Adventures in Korean Food

Thought id share some of the different eating experiences ive had recently. The first isnt really a single experience, but many, and is actually just a custom over here. The custom i refer to is drinking one's soup directly from the bowl. Now, there are spoons in Korea - no knives or forks - but that doesnt stop this process from happening. I was reluctant to do this for probably the first 6-8 weeks of my arrival, but since then its become a favourite thing of mine. It always brings a smile to face when i bring that bowl to my mouth - partly because im doing something that was never allowed before coming here, and partly because the whole thing seems a bit absurd. But im definately not the precious type so im very comfortable with absurd. In reality, its actually quite practical - there is a soup with nearly every meal and really, who has the time or energy to use their hand in the same repetitive motion 20 times when u can simply drink the whole thing in 3 gulps. Genius. It took some time to get some photos of me doing this; i obviously dont take my camera to every meal; but when one of my friends was showing me some photos while i was eating some dwaen-jang jig-gge (seafood and tofu soup, delicious and a great hangover food) with a lowly spoon, i connected the dots and came up with these.




Had my first serious experience of raw fish last week. My plan for the night was to meet a friend who is leaving the country soon and raid his house of anything he was leaving behind, and then eat McDonalds for the first time since ive arrived. Well, ive had a medium chips and a single bite of someones burger, but this was gonna be the first proper Maccas in about 5 months. I was quite excited for how the night was going to play out, and i took only enough money for maccas coz i planned on coming home afterwards. All that changed when my mate wondered if i wanted to grab dinner beforehand. I said sure, he is leaving soon and in the mood to hang out, drink and eat so I thought why not. He said he was thinking fish, and I thought, "great, i love fish, this will be good'. As we are walking down the street, we looked at the fish resturants - some were pufferfish resturants (no joke) and the others were raw "normal" fish. So I went from Maccas to raw fish in a matter of moments. The meal was interesting - lots of side dishes, some normal, some completely whacky, but they kept on coming. The whacky ones included random large chunks of fruit and vegetables covered in mayonnaise - it looked like potato salad but had cucumber, carrot, prawn meat and the best of all, apple. Yes, apple covered in mayonnaise. Weird. We also were given a plate of small shells. They looked like the tiny pink and speckled cone shaped shells you often find on the beach back home, but where dark in colour. You put your mouth over the small opening and just suck as hard as you can, until the little thing living inside it pops into your mouth. Weird. I was told this can also be sold as barfood. Again, weird. The raw fish was OK. Average. It wasnt very tasty and required some sauces to give it some kick, and there were times when it was in your mouth that you remembered it raw fish and the texture freaks you out a little bit. But it was edible. And expensive. And not very filling. It wasnt filling enough that i had to buy some Ramyeon (2-minute noodles) a little bit later as we were drinking out the front of a corner store. Yes, drinking out the front of a corner store. Most corner/convienience stores have chairs and seat set up in front of them so u can buy some booze and drink it up out the front. Its basically a cheap outdoor bar. Bloody awesome. This was where I had the ramyeon and also where one of my mates ate a hot dog that made him sick for the next 3 days. Yes, he ate raw fish earlier that night, but the hot dog made him sick.


First day of semester today so technically my "holiday" is over, but today reminded me that every day for me is a holiday. I love my job. So bloody easy. And fun. Was in a bit of a crabby mood in the morning but had a smile plastered all over my face when I was in class.

Last but not least, couldnt pass up the oportunity to post this photo


Happy Birthday Mum!!!!!! Miss you heaps and love you lots!

Getting around

Was lucky enough to get 2 weeks holidays during the summer so I went for a bit of a travel through parts of Korea. Ended the trip a little shorter than anticipated but 3 nights camping on the ground in weather that doesnt drop below 25 will make one pine for a comfy bed and an air conditioned room. Getting out on the road reminded me how fun travelling is and how it should be done as often as possible. I was a little tepid going into it because I was by myself and still pretty unconfident in communicating with Koreans, but pretty soon those worries were forgotten. Even though I have had the greatest of fun over the past 3 months, nothing really compares to sense of freedom and excitement that travelling brings. Was lucky enough to meet a few people on the way and have places to stay and people to see when I go to Seoul and Jeju, which are basically the 2 best places to visit in the country.

So I started the trip in Geongju, which is the capital of the old Korean Dynasty. In and around Geongju is the largest concentration of temples, shrines, and all that lovely cultural stuff. Have to say that the scale and impressiveness of the Korean artifacts is not quite on the level as Angkor Wat in Cambodia or most things in Europe, but nice nonetheless. Started off in the main temple - Bulgogsa - set at the bottom of a mountain, then went to the top of the mountain to a Buddha shrine. Bulgogsa was pretty cool, the best part though was a painting in one of the small temples, but you cant take photos of it so I was a little peeved. I had a chance to take a pic while the little old lady guarding the temple went to get some water for her pot, but I figured it was bad karma and I would never be able to reach enlightenment. The Buddha shrine was a bit of a let down because you couldnt walk into the grotto where buddha was sitting, instead you had to look from behind a glass door. I went back into town, in need of a shower more than ever in my life. Got back to the hostel and ran into some Yanks and Canadians so we drank the night away on the rooftop. Really fun night with some cool people.



The 2 pogodas (mentioned in a moment) are on either side of this photo. Main temple.



Actual proof I was there - even asked the guy in Korean to take the photo; sa-jin jjik-eo ju-se-yo? All the temples and pagodas are inside here.



These 2 things are called "pagodas"

Next day was a bit of a later wake up than anticipated due to the late night. Got up to rain but decided to soldier on check out the stuff in the downtown area. First was this area where the Ancient Kings and Queens were buried. The coffins were laid and then covered with tonnes and tonnes of soil until they formed hills. This is basically what the Pyramids are, instead the pyramids arent made of dirt. The next thing was an ancient observatory built in 700 AD called Cheomsongdae. Its only about 12 metres high, but is a major artefact in Korean history. Basically it was built to study the stars, but I personally reckon you could "study the stars" much better from the tops of one of the many mountains nearby.



Later that day went to the inland city of Daejeon. Ended up staying for 2 nights, not because there was so much to do, but because it fit in better with getting to the music festival on the weekend. While here I did do some cool things though; firstly, I went to a baseball game. The Hanwha Eagles are the worst team in the league and played like it, but it was still a good game. Saw a Home Run which was cool, and got a real appreciation for what baseballers do, because I havent seen a live game since the days Newcastle had a team. The Korean league is really strong as well - they won the most recent World Baseball challenge - so it was quality baseball. Couldnt believe how fast the pitcher throws that ball and I think the Catcher has by far the most difficult job in the sport - maybe even in any sport. Wasnt bored at all as the game dragged on either which is a little suprising considering I cant watch a baseball game on TV for more than 10 minutes. Was hanging on every pitch, and the thought of either missing a cool play, or catching a foul ball or a home run ensured my eyes were always fixed on the game. The other interesting thing I did was go to a public spa - jim-jil-bang - and it was maybe the most bizarre experience of my life. Actually, I would say it was the most homosexual thing ive ever done without it being homosexual. This made having a group shower after a football or hockey game seem straight. First thing you need to know is that everyone is naked - from 8 to 80 years old. Even then people at the front desk are naked. This jimjilbang was fed by hot springs and there was various pools of varying temperature, outdoor pools and saunas, and you basically just walked from pool to pool starkers. There was no shame from anyone - no one trying to cover themselves or be inconspicuous when inspecting another person. It was downright weird. At times hard to really enjoy yourself. But I soldiered on and had a good time. The worst part though was anything that involded sitting on something - bench or chair - and realising what had been resting on it before hand and how many times that had occurred.


Downtown Daejeon


On the Friday I got myself to Jisan Valley Ski Reosrt for a 3 night music festival. The set up of the festival was really cool - literally in the Valley - so you had the mountains rising up all around you. At the bottom of the main runs, where the chairlifts and the ticketing and food buildings are, there was a massive, massive pool where you could hang out by all day. First time ive seen this at a concert and I must say it was one of the coolest things ive ever seen. The weather was so insanely hot, and the shower lines so increadibly hot, that sitting by the pool and cooling off was a gift from God. The stages were spread between the chairlift area and further up the valley and just provided such a unique and cool setting. The only problem was the festival orientation was narrow and long, not central and condensed, so we had to walk maybe 15 minutes from our camp to the stages, which doesnt seem like much but when you forget something, is a bloody long way to go for it. The organisation of the food, drinks and playing times was great, choice of music excellent, and the general set up and atmosphere really fun. No dickheads causing trouble or generally jacking off, everyone just having fun and enjoying themselves. I feel sorry though for anyone leaving on the Sunday night as the lineup for buses was probably 1,000 people long - and this was for pre-organised buses too! Lucky I had nowhere to be the next day so I could stay the night and leave the next morning. Walking up and down that line all I could hear from stressed and worried people on their phones was "I have summer camp at 9 in the morning!!". There was a problem with camping another night and that was actually camping. The weather never got below 25 even in the middle of the night, so that meant the tent never got below 45. I slept in my underpants with nothing on top of me (on the ground to by the way) and couldnt make it further than 8am on any morning, even though I would have slept for less than 4 hours. Basically, every moment of the festival was great, except for the times I was in the tent.




The Gift from God






Dance stage - notice the ski runs behind it

Camping; so bloody organised these Koreans!!


Main stage

Cant wait to head out again soon!!

Mudfest

Well ive had a couple of days to sober up, rest my vocal chords and reflect on one awesome bloody weekend. The weekend was "Mudfest", which is pretty much exactly as it sounds - ie, a Festival of Mud. It was held in Boryeong, about a 3.5 hour drive from Jinju on, which is on the coast. Location here;


View Larger Map

It is a holiday town situated on the beach and a whole bunch of activities and events are held along the beach and just off the sand. The beach ends up looking a little bit like Full Moon Festival in Thailand - a massive strip of sand covered in garbage, thousands of drunken lunatics and leading to an ocean that cannot possibly have clean water. I would have to guess that around 5 to 6 thousand people were in attendance; most being expat teachers, a few young families enjoying the beach (why oh why would you bring your children anywhere near this drunken and debaucherous mass of humanity), and quite a few US army guys. Theres no bigger meatheads on Earth than these dudes. Everyone will be having fun until these guys come within a 20 metre radius and immediately kill everyones buzz. Don't even think about talking to a girl if these guys can see you, their unnatural amounts of testosterone will have have a massive issue with it. In fact, don't even bother looking at them, because thats means you are challenging their alpha dog status and something will need to be done. Other than this unpleasentness it was an amazing weekend that went as follows;

- Met at 9 pm in Jinju to catch the bus in Monsoonal conditions. We didnt have to actually go to mudfest at this point because we were already at a mudfest. Absolutely soaked to the bone before I got on the bus. Things heated up rather quickly though as I was revealed we were on a "Noraebus" - literally "Singing Bus" - and after a few beverages to loosen everyone up, we had that thing rocking. I went 3rd with Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer". I sing, especially the verses, in a very very Aussie accent, which even I can hear through the speakers. So my first 30 seconds drew rapturous laughter from everyone as I was waiting for the chorus. Once I could breakout and actually sing things got better, and my dancing and acting provides a good distraction to my voice as well. Once I was done I got a few "Peter Garrett" jokes. Good stuff. After a few more songs me and the Aussie girl gave our rendition of "Land Down Under" which was accompanied by my faux flute playing (or whatever instrument is used in that song). After this I was established as the star of the Noraebus. At one of the many breaks we took on the way, someone foolishly suggested a foot race while we waited for everyone. Bad choice by them. Kicked their ARSE! The rest of the trip was punctuated by more singing, drinking and increased dancing in the aisles. There is no way in hell this would be allowed in Australia - it was loud, dangerous, drunken and crazy in that bus. Heck, in Australia you are supposed to weat seatbelts in the bus! By the time we had arrived I was already satisfied with my weekend, as I had just had the most enjoyable bus trip of my life, and I didnt think it could really get any better. The only downside about the bus ride was none of the stops along the way served alcohol. I actually think it would have been safer if the bus driver drove when pissed and on drugs then drive with us hooting and holering in the aisles.

-The flute section of "Land Down Under"

- And the crowd is loving it!!

- Once we got the Boryeong - at 1.00 - we dropped our stuff into our "Pension" - our hotel. We had about 40 people staying in 5 rooms. Floorspace only. Made for sore necks in the morning. Apparently 80 people have stayed in that pension before - they must have fit 20 in the bathrooms for that too work. After dropping our stuff off we went down to the beach. I wasnt prepared was swimming when everyone started running into the water, but I was drunk and wanted to swim, so off with the jean shorts and into the water in my undies it was. Believe me, after seeing what some people still wear to the beach these days, wearing underpants (and the long boxer brief style ones) was more then acceptable. I thought only 50 year old men wear budgie smugglers anymore. Obviously not. Anyway I frolicked around my undies for an hour on the beach at 2 in the morning. There will be no photos of this. Wait, why am I telling you this???

- The next day we went to the actual mudfest which was actually quite fun. It was basically a collection of "rides" or "games" that were played in/on blow up things. Like a jumping castle. But instead of a jumping castle there was the bungy - where you strapped yourself into your bungy across from someone, then you both ran to the centre until you bungy became too tight and flings you back to where u came - the climb - where you "rock climbed" (but not as steep) to the top of a mountain and then threw your self down the slide at the end - the race - which was an obstacle course where you raced 4 friends at a time - and the pits - where you basically just wrestled people in the mud. This was the tailor made for the army wanks to flex their muscles (literally), beat up on unsuspecting "weaklings" and show how much they love themselves. If you managed to be in there when they werent, it was actually alot of fun. There was also artistic mud which came in cool colours that would stick on you and you could make cool designs, a stage area where there was a bit of live music, and an impromptu mud fight. This was actually quite funny because this was not a designated area for mudfighting. It was supposed to be a "mud sculptor" area, but no one who went there could actually remember seeing any mud sculptures. This is because they were being used as shields and ammunition and no one had time to look around and admire them. There was two teams about 10/15 metres from each other just hurling balls of mud at each other. One team was using the sculptures as protection and the other was using cars as protection. This was definately not supposed to be happening. It was a fair way away from most of the action - near the car park in fact - and this is the reason why cars were being absolutely bombed. It would have sucked being the owner of one of the cars because they were completely brown by the time it was broken up. I dont know how long it lasted for but if was fun while it lasted and made better by the fact that it was completley organic. I think someone must have just shouted out "MUDFIGHT!!!!" and everyone followed through.

- Part of our crew; the flag is the Jinju flag

- Our impromptu "Soju Bucket". Yes, its a rice machine.

- I was completely worn out by about 5 or 6 in the arvo thanks to little sleep and a massive day so I passed out when i got back to the hotel. I was back up a few hours later and we enjoyed the night life, however by this point i was running on fumes and pretty happy with my weekend already. There was a concert held during the early part of the night which featured typical Korean entertainment - 60 year old guys singing karaoke style, teeny bopping young Korean girl singing, and a DJ. All in all, totally cheezey and hard to listen to or enjoy, but 100% authentic Korean. After this most went to a club but I decided I didnt want to be death stared by a bunch of army kooks and just drank on the beach. Ended up being an earlyish night.

- Received some sun on the last day as we sat on the beach waiting for our bus to leave. As it turns out, it was good that it wasnt sunny on the saturday otherwise id still be burnt. The clouds turned out to be a blessing. I mean, we were wet in mud all day, getting rained on isnt really an issue is it? I took my first photos of the weekend, the noraebus notwithstanding (where I took 200), but didnt really capture what mudfest was about. But I did get some damn fine shots of everyone singing. On the bus home there was more singing too top off probably the biggest weekend since ive been here.


Looking up and down the beach; doesnt really give a good idea how big the event was and how many people were there. It was sunday morning so im sure many were still sleeping. Most of the action was in the direction of the second photo, but it is just out of view.

SKWOZZI SKWOZZI SKWOZZI, OI OI OI!!!!

Another awesome week in Jinju:

- Yesterday went on a drive to Namhae Island with Mr. Lee, one of my Co-teachers. The students had exams so finished the day early and so we had an early day as well. Since the staff were having a welcoming party for a new member at 5:30, Mr Lee wanted to take me for a drive somewhere and then meet the staff for dinner. The original plan was to go to a massive temple in the mountains about 1.5 hours away. Mr. Lee is Buddhist so he visits big temples often and has talked to me about going to visit some for quite some time. Unfortunately we didnt get out early enough to go their so we went to Namhae instead, which is quite closer. I didnt have my camera on me so I cant show u any photos from the trip. Mr. Lee did bring the school camera with him and took photos but insisted I be in everyone. This might have been ok if he didnt zoom in on me every photo. Each one is me engulfing the image with my squinted and schrunched face. No backgrounds. Just me. So that was a bummer. It was a nice little drive, but we didnt go too far on the Island, basically just reached it, drove over the nice and shiny new bridge and came back.

The highlight of the day was going to the dinner afterwards. We went to a pork BBQ place which is just about the best news possible. We ate "Samgyeopsal" which is basically thick, thick bacon. You chuck it on the grill, then cut it into bit sized pieces with scissors, and eat it by placing it onto a lettuce leave and adding whatever else you want on top, for example, special sauce, kimchi, beansprouts, onions, garlic, rice. I think I can eat up to half my entire body weight in Samgyeopsal. I literally wont stop eating it until its all gone. I basically finished off all what the ladies didnt eat as well as the scraps from the other mens grill. I was an absolute machine. It took about 90 minutes to get through the bacon - people were enjoying drinking, and you need time to cook the new batch of bacon (but it is continuously being updated, theres always some fresh stuff to eat and another leg being prepared) - and I was absolutely stuffed. So I was quite amused when Mr. Lee asked me, "Jacob, what would you like for Dinner?". My reply was, "ahhh, I though we just ate dinner". But no, dinner, technically, has to include rice or noodles. So after an hour and a half of non-stop eating I tucked into my proper dinner, rice with a crab soup. So the food was excellent and I ended up putting more of it into my mouth than ever before. We also drank like crazy - Mr. Lee asked me not to drink my Soju in "one-shot", to go half at once. Now I dont drink it in "one-shot" to try to impress people or to get drunk. I do it because I dont want to sip on it and taste its flavour. So I reluctantly obeyed his request. I decided id drink some beer as well so some of the male teachers decided it was time for "so-baek" - basically a beer with a shot of soju in it. These were actually really nice and continued with these until we left the resturant, 2 hours after we entered.

(not my photos below, but this is Samgyeopsal)



The men continued on to a bar after the resturant were more drinking ensued. Just beer from this point but after an hour I honestly felt like I was gonna explode. I had eaten so much, and drank so much I didnt think I was able to contain it. And not by puking, but by my stomach literally splitting open. The fruit trays and beers just didnt seem to end. Everytime i thought, 'OK, this will be the last one surely', another 4 beers would come out. I certainly wasnt going to say no, but I was amazed by how much these guys drank. The only thing I didnt like to see come out was the dried and pressed squid which is a popular bar food in Korea. It is exactly how I described it - a whole squid, dried and pressed - and unfortunately, tastes as good as it sounds. It was really good to socialise with the teachers outside of class - it loosened them up and they started speaking english to me which I had barely heard from them before. I also think they were fairly impressed with my drinking ability so it endeared me to them as well. We talked about all the regular stuff guys do - sometimes with the help of Mr. Lee and it was just a great, fun night. The old Korean female owner was hitting on me bigtime as well, with no shame whatsoever, so that was good for a laugh as well. At 11.30 we left, so, when it was all said and done, I had 6 straight hours of boozing and eating, and didnt pay a cent. Felt great in the morning too.

- My school in Daegok has a vegetable garden and are continuously growing about4 or 5 veges at the same time. The staff really enjoy taking care of it and making use of it - they are always sorting through freshly picked stuff in the staffroom. They often has more than enough to go around so sometimes I get to enjoy in the benefits as well. Last week I got a nice big bag of potatoes the other day, which was very nice and they are excellent quality. So I was quite happy with that. However, on the Friday, Ms. Nam realised that she forgot to tell me not to come in to school that day (because of student exams). So to give me something to do, and not make me just walk straight back out the door and go home, so made me pick vegetables from the garden. I went out there with a couple of teachers and picked some cucumbers and green peppers. Now, they look like chillies but are large and arent hot. They are very common in resturants and quite tasty, but you typically have them with a special sauce. There was millions of green peppers around, so we all picked until our hearts content. I was thinking that I was just helping the harvest. But no, these we for me, I came to realise. So, there I stood, with a plastic bag full of green peppers. "What the hell am I going to do with these?" was all I could think of, and ive repeated this question on a nearly hourly basis since they came into my possession. Trading them for some more potatoes would be ideal. Or maybe I can join the old ladies that sell produce in the street markets. Either way, Im still wondering what to do with them - they are currently in the fridge and untouched since last friday. Any suggestions?



- Last but certainly not least; the 2 greatest words known to Man - BEER OLYMPICS!!!!

Ive never competed in a beer olympics before but I knew that im an Aussie, and if theres one race on Earth that should be good at drinking beer and playing sports at the same time, its us. My anticipation for it was off the charts. For weeks I couldnt wait for it to start. Finally the day came. We started by making our costumes. Unfortunaltely, due to lack of numbers the Aussies had to join with the Kiwis, but we made our costumes unique to each country. There wasnt going to be any wearing of kiwis on my part and they certainly werent going to wear a southern cross that didnt have a red outline or 5 stars so we kept things seperate, but united to take down the rest of the world. It was necessary the we join because there is only 4 kiwis, but more importantly, there is only 2 Aussies, and Lee doesnt drink beer. So basically, the Aussies were a one man team. Realistically I think I could have won the entire thing by myself, but there were some games that required more than one person, so I couldnt get around that. My costume was the product of spray paint, and face paint, and the hat was certousy of Lee. I certainly wouldnt have been able to pull it off. We definately had the best costumes of anyone and nicknamed ourselves the "KWOZZIES".




Events that were held;

-Flippy cup
-Hoola Hoop relay
-3 Legged race
-dizzy race
-carry race
-Egg toss
-100 sprint
-200m relay
-chug

Teams competeing;

-Kwozzies (which later turned to "Skwozzies" or tri-nations when the South Africans joined our team)
- UK
- US
- Korea (Even though nearly no one was actually korean - mostly Yanks as they had the most people)

Shouldnt be too hard to figure out who lost - yep the Koreans. Unfortunately the real Koreans that competed were mostly girls or unathletic, so they couldnt drink and couldnt compete at anything. The yanks that were chucked on their team were pretty retarded too. They would fall over twice in the 3 legged race or break the hoola hoop, basically they couldnt do anything right. Next were the UK. They have a few solid drinkers on the team but for some reason couldnt get it done. Well, they were just beaten by better teams. 2nd was the Sqwazzies. Led, I might add, by One Jacob Roberts, WINNER of the 100M dash and anchor for the WINNING relay team. That alone should be enough means to be MVP of the tournament. I didnt do too good at the dizzy race, flppy cup, or the carry race, but I did essentially win 2 events outright, so, heck, I think thats worth something. Left quite an impression on the spectators with my display of speed. I also think I deserve MVP honours because of my display of team spirit - if i hadnt heard a cry of "Skwozzy Skwozzy Skwozzy!" in about 2 minutes I was right there to give another one. I also broke out into songs and dances of "I come from a land down under", "Tie me kangaroo down sport" and "Waltzing Matilda" whenever I felt appropriate- which turned out to be pretty darn often. I dont need to tell u who won but I will say the scorekeeper was also from that country and im a little suspicious as to his scorekeeping methods. Either way the sqwazzies can hold their heads high, knowing they represented their country they way it should be. All in all an absolutely fantastic night. The kind of night that you dont really want to end. Friendly, and not so friendly, cross country banter, drinking, joking, competing, dressing up and scaring the locals. Doesnt get much better then that.




- Lastly here is a couple of cool pictures from the Herbal Medicene Temple that I visited a few weeks ago as part of the cultural day.

"Can you sing it?"

Those are 4 of the most dreaded words that could be said to me. They are also 4 words that were uttered to me last Thursday.....

I was teaching my 1st grade class at Jinseo on "open day", where teachers and parents can walk into any classroom and watch the class. My teacher wanted to do something that involved lots of talking, to try to promote and advertise the students and their English skills. Fair enough as well. The problem was that she decided to do this via a song. We went through the class as normal, reading the song, explaining the song, etc etc, and then she wanted the students to sing it. She sort of gave me an indication to sing along with it, but i pretended to not not hear or see. None of the students sang, so it was a bit of a let down for her. We went through the song again to help the kids understand it, and then they tried singing it again. This time I made a few grunts and moans to pretend that i was trying. Unfortunatley, the teacher interpreted this as me really really wanting to sing. So straight after the second attempt, she asked me those fateful words, "Can you sing it?". I was hoping the question was rhetorical, or that I could say yes and then we just move on like nothing happened. But, because I am a professional, I answered her enthusiastically with, "ahhhh, yea..... sure". I then asked her, "with the melody?", hoping I could just read it without singing it, but no, she wanted the whole 9 yards. By now, there were 3 other teachers in the room, the Vice Principal and 2 parents - by far the most that had been in the room at any time. I begrudgingly asked her to play the music and i let it rip. Here are the lyrics to this touching and emotional masterpeice:

How pretty the tree is!
Oh, how gentle the sunshine is!
Theres a rainbow beyond the hill.
...Birds are singing songs witht their melodies.
Oh oh oh, see in the green green field the bright colours of the pretty flowers.
Im singing like the birds dancing with the breeze.
Theres love in my heart

I was a little slow to start, but when I figured I cant stop now, and ive already made an arse of myself, I let loose a little more and finished strong, as this picture will attest.



Well, this picture was taken at a karaoke place downtown and after alcohol, but it was was earily similar to me perfomance at the school. The students in typical Korean fashion applauded loudy after I finished, but they applaud each other for popping pimples, so I know it wasnt worth very much. I then swore revenge on my teacher and waited for my face to return to its normal colour. I also basked in the thought that was not gonna do something so akward and ridiculous for the rest of the day. Or year for that matter. T hings can only be more comfortable from here. I do have to say, why the hell did I have to do that. I didnt read anything that said I may be required to sing songs about pretty flowers in front of live humans. If I did, it may have altered my decision. Also, is it not middle school that I teach? This kind of stuff fits right in for the elementary school kids, but middle school?? Come on, they should be over this crap by now. And poor kids having to listen to me sing! They are the real victims in all this.

I also went on a "Cultural Day" with the other public school teachers in the area. It was meant to teach us about Korea, Jinju and to meet the other teachers. I know about 85% of the teachers anyway so that wasnt a big deal. But I am wondering about that other 15%. What do these people do?? Do they ever leave their house? What are they doing with their lives? These people have been here for extended periods of time too, it isnt like they arrived last week. If I had been here for 6 weeks and hadnt met anyone, I would have just started walking into EVERY single bar in town on Friday and Saturday night until I found some foreigners. I couldnt i magine not hanging out with people over here and some of these people have been here for 6 months or more, not 6 weeks! Honestly, id go crazy without all the people here, I dont know how these people do it. Anyway, other than me musing about what these people do we did see some stuff in and around town - The Jinju Castle Museam, the Bronze Age Museum, the Herbal Museum, and one other Museum that no one really knows what it was showcasing. So we certainly got our fair share of Museums for the day. Next trip will be the freshwater museum, the candle museum and sock museum, im told. It was good going to the castle museum because i hadnt actually been inside the castle before, even though its the main attraction of the city and right downtown. The best part of the day was archery and lunch. The worst part w as making some weird traditional Korean masks. The irony in the masks was mine actually turned out really well, which it absolutely shocking. The only thing Im worse at than singing is art, and im particularly bad at making masks of any discription, but this one turned out to be one of the best. I wont mention that the museum girl helped me more than anyone else (awesome job by the way, instructing classes at the museum on making plaster masks). The herbal museum was cool because it had this wierd outdoor childrens theme park kind of thing. None of it really made any sense but was pretty cool to look at. The highlight was definately the large bear and tiger heads that you could walk in. I was just a little disturbed though by the use of the tiger and bear because they were used as mascots everywhere in the museum and it was sort of promoting the fact that bear and tiger parts are used in alot of the old herbal remedy things. or i think thats how it went. either way, i dont want to think about how you kill tigers and bears and then chop off their wangs and make a tea out of it. I have some cool photos of me that are taken on someone elses camera, so once ill get them ill post them. A pic of me at archery and of the big bear head will have to do til then...

World Cup Fever

Well World Cup is here and it was responsible for one heck of a weekend. Unfortunately, the euphoria of the weekend was quickly extinguished by the Socceroos Monday morning, who took the faith I showed in them by waking up at 3:30 and repayed me by laying a massive turd all over the field in South Africa. Not one of my prouder Australian sporting moments, and it leaves me brutally exposed to ridicule from my fellow ex-pats, considering im always flapping my gums about how good Australia is. Should be in for a bit of a spray this week but once Thursday rolls around, all will be forgotten when we watch Korea run around again. The game on the weekend was a beauty, as I will explain in a moment, and its on at 8:30 again, so it couldnt set up any better.

Things kicked off on Friday night where we watched the opening match downtown. It was a good omen for the weekend as about 30 people rocked up, which is one of the biggest crowds id ever gone out with since id been here. The night was good and everyone was just frothing for Saturday to roll around.

When it did, we went to one of the local Universities to watch the game. It was being played on a big screen projector in an ampitheatre set up, which held about 5 thousand people i reckon. When we first arrived I just knew it was going to be insane. It was all dark and you could make out the red of the Devil horns some members of the crowd were wearing (Koreas mascot is the Red Devils) and the ampitheatre just rose up all around and imposingly enclosed the mad and crazy koreans. It was truly a an amazing sight and incredible atmosphere. The chanting had already begun when we arrived - mostly Daehan-minguk (clapclap clapclap clap) - and didnt stop the entire night. Literally. There was not a second of silence from the crowd. The Koreans were going histerical at the tiniest of things - the winger would pass the ball BACKWARDS to the full back and the crowd would go nuts. When the ball was anywhere within 25 metres of either goal, hysteria turned into manic schizophrenia and people were seriously having nervous breakdowns. In between the fits they managed to compose themselves and cheer or whack together those "thunder sticks" or noise makers that are exceedingly annoying. When the goals were scored obviously the crowd erupted, and I went idiot and ran onto the front stage with Korean Youths who were dancing and celebrating. The cheering of the Koreans in general was quite strange - it was 100% honest; they have massive pride in being Korean (like most people have with their country) and they were just expressing their pride in their country - but it comes off like alot of things in Korea - slightly cheezy and exagerrated. We Aussies have pride in our country but you would never see us cheering the way the Koreans did. All in all, it was a fantastic spectacle and I was happy to see the Koreans win - partly because i was rooting for them, and partly because I didnt want anyone to go home and kill themselves if they lost.

We rolled on into town to a favourite establishment of ours - Go West - and watched the 2nd game of the night. Halfway through the game and pretty much already massively pissed it dawned on us that it was still over 3 hours to the nights main event - USA v England. But like the troopers we are, we soldiered on staggered to Rock Bar for the finale of the night.

My allegiences for the game went something like this - I in no way wanted USA to win, but I also was not actively cheering for England. I just cant bring myself to cheer for either team. It would just go against every reason of my being. However, once the game started, and after seeing the following friends of mine turn into the ugliest of ugly Americans, I found myself hoping desperately that the Yanks would go down.


Now im all for dressing up, and to the best of my memory my Yankee friends werent being jackarses in any way (other than just being American), but what you cant see is the back of the shirt. Now, this shirt (and 2 others) had the English flag being utterly disgraced by the worst means possible. Absolutely unmentionable here. Once I saw these, I knew I couldnt let these guys win.


This is part of the crowd that enjoyed the match. We were well trashed at this point and quite a few were struggling big time. I remember watching the 1st half pretty closely and then not much of the second. I also remember seeing a few of the party passed out - one on his girlfriends shoulder and the other in his chair. One guy (standing up on the right in the red shirt) was completely out of it and ended up with dirty words and body parts drawn all over his face. Dont really need to talk about the outcome of the game, other than its fitting that the game was a draw, and the main focus of the night wasnt the result was it? I thought it was more about giving shit to the Yanks. When we left at 5:30 it was well bright outside and sleep was a welcome thought. Great night.


My male Co-Teacher took me out to his hometown after school last Tuesday. He is from a small, small, small village outside a small, small town about 40 minutes north of Jinju. Its in the mountains, very close to Jirisan, the biggest mountain on the mainland. He grew up in absolute poverty - his father was and still is a farmer, but true to Korean form, did everything he could to put his son through school and university. It paid off, as Mr. Lee is a deadset champion. I met his father, went to his old school, then drove back though the mountains. We took a drink from a "special" spring, which spews out some sort of "special" water. I dont really feel too different since i had the water but it did taste nice and cool. We took a look at some traditional Korean houses then went to get some dinner. This was good. Well, entertaining at least. We started off with fried fish - the same you would get with a typicall fish and chips in Oz - however this wasnt ordinary fried fish. Instead of having fried fish fillets, it was fried entire fish. Head, backbone, everything. Except maybe the guts coz I couldnt taste them. It tasted fine, like normal fish, and the bones were relatively soft, but not soft enough to not notice them completely. Then we had a fish stew. Again, it tasted fine; it was a nice tomato sauce and had potatoes sitting at the bottom. However, it was using the same fish as the first dish and these fish are literally the size of the poddy mullets we used to catch at Lake Cathie. You get the fish out of the stew and then pick the meat off the fish because the bones were to hard to eat. You probably got a mouthful of meat for each side of the fish, and it took about 2 minutes to extract said meat off the spine. It was a very picky and tedious meal and took some serious patience. I probably ended up having to pick 20 or 25 fish from the stew and spend about 45 minutes on the meal. Tasted good though. Only problem with the day was I didnt have my camera as it was an impromptu adventure. Really fun though.

Aiiiiiiiiiiight, til next time

I get knocked down, But I get up again.......

Whats happened recently:

- I guess ill start of with a bang. Last Friday night was a pretty big night. The weather has been hot recently - an im talking hot; 28-30 degrees everyday for the past week or so - so a few of us decided to kick off Friday night by drinking down on the River, instead of at a bar. It was a good time; everyone bought something to eat and drink, it was a beautiful night and the atmosphere was sick - we were sitting across from the castle which is lit up at night as well as town and the bridge which are colourful. There are no problems drinking in public anywhere, anytime so we have freedom to do whatever we So everything was fine and dandy at this point.


From here, things become a blur. We head into town for the night at about 12:30 or so. Somewhere on the massive bridge across the river, APPARANTLY I had to relieve myself. I say apparantly because even though there is a photo of it I still dont believe it. Photoshop can do wonderful things these days. We drank and took photos of ourselves in compromising positions all night long. We leave at about 5:30, and everyone plans to go to the beach for the day. As im walking home I decide I will just catch the bus there right now because if I go home to sleep, I wont be up until 4 in the arvo. I was probably a little ambitious at this point but I figured I know how to get there (1 hr bus ride and taxi) and when I get there ill just sleep on the beach and wait for everyone to show up. Genius! I packed my bags and went to the bus stop. I got the ticket and asked every bus that showed up "Samchonpo?". Eventually the bus to the beach showed up, so I jumped on, sat in my seat and passed out. This was 6 AM at Jinju. I wake up to a tap on my shoulders. I was pretty spaced out as I stumbled out the bus. The penetrating sunlight was torturing my eyes but I could sort of distinguish what was around me. Slowly i begin to make sense of what going on as I head for the station terminal. I begin to realize that I recognise this place. Ive definately been here before. No, it cant be......... Its Jinju F****** Bus Station!!!!!! I look at the clock and its 9AM. I had just spent 3 hrs sleeping on the bus while it went to the beach and came back. ARGH!!!! Luckily i was too much of a zombie to really gather any emotions other then confusion, otherwise I might have been slightly pissed off. To make matters worse when i get in the terminal I spot some friends of mine that were heading to Jirisan for the weekend. They see me a mile away and wave so I approach them. I must have looked like a corpse. They ask me what im doing and I literally could barely say a thing for the first 2 minutes. It was a couple of English words mixed with groans and silence. I eventually manage to have a conversation with them about what happened. They kept asking me "Boy, you look shit Jake", and "How much did you drink last night?" and other similar questions. In my defence, if you ask me anything, or look at me within 5 minutes of waking up, im usually in the same state. After a while they said they had to go catch their bus, but I think they were just trying to get away from me. I leave the place devastated im not a the beach and admit defeat - I wasnt going to go through that again. I walked home and passed out. No beach for me. I dont think I can truly describe in words how confused and retarded I felt during that whole episode.

- I went to work at a school that I hadnt been to in a month. I only go to this school 1 time a week and for 3 weeks straight, for various reasons, I didnt have to teach on those days. So I rock up to the school and was instantly disapointed. The 2 HOT ENGLISH SPEAKING KOREANS that used to work at the high school and middle school were gone. So devastating. They were only on 2 or 3 month contracts and they were up while I was away. Too bad. I was also disappointed to find a layer of yellow dust had settled over my chair, desk and computer. My desk is near the window and the teachers like to open the window fully as the temps are getting hotter. I hadnt been at the desk for so long that dust had built up to ridiculous levels. I took about 10 minutes to clean the entire thing up. I sat in my chair without realising and my paints were bright yellow. Strange. I was also saddened to see that my computer hadnt been upgraded from windows 1997. Yes Windows 97. Are you kidding me???

- I got a bit of a shock when the students at one of my schools started wearing uniforms. They had been exempt until now but they now had to wear the summer uniform. I was looking around the class and then stopped at one student, Im Ha Jeong. Ha Jeong was wearing a skirt. I thought, this cant be right, Ha Jeong is a guy, maybe there is a reason he is wearing a skirt. I decided that no, its not because he cant afford shorts, and its unlikely he has to wear his sisters skirt. I was completely bamboozeled. Ha Jeong is the loudest kid in class, always trying to push the limits with the teacher, getting in trouble, playing soccer with the boys, and to top it off, he looks like a boy. I would have put my house on it that it was a guy. I was almost going to ask him, "why are you wearing a skirt", but thought I better not. When I got the chance I asked my Teacher is he is boy or girl and it turns out of course that Ha Jeong was a girl. It also turns out the my Teacher made the same mistake as me when she first arrived. So im not that crazy. But one point that this whole thing raises is its impossible to tell between girls and guys names. I had no idea if Ha Jeong was a typical name of any gender, and its similar for every name. For example; So Won is a boy, So Hui is a girl, Yeong Jin is a boy, Ye Jin is a girl. Its so hard to look at a name and know if its a girl or a boy. The only thing ive learnt is that if the name has "Dong" in it its usually a boy.

- Had a game of Poker recently and unlike last time, actually won a hand. I even knocked out a few people and won enough hand to come 3rd. Unfortunately only 1st and 2nd collected. But the most important thing about this game was we held our World Cup Draw. 16 Men in the draw, so 2 teams each - 1 crap team, 1 good team - and 1st, 2nd and 3rd get a piece of the pot. I have to say, I couldnt really have picked a better team ----- Brazil Baby!!!!! So im gonna be a little dissapointed if I dont get something out of it. I have Uruagauy as my second team as well which isnt to bad but really, they aint gonna do squat. Cant wait for it all to start!!!! Speaking of which, Saturday night there are 2 games; S.Korea and I forget who and USA v England. USA and England are the 2 most represented nations here in Jinju so its fair to say there will be some serious national pride being thrown around. I bet the "God Bless America" references and "Born in the USA" requests will be uncountable. Not to mention the local team playing beforehand as a nice little warm up. Should be a cracking night!

- Must quickly share with you this tale of child punishment. A certain teacher (who may or may not have been a part of the lashing I talked about last week) had 2 students directly in front of each other, only centremetres apart. There heads were bowed slightly and he had one hand behind each students head. He then proceeded to push the two head together, literally causing the students to headbutt each other. Most creative thing ive seen yet. It was like watch a pair of Big Horn Sheep battle for mating rights. They got a few whacks in before the teach got them both in a headlock and ran their head in the wall. I was almost in stitches and the kids werent too far off either. A few parting slaps across the back of the head and it was over. Wow, just wow. I have to say though he wasnt trying to kill the kids or give them a concussion, but it definatly was an intriguing way to punish.

Thats it for another week. I need to show you a picture of something so here is me doing what I do WORST. You can tell by the look on my face this isnt a natural activity for me and im in some sort of discomfort.


Truth be told, I was in the middle of the best damn rendition of "Tubthumping" (I get knocked down, but i get up again.........) anyones ever heard and the look and posture are just a genius at work.