Sick Again

Well, here we go on our third colds (respectively). And to boot, the new, super-happy-fun-winter-special-semester-thingy starts today, necessitating much earlier awakenings and many more working hours. Great. *sniffle* *snort* *sniff* *cough*

What is it with the stupid diseases in this country???

Merry Christmas!

Sorry for such a long break, everyone! We have been really busy since getting over the nasty illnesses and such. We will have some fun posts up in the near future with pictures from the zoo and What-the-Jackie's wedding, but for now just read about some stuff...

First of all, we have some really exciting news: starting in March, we will be working at the Daewon Foreign Language High School (Amy) and the Daewon International Middle School (Paul)! The Daewon FLHS is literally and consummately the most prestigious school in the country, while the middle school is a new endeavor by the same folks. Amy will be teaching English Conversation, and I will be a founding math and English teacher at the middle school! So, it looks like we will be staying in Korea for some time, seeing as we have found dream jobs. The good news for all of those who miss us dearly is that we will have a LOT more vacation time (as we are moving from a private institution to a regular school), so some trips home could be in order.

We will have to search for a new apartment, possibly in Gangnam. I am excited about moving to Gangnam, as we will finally be relatively close to all the fun things to do in Seoul proper, as we currently are pretty isolated from most of the city in our happy little urban 'burb.

Last night, we stayed up really late working on special preparations for an event which will be discussed shortly. I passed out on the couch several hours past midnight (I'm not sure when exactly), but Amy was still going strong until heaven knows when. Oh, and we did open our presents! Well, it was after 12, so it counted as on Christmas! I don't understand people who open presents on Christmas Eve...

Today we had an amazing Christmas brunch for our coworkers and friends, just about a half dozen in all. Amy cooked up an amazing feast of various cookies, roasted chicken, fresh fruit with homemade whipped cream, cranberry walnut banana bread, imported cheeses, bacon-wrapped Vienna sausages, spinach cream cheese dip, and much, much more. Not to mention, the delicious Jeju orange juice, homemade eggnog, Yellowtail Chardonnay, and more. This "brunch" ended up lasting from 11am-5pm! Even the dogs got into the spirit of things, eating more than their fair share of people food.

Now we are faced with the cleanup...ugh...

Well, I'm usually not one for political correctness, but HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Please Excuse Our Inactivity

Well, we said we'd have some new posts up soon, about Jackie's wedding, another zoo trip, and more, but that will have to be on hold for a while because...

Amy has pneumonia! The kind with temperatures over 103 (39.444444444444444...etc for you metric types) and the coughing up of bloody sputum and all that other stuff :-(
So, keep her in your thoughts and prayers and stuff!

She is doing better already!

Folk Village and Jeju Island!

Hello, everybody! Sorry it's been such a long time since our last update, but we have been incredibly busy, with trips to the zoo, a traditional folk village, and then our anniversary trip to Jeju island!

The zoo was a mix of the insane and amazing. First, it was pretty much like a zoo out of 1960's (or earlier) America. Most of the outdoor exhibits were comparable to the bear displays at the Pittsburgh zoo (i.e. vague molded brown concrete and nothing else), whereas the inside exhibits were mostly just bars and concrete, sometimes a stick for monkeys or a rock for alligators. But I am making it out to be much worse than it is. The clientele was the biggest problem; there were so many drooling peasants feeding junk food to animals. I yelled (in Korean) at one young lass who did so, and Amy lectured her afterwards. She and her boyfriend soon fled. But we saw amazing animals like binturongs, giant anteaters, tapirs, badgers, tanuki, capybaras, Himalayan goat-things, and all the regular African, Asian, etc animals. It was really great, and we are looking forward to our next visit.

The weekend after the zoo, we went down to the traditional Korean folk village in Yong'in. There was not much going on despite it being a sunny weekend afternoon. There were plenty of old-fashioned houses, farms, artisans, etc that you could visit. We wandered around a bunch and even saw a staged traditional Korean wedding. Maybe all you readers will be able to see one with the writers of this blog in the future...

Here I am standing in front of hundreds of vats of preserved food chilling away in earthernware jugs. The dishes include the omnipresent kimchi, a fermented bean paste stuff called tenchang, possibly kochuchang, and other delights.

There was also a series of strings hung with little bits of paper. This was very familiar to me, having weathered plenty of shrines in Japan with a similar deal. You write a wish on a strip of paper, then tie it onto the string and it will come true. Amy and I each made a wish, but we're not sharing.

One fun craft-y thing we got to do was "help" a lady dye some handkerchiefs in various traditional vegatative-y dyes. (we hung on for dear life as she dipped the hankies into a series of starneg colored solutions producing moderately-pleasing tie-dyed style hankies at the end)

Here is Amy with a traditional Korean cow. All the cows in this country are this kind; basic and brown and boring. Many people keep a cow like this; chained up in a little shack by the house. Amy's grandmother did, in the past.

Here I am, showcasing my souvenir purchase from the village. It's a traditional Korean pipe, an item needed to complete my outfit to wear to my coworker Jackie's wedding.

Ideally, I will pretty much look like one of these dudes: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Koreans_oldest_pic_3.jpg

OK, on to our exciting trip to: Jejudo, Chejudo, Jeju Island, Cheju Island...

No matter how you spell it, it all means the same thing: fun!

Jeju is a small island (dwarfed by even Rhode Island) off of the southwestern coast of Korea. It is famous for its milder climate and quirky history, having been occupied by some pretty interesting folks over the last few dozen millenia.

This is one of the dol hareubang statues that the island is famous for, kinda like Korea's Easter Island heads.... They are kinda protector spirits for the island.

Here's an outside view of our hotel, the Hyatt Regency Jeju. I don't recommend it, at least for non ocean-view rooms. It was kind of outdated and a little run-down, despite the name and pricetag. It was part of a massive resort complex known as the Jungmun Resort. However, it was the hotel closest to ocean, which allows some of its rooms to possess simply STUNNING views. The other hotels in the area had nicer grounds and better facilities, especially restaurants. Amy and I spent most of our trip money on food, by far; we went all out, desperate to get good food in Korea. We hopped around between the resorts, visiting gardens, beaches, forest paths, and more.

Here's a little peeing statue dude on the grounds of the awesomest hotel at the resort, the Shilla. Note the koi, which in some places all but teleported towards people in search of food.

The Shilla also had these cages in a garden with lovebird/parakeet-y annoying birds, cute rabbits, hedgehogs, ferrets, and chipmunks! It was like a free little zoo! We visited a few times each day to feed the rabbits, experimenting with various local flora.

The flora and fauna of the island were especially impressive. There were so many pretty flowers, awe-inspiring palm trees, big banana-spider-esque spiders, weird dove-looking things that half-cooed and half zombie-moaned, pelicans, and more.

Here I am sitting down to one of our many gourmet meals at the resorts. Here is my seafood-tastic salad; it had baby octopus, sea squirt (possibly?), salmon, some shellfish (albalone? Jeju is famous for it), and more. I ate it all, except for the salmon.

All in all, the resort food was pretty good, but still certainly not up to par with what would be offered at similar locations in Japan, the US, Europe, i.e. any REAL INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Amy Lee wholeheartedly backs me up on this statement. here is one of the desserts, a pretty tasty arrangement of mango sorbet and tarts (in terrible frozen-cookie tasting shells, not pastries). For the love of God, send pastry chefs to Korea! They'd be billionaires in days! I'm not joking in the least; the area Korean-made cuisine suffers most in is in the realm of baking and sweets.

Here is the view of the incredibly corny swan-boat-strewn lake in front of a cheesy trio of random windmills at the Lotte Resort, a palatial pastiche of garishness. We did go for a pedal-powered swanboat ride, which was really fun!

Here is the view of the Shilla's helipad, overlooking the Lotte Resort (note the overly-decorated architecture that pervaded Lotte's complex)

Here is Amy Lee in front of a teddy bear folk village at-- where else-- the Teddy Bear Museum, one of two on the island. Guess who's idea it was to come here... They had a bunch of historical displays using teddy bears (Korean folk village, Normandy, Charlie Chaplin flick set, and other inanities), as well as a presenttaion of 100 years of teddy bears, going back to the earliest Steiff ones, teddy bears dressed as fruits, miniature teddy bears, a grand teddy bear wedding, and more.

We also visited the Yeomiji Botanical Gardens. Think Phipps Conservatory, except with less Chihuly and more ignorant-Koreans-walking-through-exhibits-that-are-clearly-fenced-off. It was kind of the off-season, so there weren't that many blooming plants, but it was still very cool. They had a big glass dome tower thing that you could trek up for a great view of the surrounding area.

Here we are in the desert/cactus room.

Here I am with some rather racist simian sculptures.

Watch out! The dinosaurs are here!

One of the coolest things we did was go on a submarine tour out on the bay. We took a small boat out to a submarine dock, then went on an underwater tour of the amazingly diverse aquatic life of Jeju, including a stop by a shipwreck! It went down to 40m at the deepest, and a scuba diver tagged along at shallower depths to lure in fishies with food loots.

The Young Man and the Sea

Here is Amy posing, just for the sake of taking a picture of the lame newlyweds (it's safe to assume most couples on Jeju are newlyweds, as it is the most popular BY FAR destination for honeymoons) in their matching couple shirts, pants, shoes, etc. They seemed to be an arranged couple, as they were pretty awkward and not all that close together and did cheesy things like drawing stuff in the sand. But for all I know they have a more romantic story than ours (yeah, right).

Here I am on a wall by the sea. (yay, completely pointless caption!) There were some old ladies selling VERY fresh seafood, which you could get either raw or slightly boiled, a little further up. And there were plenty of orange vendors. That's another thing Jeju is famous for, namely its orange/tangerine/citron/etc groves. Literally along pretty much every road, you would always see the familiar round green shapes of citrus trees dotted with endless orange fruits. November is the big Orange Festival, so we pretty much hit the season perfectly. There are citrus stands almost everywhere, and for a few paltry thousand won, you can buy a big bag of delicious little seedless tangerines. My mouth waters at the memories.

Here I am climbing the woody path back up to the resort areas from the beach, still covered in drying saltwater and sand.

We also visited a few waterfalls, for which Jeju is also renowned. This particular one was called Cheonjeyeon, and the latter one is called Cheonjiyeon. Very creative nomenclature, right?

Here is a remarkable example of Konglish:

Well, here I am being photographed in the zone.

At Cheonjeyeon Falls, supposedly a bunch of goddesses come and party naked every night. There are a bunch of carved reliefs, paintings, signs, etc all telling of this legend. I wanted to return after dark but it was too heavily-guarded...

Cheonjeyeon, the other waterfall. No naked goddesses here, just tons of rare eels. Seriously.

Back to Cheonjeyeon...

Here I am throwing a coin into the 5-headed turtle fountain. It had a: turtle head for longevity, mandarin duck for love, dragon for nobleness, carp for sons, and piggy for money. I threw between the turtle and duck. :P

Finally, a parting shot of me and the boys.

Stay tuned for more!

Chuseok: Thanksgiving with more Kimchi!

This weekend marked another exciting foray into Amy's ancestral homeland: Daegu. The reason for this sojourn? The crazy Korean holiday called Chuseok (click for Wikipedia page... summary follows for lazy readers) It is comparable to Thanksgiving in scope and focus; everybody returns to their hometowns... more specifically, traditionally to the home of the eldest son of a family, which was also traditionally the residence of his parents. Thus, most people today return to their grandparents' house, as the nuclear family continues to gain an edge in the non-Western world. So, everybody gather together with their relatives and pigs out to celebrate the prosperity of the fall harvest. Is this sounding like a certain American holiday yet? The traditional dress for Chuseok is the often brightly-colored hanbok, the traditional dress of Korea. Here is an example of a hanbok:



Yellow and pink are popular colors for women. Children's hanbok are very very very very very colorful, often with rainbow-striped sleeves and primary colors. Both men and women wear hanbok; women's hanbok are kind of like jackets over long skirts, whereas mens are kind of jackets over INCREDIBLY baggy pants. Refer to an older post on this blog to check out my hanbok. :)

Another aspect of Chuseok is ancestor worship, reserved for non-Christians and moderate Christians for the most part these days. People tend their ancestors' graves, make offerings, go to special ceremonies, etc. Amy's family is pretty Christian, so they do not even wear hanbok for Chuseok (What the heck?! At least they do at Seollal - lunar New Year!) or visit graves, let alone practice ancestor worship. I was very sad, as I was eager to wear my hanbok. In church on sunday, the priest ranted at length about how it is terrible for Korean people to mourn and revere the dead in ancestor worship (they go to heaven when they die, silly!), and how even wearing a hanbok for Chuseok means you are going to hell. OK; the second part of that sentence is an exaggeration, but only ever so slightly.

The holiday gives 3 days off to the country. This year, the main day fell on Sunday, so we only got Monday off and were gypped out of another day off because the previous day was Saturday. Early Saturday morning, we trundled up to the KTX bullet train station and headed on down to farmland. We stayed at Amy's maternal grandmother's house, which had been converted from a traditional-style house with a large courtyard and such to a more enclosed sort of dwelling. She had lots of awesome fruit trees around; we enjoyed the pomegranate I picked from the roof. I was jealous of the neighbors' copious persimmon trees, however; I was in the mood for one. It was refreshing to be away from the hustle and bustle of Bundang and have the chance to relax in the sunny fields surrounding Daegu. It was dark and quiet at night, aside from angry jindogae

barking their heads off. We ate tons of delicious food; including having various types of kimchi, fish, and bibimbap for literally 5 meals in a row (the 6th one we ate there lacked bimbimbap).
There was also plenty of fresh fruit, in keeping with the harvest holiday theme. I helped Amy's grandmother make songpyeon along with Amy and one of her aunts. They are a kind of rice-paste dumpling filled with beans, sesame, nuts, or the like. They are traditionally steamed in pine needles for a fresh piney aroma but this time, alas, they were not. I got to meet all sorts of Amy-relatives, including some she didn't really even know, allowing me endless opportunities to sit and stare awkwardly as people babbled at me in crazy Korean moonspeak. All in all, it was a very refreshing weekend, as it mostly consisted of eating, sleeping, and relaxing jaunts through the countryside.

Pet Updates!

Because we felt bad about not updating very regularly, here is a bonus second post for today, detailing our animaly adventures!

First, we are pleased to report that we found a forever home for Tony! We will miss his constant barking and flair for Hawaiian shirts.


Next up here is an action shot of Fugu. After sleeping, this is generally his most common position, namely terror/rage. We recently banned him from using kitty litter as a toilet as attempting to wash a towel with a few sprinkles of the stuff has filled my washing machine with endless tides of disgusting gritty sludge, utterly ruining its functionality. I wonder how much a new machine costs...


Here is Tony's successor (and superior in every way except fashion sense): KAMJA! (His name means "potato"; He is kind of shaped like one, being a morbidly-obese toy poodle and all). Kamja is a true rescued dog; we picked out this ball of feces-caked black fur from a city-run kill shelter and after a long, intense grooming session, brought home a shaved bundle of love.


Watch out for his puppy eyes! It is still hard to resist their charm for long...


He is now on a diet and exercise regimen, and his weight is coming down steadily. However, he now has flaps of loose skin hanging off his body, making for an intriguing drapery effect when he is lying down or being held.

We are highly considering making him our second adopted dog. The deal is pretty much sealed, despite some occasional behavorial issues. But at least he doesn't bark. He is a doggy of the "tortured intellectual" variety. He is too smart for his own good, as he is always hatching schemes to uncover more food (He once ate an entire tupperware container of doggy treats, resulting in a spectacular neon orange extrusion the next day), but he also is great at learning new tricks and discipline. His personality quirks make him a great fit in this household :)

Finally, we have another recent addition, though we hope he will soon leave us. Seriously. Amy recently has been acting as a middleman between a Korean animal rescue group and the English-speaking ex-pat population here in Korea. After lengthy discussions with a woman confroming to many stereotypes, we picked up this bundle of hyperactive love from a shelter in Yongin, about an hour and a half away from us. We rescued him three days before his date with euthanasia.


Then, after we had picked him up for delivery, less than 12 hours before we were scheduled to meet with this chick, she texts us and says "I have a problem. A dog showed up at my house" or some such nonsense. According to her, "somebody" myseriously dropped off a poodle in her fenced-in yard in broad daylight. She claimed that the dog was outfitted with an RFID chip marking it as belonging to a person who had mysteriously left the country. Oh yeah, and her husband also does not want multiple dogs.

So now we are stuck with this hyperactive bundle of Maltese unintelligence with a penchant for emitting eardrum-shattering barks, at least until we can find another person willing to ACTUALLY COMMIT TO SOMETHING.

Thus, we give you: Tracy.

Second Trip to Japan!

Well, we finally did it; we got our visas! Now we are embroiled in the process of obtaining our full alien registration (and then comes health insurance! finally!) We had our health checks on Friday, with everything from hearing and vision tests to chest x-rays to the naked theft of various bodily fluids. So now we wait. And gather up money for the next round of bureaucratic fees.

Anyway, back to Japan...
This time we just went for an overnight trip, getting up at 5 am to start our journeys. Once there, we proceeded to the Korean consulate, where we were embroiled in another epic SNAFU involving a certain 7s employee and various governmental offices scattered across East Asia.
This picture illustrates the general tone of things during the long 3-4 hours we were at the consulate...


After that, we arrived at our hotel, the Grand Hyatt at Canal City in Fukuoka! Canal City is a massive complex of shopping, entertainment, and FOOD centered around a canal in Fukuoka. The complex towers half a dozen stories above the colorfully-lit water beneath. We once again spent WAAAAAAY more money than we should have on UFO catcher games, allowing us to come home with a massive array of cute stuffed animals.

Because there were no rooms with views of the Canal, I opted for the city view instead. Unfortunately, it was more like the "industrial wasteland" view, though the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon"-style building (seen in the center of the picture) looked pretty cool.


And what would a trip to Japan be without encountering random semi-useless robots?
Here is Amy with some random Canal City automaton of mysterious function.


We returned to the amazing Ohori Park in Fukuoka, and this time we caught the Asian Art Museum when it was open! There was a special exhibit of Japanese prints on loan from the Boston MFA that was stunning! Sadly, it was extremely crowded, as it was the weekend before the exhibit closed. Here I am with this random but epic fiberglass pumpkin sculpture located on the museum grounds. Go Steelers! The museum also had plenty of traditional Japanese art, as well as modern Japanese/European/American offerings, including TRASH like Warhol.


It was a hectic yet ultimately rewarding overnight stay in Japan.

The Long-Awaited Costume

Well here it is, folks: the long-awaited BeeTank picture!!!!
Feast your eyes and tremble at the cuteness! It's even cuter in person because the wings kinda flutter when he walks!


Here is a comparison shot of Tank with Tony (Boris?)

By now, you're probably wondering who this new guy is. Well, he's our bark-happy, walk-happy little terrier by the name of Tony (formerly Boris, though I tend to stick to his old name). He is our new foster dog, because we didn't think he'd work out as a permanent adoption because he doesn't play with Tank and instead lazes about all day. We renamed him Tony because, well, look at the next picture:

Yeah.... he loves that shirt! And he likes nothing better than to sit around and chill all day, taking occasional breaks for gobbling down anything at hand. Sound like anyone?

The only downside is that he's a bit of a barker (though we are working ferociously to remedy that). Also, he REQUIRES at least 3-4 walks a day... He is fully housebroken, so that obsession is both a blessing and a curse. Tank loves to steal his treats and bother him by licking in his ears and less mentionable places. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dogtastic post!

Warning: Image Heavy Posting Ahead :)

After several demands that we get our act together and make another post, we're caving in.
Here is all about our Japan trip... and a special Tank picture at the end. :)

As most of you know, the Japan trip was a disaster (as far as procuring a visa is concerned...). However, it would be pretty stupid to complain about a company sponsored vacation to Japn. lol.

Let us go from the beginning...
Here's Paul at the airport. We got there 2 hours before boarding (better than 2 hours after boarding is called right?) and sort of bummed around. Here is Paul stretched out at our empty gate. No one was around! lol


Upon arriving in Osaka, we checked in at our hotel, the New Otani Hotel. I'm not sure what it means. It was a gorgeous hotel!

Here's the view from our window :)

Too bad it was in the middle of some lame business district. There wasn't too much around us... except for the King Festival... It was at the palace in Osaka. I forgot to mention that it was BLISTERING HOT AND HUMID!!!!!! I think I almost died. At one point, I think I actually did come close to heat stroke... I don't think my gray sweater-thing helped.

Yes that is a massive shaved ice thing I am holding. It melted almost instantaneously.

The palace was located on a huge hill. Here is the view from the top.


At night, we decided to go walk around to see what was outside... there was basically nothing but a few shops that closed way early but right outside of our hotel, the trees were decorated with pretty blue lights.


At the palace, there were some painted cows from Europe. Teehee.

This one represents the entire EU, I think.


Here is Amy with the German cow... (Yes, I, Paul, have taken over writing this entry!)


After almost dying from sunstroke, heatstroke, heat exhaustion, dehydration, etc., we headed over to the vaguely-nearby city of Nara in Nara Prefecture. There, we decided to go to the Todaiji Temple, which I went to on my high school trip to Japan. As it was one of my favorite places in the world, I couldn't miss the opportunity to see it again.

Soon after heading out from the subway station at Nara, we ran across my favorite car in existence, namely a Nissan Skyline GTR R34. And it was in my favorite color, to boot!


After I had calmed down, we moved on. Soon, we entered deer territory. As some of you readers may recall, my last run-in with these fellas ended with holes in my new leather jacket and bruises in unmentionable places. Today, they were fairly well-behaved. Perhaps the heat was keeping them down a little, or perhaps they were already tired from a long day of terrorizing innocents (it was late in the afternoon when we got there).



And yes, I even dared to TOUCH one of those mangy ruminants...


Amy overcame her initial, though very well-placed, fear as well.


He wants our bakery box!


After passing endless hordes of deer, we made our way deeper into the complex towards the massive Todaiji Temple. Here I am relatively close towards the main temple.


Well, it turns out we got there too late in the day to actually go to the temple. :-(
However, we had a great time wandering the grounds and checking out all the docile deer and tame turtles. It was like being in a horrible parody of a Disney movie, with animals flocking from all sides in search of food.





Oh, well. Maybe we can finish this date the next time we go to the Kansai area.

After leaving Osaka, we headed towards the Southern-y port city of Fukuoka.

Here I am with this awesome little car that borrows HEAVILY from vintage Mini Coopers.


After freaking out at length over not being able to get our visas, we managed to relax a bit and enjoy the rest of our stay in Japan. We spent more money than we are pleased to admit on UFO catcher machines. UFO catchers are like those stupid claw games found in every grocery store and Wal-Mart back in the States, but they are rigged to let you WIN. Yes, that's right: WIN! The attendant will even come and set the prize back into a fortuitous position if you ask nicely! All in all, we ended up with a cute little family of bears (including a rabbit and a giant, pink, anthropomorphic poo).

Here I am with my hard-earned Pokemon, Floatzel.


Here is Amy with her big, royal bear.


There was this really nice park in Fukuoka (Ohori Park) based around a central lake bordered with an epic jogging path. There were swan paddle boats, fishing areas, and herons and turtles everywhere. There were also an Asian Art Museum as well as a traditional Japanese garden, but both were closed by the time we got there.


There were also a number of little concrete thingies around the lake with traditional childrens' songs and games on them. The one on the right in this photo conjures to mind a rather un-PC song Amy and I remember from our respective childhoods.


Well that's about it for this time! Stay tuned for the yet-to-come CUTEST picture of Tank yet!