Things ive eaten more of in the past 25 days........

Than I have in my entire life:

- Cabbage; The main vegetable kimchi is made from - which is Korea's national dish and served at every meal. Its fermented most commonly with red peppers and is slightly spicy. Doesnt sound very appetising, and isnt somthing you'd ever considering eating back home, but is strangely enjoyable and addicting.


- Raddish; The next most common form of kimchi. Can be up to 3 raddish side dishes on a table. Some with seemingly no flavouring at all, but ive definately taken a liking to it


Tofu; Oh yes, everyones favourite. Nearly always served in a soup which means its just one of 10-15 ingredients so every tofu experience has been really awesome. Even though they put in chunks the size of golf balls, I havent had any bad tofu.

Mugwort; Sounds like a weed you would see on the side of the road, and im sure it is in some countries. Used to make rice cakes - most rost cakes are made of just rice and are white - but mugwort rice cakes are made entirely out of this herb and have the colour of the little girls vomit in the exorsist. Rice cakes are exceedingly bland for an alleged "sweet" in Korea, so you could probably imagine that a rice cake made entirely out of a plant wouldnt be much better.



Seaweed; A favourite in soups and as a side dish in the form of large flakes. Can be enjoyable in soups if its not overbearing, but when it is, as I have stated previously, im not that great of a fan. On the positives, im getting more iodine than ever before.

Lotus fruit; A funky and interesting looking little side dish. Not really fruity tasting but sorta sweet and quite tasty.


Every mushroom thats not button; Mushrooms are a big part of many dishes and ive seen at least 10 varieties that I didnt even know existed. Never been a huge mushy guy, but ive turned around slightly on them. As long as they are cooked ill have a go.


I must stress that these are only things I have identified. Side dishes are regularly impossible to decipher. Some things look like the stems of thistles, wet roots and shoots and some things are deep fried and seem full of tiny bones. You often have no idea what youve been eating. I have a rule of trying everything thats laid out in front of me and luckily I havent spat anything out yet.

With that said, ive thoroughly enjoyed the food over here, overall so healthy and tasty and im sure there are many more suprises to come.

Jirisan

Had a field trip today to Mount Jiri, or Jirisan (san=mountain) in Korean. Its the largest mountain on the mainland but not all that high - 1,900 metres or so - considering the entire country is just mountains. I guess we can downgrade them to hills. This school only goes on 2 field trips a year and I only go to the school 2 days a week so the odds of me getting to go on it were pretty slim, so I was pretty lucky. Even luckier considering its a place I wanted to go to anyway, so it was a pretty sweet deal for me all around.

Only thing that wasnt on my side was the weather. It never actually rained, but it was foggy non stop and could barely see anything at all. Bit of a bummer, but it cleared up a bit towards the end. It also kept things a bit cool, which is a good thing when your hiking up a mountain.

Speaking of that, lucky it was bad weather because the original plan for the day involved some fairly serious hiking - up to 10 km's or so. We ended doing about 45 minutes and I thought after the end of it, about three quaters of the kids were going to pass out.

One of the best parts of the day was the lunch, even better because I had my camera. Check it out. Unbelieveable. First thing that comes to mind is I wouldnt want to be the dishwasher. Theres about 50 bowls and plates on the table. In these bowls are side dishes (veges), 2 massive chickens (that you have to pick meat from with chopsticks. Its so friggen hard. Its like eating ice cream with a knife or soup with a fork. My chopstick skills have improved, but not that much), an omlete type thing full of veges, bowls with hot water for soup (which you put rice, veges and chicken in), and condiments. As always, really good. Its quite a spectacle, and is enhanced when you have the attractive lady across from you pick up the bowl and drink directly from it, or the guy sitting next to you pick the entire chicken apart and leave a pile of bones the size of a football.



Theres not many great photos from the day because it was so foggy, but ive got a few below. One is out the front of a temple and the other is looking down the valley. Notice the cherry blossoms - the bright white flowers - they are out at this time of the year and are the famous flower of the country. They dont stay out very long and dot the landscape with a cool white haze.

Some things never change

While there are many unique and different aspects of Korea, it doesnt matter if your in Port Macquarie, Australia, or Jinju, South Korea, some things just remain the same. For example;

- If you consume too much alcohol, you get a stinging hangover the next morning. Was hoping there would be some special rule or God/Deity in Korea that prevented this. I cant tell if its the ingredients they put in the terrible, terrible beer over here, or if its the amount of beer drunk, but either way, the effect is still the same. Truth be told its probably a bit of both. Was supposed to play soccer with a few Irish and Poms I met the night before but had to write off the entire day, and its not like it was an early start either.

- The irish accent is still one of the hardest the understand in the English language. I honestly dont know how the little Korean kids understand a single word these guys say. I can barely understand their names.

- Karaoke is the worst form of entertainment and its lead is rapidly growing. At least in Australia you might go a few months or years without hearing other people butcher usually crappy songs, over here, its the no.1 night time activity. I was hoping it would be confined to the Koreans but no, the expats have embraced it openly, bare-shirted and all. I may need to take earmuffs to all future nights out or ill return to Australia with a permanent musical imbalance.

- Boats that are powered by foot pedals remain the undisputed slowest form of transportation on Earth. These things are measured in millimetres per second at best. There was a big bunch of expats in town in the arvo looking for something to do and regrettably we hired a bunch of these pedals boats shaped like ducks or dragons. Thats 90 minutes of my life ill never get back. During that time, I reckon we covered about 200 metres and I was gunning it the whole time. It wasnt even fun hitting other boats they were so slow.

- Views are still bloody awesome. Especially when you bust your gut getting to it. I rode a bike most of the way up the hill that overlooks Jinyangho lake, west of Jinju. I cant remember my body hurting so much. I mercifully ditched the bike when I got to the place where people park there cars and walk up. I wasnt even sure id be able to even walk the remaining few hundred metres but I manned up and got her done. It was a stunning day and the view over the lake was pretty nice. Reminded me of Canada. While I was up on the observation platform, my heart palipitations decreased and I was able to get back down on my bike and not in the back of an ambo.




- If you brew your own alcohol at your home, its probably going to be shit. Found this out when I had dinner at one of my co-teachers' house. She makes her own alcohol out of "mountain berries" which are dark and look like mulberries. It tasted like port I guess, I havent drunk much in my day but it definately wasnt wine. It was pretty darn bad and didnt seem too alcoholic which seemed like a bit of a waste (if your gonna torture yourself at least make it worth it!). She says shes going to bring some with her on the school field trip this Wednesday. I asked if its ok to do that and she said, "We dont give it too the children". I wasnt really asking about the children, Ms Nam.

So yes we have a school field trip on Wednesday and im actually really excited for it (provided its good weather). We are going to Jirisan National Park which is very close. Mt Jiri is the largest mountain on the mainland and we will be going hiking. Hiking is taken pretty seriously over here, but im interested to see how the kids go because they do NO physical activity at all. At school/acadamy all day, less then 20 minutes for lunch (after eating in the cafeteria) and school all weekend. I dont know how any athletes come out of this country, they spend their whole life in front of a blackboard. So, ill be doing that on wednesday, but the forcast in Jinju calls for cold and rainy and in the mountains its usually cold and rainy anyway, so might not be such a great day. Hopefully ill have some photos for you and a positive report on Wednesday.

Never a dull day

Not a day goes by where I dont have 1 moment that stuns me, makes me want to burst into laughter or stop dead in my tracks and figure out what the hell just happened (and its usually 3 or 4 time a day).

What happened this week;

- Morning tea in the staff room is one of the main places where I get a nice little suprise. After first class, something it placed on the table in the middle of the room and everybody stops their work and digs in. The options have been quite interesting; steamed potatoes, 3 types of capsicum (they call paprika), hard boiled eggs (it was the monday after easter. Not the type of easter egg im used to) and rice cakes (not the hard wafer type rice cakes back home, but actual cake made from rice). When someone puts orange or nashi pear pieces on the table im actually disapointed.

- I left almost a full litre bottle of water in the fridge of my school on wednesday. I figured it would still be there, untouched, when I returned on friday. I figured there was enough brown water for everyone else. On friday, I open the fridge. The water was there, but it was half finished and had what looked like rice bubbles floating through it. The water had been stained slightly grey and the rice bubbles were bobbing up and down. Can't explain that one.

- When ive introduced myself to my classes I ask if the students have any questions. This is usually pretty entertaining because as one of my co-teachers, Mr Lee, explained, Koreans like to ask very personal questions to strangers. I dont think of many of them "personal", more so "strange". For example;

• Whats your blood type (This was the FIRST! question I was given in one class. I had to admit I didnt know, and the teacher thought it was weird I was unsure of it)
• Whats your ideal woman (After describing it is funny, smart and pretty, I had one girl try and convince me she was all of these things)
• How tall are you (Again I don't really know, but you can look at me and see how tall I am)
  

I get the "whats your age", "are you married", "do you have a girlfriend" everytime, and these arent ridiculous questions, but they arent what you would expect or even answer to students back home. A funny thing about the age question is that in Korea, you are 1 when you are born, not 0 like in Australia. So im actually 25 in Korean years. Ive been trying to make jokes about girls not liking this system but I dont think anyone has understood me yet.

- Everyday at school is a good day. The children love me, are so behaved and respectful to teachers and I cant do anything wrong. I walk down the halls and I hear cries of "Jay-Kob!" and kids frantically waving at me, or I have a trail of 10 kids walking around me wanting to shake my hand or hay hi. Ive been thinking or comparing my self to a rockstar at school, but I now know thats not true. 14-16 year olds dont act like this for a Mick Jagger or Nikki Six. I think im more like a popstar, somewhere in the Justin Timberlake or Zac Efron mold.

My Castle and around town

My place from the ground. Im on the second level, my place has the writing on it.


My luxurious and spacious main room, taken from the door.


Looking back towards the door.


Most important room in the house. Every inch of the room is wet after I have a shower.


Second most important room in the house. Space galore.


Laundry, clothes line, kitchen, storage space. Multi purpose area.


One of the entrance's to the Fortress. A large complex with this just one of many buildings



Photos of Nam bridge taken near another entrance to Fortress. I am on the north side, looking to the south, where I live. Downtown is on the North side.


Typical downtown back street. Street is lit up with a million neon lights at night.

Why do my first days at work always turn out the same?

My first day of my Teaching Practicum last year was probably the worst day of my "professional" career. Without going into details, everything that could go wrong in the first two hours did go wrong, and I was pretty close to turning around and not coming back. Luckily things improved, but when you start as badly as I did, you would have to turn up in a pirates costume to do any worse.



With this in mind, I started off for my first day of work by getting on the bus. I was early and had directions to get to a particular school where I would get off and meet my co-teacher in her car and then we would drive to our school, 15 minutes out of town. She said to listen to the voice over as she would tell me when we had arrived at the school. I thought I had everything under control, however I could see the bus was getting to the end of the city and still I hadnt heard my stop. I listened as hard as I could but nothing sounded remotely close to what I was looking for. I eventually got off on the last stop before the bus heads up into the hills and out of the view of the city. I asked some school kids what the name of there school was, which wasnt what I was looking for, then I asked about my school and they just laughed. So, starting to stress now, I start pacing for a phone to call her. I walked to 5 different petrol stations and none had one. I decided to walk back to the city. On the way back I realised it would take 20 minutes before I got anywhere near the end of the city so I flagged a taxi. The taxi could understand where I was going and it wasnt too far. I got to the school and Namu was there, waiting in her car. She wasnt very impressed. Once we got to school she asked for the only thing she requested I bring and I realised I had forgotten it. Flashbacks of Prac were rushing back to me, however this was were the dramas ended.



Highlights of the first day were;

- After my first lesson I asked Namu for a class list so I could possibly remember and learn the students names. She came back to my desk with a cold sweet potato. I still dont know what I am/was supposed to do with it. I remember the night before saying I really like sweet potato, that it was my favourite vegetable, and she mentioned it to the other teachers in the staff room, but to say I was perplexed when she handed it to me is an understatement. I think its still sitting on my desk because I honestly dont know what to do with it.

- For lunch we went to the mess hall and had a typical Korean lunch; rice, kimchi, veges, soup, and this time some acutal pieces of meat. I couldnt tell what meat it was, but I know it was a welcome change from the typical overload of veges. Tasted a bit like chicken and a bit like fish, so going by what Mark and Alexa told me before I left, I may well have been crocodile. The most interesting part of the meal had to be the soup, which was seaweed. I think they sourced this stuff directly from Flynn's beach. I honestly tasted like taking a cup of water from the beach and shredding some seaweed in it. So unbelievably salty.

- I went to get some water from the kitchen and remember to not take it from the tap because you cant drink the tap water in Korea so I went to the fridge. In it was massive tubs of a dirty brown liquid, and it looked disgusting. Like the water at Lake Cathie when its closed off from the ocean. Suprisingly, this is in fact safe to drink and the brown colour is to distinguish it as drinkable. After the tap water is boiled, corn syrup or starch or whatever the hell it is is added to it to say it isnt straight tap water. I declined from drinking it.

- I was called handsome by about 10 different students, male and female. I can only come to 2 conclusions from this; either their english is so good that they are already cracking jokes on me, or it doesnt take much to be considered handsome in Korea.

- All the teachers went to dinner after school and what a feast it was. We all sat on the ground around 4 tables with big frying pans/pots in the middle. In the pots progressively went these massive platters of veges, about 10 different kinds of mushies, and thin strips of beef. It was delicious. Around the frying pots were the customary side dishes and the older men drank soju, the local spirit. I wasnt offered any, which is probably a good thing, and had beer instead. Overall, an increadible meal, so social and varied. Need to brush up on the chopstick skills though, I feel like a bit of a tool when the people im eating with ask the waitress to get me a fork.

- The kids are so well behaved, talkative but behaved. Age dictates that the must show respect to their elders (as I have to as well) so they will stop and bow to you as you walk down the halls. Imagine that happening in Australia! Most kids dont leave school until after 4;30 and some stay at school until 9 o'clock in the evening, and also go to school on a Saturday, so pretty much their whole life is spent at school.

So that was my first day at Daegok Middle School. Quite the day. I went over the top with the intro but mum and dad I know you will have got a kick out of it!

Til next time

Breaking in the Blog

An-nyong ha-se-yo!
Greetings from Jinju in South Korea!

Before I get into my initial thoughts about this country I just need to explain what this things is all about. Im starting this blog as a way to document my year abroad. Its a place to post photos, share my thoughts and to keep track of what ive been doing. Im hoping it will be a place where I can try and be creative, hopefully funny, and at the very least, keep everyone up to date with my movements.

Unfortunately, I wont be able to add photos for the moment as I didnt bring a camera over and, suprise suprise, the cameras over here have Korean all through the menu and display. So while I get that sorted you are going to have to live with my words, which may mean some very boring and uninteresting posts.

Anyway, the first thing I have to say is that I have no idea of what is going on. In Thailand, most people know enough English to let you be able to speak it and not have to learn much more than kabbu krup. Not the case here. Even my co-teachers have very basic english and the person on the street has none whatsoever. Communicating with people is pretty non-existant, im totally isolated in this means. 1st priority, but what will be always ongoing, is learning this language.

With this in mind, here are some initial observations and thoughts;

- Has not stopped raining since I arrived over 2 days ago. Havent been able to see more than a couple of hundred of meters in either direction. Im sure its a beautiful country, I just havent seen it yet

- Hotels are slightly different from Aussie ones. In Korea they are fully equipped with complimentary sex machine and softcore porn channels. My intitial reaction to the sex machine was it was a piece of gym equipment, but a closer inspection showed none of the parts moved and there was instructions (ie, positions) on the bottom. I kept going to hang my wet jacket on it before recoiling in disgust. The TV had not 1 but 2 non-stop porn channels. Unfortunately, these hotel channels didnt translate to household channels, and even worse, neither did the sport channels. Every household channel seems to play ridiculous game shows and soaps. Yay.

- After selling out and getting a pizza my first night (in my defense I was tired from travelling and didnt want to risk it) I opted for some Korean for lunch the next day at a food court. I pointed at something on a board. What I got back didnt look like what I pointed to. It was the biggest bowl of noodles ive ever seen in my life (I mean salad bowl size) full of mushys and onions and the black sauce was so increadibly thick and gooey. It tasted OK, but was so hard to eat. It came with a massive pair of scissors on the side which still baffle me. Maybe it was to cut the noodle up becuase as I said it was so hard to eat.

- I was taken to lunch and dinner by my co-teachers and this time it was to proper Korean "resturants". What a production. Dinner was soy bean (tofu?) soup and a warm kimchi soup and our table had no less than 21 different plates and bowls on it, not including our personal rice bowls that you place the condiments in. Every square inch was covered in bowls. The bowls contained pretty unidentifyable stuff mostly. I know there was spinach, seaweed, sprouts, and thats about it. All the condiments are prepared (its not spinach as we know it, it sliced and diced and seasoned) meticulously and there were at least 6 containing green veges and looked pretty well identical. I am in no way confident of using chopsticks at the table because if I pick something up in a bowl across the table and just going to drop it in 3 bowls on the way back to mine. All the stuff gets put into your rice bowl and tossed around and the end result is definately colourful but im not sure its appetizing. It tasted fine but when its all mashed together it all tastes the same and it just looks wrong. The chances of Ella or Makenze eating it would be a million to one. Although it is more appetizing then the Koreans slurping their soup and spitting bones and hard bits out of their mouth and into a nearby designated plate.

- The cities here are massive. There would be more buildings over 10 stories in Changwon (population 500,000) than all of Sydney. Easily. Driving in and out of the city is wall-to-wall of huge apartment buildings. The impression the cities give you is that they should have more people than they do. Driving through Jinju today (pop 300,000 and considered small), it felt like there should be millions of people here. Massive streets with bright lights and shops side-by-side, huge apartment buildings, everything so darn built up, every bit of space used. But i guess what you see is what you get - no sprawling suburbs extending for kilometres away from the city. Everything built on top of each other and next to each other. It really is deceptive to an aussie just how big these cities feel.

- This alleged fastest internet in the world is feeling like a bit of a scam. It may have something to do with the the old, old computers ive used in my hotel and now my room in Jinju, but Its definately not what I was expecting. But dad, it is still better than at Port, thats for sure.

Keep checking back as I will update this often and soon have some visuals to go with my words. Id rather do constant, small updates and not write big chunks of writing like this as you are more likely to read it! Also, please reply if you would like to!

Jake