Being a Tourist for a Day

I have written about our days at the local spa often and frequently.  Honestly I count those times as some of the best and most relaxing times that I have had here.  Now I know that these places are all over and our local one is one of the larger establishments, but there are others.  We made plans and decided to try out one of the larger and more tourist friendly of these places. 

Dragon Hill was not difficult to find, but it was out of the way for our usual weekend spa trip.  This place was massive.  Our normal place isn’t small by any means, but this place was a virtual palace to comfortable self-indulgence.  What amazed me the most was the amount of stuff that they had there.  Video games, restaurants, massage parlors, nail salons, and of course baths.  We were even treated to a magic show from an in house magician.  Like I said this place was huge and it had everything. 

Now at some point I’ll more than likely head back there with a larger amount of cash, and engage in one of the most self-indulgent exercises that I can conceive.  The locker room even had an in house barber.    What was strange to me was that there was a lot of areas modeled after a pseudo Greco-Roman and Egyptian art styles.  A few heated rooms in particular were pyramid shaped, and decorated with hieroglyphics.  The baths were tiled in a lovely shade of green and decorated with busts and other statues, giving it a real air of class.  It is worth considering that even with all of this decoration and so on and so forth that there is still a level of artificiality, but it is nice. 

One of the other attractions that I particularly enjoyed was a heated “salt sauna”.  It was this burning hot stone room with pits filled with heated salt rocks.  As strange as it sounds it was actually very quiet and soothing.  There was as sign posted on the door that said you must always wear socks inside, but of course no one ever did.  Again it amazed me at how many different things there were.  Down in the basement, there was even a makeshift movie theater.  

Is this a place that I will be going to on a regular basis?  No.  But it is a great place to visit, and more than likely I’ll be taking any folks that visit us there.  

Viva La Revolution

Remember the French Revolution?  You know where French nobles were lounging around being French nobles, saying “Oh this is a perfect world, and it is the best of all possible worlds”.  Meanwhile in reality, people who didn’t have enough to eat were every so often being covered in feces, via the chamber pots of the well to do noblemen.  Now this is a blog about South Korea, and here I am going on about the French Revolution.  Allow me a little latitude if you please.  Now as I have said before, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.  Turns out it’s the corpses of the 4 people who quit in the last 5-6 weeks.  Now this isn’t a large school, and there are really only 12 or so people that work in the whole building. 

When the locals start abandoning ship, I begin to feel like one of the passengers on the Titanic, watching the rats all heading in one direction, thinking to myself “Hey, where are they going?”  Now, I have known some of this for a while, but it wasn’t until very recently that I realized that our boss is completely oblivious to how much damage she is causing.  The week in question started off so well too.  For you in the states it was Memorial Day.  Over here it was Buddha’s Birthday, so we got our Monday off too.  With a four day week to look forward to and no weekend classes in sight, Rachel and I were feeling pretty good going into Tuesday.  That was before we had to start demo-lessons. 

Now practice lessons are all well and good, and sometimes they provide useful insight into another teacher’s methods and offer some useful tools and tricks.  These demo lessons appear to be more of an exercise in public humiliation.  I was fortunate to not have to go the first round, but two of our Korean co-teachers, Rachel, and John (the 3^rd foreign teacher) were not so lucky.  When all was said and done, the end product felt more like a monkey dancing on a stage to a monkey master.  Now have you ever tried to give feedback to a monkey?  Really think about what that conversation would be like, especially from the monkey’s point of view.  For others of you readers that are old enough to recall the peanuts cartoons, conversations with our boss are just like anything that adults say to the peanuts.  “Wha, wha, wha wha, however…wha, wha, wha, class-uh…wha, wha, blah blah blah, bitch bitch, bitch, bitch…bitch”.  No, seriously that’s how she sounds.  I know that it’s English, and I can understand (most of) the words that she says, but there are times that she makes absolutely no sense.  The best example is how “staff page” magically transforms into “step poo peggy”

Now I have had some positive experiences with our “Misses Marie A.”, but they are few and far between.  Rachel on the other hand had trouble right from the beginning.  The week demo teaching began, our boss lost serious respect, from me.  While we were going through these demo-lessons, we were requested to make comments and write feedback on each teacher.  I thought that it was inappropriate to be in a position where I would have to judge Rachel.  I asked if I could not write comments about my partner.  My boss looked at me as though I had grown a stick out of my forehead that had stupid written all over it.  I begrudgingly agreed.  When the lesson was over, Misses Marie A. (that’s not her real name, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and so on and so forth) asked to see me alone for a moment.  She was offended that I didn’t want to write feedback.  Specifically she was offended that I grimaced when she ordered me to write said feedback. 

Fast forward another week, where another local teacher and I had to do our sample lessons.  Now, I have no problem getting in front of people and doing what I do.  “Marie A’s” comments were short, to the point and of mixed usefulness.  Little things such as making sure that doing things in a particular order have their uses.  Other things, such as doing their reward/classroom management system, are less than helpful.  I decided to use a different system because I don’t think the other one has much use, and rewards too few students.  The local teacher had a very different experience. 

My fellow presenter came back to the office after about half an hour, silent and in tears.  Rachel had a similar experience when she presented.  What both of these experiences have shown to me is that “our Miss Marie” has no grasp on how much damage she is doing.  Every single local teacher is intimidated and resentful.  Like I said the corpses are starting to pile up and I am not saying that we should break out the guillotine, but there are times that I lament the old days.  Sigh.  

Projects in Procrastination

I have come to the conclusion that Sid Meier is an evil drug pusher.  For those of you who are fortunate enough to not know who this man is, Sid Meier is a game developer and overall genius.  He is known best for his game series called Civilization.  It is one of the most well developed, involved, educational, and at time challenging games I have ever played.  Start with simple cave dwellers, struggling for survival in the Neolithic Era, to a highly advanced and sophisticated society.  Everything from developing the wheel, to constructing giant, death robots are part of this game.  One single game can take hours and hours. 

So this is why there has been no blog entry for the last few weeks. 

Now I have been asking for trouble for a while now.  I had been on a quest to find and locate a new game for weeks.  Now this is a lot more trouble than you might think.  I have a Steam account and there is no shortage of games out there.  But like everything we all have our tastes.  Now first I had problem after problem getting Steam to understand that I wasn’t a scam artist who was trying to get a free copy of Batman: Arkam City.  After that, it turns out that the game I bought ran so slowly on my computer that it wasn’t even worth it to play.  Well I have a copy now and I’ll play it at some point. 

Now South Korea has a number of obsessions.  The most famous of these digital addictions is the game Starcraft.  The people who make this binary cocaine are the same ones who are responsible for things such as World of Warcraft (which has worked both as the greatest contraceptive since the birth-control pill, and as a vehicle for pairing nerd couples), and most recently Diablo 3.  Now I assumed that I could walk into a store and buy a copy of Diablo 3 and select the English language version (just like you can select Korean in the US version)… foolish man.  You can select multiple languages for every version of the game, except for those purchased in China, Russia, and South Korea.  I was not happy. 

Back to stuff about Korean adventures.  A lot has happened since the last entry naturally.  Some of it has been downright terrible.  But as I said Sid Meier has been devouring a large amount of my time.  So I have a whole mess of entries that I have half written and will compile into one or two large entries.  

How drunk was I last night?

Well, sad to say I wasn’t very drunk, but I cannot say the same for a number of my co-workers.  I have talked about the drinking culture here in Korea before, and last night was another exercise in alcohol, human, and cultural tolerances.  So, be prepared for 2 blog entries in a single week.  I can hear the imaginary gasps of shock and amazement...

With the coming of two new, awesome local teachers, and the completion of term tests, we set forth to enjoy massive amounts of Korean food.  And there was soju, there was so much soju.  Dinner was something of a delight for me.  Small strips of thinly sliced beef were placed on our metal, in-table grill, and cooked to perfection.  We then dipped these slices of beef in coarse salt, which reminded Rachel of some traditional Jewish meals.  Thick slices of beef along with mushrooms and onions were placed on the grill as well.  And while Rachel did not enjoy this food as much as the pork that we have gone back to many times, I thought that this was the best local food we have had to date.  

Did I mention that there was soju?  Did I mention that my boss was pouring me shots?  There is a very odd feeling of peer pressure that the locals have perfected to an art.  Some of my co-workers have said that they do not like soju, and some have said that they don’t like drinking at all.  But that did not stop them from being pressured into consuming large quantities of the vile liquid.  Rachel leaned over and asked me “If they don’t like it, then why are they drinking?”  My answer confused her even more.  They feel compelled and to an extent obligated.  Rachel’s response was to ask if she was the only one with the balls to say “No I don’t want that”.  Yes.  Yes you are Rachel, and I am very proud of you for that.  The culmination of this peer pressure came in the form of one of our newest teachers (who told me earlier that she does not like soju) was compelled to share a shot of the stuff with all 13 of the others around the table.  By the last few (myself included), she was begging not to have a whole lot put in her shot glass.  

To clarify there are a number of “rules” to drinking in Korea.  If anyone is curious take a look at the following two websites for further information.  

http://www.korea4expats.com/article-drinking-customs-korea.html


http://www.korea4expats.com/article-drinking-norms.html

There is something very strange about sitting next to your boss, your boss’s boss, and their boss, all of whom are drinking large amounts of alcohol.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind drinking large amounts of the stuff, but there is a point at which it starts getting silly.  But it is when the night moved on to its next phase is when things get really strange and interesting.  I am of course talking about the fabled Nore-Bang or Karaoke room.  Like drinking, it is considered something that really can’t be refused.  Rachel was wise enough to duck out when she got the chance to.  I was not so lucky.  My reputation preceded me, and our finance officer and the CEO both have heard me in my classes singing and being entertaining.  This of course meant that I was obligated to go in and sing.  One of my bosses was in front of the table in a flash, microphone in his hand, singing his heart out.  Now one thing that makes this more interesting is that your performance gets scored by the machine.  After every song, a percentage appears on the screen showing how close you got to the original song.  The CEO then declared that he would pay anyone who gets 100% 10,000 won (about $10) from his own wallet.  Well after a little song from Oasis, I earned myself 10,000 won.

 

I didn’t stay very long, but when I did leave, I saw all the people who were in charge were off to another restaurant for more food and more drinks.  Now I don’t know what time people made it home, but there were a fair number of people who came to work the next day in the same clothes that they were wearing the night before.  

Mo’ technologies, less problems…wait, is that how it is supposed to go?

               It has only taken just over two months of nonsense, fiascos, bureaucracy, and spray paint target on wall and bash your head level headaches, but I finally feel as though I am settled in.  But wait Jack, I thought you said you were already settled in?  Yes that is true, distant voice of the internet, but there were still things missing.  You always feel that there are some basic things that make your day to day life complete.  For those of you in or from the states, it might be something like a car, internet connection, cell phone, and cable TV.  Rachel and I are no different.  This last week after a long series of other headaches we have finally acquired everything that the day to day waygookin (the local word for foreigner) should have. 

                Now first, the head scratching, what the fuck moments... Now Monday  last week started off with another surprise.  Somewhere around 6PM Monday Rachel, John, and myself all got a message from our director, saying that we had to be at a conference  at 10AM that day…yes that was not a typo.  We were supposed to be at a conference, and were told about it 8 hours later.  Now there were two more conferences that we had to go to on that Tuesday and Wednesday.   When I asked about the lack of communication, my boss said that it was because she heard about the conference on Saturday, and since we still didn’t have any kind of phone, she was unable to tell us about it.  Now I don’t mind that we miss a conference, except that it was one about classroom management for the specific group of students that I have the most problems with. 

                Now I was able to use this as a push for getting phones.  Our pay day was upon Rachel and I, and we set out to get new phones.  We made a plan to meet our boss (the vice-director), and go on and get some cell phones.  Now before we did that I thought that I would do a little banking.   Rachel agreed with that idea as we both needed to send money home to pay off bills, loans and so on and so forth.  I started to notice that there was a problem when a second banker came to my teller’s station and they started making a lot of phone calls.  I really knew that something was wrong when Rachel was finished, and it looked like I was nowhere near done.  As it turns out Korea has a law that I was unaware of, where foreigners, like me, can only have one bank account.  With me so far?  Where is the problem you ask?  Well I lived in Korea once before about 4 years ago now, and my passport was still registered to that bank, despite my account being closed before I came back to the states.  Now I was incredibly late for meeting with my boss, and the problem had yet to be corrected. 

                Long story short, Friday we were able to get our phones.  Now I had seen the brand before and was interested in getting something with a little more “wow” factor.  Behold the Galaxy Note, an android phone with 5G service.  I have no idea what some of these numbers mean that are being thrown around, but they sound impressive.  I had heard some horror stories about massive deposits, large fees, and other nonsense causing no end of trouble, but accompanied by one of the head honchos at our school, I had no fear.  Well, as usual that was wrong.  Earlier today, Brandon (the aforementioned head honcho), said that there was in fact a massive deposit and that it needed to be paid now.  Now this wouldn’t normally be a problem, but Rachel and I sent a large amount of money home, remember the entire headache that we went through to transfer cash.  Moreover we spent a lovely weekend shopping around the local foreigner district for some new clothes.  Just between you (entire internet) and me, but Rachel looks absolutely fabulous in this new red dress that she bought.  Now again, guilt is a powerful weapon, and so is the pain and trouble that we keep getting put through.  Brandon, the “honcho”, was understanding enough and kind enough to say that he would cover it until next payday. 

                Now, remember that shopping trip that I talked about?  Well there are some interesting things that happened there.  Some are good, some disappointing, and some have me convinced that something rather unconventionally terrible is going to occur in the near future…stick with me, I’ll explain.  First of all Rachel and I wanted to explore a little and look for a Sunday lunch that was both new, and tasty.  We settled on a British style pub, called The Rose and Crown (I know sounds perfect).  To my amazement there was a delightful selection of American microbrew beers, including Dead Guy ale.  Rachel and I split a massive plate of fried delicious food; I had a tangerine beer with a slice of lemon, and concluded that life was good.  We continued on our journey across Itaewon, looking for nice clothes, including that gorgeous red dress.  Now the disappointing thing is that I am still apparently too fat for Korea.  Well, not really, but I am a larger than average man, and this is an aberration to the Korean size chart.  I did a little research and my shirt size isn’t even stocked on major store shelves.  I did manage to get a very nice red polo shirt from a street vendor, and some new socks that fit.  Granted, I had to pay out the nose for those socks, but they are nice none the less.  The real annoying part is when I went looking for shoes.  I have had my eye on a pair of sandals for a while, but my feet are about 1 and a half sizes too large for the locals to carry in stock.  As I said before, it’s disappointing. 

Now I also mentioned something that provoked unconventional fear and so on and so forth.  This happened on our way back to the apartment.  We were going down the stairs to the subway, when a kid stopped us.  He looked like the scrawny, plays far too much Starcraft away from direct sunlight, allergic to the opposite sex, type of kid.  He was nice enough and asked to take a picture of me.  Not thinking too much about it, I said sure.  Now that wasn’t the part that started to bother me, but it was when he kept on taking pictures, and at multiple angels and light sources, asking me to move to the other side of the stairway.  I asked why he wanted the pictures; his only response was “I like foreigners…”  If you thought that sound creepy and pseudo-stalker like, well yeah, it did to me too.  My mind raced with the possibilities that he might need all of this information.  Sure, he might be some young art student that needs interesting faces, or perhaps he is some sexually repressed digital animator, that needs a more “brutish” looking face to attach to his newest program, “Sadists and Sheep molesters”.  Perhaps in a few months I will be able to Google horse fucker and find my face attached to animations doing unconventional and horrifying things.  Perhaps I am overreacting, but then again maybe I’m not…

OK so much of this is for humor purposes, so don’t worry folks out there in internet land.  Going back to my original point, we have settled in and we have new technology, new clothes, and plans for the near future.  Take care dear readers.  

Back to Normal as Usual

I figured that now, because I feel like a normal, sane human being again, that I should share the good news with everyone.  Many of you have been eagerly waiting for the next installment in the O-so amazing adventures of Jack and Rachel (or you have been thinking that I just got bored and decided to stop writing).  Either way, I have returned to write a new entry and spin tales of exciting adventure and boredom. 

There is some good news.  We are finally, officially legal aliens of the Republic of Korea.  It has only taken nearly 2 months of waiting and wondering what the people who are in charge of taking care of these things have been doing with their time.  I think we have just become accustomed to delays and things taking much, much longer than expected.  Now, because I have very little information about why such things happen, I can only assume that it has something to do with radical brain surgery, a sack of hammers, and possibly squirrels who have given a nearly lethal amount of psychotropic drugs.  Or they could just be incompetent.  I like my first idea better, don’t you? 

It has started to get very warm here.  I am at the limit of my comfort zone, while Rachel is still feeling cold at times.  Such is the way of things.  There hasn’t been too much rain, but what little we had, stayed for days.  We were both still using the small, clear plastic umbrellas that we purchased from our local 7-11 (Yes they have those here.  No they don’t have microwave burritos, or the saddest looking hot dogs in the world).  One particularly nasty day Rachel and I decided that we needed to venture to the local mega mart/ train station/ shopping center/ Movie Theater/ fancy restaurants/…come to think of it there isn’t much that isn’t in this place.  Within five minutes of leaving the apartment my umbrella was turned inside out and ruined.  Realizing that the wise decision was to buy a new and stronger umbrella I proceeded to walk the rest of the way to the mega store/ train station/…you get the idea.  For added effect I gave Rachel the most pitiful look that I could muster, clutching what remained of my umbrella, and squeaked out the words “help me…”  This was apparently a rather amusing sight.  Several locals laughed openly, and many others were content enough to simply smile and stare. 

Now I wish that I could say more interesting things, but alas the plague has ruined much of that.  We had a good 2 extra days off last week, however I spent most of that time lying in bed not wanting to move for fear of either passing out from the headache or being just plain tired.  This was a mixed blessing.  While it was good to have the time off to recover, it completely shot all my ideas for fun and adventure.  I suppose that I’ll have to make up for lost time in the near future. 

We have finally started socializing.  We have semi-solid group of freaks and nerds that Rachel and I can hang out with on occasion (we work a lot, and we work nights)  I’ll be honest that it is very nice to talk with new and interesting people about similar interests and so on and so forth.  I am frequently amazed at how many nerds there are amongst the other expats here.  Hopefully I can return to having some regular nerdy gatherings that I am sorely missing since leaving the states. 

We are now preparing for another weekend filled with some catch up classes and meeting a few friends for games and catching up on Game of Thrones.  Hopefully the weather will stay as nice as it has and I will continue to feel like a normal person.  It should be noted though that now, as a proud holder of the long awaited alien registration card, I have legal state health insurance.  Cheap hospital visits and prescriptions here I come!  

I fought the plague and the plague won.

 

On Monday I started writing a new blog entry on the nature of the hotdog in Korea, the wonders of Costco, and how horrified Rachel’s sister in-law Doron would be at how delicious I found their all pork hot dogs. 

Then I got really sick. 

Now I had been writing for a while that I was getting worried about getting sick with the lack of medical insurance.  Well, I got really sick.  On Tuesday morning, I woke up in terrible pain, feeling weak, coughing, and terrible pain behind my eyes.  As it turns out I had Bronchitis.  Company policy says that I have to go to the hospital first before I can officially call a day off from work, because I need documentation.  As many of you know read readers, I still do not have any medical insurance.  So I went to work, miserable, dizzy and in pain. 

I finally went down to my boss’s office to ask if there was some over the counter medication that I could take.  My boss took one look at me and ordered the school’s financial officer, and our school’s translator secretary to take me to the hospital.  With this help I was able to get in to see a doctor and get some medication.  I was even given 3 whole hours off from work to rest.  Yes, I did have to come back later than day and teach.  With a bag filled with pills and cough medicine, I was shaking and a little loopy, but I managed to get through the day. 

The next day was better, I still felt bad but nowhere near what it was the day before.  Now if the story ended there it would be fine, but stick with me, it gets worse.  By Thursday my cough was mostly gone, and the head pain was completely gone.  But I had horrible lower back pain, with waves of pain shooting down my leg.  To make matters worse, my nose started running.  I purchased some small pillows from the local store and did a lot of painful stretching. 

By Saturday morning the pain is gone, but my sinuses have swollen to painful levels, and I can no longer breather via my nostrils.  To make matters worse I have started to get a sore throat too.  I have yet to have a really good night of sleep in 4 days.  As I type these words, dear readers I have a new bag filled with sinus medicine, a bottle of orange juice, and the hope that I will start feeling better sometime before this 3 day long weekend.  Else this is going to be a very sad waste of free days.