Race in Seoul

Recently, Dan and I ran a 1/2 marathon in Seoul. It was along the Han River so the scenes were nice. The weather was a cold but we lucked out because it didn't rain or snow! We were on a team called the Gunsan Goonies and really enjoyed meeting people and running! Here are a few pictures of the event. (Dan is not in many as he was taking all the pictures). Sorry.

Here is some of the team, pre-race warmup picture, looking happy and excited (maybe we don't realize we are about to run 13 miles)...



A pre-run chat...





This guy was legendary! It was as if he was walking home, saw that there was a race and decided to enter on the spot. He ran 13 miles/21 kilometers in jeans, loafers and a navy blue blazer. At one point, he had his blazer draped over his left arm while running. Amazing.



Here we are after the race, looking a little colder and little tired. Still a good day!



About 2 weeks ago, Korea had a weekend known as "kim-jang". Traditionally, this is the time before winter starts when all families make their kimchi for the year. The kimchi was originally stored in massive clay pots and buried underground, but now they have convenient kimchi refrigerators that store it forever. Literally! It will never go bad. It lasts for about 4-5 years. There are hundreds of kinds of kimchi, but the most common is shown below and is called 배추 김치 (baechu kimchi) or cabbage kimchi. It is served in every restaurant during every meal and is always free of charge. Additionally, most Koreans eat kimchi for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As you can imagine it is an extremely important part of Korean culture and cuisine. So...
We were graciously given a huge bag of kimchi by one of our students. This is our first experience having kimchi in our home. Dan and I enjoy the taste of kimchi, but it has an extremely pungent smell - not a bad smell - just one that cannot be mistaken for anything else! And seeing as we don't have a kimchi refrigerator...the smell has started to infuse our clothes, our hair, our souls...

Anyway, we enjoy it still!





Thanks to Dan for taking all of the pictures! Hope the holiday season is going well for everyone, we love you and miss you.

November!

Here are some pictures of our most recent Speech Night - the students wrote about an experience in their lives. The experiences ranged from memorable family vacations and receiving their first computers to breaking their arms and seeing a playground ghost. However, our favorite speech came from a student named "Vicky" - she wrote about meeting DaR (Daniel and Rachel) for the first time. Here is the text of her speech, you can click on the picture to enlarge it. We thought it was a really nice speech (even it she calls Daniel a little fat...)



And in the spirit of my blog's name (Small Face, Big Nose), here is the picture to accompany Vicky's speech. If you didn't believe that they actually think my nose is huge...I'm apparently Pinocchio!



Here are a few middle school students preparing for their speeches. These three boys made exciting speeches about their experiences: 1. winning a box of chicken and a pack of Mentos from an online cellphone "Free Zone" game 2. getting hit by a car and being excited because he had no school for 10 days 3. going on a school trip 4. and being the owner of his 4th rabbit (because the other 3 died in a matter of 2 weeks.) He even brought rabbit poo to school and said that we could eat it because of the vitamins.



Mask season begins!



This is the beginning of construction next to our school. Our boss is building a coffee shop (yeah!) and possibly a set of small apartment/condos in the future. Dan took this picture about 2 weeks ago, so now there are walls and flooring. We take these pictures as a tribute to Dan's nephew Bertie - he loves construction diggers, trucks, cranes and other machines that are manly.



A few weeks ago, actually on November 11, 2011, (11.11.11), it was a special day in Korea - Pepero Day! Pepero Day is really just made by the Pepero company. They have smartly and properly marketed and commercialized this one day, (due to the shape of their product looking like a number 1), so thousands of boxes of their chocolate biscuits are purchased. Now, this being 11.11.11 - all number ones... this Pepero Day was the Millennium of Pepero Days! Dan and I did not buy into the commercialization, so we provided a different treat for the students that was much more filling and nutritious - rice cakes! They still said: "Teacher, give me the pepero please." Oh well, can't win them all. Anyway, here is a combination of the gifts that we received from students.

Part 2: Fun in the Fall

As winter approached this past weekend, I would like to tell you about a few fun things that we did in the fall. A few weekends ago, we were fortunate enough to have a visit from our good friend Glenn Carpenter. He is from Australia and was invited to be the referee for the Asian Gaelic Football Games in Suwon. It was great to catch up with him and have some dinner, but even greater seeing him running around the fields in the rain. For all of his hard work, we took him to a delicious Korean meal of galbi (a beef dish that is grilled at the table and eaten with a lettuce leaf). Good times.



Here is a magnificent view of the fall sunset from the apartment. I love when it is like this, and I am pretty sure I've never seen it this good in New Orleans, but I could be wrong.



Dan and I took one weekend to visit the magical and mystical Lotte World! It is one of Korea's main theme parks and kept us entertained for hours. It is actually split into two parts: indoors and outdoors, and is the largest indoor amusement park in the world (Credit: Guinness World Records). There are roller coasters, rides, and an ice rink inside. Very cool. Here we are posing in front of a replica of Cinderella's Castle. A certain princess and her dwarves also featured around the park, but not sure if they were Disney legit or not...



One night, as we were walking to the hotel from a lovely day in Seoul, we noticed some flashing Christmas lights in an upstairs window. Unfortunately there was no Christmas music...but there were these Star Wars masks! I am sure you can appreciate our excitement. This is one of the best pictures we took out of hundreds. Can you tell who's who?



Here is a picture of the first step of making one of our favorite new foods. This is an electric stone grinder that is smashing mung beans into a thick gooey substance (like pancake batter).



The final fried and crispy product: 녹두전! Nok-du jeon (nok-du = mung bean and jeon = pancake). It is extremely delicious and cheap and should only be eaten sparingly, as it is cooked in 2 inches of oil. We love it. The lady in the picture really took a liking to Dan as well. Free chopsticks!

Part 1: It's been a while...

I didn't realize how many months had passed since I wrote the last blog. Naturally, we have lots to tell you and because of the inordinate amount of pictures I would like to share with you, I will break this into two parts. So here is Part 1!

Time really has moved quickly for us here, and we are keeping ourselves busy with Korean lessons (finally!), hot yoga classes (yoga in 38 Celcius/95 Farenheit), and training for a 1/2 marathon. And we do some work occasionally. Recently, we have been enjoying the fall weather and taking advantage of being outside until it starts snowing (hopefully not too soon...) Our school life is going well and we have a number of new students and classes that keep us busy. We started teaching a new graduate student class, which is quite enjoyable as they are fairly fluent in English and can talk about topics other than computer games and Nintendo.

Outside of school news, our boss, Jennifer is taking on a new venture and will be opening up a coffee shop near the school. They are about to start construction on the land, so that will keep us excited and interested over the next few months. As far as Korea goes, our city (Gunsan) is doing really well! Everyday, we see construction on new buildings, restaurants, shops and offices. The rest of the world might be feeling the economic burn, but Gunsan is moving on, baby! Lots of fun new places for us to eat and drink. It feels quite similar to the New Orleans economic peak - during the U.S. recession - from the influx of new jobs and opportunities and rebuilding efforts after dat big ole storm, ya herd. We love it (and we love spending our hard earned money).

On another note, we found Cheerios in the store.

Here are some photos of events from the past 2 months. Sorry it's been so long!


This is an evening out with our Korean friend - Namu. He works at a great samgyeopsal restaurant - this is a type of pork meat that is served raw and cooked on a grill at the table. The lovely thing about Korean eating and restaurant culture is the relaxed atmosphere of the service. Although the restaurant was busy, he was able to sit and have dinner and a few drinks with us while serving other customers. Great guy.


Another photo to prove to you that we talk to people other than just ourselves and that we have Korean friends. We went to dinner one night with Nam-ho and Ji Eun (both are students) and I had a lovely Korean/English palm reading from Nam-ho. Here, he is telling me that I have a long life ahead of me, but I will be struck with a financial downfall. Luckily, Dan's money line was off the charts. (Wink)


Here is Jennifer, Dan and me before the Halloween party - Dan dressed up as a zombie Lee Myung Bak (the current Korean president), and he was a huge hit! I was a black cat, but everyone thought I was a fox. Oh well.


These lovely ladies work at the school with us. Here, they are preparing the sausages and skewers for our long awaited Halloween BBQ (In Korea, we say "sawsageey bahbehcue") Soon after the photo a mangy cat without a tail snuck up on the table and stole one of our sausages.


A photo from the Halloween party eating festival. These are three students - John, Toby and Jack. During the scary movie portion of the party, Toby ate 6 heaping plates of chips (crisps) and crackers. We were impressed and as you can tell, he is really into eating.


This is the newest addition to the BuHyang Hanaro Apartment building #101. On the bottom floor, there is an area that is kind of a mesh of a lobby, bike/motorcycle parking, public toilet, garbage collecting, mail room, dry cleaning walk through room. If you can get a clear picture of that...it's pretty foul. Recently, there was a substantial leak coming through the ceiling tiles in this area. As a fast solution, this was set up. If you cannot see it, I shall explain: it is a series of plastic bags taped to the inside of the tiles to catch the leaking water and form a funnel for transportation down a gray plastic drainage pipe, and finally through a hose that simply poured a steady flow of water right onto the bathroom floor. The bucket is there to support the construction. It's lucky that there are no actual doors or working toilets in that bathroom. Where was the water coming from? I don't want to know.


Some more students enjoying the Halloween food.


Just a view of the front of the school decorations. It was a really fun day!

Gyeong-ju

Hello! I recently had some computer problems - a car ran over my charger as I was crossing the street...but at least he didn't run over me. This has put some delays in writing the blog. However, I purchased a new charger, and all is well. Plus, it is fall in Korea! The weather is absolutely beautiful.

Anyway, Dan and I went on a trip about two weeks ago during the Korean harvest festival of Chuseok, probably the most important festival in Korea. We had three days off work, so we decided to travel to Gyeong-ju, the ancient Korean capital of the Silla dynasty. The Silla kingdom ruled over Korea from the 7th-9th centuries, so it is quite a significant part of their history. Needless to say, Gyeong-ju holds many historical treasures and most of them are UNESCO World Heritage sites. It is a really impressive place, and even though it is not a very big city, it is extremely unique.

Probably one of the most appealing things about the city is its traditional design and mindset. All new buildings and construction sites are in accordance with the traditional Korean design. So, although modern and up-to-date, the architecture still gives a feeling of the historical days in Korea. It was really nice to get away from the usual apartment and high rise building scene. Alright...get ready for a history lesson...


This is the ascent to the Golguram Hermitage - a Buddhist image carved on the side of the mountain. It was carved between the 7th and 9th century and follows the usual Silla Buddhist image scheme. On the walk up to the Golguram, we passed a secluded Buddhist temple. The mountain is made up of a series of caves and steep stairs and inclines. It probably would've been more majestical without the guard and hand rails, but alas...safety comes first.


Here is a close up of the Buddhist carvings on the mountain.


Dan having a squat under a mountain overhang. Good fun.


This is the traditional housing that we stayed in during our trip to Gyeong-ju. The guest house name was Sarang-chae, (which technically means "the apartments for the master/man of the house)", and it was beautifully built and had a pleasantly tranquil feeling to it. We really enjoyed living in the old-time Korean style for a few days, especially during a significant holiday in the country's most historical city.


This is the famous Bulguksa Temple (불국사), built in 751 A.D. and at that time, was used as the center of Buddhism and prayer against foreign invasion. Sadly, the entire temple was burnt down by the Japanese in the 16th century, and was only somewhat rebuilt over the years. The temple had its final restoration in 1973. The ground area is huge and has lots of pagodas and walking space. The temple is considered the No. 1 National Cultural Heritage Site.


This was our delicious dinner on the first night in Gyeong-ju. A traditional hansik dinner offers about 20 different dishes. The hansik is famous for its nutrition and is a very healthy option for a filling dinner. It is also popular because it fits in perfectly with the Korean style of eating - share everything!



This is the Anapji Pond, constructed in 661 A.D. and was originally built as a fortress. However, it now is a beautiful walking park that lights up at night. We were lucky to see it in the evening.


This is the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok and it is the oldest bell in Korea. It was amazing to see such a huge artifact, but even more impressive to hear the deep sound it made. The description of the bell said that it made a "sound that stirs the deepest emotions." I don't know about the "deepest emotions" thing, but it definitely is "bloody big". [quoted D. Bush]


Other than this tree being a very unique shape, it holds some historical legends about the forest that contains it. The story involves a peasant man discovering a golden basket hanging from the tree. On hearing about the basket, the king at the time - King Talhae - went to the basket and found a baby boy inside. The king adopted the baby, and named him Kim Al-ji. Later, Kim Al-ji became the founder of the Kim clan in Korea. There are three clans in Korea: Kim, Lee and Park, so this was quite a legendary golden basket.


Gyeong-ju Cheomseongdae is the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia.

These hills are probably the biggest appeal to Gyeong-ju visitors, quite possibly because of their size and quantity. They are not actually hills, but are tombs for the kings of the Silla Dynasty. In Tumuli Park, there are at least 20-30 of these massive structures and they are especially pronounced on the horizon at night. It is quite a sight to see, mainly because these are the biggest shapes around as there are no buildings or apartments to get in the way.


Here is a double tomb, which signifies that the wife is also buried here with the king.


We hope you enjoyed the Korean history lesson as much as we did! Hope to be in touch with all of you soon.

Back in Korea!

Hello everyone! Sorry it has taken a while to get back to the Chronicles, but Dan and I have been busy settling back into the Korean lifestyle...

It is great to be back and the students missed us (well...most of them) and they loved seeing us again, especially when we took out the gifts and candies! Nothing much has changed - the weather is still hot (and finally sunny!!), the Korean grandmothers still poke us and we still don't speak Korean. However, as this second swing in Korea begins, we are much more comfortable than last year! We have already visited Seoul, gone swimming on a very nice beach in Daechon, are searching for someone to tutor us in Korean, and we are now immune to strange stares and pokes. We think this year has started smoothly! Here are a few photos of everything so far...

Oh, and by the way, Dan bought a really cool camera (a mini polaroid) so we now take most of our pictures using that camera. I can't get those pictures on the computer, so apologies for lack of good pictures :)


Here is one of us with some of the students. This was actually a while ago, but never put it up. We were preparing for the ever-dreaded speech competition!


This is Jennifer, (the school's owner) with our oldest class. They are in their last year of middle school, so about 15-16 years old. As you can tell, they love taking photos. (NOT!)


These lovely faces are in our new "beginner class". They are about 7-8 years old and are hilarious. They are truly happy about everything and stand on chairs and desks in fits of excitement during the lessons when we make them repeat words like "paper...pencil...scissors..." They love English, so it makes teaching them a little bit easier.


This was a small gathering of younger students in our office. They were playing Angry Birds (this is like a computer game that can be played on a cell phone). Since about April or May, Korea has discovered the joy and wonders of the "Angry Birds" game on their smart phones. In Korea, when something is popular...they go all the way and do it as big as possible. You can now purchase bed sets, wallpaper, carpeting, underwear, socks and kitchen utensils with the Angry Birds faces on it. Good fun.


This is our trip to the beach, in Daechon, a very easy journey from our city. This beach is famous in Korea and it has a Mud Festival that is very popular with foreigners. The mud is good for the skin, so loads of Westerners come out to throw it at each other once a year. Dan and I missed out on this as it was in July and we were packing to go home. Anyway, our beach trip had beautiful weather and the water was great! Although Dan and I were almost the only ones on the beach in actual bathing suits. Of course the 6 other Western people that we saw were in bathing suits also...


This is Dan's friend (Tom) from England, he is a teacher in Seoul. He is also a scholar and a gentleman. We visited him last week and spent the night in Seoul.


This is Tom's girlfriend, Jenny. A lovely lady from Canada who will be traveling back home in a few weeks to go to grad school to be a translator.


In Seoul, we went to an area of town around Hongdae University. It is an art university, so there is lots to do and look at in the area. There are loads of eclectic shops, lots of food and drinks and always music being played by practicing students. We found a nice little courtyard with some decent music, and of course, Dan was scouted from the crowd to provide entertainment for everyone watching. He had a little bird puppet and danced to the music for a while, then he got bored and found someone else to do it. He's a natural!


Just had to put this in it...this is some street food in Seoul, and I think it is taffy or something similar, but it looks like Jabba the Hut.

Well - we miss you all and will hopefully catch most of you on Skype. Love Rachel and Dan

Busan!

Dan and I took advantage of our most recent three day weekend (there were tons in May) to take the 4 hour bus ride to Busan, located on the southeastern coast of Korea. Busan is the second largest city in Korea and the 5th largest port in the world! We really enjoyed our travels to Busan, mainly because of the beautiful Haeundae Beach, but also because we found it to be slightly more manageable than a trip to Seoul. Seoul is amazing, but overwhelming for a weekend visit...there's just TOO much to do! Busan is a very laid back city, and offers every visitor the true beauty of the Korean coastline. We can't wait to go back again. Here are some photos of the trip:

We took an EXTREMELY long walk across the central of Busan to the area of Yeongdo-gu, a type of island connected to central Busan by a bridge. We definitely should have taken a bus. Anyway, the shoreline was beautiful and the weather was perfect.

Cheesy smiles all around :)

This is a photo of some ajumma cooking their seafood on the rocky shores. Dan took this picture while on the Jeoryeong Coastal Walkway - beautifully built up for walking along the water. After this, we headed back across the water to the Jagalchi Fish Market, on the other side of the bridge.


Busan is famous for the Jagalchi Fish Market, filled with hundreds of stalls of freshly caught fish, eels, mussels, and every other type of seafood you can imagine. Our favorites, of course, were the tanks stuffed with octopus.

YUMMY!

And just in case you need another look...my favorite part is the black inky blow hole. Sick.



We visited Busan Tower in Yongdusan Park. The park is located at the top of a mountain and is accessible by a very long escalator. At the top, we were lucky enough to catch the last few minutes of a traditional Korean fisherman dance. This is a photo of the tower and the Yongdusan Temple.



Here is the Yongdusan Temple up close!


There was also an art display on the mountain...of course we need some pictures!



This is the entrance to a Buddhist temple located on the side of the mountain. We were greeted by a friendly Buddhist monk who spoke amazing English and took a few pictures of us for his website.



Afterwards, we strolled the street markets...here is some of the food on offer. Big bowls of kimchi! Delicious.



On Sunday, we went to the United Nations Memorial Cemetery, a reverent and beautiful remembrance of the soldiers who fought in the Korean War.



The grounds were huge and beautifully landscaped, and every country was separated into sections. Each of the headstones were surrounded by flowers. It was definitely worth the visit, especially since we went on the day before Korea's Memorial Day.



After the cemetery, we headed to Busan's most famous beach: Haeundae. The beach is beautiful and was SUPER crowded because of the annual Sand Festival. We've never seen so many foreigners gathered in one place! We really enjoyed relaxing on the beach.



Here are some shots of the Sand Festival creations. They had a sand castle competition, and these guys were obviously professionals. These structures were massive and made of sand. They were actually mind-blowing to look at. Pretty cool.