reneeinkorea

2009-11-14T18:39:00.000-08:00

Well, to say that I've neglected this blog slightly would be a bit of an understatement. If it's any consolation though, I haven't posted much on my livejournal either.
I've been really busy rehearsing for Messiah - I found a community choir starting up here, and we're performing good ol Handel on December 19th. Yes Dad, there will be an audio recording.

2009-09-27T05:56:00.001-07:00

I have a confession to make: I really, really like Sorry, Sorry by Super Junior:

And so does that prison!

2009-09-19T10:14:00.001-07:00

Holy crap. Holy crap. I just came back from the free (!) concert, Asia Song Festival, and there were a shitton of famous groups performing. I mean, most of you wouldn't care about Chris Lee from China, but HEY I SAW GACKT. I wasn't expecting that one, actually! It was at Seoul World Cup Stadium, and was basically 50,000 screaming girls from all over asia, but of course mostly Korea. And the concert was totally free. FREE 8D

Notable performances include Super Junior, Big Bang, Mihimaru GT (and you can notice me flipping out when I realize that they sing one of my favorite songs from Ouendan) V6, and GIRL'S GENERATION.

I SAW GEE LIVE. GEE GEE GEE MOTHERFUCKING BABY.

HERE. HAVE A VIDEO. Apologies in advance for focus problems, I was pretty far from the stage. Jump to 4:50 for GEE ACTION

2009-09-11T22:34:00.001-07:00

When I walk around the city, go out and actually do social activities, or really any time something interesting happens, my mind always starts composing witty entries to make. Once I sit in front of my computer though, all creativity flees and more often than not if I can be bothered to post at all, I'll blather on about something unrelated or just post pictures.

I think the only reason I'm even forcing myself to string words together is because I'm reading Perdido Street Station, and the author's brilliant mastery of the English language has shamed me. I'm supposed to be an English teacher! Well, only by Korean standards, but barring that, I'm theoretically well-educated and well-read. Despite that, I'd much rather post 2 sentences in a half-broken 'endearing' voice, and then a link to something silly or cool on the internet. Maybe I should try harder to make a habit out of posting intelligently.

Perhaps though I should try to pick my battles. I don't enjoy writing. I do however, love my adorable children, and I suppose it's good enough that I'm even trying to record my adventures for MY MOM to read.

Jumping off of that meandering note, today's photo theme will be Art and Other Hilarious Things by Five Year Olds!

This actually isn't from my class, but from one populated by 7 year olds. They apparently make birthday cards and bind them together into little books on the day of a kid's birthday, and this was written by the girl's best friend:

There's something particularly awesome in that wall of text. Here, let me crop it for you:

From another kid:

Aidan, in my class, is super super cute, and weird as anything I've seen back home. He's basically a five year old Korean Steve Erkel. SO cute ♥

My afternoon class's assignment one day was to draw a picture of an animal they thought laid eggs, and to write "I think that ___ lay eggs". Obviously this girl had no idea what was going on since she never listened, and always just did what she wanted. Priceless treasures ensue.

My morning class is GOLD. Here's Ruthy's illustration of King Bidgood, currently residing in his bathtub:

Unrelated to the theme, but fuck it:

KOREAN FASHION

Extra bonus! A Korean baseball game in video highlights form!

2009-08-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

I love you guys. HunJae brought up the very good point that Korean age 19 could very well mean American age 17, if he hadn't had his birthday yet this year, so I'm sure you all want me to embrace my Cougar side, but I'm not ready to commit statutory rape.

Ah, American values.

I'm pretty excited about my day to come. It's Saturday morning, and I'm drinking instant coffee while trying to blink the blearyness from my eyes. By the way, instant coffee is fantastic. I was a disbeliever for the first week or so after my arrival here, but everyone drinks coffee in the form of tube wrappers filled with a tid bit of instant coffee kernels, and the rest of the room taken up by sugar.

I...I...I'm going to miss it a little bit when I come home and go back to the real stuff.

I also discovered free Korean classes on Saturdays, so I'm going to investigate this afternoon, and hopefully come away being slightly less incompetant at 한국말 than before. It's sad, I love the Korean alphabet so much because it's SO logical, but I'm starting to become aware of all the different counter-words that Korean has ajdbsdjdibakjndnasjdksafffffff

TIME FOR PICTURES

This is in Hongdae, my favorite area in Seoul, it's like Greenwich Village+Soho except affordable and with more karaoke.

Also in Hongdae!

Old ladies here have the most...um...confident fashion sense ever. I'm in love. Until you have to actually interact with them and they glare at you only long enough to jam an elbow in your side and push you out of their way. UGH. AJUMMAS.

It's hard to see, but it's frog toilet paper!

Back to Hongdae. Did you know, I'm a nerd!

My coworkers decided to go out karaoking last saturday, and after two hours of completely rocking out, everyone decided to take demure group shots. Rachel, my co-teacher is the one standing behind me in the yellow shirt. She is awesome.

Doesn't this look like Alanna? It totally does. I miss you so much TAT

2009-08-24T03:35:00.000-07:00

I had such an adorable experience on my walk home from work just now.

I had just left the restaurant where I had gotten 라보끼 to go, (I hope I spelled that correctly...) listening to HP and the Goblet of Fire on audiobook, because I am a gigantic nerd, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed someone trying to get my attention!

So I take off my headphones, and I'm able to turn my full attention to this guy, who's sort of awkward precious-egg-esque-cute, and he says, "Um. Uh. Telephone number, please?"

And all I can process during this adorable cross-language attempt to ask me out on a date is the fact that he has shiny, silver, braces.

Braces.

I asked him how old he was. 19. Korean 19, which means 18. I felt terrible about informing him that I was way too old for him, because it obviously took a lot of courage to randomly ask some lady on the street for her phone number, without thinking to possibly, um....introduce themselves, or try to hold any sort of conversation first. But more power to you, Precious Egg! May your next try be with someone less than 6 years older than you ♥

2009-08-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

Did you know, I went to Japan this summer!

July was basically a countdown to Dia-Liz-Anna 'o clock. I flew over to Tokyo Sunday afternoon, and tried not to make everyone else hate me over my lack of jetlag. TOKYO. Going back a second time, it's still awesome. It's, in fact, even more awesome now that I've gotten to see more. It was also nice getting to look at the non-nerdy aspects-

Oh, I mean. That's pretty nerdy, but that's the only-

Okay, but I swear we did normal things after th-

GIANT ROBOT OH MY GOD.

Dia and I also started a tradition of pretending to pose for the other so we could secretly snipe photos of otherwise objecting Japanese people behind us.
Here are two adorable MAIDOS from Akirabara-

And here's some random guy on the subway who looks even more like an asian Orlando Bloom than the picture really shows:

Tiny adorable car!

Brb, going to Cephiro

Goddamnit, Richard Gere, or whatever your name is

Furry foxtails in Harajuku. Great.

Hey look at these chicks in this magazine

God yes.

A shrine next to the big temple in Asakusa

Oh hold up~

.....Japan.

So Tokyo was fab, and then we met the fantastic teams. This is my new friends face -

Oh my god, my precious cupcakes from Australia make BOSS faces

AkiraAkiraAkiraAkira ♥

Nom nom nom Italy. Made me start reading BLAME!, which is awesome, by the way. Sorry that I'm a decade behind everyone else.

I LOVE RAYEARTH

Stealing Dia's costume

Team Finland and China in our Tokyo room so we could ~~kidnap them all and take them home~~ make new friends.

My little :C face dumplings!

At the karaoke party, we broke out the myspace angles:

Iris and I are off to wear slutty outfits and rule the world.

THIS GUY IS 16. SIXTEEN. PRECIOUS EGG INDEED>

BRB living in Thailand in the arms of the hottest ladies ever

oh yeah, I made Jeanne. And then forgot to wear the forehead thing. And then took it off after half an hour because it was raining, and no thanks walking in that for a parade.

2009-07-11T06:35:00.001-07:00

Jeanne is definitely a work in progress, but I wanted to show off my skirt, and re-done wig. It's really tough not having any patterns, I'm used to relying heavily on them because I'm incredibly lazy. Hey, nothing wrong with that...

Also, have some random photos and a video of random clips assembled over the weeks:

2009-07-08T19:17:00.001-07:00

It's the least of anyone's worries but my own, but through nobody's fault I feel like my vacation is rapidly vaporizing. I wish something definite could happen, so at the worst I could just make other plans. Oh well, the random mooch should stop complaining.

Perhaps I should take the opportunity to describe what on earth my job entails. Perhaps it's a good thing that I took two months before making the post, I've needed the time to figure out what on earth I'm supposed to even do. My one issue is the lack of real training, but I knew that going in, and besides, if I really wanted to be on top of things for this job, I would have majored in education.
Although, considering I absolutely don't wish I had majored in education instead of music, this is a really fun job.

The school, which is technically a cram school, or hagwon (sorry, I can't type in hangul on the classroom computer for some reason) actually operates during daytime hours since its bread and butter is kindergarten. I *think* how Korea operates is that there are private kindergartens kids can attend from age 5-7 (Korean age, which starts you at age 1 at birth, and then you gain another year at the Lunar New Year. I think. This is all conjecture. I refuse to go by my Korean age though, because I already feel old here)
After that, kids go into elementary school, and then middle and high school like normal. Then they continue to go to cram school in the afternoons/evenings, because parents here are REALLY into education.

At first I thought all the cram schools were basically restricted to the upperclass since it costs a fortune, but I think many families have both parents working just to give their kids an edge too. Sometimes several jobs, too. It makes me feel like a slacker in comparison, but then I remember that I worked my ass off in public school too.
Haha, oh man, what happened.

SO! All the foreign teachers live in the same apartment building, which is a leisurely 15 minute walk away from the school. It's a glorious commute, through a park too, but it'll probably suck in the winter. Not nearly as much as the 2 hour subway commute for my last job, haha!
We don't really need to be in the classroom until 9 am, but I like to roll in around 8:45 to get a little downtime before the swarm descends. My morning kindergarten class is five days a week from 9:30-2:30, and then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have 2 afternoon classes, each an hour and a half, and I get done at 6. Tuesday, it's one afternoon class until 4:40, and Thursday I'm freeeeeeeeeeeee after 2:30.

It's apparently a brutal schedule, and the first couple of weeks were tough, but I think I've figured out how to manage my energy, and that's by being super strict and not letting the kids act out.
But these kids. These kids. Specifically my morning class, because they are basically billingual after only a year and a half of english. Oh man, these guys are some seriously precious cupcakes. I adore these kids so. much. I wish I could post pictures/videos of the munchkins, but I'm not letting images of my precious cupcakes loose on the wild internet sea.

2009-06-27T08:25:00.001-07:00

Well, not the best wig job I've done, but also not the worst by far.
It's pretty obvious that the ponytail is a clip-on, but there'll be a ribbon there for the final product, which will theoretically cover it up.

2009-06-27T02:10:00.001-07:00

I decided what I'm going to make next:

2009-06-21T06:40:00.001-07:00

This time on What Were You Thinking, we're looking at fashion!

KOREAN FASHION.

Sorry this is so blurry, but I couldn't exactly go up to the girl and say "Wow, you've got a 2 inch strip of fabric for a skirt. Can I have a picture?"

This also was a crappy shot, but she was wearing semi-fitted shorts which for some reason had huge baggy gathers at the hips and upper thighs. Possibly the least flattering thing I've ever seen.

Oh my god, this needs another angle.

2009-06-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

It's time for an entry unrelated to cosplay, how odd!

Happy conclusion to the window screen adventure - Mere hours after I posted about it, the day-time building manager (who is just as old and scary-looking, until you smile at him and he melts into an big sweetheart) came to my apartment and installed a screen for one of my windows!

He tried to explain why only one screen was being installed instead of two (I have two windows that open) but the conversation went a little like this:

Him - 한극말 한극말 한극말 한극말 한극말 한극말
Me - 몰라요 T_T
Him - 한극말 한극말 한극말 한극말 한극말 한극말
Me - 몰라요 T_T

And then repeat for a good five minutes.

So anyways, here are some random photos I've taken over the past couple of weeks!

Just needs an L!

This is a traditional farmer's alcoholic drink, made from rice. I can't remember the name, but it was really tasty. It came with a billion warnings from people around me to PLEASE DON'T DRINK TOO MUCH. It allegedly leads to super awful hangovers and nausea, but I was so paranoid from all the warnings that I only sipped at one ~~glass~~bowl.

Delicious meat that turned out to be flat meatloaf. Wah wah :C

Eggs!

I...I don't....what?

Oh my goodness gracious.

The legendary odd-flavored KitKats. Green tea ones were not located, though.

See, sometimes I do remember to take pictures of what I eat before I've decimated it entirely.

The Korean I was with didn't understand why I cracked up when I saw this bar sign:

Mychews are the best candy ever, and are only 50 cents a thing. This has let to REALLY unhealthy eating habits :C

Takboki (or however you romanize it) (I think it's spelled 딱보끼?) is so good. So Good.

And a view from my apartment at sunset!

And finally, a video of a Peruvian band playing outside of Yongsan Station. Paola, one of my co-teachers, is Peruvian-American, so it was a little bit of home for her :)

2009-06-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I take a little too much joy in hunting down and killing mosquitoes in my room (or classroom, as the case most recently was) but it's rather amazing how monstrous the Korean mosquitoes are. It's not that they're all larger, or viscious (even though they're pretty brutual, just saying) but there are so many of them.
So.
Many.

Like, flies are pretty common in my neck of the woods, right? Pigeons, lots of those too. Maybe fruit flies, if you leave your bananas out too long.
Here it's all mosquitoes. A hundred times too many mosquitoes.

The ongoing saga with my apartment's lack of window screens also continues. First I complained to my school's managers for several weeks, since they're the ones leasing the apartments that all the foreign teachers live in. They've tried contacting the building managers, since I guess the landlord is AWOL, and FFFFFFFFFFFFF, the building manager is this evil, crotchety old dude who refuses to help me. I understand if you don't know english and you're intimidated, whatever, but I'm bringing you a note written in Korean, which is asking you to call my school's manager since you refuse to ever answer the phone when HE calls YOU, and your response is to stick your hand in my face, say 'No', and shut the door?

I'm sorry buddy, but that just makes me want to poop in your bed.

2009-06-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

It's been quite a while. Perhaps I should start some entries with a greeting besides 'hey everyone' or some similar variation. Oh well, not this time!
The past weekend has been pretty fantastic. It was the selection of the Korean team for WCS, and a bunch of cosplay guests from Japan (a billion) and Thailand (2) flew in.
Let me tell you about my new friends. THEY ARE AWESOME.

I also got to see some old friends, like mistah edo san sempai kun chan and Adrian, who was randomly here on business, and the always fabulous Yui and Mino ♥ ♥

Fay was from the 2007 Thailand WCS team, and she's back this year with Thay/Say (still can't pronounce her name correctly), herself from Thailand 2008, she cosplayed as the Dark Magician card for their performance last year. I can totally believe that Fay is the best in her country, I have never seen someone prettier/make a hotter boy in my life. Oh my god, I have such a girlcrush on her.

So anyways, Friday night I went over to the hotel in Gangnam and everyone who had arrived went out for dinner and drinking. Perhaps you should make a note of that, it marks the beginning of a trend for the weekend! So anyway, I caught a ride back to my neighborhood thank god, because it seriously takes an hour by subway. The next day, I shoved Asuka + some overnight stuff in a suitcase and went back to the hotel around 1 pm. Everyone finished changing by 3:30 (COSPLAYERSSSSSSSSSSS) and we headed to Comic World. I'm pretty sad about all the photos that people might have taken of me in Asuka, I didn't use nearly enough bobby pins and the stupid thing kept sliding back so much that I had a fivehead. Nay, a sixhead. Disaster. :C

Everyone else was super cute and gorgeous though.

So anyways, after comic world we all changed and then proceeded to eat and drink!. And I crashed around 10:30, like a grandmother.
The next day we all dragged ourselves outside like recovering heroin addicts at 7 am TAT
To take a bus to Everland!

Everland is Korea's answer to 6 flags, and it's pretty awesome. It actually felt exactly the same, except there was a giant gorgeous flower garden, so of course everyone was all UNNNNNNNG PICTURES.

Karajstcgsan, whatever his name was, came with Fey from Thailand, and I seriously mistook him for a girl until he spoke. So pretty. Very very shy though. Anyways, he cosplayed from Persona on Sunday and I just wanted to run home, make Pink Thing, and then run back. Ungh, he was so perfect. Everyone else cosplayed from Code Geass or Macross Frontier, it was pretty cute.

I made the worst Korean ever and cosplayed from Goong! Everyone else was super hot, though.
Then came the Korean WCS performance. A couple of the guests did exhibition performances, and there's a sailor senshi team that does a song or two from the Myus every time, and the rest were competing to win.

So blah blah blah, after it was over, there was a photosession, and sort of a meet-and-greet and then we changed and WENT ON RIDES.

So 6 flag afficianados, you know the Wooden Harlot that I don't really remember? Everland's got one that's just as good. In fact, it's even steeper, and longer, but it didn't have YOU GUYS riding it with me, so it can't be better.
I am meeting new, nice people though, people are very friendly and nice here once you're beyond 'perfect stranger' status. Like, if I was bleeding on the sidewalk I think people might just step over my dying body, but once they know your name everyone's super helpful.

WORDS WORDS WORDS, you want pictures!
So this is Fay and Karatsan, aka the most beautiful people in the world. THAILAAAAAAAAAAAAND.

A group shot from Saturday.

If it's 7 in the morning and nobody's wearing any makeup, the cool kids wear sunglasses indoors.

Goldy is FUCKING AWESOME.

Haha, my face is on a poster!

I am kidnapping this Chibiusa and putting her in my pocket forever

Goddamnit, Fay is gorgeous even when she's making a silly face.

And here's a random compliation of videos from Sunday, because that's the only day I remembered to record anything.

2009-06-02T03:25:00.001-07:00

Costume's at 90%

2009-05-30T06:16:00.001-07:00

Haha, last night was fun~
Today I got up ass early and went to Dongdemun, which is many buildings. Floors of fabric. Floors of trimmings. Floors of beads and crystals and I'm almost crying, it is my mecca.
One of these days I will make a real post, but right now it's 10PM, and Project Make A Dress in One Day has just commenced!

I probably paid too much for this wig (about 38,000 won, so that minus 20% if you convert it to USD) 원? Won? No idea if I spelled that correctly.

2009-05-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

So I owe you all a big update. Sorry about that, haha! I was just... um...too busy actually going outside. (Normally I'm a super homebody)

I saw Star Trek on Thursday! I know I'm a huge slowpoke (it came out in Korea same time as the US, but I was busy doing COSPLAY EVENTS to go then) but I totally have the hots for Spock. And Kirk. And Sulu. And Scotty. And I even want to hug Chekov tenderly.
UNFFFFF THIS MOVIE. THANK YOU JJ ABRAMS. I guess we should let the man make movies. TV shows on the other hand.....>:C

So! Cosplay in Korea! There's a Seoul Comic World every month and it's closer to a NYCC or NYAF setup than a traditional American anime convention - There's the huge artist's alley, and then a gorgeous area outside where most of the cosplayers and photographers hang out. Apparently, the Comic World is described as a mini monthly Comiket, but I'm not experienced with that. (yet?)

The cosplayers are younger here too, mostly around the high school age, but it's not like I could tell, since everyone looks like they're fifteen, regardless :C I'm Renee-ajumma. (grandmother/old lady) Also, the overall quality of cosplayers are WAY BETTER than the american equivalent, but that's because a lot of them buy their costumes. Haha. Nobody cares here though, there aren't any craftsmanship competitions to defraud, so there's not the connecting drama.

I kept taking pictures of cute girls in good costumes (or anything Shugo Chara), I guess I'm a giant pervert!
Also, it was interesting that more than 50% of all the costumes there were from Kuroshitsuji. I saw maaaaaybe a couple sailor moon costumes, some korean MMOs, and one totally awesome guy dressed as like....some crazy historical warrior thing, but everything else was New Popular Anime. AKA Kuroshitwhatsnow and Macross Frontier.

Lee-san also introduced me to a ton of cosplayers and photographers and Very Important Dudes, and everyone is very nice :)

Words words words, I know you want
These pictures are from the weekend before, when I met up with Lee-san, Big Kong, Little Kong, and new friends on Saturday night!

Then on Sunday, I discovered that I had left half of Diva Foxx at home in New York, but decided to wear it anyways, because what the hell. I was wearing white booty shorts, so all the girls can guess what I got that morning! :C
And my first time at ~Seoul Comic World~

YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

These next ones are from yesterday - I met up with YongJin and Lee-san, and then another cosplayer in the City Hall area, where I totally forgot to take more pictures, except for when we went into a gorgeous park that was right in the middle of the business district. It was apparently some palace grounds back in the day! I want to be royalty and live there :C

And then of course we went drinking and engaged in delicious 드ㅏ치 고기, which I'm sure I just mispelled and called myself a bitch again (the perils of mispelling Hello, apparently!) but it's bbq pork. NOM NOM.

So next weekend I'm going to go bike-riding with some teachers across um...some area of Korea, and visit temples and do an overnight stay, aaaaaaaaaand I'm really stoked for that.

Weekend after that, I'm going with ChoHi to DONGDAEMUN MARKET HAHAHA which is apparently a gigantic everything market, but also has a ton of fabrics. Do want. I think I'm going to crap out Asuka's sundress for the Wonder Festival in 3 weeks (where apparently I'm a guest and the WCS team for Korea will be picked!)
Hopefully it won't turn out like this again:

2009-05-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

I've been scoffing at the supposed 'Yellow Dust season' occurring right now, which is dust born particles from China, and their idiotic soil erosion problem, because China is the source of terrible things like that, but one day recently I left my computer shut, and a window open all day in my apartment while I was at work. When I got home, there was a film of dust on the lid of my precious Dell, just from the open window, just for the duration of my work day. :C

Okay, so, what's up....

I finally found the local bookstore, which naturally was underground. >_> It's called Hot Tracks, and is filled with the cutest things in the world, dear god. A whole half of the store was the Not Books section, and there were shelves of cute notebooks, and digital supplies (like stickers for my keyboard with english and korean letter, score!) and GUNDAM FIGURINES IONO.

Oh my god, the cute notebooks. I found a Mozart one, and was ready to flip my shit, but I needed just a regular lined book to write my lesson plans in, and the Mozart one was all staff paper. Actually, I found half a section with just notebooks filled with blank staff paper. Who on earth needs that much, that would shop at a normal bookstore? Am I missing a huge underground composition culture here?

I was really tempted to buy it, anyways.

Also, this evening I'm meeting with with Lee-san, the korean organizer for WCS, and going to a party(???) and Big & Little Kong are going to be there! Sonnya, I'll tell them you all say Hi. ♥

Then tomorrow is a cosplay event, so of course I'm going to go, because I am a huge fat weeaboo who probably doesn't even fit in Diva Foxx anymore because all I do is eat in this country. :C
I need to find a sewing machine and supplies stat, I think I want to cosplay from Granado Espada because I happen to be in Korea, and I'm just a bit caucasian-looking. More unusual coincidences rarely come along.

WORDS WORDS WORDS HOW ABOUT SOME PICTURES
This is the super cute notebook I bought at the Hot Tracks store. I'm retarded, and it didn't occur to me that writing in the blank page right behind the cover might actually show through, and it's already bothering me a lot. :C

This is my attempt at taking pictures of some of the shit I've eaten, but obviously pre-cooked rice isn't that cool. Nevertheless, can't find it in America!

Shrimp flavored fries! SO GOOD. Not pictured - a different bag of fries, where the only description was that they were 'Sweet and Delicious'. The verdict? FUCK YES THEY WERE.

Children's Day was on Tuesday, a national holiday so I got a ~Day Off~. This is a mini-carnival ride swing thingie out of the back of a truck. Found it while walking from the park on my way back to the apartment.

New York T_________________T

Buses are green in Korea! And tiny and sort of cute! And sometimes they run red lights! :C

2009-05-07T00:31:00.001-07:00

I finally tried Pocari Sweat after years of knowing of its existence because I passed a vending machine selling it for 700 won.
Pocket change!
So I'm sitting here at school, killing half an hour until the staff meeting, and sipping my Sweat.
The verdict: Doesn't taste like sweat. Doesn't taste much better, either. :C

2009-05-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

안년하세요!
And there you go, my first actual exercise in typing in korean. I feel as cool as a cucumber doing it, although if we're going to be entirely truthful, it took me over a minute to type that phrase. Most of it was trying to find which keys were for which korean character though.

I have to say, I absolutely love the korean alphabet. It's incredibly logical and clear, and fewer letters than our alphabet, so it's actually possible to learn in an afternoon. Unfortunately, the way quite a few consonants are pronounced are totally incomprehensible to me - as in I can't even hear what consonant someone is saying as they say it. FML.

Okay, so let's attempt to do a recap of this weekend, since I've been slacking on the updates. I came down with a Not Quite Cold on friday, which mostly seems to mean that I'm constantly congested, and if I talk too much I'll start coughing and my voice will go. Great. At least my head doesn't feel foggy. So even though I have this glorious four day weekend, I haven't been doing much exploring of the city at all.

On the one hand, I feel bad that I'm not taking advantage of my free time and acting like an independent adult and just Going Somewhere; on the other hand, I really hate being sick and I should spend as much time as possible resting and drinking liquids.

Alas! Both logical thoughts!

I was invited to an overnight workshop this weekend, from Saturday to Sunday, at some oceanside hotel thingie. Apparently some teachers from another school owned by the owner of our Maplebear (he owns roughly 20 schools) were getting married, and that meant a workshop??
Well what the hey, I thought, I don't have anything else to do and this will give me a good opportunity to meet some other teachers and administrators, and I don't know, learn more about teaching.

Turns out workshops mean drinking and eating barbequed meat. I AM QUITE OKAY WITH THIS. It was a really fun time, but I wanted to kill myself for forgetting my camera, because even though the car ride there on Saturday took EIGHT HOURS (thanks, holiday traffic, it only took 3 hours coming back the next day) I was getting to see the korean countryside for the first time, and it was really neat. Seoul really is surrounded by absolutely beautiful mountains, closer to hills really, and as we got further out - rice paddies! It really started to hit me that I am in a Foreign Land. Sometimes Seoul doesn't feel that way because it is so metropolitan. I could imagine I am in a fantasy version of Flushing, where somehow everything is clean.

Okay, things to talk about.
Motorbikes! Fuck those fuckers, ffffffffffffffffff. They ride on the fucking sidewalk, and don't give a flying DICK whether they're about to run you over or not. They, and regular bicycles, are not nearly as predominant as I was expecting, but they're still fucking everywhere. It's just not as bad as say.....a city in China. But still. Fuck them. And cars. Korean drivers are fucking aggressive. Tina, you would have an absolute blast trying to outmaneuver some of these shitheads.

Right, that's enough of a wall of text. You guys want pictures!
Sorry in advance for the bird pictures, I normally don't give a dick about birds, but they look so cool!

What the hell is this bird? They're everywhere, and they're so pretty.

Oh, speaking of which, guess what other kind of bird is everywhere?
HAHA, PIGEONS. UGH.

I need to take more pictures of the local park; it's huge and gorgeous. This picture is of another park, but these exercise machines are rather ubiquitous -

Here is the absolutely stunning temple a couple of blocks away from the apartment, and on my way to work every day -

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to take pictures, so I sort of tried to snipe the shot. I also really want to go inside, but I totally don't have the balls to barge right in, especially when I'm completely incapable of speaking the language. Ugh, the language barrier is so frustrating. I need to man up and really study the language more. Back to the temple, this is the only temple I've seen so far. Churches are waaaaaay more prominent, with their neon crosses, haha, but I see those far more often. It makes me a little sad, it feels like all the churches are pushing the temples out of the way. :C

Here's a shot of one of the blocks I walk through to get to the park, or work, or pretty much anywhere -

I didn't take as many pictures of the city itself, because hey, it's a city, you can google that stuff and it looks just like you think a modern, bustling asian city might. I need to remember to bring my camera with me and take more pictures of food though. FOOD.

So in conclusion, this is quite the interesting adventure so far, despite my exceeding laziness and general malady. I miss you all terribly, and I can't wait to come home perhaps a little bit more than I should.

2009-04-30T00:28:00.001-07:00

I have internet in my apartment, finally!

I need more than a few minutes to give a proper update on my adventures of the past few days, but right now I need to type up a 2 week curriculum plan and calendar for my morning class, and I can't be bothered to do one for my 3 afternoon classes because I hate them all. Well, the second MWF afternoon class are a bunch of cute kids, but the problem is that none of them really know any english, so they all just stare at me and then ignore me. Fuck them, my morning kids are the best people in the world.

So. My apartment situation needs a full story, but suffice to say, it was completely and utterly trashed by the previous teacher; a middle-aged, chain-smoking, heavy woman who was fired after two months. So, the apartment still smells like cigarettes BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE SMOKED IN THE APARTMENT, THANKS, as well as just an odd old lady smell. FFFFF.

The bathroom floor was black with dirt and unknown scum. I wanted to cry when I saw it. I'm still only half-way done scrubbing everything, two days later, and I suppose I might be able to unpack sometime this weekend, or maybe Monday. :C

It is somewhat presentable enough to post a video though, because once this place is clean...HAHAHA:

2009-04-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Protected
Unfortunately, the peril of stealing wireless internet is that the source is quite likely to disappear on you. So until I can find another network to sneak onto, I'm stuck typing this out on good old Notepad.

So, my first morning in Seoul! I made a delightful composite blog video where you can see me get more and more exhausted on my Journey to the PastFuture, and hopefull Youtube won't kill itself whenever I try to upload it.

In the meantime, I'm staying in a hotel for three days, called Co-op Residences which I think is part hostel, cheap hotel, and post-graduate apartments all combined into one. The result is a super cute, compact studio apartment with a 24 convenience mart in the basement. That's alright with me! I guess the former teacher occupying my future apartment needs the time to pack up and move out. I can't imagine the 'real' apartment being any smaller than the
hotel studio, which is really tiny by anything but New York standards, so I think I should be fine.

Anyways, I finally arrived in Incheon International Airport at 8:30pm last night (so, 8:30 AM-Renee-wants-to-die-Time) and finally got my luggage and through customs by 9, not too shabby. Unfortunately for all involved, customs did not give a dick about what I had in my suitecases, so possible mental-scarring-by-tampons did not occur. Tim and Fred, assistants to school branch, picked myself and another teacher up at the airport, which was ace, because it turns out the airport is a good 40 minutes away, and a taxi would have cost roughly $100. :C Patrick, the other teacher is on his second year teaching english in Korea, and shared some awesome horror stories about his first year's school. He seems like a chill guy, so I think I'll have at least one sort-of friend in Korea.
Besides Lee-san of course 8D.

Completely not on topic, but fuck Vista, I have no idea what to do to type in Korean. :C

Okay, back to BLOGGING ABOUT MY DAY. Because it's not quite lunch yet. I woke up this morning at 7:30, and sort of lazed about in bed till 8:15, so I guess the upside to not sleeping on a plane is crashing and then not experiencing any jet lag, sweet deal. Putzed around on the internet - thanks Mom for being on Skype but clearly away from the computer, breaking my heart here - and then went out in a quest to not be such a shut in.

So the Co-op building is literally right next to I think the big river that runs through Seoul - there's a nature reserve and running and biking tracks running all along the edge, it's gorgeous. And all the signs have english, and I'm already getting less shitty at reading hangul (although I still have no idea what any of it means, hush). I spent a couple hours just walking along the trails, and then back onto the sidewalk for a couple blocks around the hotel - the subway is literally a block away. I'm reading through the Rough Guide to Korea right now before I head back out (Thanks Anna, ♥) but apparently the subway has english signs too; I could cry with joy. I found several barbeque places (haha, I don't have to call it korean barbeque I guess) but they were all closed because I am a super loser and want steak for breakfast, unlike the rest of the country. Unfortunately, they weren't any cheaper than K-town :C

There's also something going on at the World Cup Stadium across the river; they keep releasing ballons and have some crazy floating signs attached to even bigger ballons. SO EXCITING! I wish I knew korean.

2009-04-23T12:06:00.001-07:00

Look at me, I'm blogging! I'm also trying to get into the habit of using the camera a bit more; so far so good.

Just look how empty my room is now (trust me, it's empty in comparison to before) -

So I think this'll be the last update before I get on my EIGHTEEN HOUR FLIGHT EXPERIENCE (thanks, layover in Tokyo) tomorrow, since I have to be up bright and early.

Looks like it's time for me to go

2009-04-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Oh jeez, I have a flight date...

Friday! Thanks for the head's up. D:

Now my stress levels are shooting through the roof and my packing attempts ought to get even more half-assed and frantic. Let's go!

2009-04-13T12:59:00.001-07:00

Sorry for all the constant posting, but I've been trying to give myself a crash course in Korean so I don't completely fall apart when I get there - even though I don't know how to ask where the toilet is yet, which is clearly the most important phrase of all - and I've been searching for free online resources.

Well, I discovered Livemocha, which is a website that has free courses for a TON of different languages. You sign up and create a profile, and although I haven't gotten to that part yet, you apparently can chat with native speakers of whatever language you're trying to learn, and you can practice with eachother. Sounds really nifty, although that sounds like something for more fluent speakers.

I might have to go back and try it with French too, since I've forgotten all of mine.

2009-04-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

Who has two thumbs and an E-2 Visa?

THIS GUY

Emailed the head of the school and her assistant yesterday. When do I fly over? No idea, haven't heard back yet! D: I guess I'll send them another email, although I probably shouldn't send them that particular picture.

Copied from the lj!

2009-04-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

Korean Adventure Update: I got my visa issuance number today, and I called the Korean Consulate to set up an appointment. Tomorrow at 3, it turns out! Lordy, this might happen faster than I expected, unless I don't get the visa same day. Sort of hoping that it takes a couple weeks to be processed, actually, I haven't packed or gotten all my visits in yet.

Important things to remember! I need to pack a year supply of my BFF forever, Clean & Clear face moisturizer and acne crap, because I refuse to part with it. Also, I need a year's supply of deodorant - it's ungodly unfair, but ASIANS don't get B.O, as my darling Anna has pointed out, and I've constantly lamented over. Especially when I have had to dance with especially pungent but otherwise nice partners for show performances.
The most important one: YEAR'S SUPPLY OF TAMPONS.

Why do Koreans use pads exclusively? WHO KNOWS. Thank god my recruiting agency sent me a little 'congrats' packet with important fun facts like that on a cd.

Anyways, this is my attempt to blog more. I figure I'll just try to write about things that, if I was the one reading the blog, I'd want to hear about. It's a little surreal but I'm still feeling like this whole EPIC JOURNEY is happening to someone else, because crazy spontaneous adventures across the world? It's hard to imagine doing it myself. OH WELL. I did have to struggle to not make an entry with just a video of kittens going 'OM NOM NOM'.

2009-04-03T09:09:00.001-07:00

Testing, testing. Actual content coming soon!