mmmm... more kimchi!

Aaaah, those Koreans, thinking of more ways they can enjoy Kimchi! Well look no further, there's now kimchi chocolate! That's right, you don't have to wonder anymore what spicy sour pickled vegetables would taste like when combined with the sweet creamy cocoa goodness of chocolate!

I was kinda disappointed when I tasted it - There are no vegetable bits in the chocolate at all! It just tastes like mediocre chocolate with a spicy aftertaste...

i've got seoul, but i'm not a soldier...

Back in Australia, but thought I'd fill everyone in on what happened during my last few days in Korea. After our televised goodbye, a few hours later we ended up out our backpacker's, before heading off to a market in Insadong. We decided our shopping needed a purpose, so did a Kris-Kringle type thing where each person had to buy something really tacky for their person. Then, everyone had to wear their tacky thing our for dinner- It turned out well for me since I was stuck with a not-so-tacky fake Le coq sportif T-Shirt while others were stuck with pollution masks, weird asian sun-visors and and weird headbands.

So we went out to a place every patriotic Australian would go to when overseas- Outback Steakhouse. It was our duty to go and try real Australian food that everyone keeps talking about - so real and authentic in fact, that most of us had never even heard of Outback Steakhouse until we arrived in Korea. Littered on the walls were heaps of crocodiles, painted still-life pictures of Vegemite - everything you'd see in your normal restaurants here at home in Australia!

After eating non-Korean food, we felt we had to fulfil our Korean quotient and do something Korea-related that night, so we went to a norebang, which is pretty much a karaoke box/ private karaoke room, but called something different, probably because of the anti-Japan sentiment in Korea. After stocking up on alcohol from a 7-11, and finding a norebang that wasn't trying to rip us off, we ended up seeing till the wee hours of the morning... Well, not so wee actually, just til maybe 1:00.

The night was still young, so we tried to find a club or bar to go to afterwards, but after walking around for maybe half an hour, we couldn't be bothered and settled for a print club shop - it was a store which had heaps of those passport photo-sticker machines - it had all these free props to use so we kinda got into the whole spirit and did the whole poser thing - it was quite fun actually! Didn't expect to get so into the photo posing thing after the last few camera-filled days- I guess I must be getting used to them...

no cameras!

I don't know how it works in Korea, but I heard that in Australia if you have a spoken part in a TV show (other than the news) you get paid for it. I wonder if they have the same rule there when you have to act. Our last days in Jeonju (the province we were staying in) felt like we were filming a standard show starring us as stereotypical, ignorant foreigners. As soon as we finished eating at Gran Piatta for our farewell dinner (weird, since the last day eating in Jeonju was at the same restaurant that I went to on the first day... read into it as much as you want) we were rushed away to go to one of the other student teacher's houses. We had to be prepared to be filmed with all the 'guys' hanging out watching TV - but not our choice of course, it just happened to be a certain channel that coincidentally was the same channel as the TV station that was filming us. So we had to watch this news program about getting a fire massage and vocally express our surprise and disdain, laughing and pointing at the TV, you know, like what you do normally in your own home....

As we were watching TV, the doorbell happened to ring - what? who could that be at this time of night? Wow, it was some of the students from one of the student teacher's schools! and they brought... ingredients for making Bibimbap! And they want to make it with us? wow! What a great, unexpected way to finish our time in Jeonju! Oh and by the way, if you don't know what Bibimbap is, well, don't worry I "don't know either"- it was part of our "ignorant foreinger" speel we had to act up to, even though we ate it every second day in Korea, and were shown how to make it on one of the organised culture excursions.

So the next day, after our unexpected but really fun bibimbap day, we headed off to our bus taking us to Seoul - it would have been a really bittersweet, teary moment for everyone if the cameras weren't there either. As I was putting my luggage on the bus, I was told by the TV show producer to take it off, because we had to use it to film - You see, we were all supposed to get on the bus, and get off, pretending it was our arrival in Jeonju! It who cares if there were some continuity problems, such as one of the Monash people in full South Korea soccer fan costume, including tattoos on his face and a bandanna! Then we had to film a scene where me and someone else were meeting our supervising teachers for the first time, finding out about what schools we were going to, but we had to act all suspicious and cautious of the English teachers - we even had to do that shifty eye glancing thing, where they zoomed up on our eyes and had to keep looking left and right...

Anyway, glad that filming thing's over - hopefully that gives them enough footage so they don't have to use the film from our culture tour of me and Emily running towards each other in slow motion for a loving embrace...

worst temple stay ever...

We were expecting a nice, casual, two day tour around the lovely province of Jeollabukdo - We all needed a couple days to relax after our hectic timetables - I was really looking forward to sleeping in longer than 6:30 in the morning, so all the monash students were pumped about the prospect of doing a two day tour with the other Australians, even if there was going to be a camera crew following us everywhere we go.

So it started out great - we went to this garden in Namwon, which is the equivalent to Verona in Italy -it's the setting of a love story between a nobleman and a prostitute, like Romeo and Juliet, but without the mass suicide pact in the end. So we took pictures, and at the bridge where Korean Romeo and Juliet met, we staged a scene where two of us ran in slow motion to meet in the middle for a loving embrace, and weren't that pissed off when we found out the TV station was taping us either.

After visiting a couple more places in the pouring rain (I finally worked out why it's called monsoon season) and being absolutely drenched, we ended up at our final destination - the Naesosa temple, in the middle of a forest. It was very picturesque, and looked so good! I was looking forward to some meditation and relaxation. So we ate dinner, got dressed into our orange monk-in-training clothes, and got ready for a talk to the head monk.

I can pinpoint the moment I realised it wasn't going to be the best time ever. It was during our meditation/dharma question time, where the head monk was asking us philosophical questions and we were supposed to be there pondering. We were all supposed to be sitting there with our legs crossed and our backs straight. One student teacher Julia, wasn't sitting as straight as the monk liked, so he grabbed his bamboo stick and whacked her on the back. She screamed, and in the middle of screaming, was trying to explain that the monk had hit her on her fractured pelvis.

I just wanted to go to bed, but we ended up staying up till 11:00, we had question time (I really wanted to ask what the sound of one hand clapping was) and lantern-making time, and then had to walk around a pagoda for 30 minutes, and it wasn't a huge pagoda, so we were walking around for quite a while. I just wanted to go to bed, since we all had to wake up at 3:50 for 4:00 morning prayer!

I was looking forward to sleeping - the women's quarters were quite new and big, so I expected something similar for the men's room - I dont' know if room's the right word because it suggests that there is space - there were only 5 guys, and we took up the whole room, so if we rolled over, we would be on top of each other. The ceiling was about two heads shorter than me, and had the lovely scent of fresh paint. mmm, musky! To top it all off, there was a power generator just outside our room that kept buzzing all night.

I managed to get an hour's sleep before being woken up by the monk's knock on the door. we only managed to wash our faces before we headed off to morning prayer. It was maybe an hour of standing and bowing and kneeling and standing and facing another direction and bowing again. when we finally left, we ended up going for a walk through the forest, which I hear was good for those who were awake/not shitty to notice, and went back to "meditate". Turns out, meditation is really just sitting in silence for an hour or so. Kinda like that game dead fish you play in primary school, but less fun.

By breakfast time, we were all really shitty - my teacher who came to visit us from Australia was absolutely pissed off that we were forced to do this, and especially pissed off that they would hit anyone. breakfast was supposed to start at 6:00 but we didn't end up eating till maybe 7:00 - we were listening to all the rules we had to follow when we received the bowls, a way to unpack the bowls and clean them. One thing that was lost in translation for most people was that you had to eat everything.

One thing about temple breakfasts is that you don't waste a drop of food. So once you're done with eating everything, you pour your bowl of clean water into your bowls, and use a pickled radish to clean your bowls. After you repour the water into all the bowls and scrub with the radish, you're supposed to empty the water into these large communal containers. If there is a single speck of rice or rice fragments, they distribute water in the large containers to everyone, and everyone has to drink it. So, if you find any specks in your dirty water, you're supposed to drink it. and eat the scrubbing pickle. So the girls ended up leaving some of their food, which meant that they couldn't get rid of their scraps, otherwise we'd all have to drink it. After drinking the gross cleaning-pickle water, I don't think I can look at pickles the same way anymore...


Can you tell that this photo was taken as soon as we left the temple?

mmmm... kimchi!

You know, even if I don't become a teacher, at least this trip will help me get 1 step closer to fulfilling one of my life goals: being on the amazing race contestant. Since I've been here I've been exposed to kimchis of various residues and thickness: cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi, weird-leaf kimchi, squid kimchi, fermented kimchi, tofu kimchi, water kimchi, kimchi soup, and dumplings stuffed with, you guessed it - meat! I mean kimchi! I've also got to go to McDonald's before I go since there's also a Kimchi burger too...

So, I think I'm more than experienced enough for the food-eating challenges - if Kimchi wasn't enough, I've had coagulated blood soup, chicken stomach, marsh snails, and this thing called mogwart - It's this weird herb that smells and tastes like indeterminate green vegetables, but they put in all their "desserts" like rice cakes and stuff.

I think the moment I realised I could make it on the amazing race was when I was in a Korean barbeque restaurant, I saw these little pecan-shaped things in what looked like butter, so I ate it, and later found out it was silkworm larvae... not that bad, but tastes kinda like crab roe with a semi-soft prawn-shell coating... mmmm, yum!

Korean TV

Been pretty slack on the updates - I've had school every day - so my day starts at 6:30 until 5:30 - almost every night since I've been here I've been invited by someone to go out for dinner - yesterday (thursday night) was the first time in over a week I didn't actually do anything! I was so excited - I got to go to sleep at around 10:30!

Today I've got a open class presentation, where English teachers from the surrounding area come to watch our demo team teaching class. Apparently there's like 20 teachers coming in to watch a class. Originally, we were only going to have the year 9 students (all 5 of them) but the principal decided to make it a joint class with both year 8 and year 9 students - so now we have a total of 7 students! So it looks like there will be 3 teachers for every student! My supervising teacher has stocked up on lollies, so hopefully they'll be on a sugar high and want to participate and not be worried about be watched... Apparently our presentation will be videotaped as well! urgh! stupid cameras!

So I heard we're going to be filmed again by a Korean TV station to record our last days in Jeonju- me and the other guy teachers are "going" to someone's house, where "our" students will be, and have a final goodbye party, where the students will make us some Korean food. Then, they'll record us leaving and our "students" waving goodbye and being all teary-eyed...

I can't believe how much effort that's going into all this stuff - they record for like a couple hours and they end up showing only a minute or so - Unfortunately, this means I haven't been stopped in the street yet by millions of girls asking for my autograph *sigh*.

Speaking of TV I was so excited when I saw a show that I knew on Korean TV - it was dubbed in Korean, but it was still funny and understandable... I managed to record it on my camera so you can hear me laughing in the background...

mental note...

When you see something that looks like potatoes in tomato sauce in the school cafeteria, and you think it's good because everyone else seems to be piling it onto their tray, don't! You'll soon find out it's just Kim-chi type No. 52, this time made of radish (not potato). And yes, it is spicy. And yes, people will think it's funny you piled on so much onto your tray but only ate one piece...

my 15 minutes are up...

my 15 minutes of shame were short-lived. Probably because it wasn't even 15 minutes, more like a minute and a half. I tried to record it with my digital camera, but you can't really hear much and all you hear is me going "oh! that's me! wow!" pretty much the whole time... But I heard we're getting a tape from the TV station, so at least I've got something to show of it when I get home... I'm also annoyed because they only showed the first bit where I'm teaching and didn't show anything from when I was outside playing basketball with the students. All this physical exertion for no apparent reason? urgh! Since then, I haven't been doing much - just teaching classes and subjecting kids to Vegemite - it's a shame that the national food of choice tastes kinda sucky. What else? um, nothing much, just got married and stuff - nothing flashy, just a small wedding in Korean costume. I also had to wear a hat being the groom, which didn't look as bad as I thought, considering I can't normally wear hats. So I expect lots of wedding presents when I get back!

do wombats have tails?

Do wombats have tails? Let me know, because I may have just told everyone in the area that they don't. During my first day at one of my schools, I was doing a lesson with my supervising teacher when she received a call - It was KBS, and they were doing a news segment on this whole teaching practicum in Korea. I kinda freaked out and couldn't stop laughing about the whole situation - I think my students think I'm kinda weird.

Anyways, me and my supervising teacher freaked out and had to plan a whole new lesson for the day - we were originally going to do just an introductory lesson where students just ask me questions about Australia and that's it. We also had to change the class because originally it was just a year 9 class, but we had to change it to make it a class for the whole school (sounds impressive, but it's a country school, so there are only 11 students) just so it would look better on TV.

After working out the perfect lesson plan, we didn't even end up using it at all. Instead, the cameraman just wanted to get enough shots of me at the board and then wanted us to 'play an English". I don't even know what game it was, I was explained the rules in the few seconds before we started, and then played - it was kinda like Uno, but not and really lame.

I'm so glad it's being aired on Korean TV because I swear I made an arse of myself. I was asked why this was a good program, and my explanation was too long, so had to shorten in to 15 seconds, and I must I look totally out of it. Then, they interviewed some Korean students and asked them to be really pumped and scream and get excited about me coming in. I don't know what it says about me or my teaching, but all the students refused to act really excited about me coming in!

After about 10 more minutes of that, I had to show how much I was bonding with my students and play basketball with them for 15 minutes - They so don't know me at all! I hope there's some clever editing because I must of only hit 2 of like 15 shots, and then I was asked to dunk the ball. Would you call it a dunk when you can't even reach the ring and miss as well? Hopefully they cut and edit it so I look good, or maybe they'll add some stupid sound effects...

me & kim chi at the gran piatta

"We want you to feel comfortable in Korea, so we'll take you to an Italian restaurant today, okay?"

Didn't really expect to be eating just non-Korean food on my first day in Korea. I had this bread-cakey thing my host teacher bought for me for breakfast/lunch, and then for dinner, she was taking me to an Italian restaurant? What, no kim-chi? We are in the land of Kim-chi after all...

But after eating at Gran Piatta, my concerns were put to rest straight away - I ordered a "Korean-inspired" octopus risotto, while everyone else ordered pasta and veal. After an entree of soup, we were served a side of freakishly-sweet Asian bread, and kim-chi! Wow, kim-chi land doesn't disappoint!

my "risotto" wasn't very risotto-y either - I thought it'd be all mixed together and have a creamy sauce or something, but it was just a stir-fry with a side of rice, and also a side of Korean noodles - not mixed together or anything! it was freakishly spicy as well - couldn't end up finishing it because I went all red and stuff.

thinking my night at the Italian restaurant couldn't be any more culture shocky, I went to the toilets, and found ice in the urinal... not like an ice block, but like someone emptied a bag of ice into all of the urinals. WHY? Why would you need to cool it down!?



Oh well, guess I have little else to be surprised about when I try "real" Korean food. Bring on the Kim-chi!

boy are my arms tired..

25 Hours. 4 countries. 3 Plane rides. And no million dollars, because this isn't the Amazing Race. Yes, I'm in South Korea (aka the good Korea) after traveling a ridiculous 25 hours. We ended up having a stop in Bangkok for a 4 hours, and we made an unexpected stop in Hong Kong as well - apparently our flight from Bangkok to Seoul was always via Hong Kong, but everyone's itinerary happened to not have that written down. But boy, was those stop overs in airports so exciting! So much excitement, and so much stuff happened I think I'll leave it out. But I do think that the anti-plane food thing is totally unjustified. Tiny meals, with dessert, each of the dishes in it's little own compartment - what more do you want? Plus, I don't mind the indeterminate foods that are cylindrical shape and taste a little rubbery - it's all part of the experience of flying!

One thing I did learn after all those hours flying is that I can survive with only a few 15-minute naps here an there during 24 hours of travel - watch out amazing race! Now I just need to find a partner (preferably hot) to cry all the time and continually claim "this is the worst experience ever!" and I might just make it to amazing race map and meet Phil...

By the time I got to Seoul, I was really too buggered to actually sightsee while on the 4-hour bus ride to our province. But I did notice a "Kim-Chi land" billboard, so either the Koreans know about their unhealthy obsession with Kim-chi, or there's a really cool amusement park with an assortment of spicy-pickled vegetables. Sounds exciting either way!

it's narin!

I figured mass emails about my exploits in Korea would be pretty hit-or-miss, so I thought I'd set up a blog for people who were interested to see what I was doing and also leave notes - Also, I'm too slack to actually send huge individual emails to everyone, but this way, it makes me sound really considerate about everyone...