I AM AT A

I AM AT A CONCERT IN SEOUL, A BAND CALLED DREAM THEATRE. IT'S MORE LIKE A NIGHTMARE THEATRE. THEY SUCK BIGWAN, WITH A CAPITAL "B." MORE ON THIS LATER.

Seoul's Best 100

Many of you probably have seen this tag on some of my posts so I thought I'd explain what it is all about. The Seoul Metropolitan Government (see link here) publishes every year a guide of the best 100 things to see, do, eat[/drink), and buy while visiting Seoul (or Korea). I got a copy of this small book from my counterpart and decided to take on the challenge of partaking in as many of these experiences that I can while I am here and give my perspective of them here for all to enjoy.

The book divides the Best 100 into seven sections as follows:

• THINGS TO SEE (DAY TOURS) -- 1 to 19
• THINGS TO SEE (NIGHT TOURS) -- 19 to 29
  
• THINGS TO DO -- 30 to 41
  
• FESTIVALS -- 42 to 53
  
• FOOD -- 54 to 69
  
• SHOPPING ITEMS -- 70 to 89
  
• SHOPPING AREAS -- 90 to 100
  

Periodically I will write a post updating the things I have checked off the list along with individual posts on each item on the list and its appropriate rating on the list (list number).

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this blog are mine and only mine and do not reflect the opinions of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. As a foreigner my views are meant to pay homage to all that Korea has to offer in a profoundly respectful and culturally sensitive manner.

Happy New Year 2008

Happy new near everyone. This submission is a bit belated, but such is the story of life. This year was probably one of the most amazing new year celebrations I have had in my life (maybe). Since I had most of the week off I decided that the best thing to do was to go into Seoul and find a party. In all honesty, I decided that I'd be in Seoul for New Years back in September.

With the plan set in motion, I met up with a friend of mine that is teaching south of me and checked into a hotel on Friday night. We spent the weekend shopping at the Yongsan Electronics Mart and Dongdeamun Market. Then on Monday we started searching for a party. We found one at the Bosin-Gak. It's the name of a pavilion that houses a bell that was forged in 1468. During the Joseon dynasty this gigantic bell was rung 33 times at dawn, representing the 33 heavens in Buddhism and 28 times at dusk, representing the 28 stars that determine human destiny. These two separate ringing times signaled the opening and closing of the city gates. Now it is only struck 12 times at midnight on new years day where every year crowds gather to watch a spectacle similar to Time Square in New York.

The pavilion is located on the corner of an intersection across the street from Jongo Tower near Insadong in Seoul. We made our way out of the subway on the Jongo Tower side of the road and were greeted by four rows of police officers lining the street to keep people from stepping off the curb until they closed the streets. On arrival we worked our way through the throng and found a piece of real estate the size of a manhole cover in an elevated planter.

Once we settled in I started snapping pictures and videos of the surroundings. At around 11:30PM the streets opened up to pedestrians and there was a mad rush of pushing to the street. In the excitement I moved with the crowd towards the street, but soon realized my other spot was better and headed back to my original spot. After resettling I started to make phone calls to family and friends around the world and ended up on the Television NY's special, and most of the students at my school saw and mocked me the next day; that was funny.

The video below is of my last 30 seconds of 2007 spent with several millions of people on the streets of Seoul, Korea. It was Awesome!


The funny part was with in seconds of the bell ringing you could see a wave of people making a move to be the first on the subway back home. My friend and I looked at each other and decided that we'd take a ride on that wave and head back to the hotel. The key to maneuvering through crowds of this magnitude is to not panic, and go with the flow. My experience at the International Fireworks Festival a couple months ago helped and we pushed our way through to the underground shopping mall and over to the subway station, which was closed. No problem, the crowd just shoved us out the other side of the tunnel to the street and two blocks up to another station.

Well, that pretty much sums up my crazy New Year Celebration. Happy New Year to all!

Possible!

I have come to realize that Korean people are very persistent; even when dialing a wrong phone number. This morning my Canadian co-worker got several calls from a Korean man that had the wrong number. He started calling her at 8:00AM and kept calling her and speaking in Korean in spite of the fact that she told him ten times that she does not know Korean. She gets to the office and he calls again, this time I answer... I exhausted all of my Korean vocabulary (excluding all the curse words) in random order with random English words, that most Koreans know because of marketing advertisements, in between. "Possible" is one of those words that my Korean friend Alex over uses and abuses. As soon as I said "possible" my Canadian co-worker burst into laughter and frustration. Primarily because he just did not get the fact that I had no idea what he was saying. I talked his arm off and even had the phone handed to some woman and talked her arm off too. After about three minutes I broke into Bislama, and the laughter of my co-workers continued. I still have no idea what we talked about and don't know what half of the things I said in Korean were, but it was a pleasant 5 minute conversation. I pray that I did not just agree to buy a Ronco Pocket Fisherman or something random like that. ;-)

Would you believe that he called back two more times! The next call was passed to one of the Korean staff that told him that he had the wrong number. Unfortunately he called again. I answered and pretended to be a pizza delivery restaurant and took his order. He hung up and did not call back. That was hilarious!

Picture Day!

So yesterday was picture day for the morning Kindergarten classes. They try to arrange it so there is one Korean teacher and one foreign teacher in every picture. I got to be in two of my morning classes Oxford and MIT. Oxford, initially, was a very messy class. On my first day they pretty much chewed me up and spit me out and the Korean teacher ended the misery 10 minutes early for me as she saw that I had enough. Now that the culture shock is over and I am more relaxed that class has turned into a favorite of mine. The class is just wild and I can't change that, so I don't. I don't challenge them too much, make things easy, and just laugh at them for a half an hour four days a week.

That easy going spirit, that has needed to return, backfired on me today as I was left unsupervised with them for a half and hour and they went nuts and had me backed into a corner praying for the time to be finished. I think my paranoia is a remnant of my days volunteering with a local church youth group where the parents wondered why an unmarried male in his thirties would want to work with youth. I remember on one outing an overly concerned mother cornered me in Utah on an outing and questioning me in private about how I interacted with a girl that splashed me in the river...I only did what every other good leader of the youth group did... Splash back (regardless of gender)! Fortunately for me several of my best friends had kids in that youth group that I had been with on several outings so I could say to her that she needed to speak to them BEFORE accusing me of wrongdoing. She did and apologized.

So to get back to the point, Oxford pretty much had me backed into a corner calling me "Daddy" and dog piling me. There was no lesson planning as it was picture day so I was told to wing it. That class is pretty rough... Four boys and eight girls; you can imagine why I'd be paranoid. Perhaps I need to work on that.