Cool Korea: Update

I haven't seen the show, but for all you One Piece fans out there (Sarah and Tea Leaf..) here is a particularly time consuming piece of graffiti that I found on one of my students desks:

I asked the girl sitting behind it if she had done it and she sort of nodded sheepishly in that kind of 'I'm gonna be honest in the hope that my honesty saves me from punishment' way. Then I asked her if I could take a photo and her face beamed :)

One of these days I might get around to teaching...

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Cool Korea, Part Three: Stargate and Gorillas

I found the extra pictures that I was going to use for this blog, so here I am writing it as the class I was supposed to teach got cancelled because of Sports Day preliminaries.

Starting off with a mug. No, it's not a picture of myself... It's a mug that I was given in a restaurant months ago that I thought was, and still is, hilarious. I took 4 pictures of the mug from different angles.. Can you spot the odd one out?

They aren't hiring thousands of native English teachers for nothing you know... I wouldn't be surprised if this mug was designed by a native English guy for his own amusement actually.

Coolness rating: 8/10 - I cracked up.

Koreans love their manga (Japanese comic books). I took this photo in a manga rental shop (that also hired out some DVDs). Here they didn't just have the standard shelving to house their massive collection, oh no, they had two extra layers of shelving behind the normal shelves that you could slide away to get to the hidden manga behind it.

Also, it's mostly quiet at lunchtime here at Myeonghyun middle school because there are about 200 kids in the library reading manga... To be honest, I'd be reading it too if it wasn't all in Korean :'(

Coolness rating: 9/10 - there's nothing uncool about a shop full of manga :P

In Korea there are many frilly little, girly places dotted around that you stroll into when your on a date and have some cake, papingsu, and/or coffee. They are essentially desert places where you sit in relative comfort in your own little booth and have a chat with your woman about whatever over desert. This is one we went to in Bucheon. It was larger than most we've been to, looked as girly as ever, cheesecake was nice... Wait a minute... is that a f-ing Stargate?

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Yes. Yes, it was a Stargate. I was sitting there eating cheesecake and sipping at coffee for 20 minutes without realising this pansy-ass place had a bloody Stargate as the entrance. The glass door was even frosted to make it look like the event horizon... I don't know why or how, but it's there.

Coolness rating: 10/10 - Bit of Stargate while I'm having a cheeky coffee never hurts :P

This is my desk at work. I'd like to say that it isn't usually this messy but that would be lying (as I'm writing this blog I have a half eaten ddeok just sitting there in it's packet sitting on top of a pile of lesson plans, my headphones strewn across the desk, and an old newpaper from last week...). Anyway, this picture shows how much they've been plugging Starcraft II over here. I've seen ads everywhere from the side of Lotteria (the Korean equivalent of McDonalds) drinks cups (pictured) to on the side of buses. I've been suckered in and bought the game.. I'm really bad at it :/

Coolness rating: 6/10 - Everytime I ask a student what he did on the weekend 9/10 times the conversation goes like this:

Lee: What did you do on the weekend?

Student: Computer game.

Lee: Which computer game did you play?

Student: Starcraft? (In that 'you probably don't know what game I'm talking about' kind of way)

Lee: Of course you did.

It's starting to get annoying.

Finally, here is a picture of a drunk/crazy guy on the subway. Notice no one is helping him or even looking at him (except us, of course). He was staggering around trying to sit down next to that poor girl in pink but kept falling over. He was shouting at people and ended up emptying out most of carriage :P

Coolness rating: 7/10 - I see it all too often...

And that concludes my lame little series on what I've called 'Cool Korea' :)

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Cool Korea, Part Two: Student Stuff

Figured out how to transfer pictures. It was slightly tedious :/

Part two of my little series on what I've called 'Cool Korea' (I've tried to make it sound professional but is basically whatever pictures I found on my camera phone that I deemed to be 'cool') is on things that my students have done and mostly centers around graffiti... :P

Most of the graffiti I saw in my school in England seemed to focus around three things: someone is in love with someone else '4eva', anything to do with Pompey FC, and, last but not least, the standard drawings of a mans privates... Although I have found the same stuff in Korea (minus the stuff about Pompey, unfortunately :'( ) I also discover mini works of art that I assume could only have been drawn in my classes as I think they like maths and science too much to bother in those..

In a first grade class I found these anime drawings on some kids desk. Didn't tell him off because I was impressed... bad teaching, sure, but I don't want to be the guy who takes the paintbrush from Da Vinci :/ To be honest, I've found better graffiti, but I thought it was cool :)

An improved version from what must be the same kid sitting at a different desk. Looks like he's almost perfected it. Also, is this a Pokemon or a Digimon?

Now this is a work of art. Different uses of colour, shading, and it's pretty creative... This must've taken a good hour at least to do, so definitely drawn in my class then... My favourite by far.

Coolness rating: 9/10 - if your gonna graffiti, you might as well draw a Digimon or a flying fish :P

By the way, I see plenty more stuff drawn on kids' desks (mostly anime) but I'm not keen enough to snap all of em - the students thought I was weird even taking photos of the Pokemon.

Guess the art teacher got the students to make papier-mache masks because the office was littered with em. This kid clearly done the best job though... Ichigo ftw :P

Coolness rating: 6/10 - Haven't seen Bleach in a while..

Drawing of a beaver I quickly scrawled on the board to show them that a beaver is not the same as a squirrel... Everyone was cracking up :'(

Coolness rating: 1/10 - although professionally drawn, accurate and almost unidentifiable from an actual photograph of a beaver, it's shit.

Finally, graffiti my co-teacher showed me on the wall by the stairs leading to the first grade. It means 'native teacher is the best' :)

Coolness rating: 10/10 - love how students risked being punished to declare that I'm the best :P although I don't condone it... much ;)

Part three coming up sometime next week :o

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Cool Korea

I've been here around 8 months now and so I think it's about time I showed you some cool pictures I've taken since my arrival. Ok, they're not the most professional photos (they're semi-pro at best) but I think they're pretty cool anyway :P

During my time in America, and the two hours I spent watching 'Bowling for Columbine', I learnt that you can buy a gun and ammunition in Walmart, just a few aisles down from the kiddy bikes. The Korean equivalent is that they sell martial arts equipment in Home Plus right next to the board games. It's not quite as mental as selling things that might later be kept as evidence from some kind of shopping mall killing spree, but I'd say it's cooler. I wasn't even remotely shocked to find that they were running low on aluminium nunchucks in my local Home Plus.. I just thought it was pretty cool. Anyway, this is training gear, but it still could cause some damage, and I bet there is plenty a chav in the UK who would give up his last bottle of Stella for a chance to wield that solid steel baton in the centre of the picture around the streets of Portsmouth :P

Coolness rating: 8/10

Cool thing I saw near Sarah's place in Nonhyeon-dong: A 'robot' with a movement sensor of some kind bowed at you and said something in Korean. I think it was on a cycle of 'Anyong haseyo!' and then said something about a phone deal :S

Coolness rating: 9/10 (Sarah didn't really like it but I loved it :P)

Anime is so big in Korea that they even use it on the front cover of the Twilight books :P

Here is Edward and Bella looking particularly emo on the front of 'Eclipse'. It looks like Edward is doing that thing where you hold your hands together and blow into em to make the sound of an owl hooting :o

Coolness rating: 6/10 (it's pretty cool, but doesn't reach the dizzy heights of nunchaku and training swords)
Kids having a Pokemon battle, again, in Home Plus, apparently the home of coolness. The guy in the gray hat on the right was well keen and definitely over 18. I had a closer look and he was playing a kid of around 7 or 8 with cards that were in little plastic sleeves as if they were valuable :P

Coolness rating: 4/10 (would've been higher if the keeno hadn't shown up)

Part two coming up whenever I figure out how to transfer photos from my phones internal memory to my micro SD card..

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Second Birthday Away from England

23 years-old now and I'm starting to feel it.. It seems I can play computer games for only a couple of hours now before my eyes start to hurt and I can only eat half a birthday cake until minor belly flab begins to develop (and don't even mention the Paris Baguette egg tarts). Seriously though, if I wasn't with Sarah my birthday would've just passed me by. So here is an account of what my birthday this year was like (with pictures, of course):

On my birthday I had gifts from three students who are in my after school class, Han Sol, In Hye, and Hye Jin. They gave me a Hershey's white chocolate bar with cookie bits in it and a box of cookies! When I later thanked them - for the 3rd time because I was so grateful - they told me that they were expensive and they're glad I liked them :) The gifts were accompanied by these letters:

Not even born in 1985.. Think I should tell her? :P

They've got neater writing than me...

Next day (the 10th) I wander into work and see these letters on my desk from students:

Unfortunately, I have no idea who these students are.. I probably know them but everyone has the same name here and I've never heard of a 'Jina' :S I think they're all from class 1-7 (the hint is on the note..) which makes me feel a bit bad because I forgot to say anything in class today. It'd be a bit embarrassing for them though, seeing as they're Korean and all, if I just thanked them in the middle of a class... That's my excuse anyway.

Anyway, I came in from work and Sarah had set up a treasure hunt in my apartment! Probably the coolest thing anyone has ever done for me and so much effort went into it too. She had clues on the go, wrapped presents, cake... It was brilliant :)

It didn't stop there because my 'birthday weekend' was about to strike and Sarah had a few surprises in store for me.

First up was a nice Han River boat trip.. which would've been great if the Han wasn't flooded:

Those steps are supposed to lead to a path.. but instead they lead to the brown waters of the Han. 'I ain't swimmin' that'.

So with the Han river tour called off, Sarah, being the amazing girl that she is, had a backup plan which was a trip to the nearby 63 Building, Yeouido, to the world's highest art exhibit. These are some of the pictures I took of the view from the building (notice none of them are of the art.. It's not that the art wasn't good, a lot of it was brilliant, in fact, it's just I don't really like taking a picture of a picture or of art.. I think it's strange :/).

Traffic in Seoul and the flooded Han river.
Me and Sarah in front of a view of Seoul.

We couldn't stay there too long though because Sarah had another surprise for me. We took a longish subway ride to see 'JUMP', a comedy martial arts performance show that I've wanted to see since I saw posters for it about 4 months ago. Sarah remembered and it was a brilliant show :)

After the show we went to an underground massage place that Sarah knows (my 3rd massage in Korea and of my life so far - all since I've met Sarah... she's a massage fiend). Next day we went to Gwanghawmun Kyobo bookstore, had a curry and that was us :)

Again, if I wasn't with Sarah then I would've probably been sitting on my arse playing Starcraft II all weekend, which, although awesome, wouldn't have been ideal :P Thanks babe x

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Typhoon Kompasu

So Typhoon Kompasu (Japanese for 'compass' - basically 'compass' said in a Japanese accent) hit Korea Thursday morning. I had an afterschool class the previous day and I was asking the students when it will hit and they were all like 'oh, it's supposed to hit tomorrow afternoon'. They were wrong of course because we were woken up at 6 by the howling of winds and battering of rain on the window. We done well not to wake up sooner as all of my friends and co-workers seemed to get woken up at 4 or some other earlier time than us. The teacher who sits next to me in the office (don't know her name... apparently it takes more than 6 months to remember the names of people in Korea) had all the windows in her house smashed out by Kompasu. All the problems I experienced was having to dodge minor debris in the street and an unlit candle falling off the windowsill as the window was slightly open because Casper was starting to stink up the room (did you know cat's can fart? I didn't..). Well here are a couple of pictures of the debris in my 'hood:

This is at the bus stop I take to school everyday. This structure used to be a disused newspaper stand but it had been ripped from it's bolted position in the ground and blown into the road with the other debris.
A day later and some of the trees that had been damaged by Kompasu had been piled up by someone.

School started at 10:10 instead of the usual time of 8:40 because of the typhoon. I thought 'Great, that means I don't have to teach a couple of classes today'. Wishful thinking because rather than just cancel the class they just extended the school day... Imagine that in England? Finishing school and hour and a half later because the schedule had been changed. Wouldn't happen.

My mate Tony has some better pictures of our neighbourhood after the typhoon. I was kind of reading 'The Lost Symbol' on the bus that day and didn't think to take a look around and I missed a lot of the damage :/ Oh well, apparently there is another Typhoon coming next week so second time lucky :)

http://tleeinkorea.blogspot.com/2010/09/typhoon.html - this is Tony's blog where you can see some more pictures.

And here is some information on Kompasu on various websites that I just found after googling 'Typhoon Kompasu':

Satellite image of Kompasu (same as the one at the start of the blog): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=45603

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/09/02/typhoon-south-korea.html

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DMZ

Finally made the trip up to the DMZ on the weekend with my girlfriend, Sarah. We had to go up there on Friday night pretty much straight after work (well it was straight after work for her... I still had time to enjoy a seafood buffet at a work's dinner. Lovely it was. Sarah was starving when I met her) because we had to be at Camp Kim in Seoul by 7am. So we stayed at a cheap place Sarah knew in Noksapyeong and we were off bright and early the next morning. We met my mate Andrew at Samgakji (the stop closest to Camp Kim), went down to the USO base, sat around for 20 minutes and we were on the coach and off by 7:30. Like clockwork.

It took just over an hour to get to the JSA briefing room from Camp Kim, which was just enough time to use up a lot of Sarah's iPod touch battery playing 'Plants Vs Zombies'. Before we knew it we were getting our passports checked by a U.S. military policeman, who was also our tour guide, and being told what we can and cannot do. I've got a sheet detailing all of the things we were prohibited from doing but basically we should just listen to the guy, stick with the group and try our best not to provoke the North Koreans, i.e. don't wave or gesture - I was gutted about the not waving part :( I wanted a cool picture.

As we were escorted into the main DMZ part that everyone sees on TV (the coolest part) we were greeted by the sight of a huge gray building in front of which were a few North Korean guards, one of which was looking at us through binoculars. It's hard to describe how I was feeling at this time because as I walked into view of the main area the sheer significance of this place hit me. I've never really viewed history in the making, outside of TV anyway, but I really felt like it was a place that I probably shouldn't be. Like it was too important for tourists. Too real. Nevertheless, I took uber tourist pictures like I always do, posing like I was in Disneyland. Difference is the people in uniforms at the DMZ are more likely to hurt you than a teenager in a Donald Duck costume.

Here are some pictures:

This is me at the DMZ. We all had to wear those JSA and USO tour badges.

This is Sarah looking much sharper than me and taking a way better photo.
That gray building is North Korea. In fact, on the path there is a noticeable division line. Over that line is North Korea. As you can see it travels through the two blue buildings, but we'll get onto that later.

See the ROK (Republic of Korea) soldier on the right? Well, he is standing in a Taekwondo stance 'ready to defend' apparently, as were all the ROK soldiers. You might've noticed he has half of his face covered by the wall of the building. Why? It's so he can get into cover quicker if fired upon yet he can still see them with one eye in the meantime. I wonder if he is constantly winking during this time or if he sees half blue, half North Korea.. Also, you can clearly see a North Korean guard in front of the gray building. You might have to click the picture to get a larger view to see him.

After this we then wandered into that blue building on the left of the picture which is where all the North Korea/South Korea & allies meet for discussions. Guess what? Here are some pictures:

If I was standing on the other side of the ROK soldier then I would be in South Korea. As it happens, I'm standing on the guys left, which meant I was in North Korea. I know this because the military police guy told us. But its also because those microphones running down the center of the table there mark out the border between the North's side of the DMZ and the South's side. Those mics are monitored 24/7, which I thought was pretty cool.
Sarah in roughly the same position as me, except standing further from the guy because she was 'scared' :) To be honest, with good reason.
This is the good reason. Behind that door is North Korea. This guy is guarding that door. We were told not to pass the guy. Some dumbass American tourist stepped past him for a photo and the guy kicked off and slammed his foot on the ground and almost punched her.. Like, he got out of his Taekwondo stance and his arm shot up and almost hit her. The tour guide was like 'there's nothing I can do, so, seriously, don't pass him'. She just had to laugh it off, but in that kind of nervous, 'I almost shat myself' kind of way. I was genuinely laughing, however.

This is the flag pole on which is the world's largest flag. Guess which country it belongs to... The story goes: the South built an 100m tall flag pole and the North, who has a huge inferiority complex, if you didn't already know, built a 160m flag pole (see above) with the world's largest flag slapped on it. It doesn't help that below it is the propaganda village which is just for show. I don't know if they know any old tourist can walk up to the binoculars situated at Dora Observatory in the South and see that there's nothing going on there.

Dorasan Station is South Korea's train link to North Korea. Apparently, pre-Cheonan sinking the South traded with the North through this rail link. But they sunk their battleship so they stopped it.

Fancy popping to Pyeongyang for a cheeky bit of duty free?

The tour guide said it's both her's and South Korea's dream to reunify with the North. Prior to this tour, I didn't really realise how much the South actually cares about the North. Maybe not the system it runs, maybe not the people in charge of indoctrinating it's millions, but the people under the mess at the top are Korean's too and the South want the two to unify as they once did. Many South Korean's have family in the North, which is one of the reasons why there is a 6 month background check for Korean's to take the tour we bumbled on in 4 days because the South are worried about what these people will do when presented with the Korean border. A lot of people in the West see North Korea as the enemy. South Korean's, however, perceive them as their family... except maybe Kim Jong Il. He probably won't receive a hug and kiss. Poor guy :/

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