needless to say, the city felt a bit overwhelming.

We spent most of our time in a part of the city called Hongdae, probably because it felt the most familiar. We were introduced to a great bar, that was just a hole in the wall and played amazing American oldies and throwbacks. This is where we spent most of Friday and Saturday night dancing the night away. And to Seoul's credit, we found great food and shopping. Along with Taco Bell, we got our forever 21 shopping fix for at least a couple months and found great little shops and boutiques through out the weekend. Sunday we had an amazing western breakfast complete with eggs benedict, ham and brie stuffed and french toast and cappuccino that was actually made the way it should be, not instant. And on Monday for brunch I went big with an Aloha burger; a burger topped with red onion, pineapple and guacamole, yummm. We also made an attempt at getting some culture and went to visit the oldest and biggest palace in the country.

Gyeougbok Palace

On the downside however, we got seriously ripped off by cab drivers. It was clear we didn't know the city and for that we definitely got taken advantage of. Also, because Seoul is so much bigger then Busan, even taking the subway gets time consuming. When we went to forever 21 we saw that it was only 4 subway stops away with 1 transfer to another line...sounds like it should be a quick trip. Wrong. It took us at least 30 minutes because of how big the stations were. We actually spent more time walking in and in between the stations then on the actual subway. But what was really the biggest drawback for Seoul was the lack of general camaraderie we seem to have with other foreigners in Busan. There were so many people there and so many foreigners, it just felt like a little to much. Fun to visit but not sure how I would like living there.

Breaking in Sir Chafs A Lot

Haeundae Sand Festival

 This past weekend we were happy to back in good old Busan where we spent most of our time on the beach, shocking I know. We visited Haeundae on Saturday for the Sand Festival and headed to our favorite spot on Gwangalli for a Queen's Jubilee Party yesterday. The day was complete was sun, sand, tons of great food and the newest addition to our beach days, the S.S. Sir Chafs A Lot- An enormous raft with a built in cooler. Great for floating in the water or just using as a couch on the beach!

Busan Summer Livin'