And just because Mia's so cute....

(Link here if you can't see the video)

Mia vs. Jansport

Hazy = Lazy

I had plans for today. Or, to be more accurate, I had ideas for plans. Such as going to Busan or Gyeongju to visit some temples. Or heading out to the Bullo Dong tombs in hopes that I hadn't missed the flowers. See, the past few weeks have brought days where the skies have been a brilliant blue - thus making excellent weather for photography (see the pictures in last Sunday's post as an example). Unfortunately, today was simply hazy. I couldn't tell if it was pollution, yellow dust or pollen - or a combination of all three. As you can see from the above picture (taken from my rooftop) it's not exactly the sort of air that's conducive to crisp, clear photos. And, annoyingly, weather.com is forecasting doom and gloom for next weekend. Boo!

Food stuff.

Friday I had a bit of a craving for some dark chocolate, so I popped over to the grocery store next to the school. Due to the recent dark chocolate craze here in Korea, it's easy to find, although I must say I was a bit thrown off by the packaging:

No, I wasn't thrown off by the 72% cacao (that made me pretty happy, actually) but by the "cacao polyphenol chocolate" in the fine print. I don't know what you think of when you hear polyphenol, but that word makes me think of something petroleum based. Or possibly a barbituate. So I checked wikipedia. Turns out that polyphenol is a chemical found in cacao (among other natural things) with antioxidant properties. [read more] Anyway, Dream Cacao is damn good chocolate. Not as good as Бабаевский (what is?) but still scrumptious. Also, I highly recommend dropping a chunk in your Maxim or Taster's Choice. It'll improve the taste of said beverage exponentially.

Donna eats shabu-shabu

This afternoon, Gwen and I took Donna out to favorite restaurant: a shabu-shabu place just east of the Banyawol subway station. Now those of you who are familiar with Daegu might think that trekking all the way out to Banyawol would be a waste of time... But trust me, this place is wonderful. What you see in front of Donna are very thin pieces of meat, which you cook in that bubbling pot to the left. The meat is sliced incredibly thin and each piece takes about 10 seconds to cook. You then put the meat in one of those little "bowls" made of lettuce and stuffed with rice. You can also add mushrooms and greens (from the bubbling stew) to your lettuce bowl. Then you eat it, kind of like a Korean taco. I love this stuff. Come on out to my neck of the woods and chow down.

Jane’s Guide to Teaching English in South Korea: Part 3 - Getting to Korea (Updated)

In many cases, when you are offered a job in Korea, you will be expected to come immediately. Most arrangements are not made months in advance. This means that there’s a strong chance that you’ll find yourself running around like mad, trying to get everything done for your work visa – not to mention preparing yourself to leave your country for a year.

In order to get an E2 Working Visa for teaching English in Korea, you will need either your original college diploma or a copy of your diploma that has been certified by a South Korean Consulate. You will also need an official copy of your college transcript. This is the law. If you are unable or unwilling to provide these documents to provide these documents, you will be unable to work legally in Korea.

If a school needs you NOW, they may ask you to come to Korea on a tourist visa. If you come to Korea on a tourist visa, you MUST make a visa run to Japan before you begin teaching. You cannot legally teach without an E2 visa. This means that you must leave Korea, go to Japan (usually Fukuoka), and apply in person at the South Korean Consulate for your working visa. You will need your diploma and transcript for this. More info on the visa run is available here.

It is illegal to work in South Korea without a work visa. If you get caught working without your visa, this will result in a fine and deportation. Do not agree to work without a visa!

While you’re getting your paperwork taken care of, you should also be packing. Remember, you’re going to be gone for a year. Korea is a modern country, and you can find plenty of the things you’ll need here. However, the most important thing to bring is DEODERANT. You won’t be able to find it here. When it comes to make-up, hair-care, skin-care, and feminine products, there are plenty of these products here. If you absolutely must have a certain brand of such a product, you’ll probably need to bring a year’s supply, but if you’re not too picky, there are plenty of quality Korean products to choose from. (Also, I have incredibly pale skin for a white girl, and yet even I have no trouble finding make-up which matches my skin-tone over here.) I don’t use shaving cream (never found a brand that didn’t make my legs break out), but I’ve heard that shaving cream is something you should pack.

South Korea uses different shaped plugs and 220v electrical current. You should, at the very least, bring plug adapters with you if you’re bringing any electronics. If your country (like the United States) uses 110v electricity, you’ll need a power converter too. Power converters are available over here, and as they’re rather heavy and luggage has weight limits, you might be better off buying one over here if you don’t already have one. But definitely buy yourself plug adapters. You might also need some 3-2 converters, as a lot of electrical things are three-pronged and a lot of the plug adapters only have two-pronged holes.

It’s a good idea to come to Korea with enough cash to support yourself during your first month, as you won’t be paid until a month after your arrival. Some schools will provide you with cash advances if you ask, but not all.

You will be expected to begin working on the day your contract starts. Check your contract so you won’t be surprised! Keep in mind that just because you’re in a foreign country, you will still be expected to behave professionally. Behavior which would get you fired back home (ie, not showing up for work because you’re intoxicated) will get you fired just as fast over here.

When you get to Korea, your employer must arrange for you to get a resident alien card, health insurance and a pension. This might take a few weeks, but all of these things are required by law. As the law stands now, you will get all of your pension contributions, plus the contributions your school makes to your pension fund, refunded to you when you finish your contract and leave the country. Since you get back double what you put in, you’ll make money off of this; don’t let your school cheat you out of it!

Hmmm… this is all I can really think of right now. If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know! In the meantime, here's a relevant discussion over at Dave's Cafe which you might want to check out (hint, hint).

Happy Birthday, Buddha

Today was Buddha's birthday, which meant that I had the day off from work. In theory there were all sorts of celebrations going on at temples across the country... but Gwen and I opted to spend the day indoors (a lot of the day it was raining, afterall) watching episode after episode of Dexter (definitely a good way to keep my mind off the fact that BSG1.10 is only 66% downloaded onto my computer). "Dexter" looks rather unnervingly like this fellow I dated briefly when I lived in San Diego, which was periodically creepy. Also, I got to take pictures of Songi, Gwen's insane little dog. It's supposed to rain tomorrow as well, although suppsedly the weekend will be sunny. I'm not entirely sure I believe that, as it seems that it's rained at least once every weekend for the past three months. We shall see!

Alas.

Yet again none of my photos made it into JPG Magazine. However, you should still download (or actually buy) Issue 10 because there are some pretty fab shots in there. And, since voting for Issue 11 is only open for two more weeks, you'd better get on that! Below are the two pictures I've submitted for Issue 11, under the themes America and Dreamscapes respectively. Please click on the images to vote - but remember, you have to register for your vote to count! Thank you, thank you :-)

American Mom (Theme: America)

Spinning into Fall (Theme: Dreamscapes)

Help! Battlestar Galactica?

Anybody know where I can find a decent torrent of Battlestar Galactica Season One Episode 10, "Hand of God"? The place I've been downloading BSG from seems to have every episode EXCEPT this one! I don't want to skip an episode... So if you can help me out, please let me know! (Melissa, this is all your fault!)

Another walk along the Geumho River

I met my friend and former coworker Donna downtown this afternoon for a bit of shopping and Korean food. After lunch, as it was such a great day, I decided we should spend some time walking along the Geumho River. I've spent a lot of time along the Geumho River recently (here and here), and as it's one of my favorite places in Daegu, I definitely wanted Donna to have a chance to see it. We did a lot of walking - getting off the subway at Dongchon, walking across the bridge and past Mangudang Park to the Hotel Inter-Burgo then back up to the Ayanggyo bridge. Okay, so that passage will probably *only* make sense to those of you who know the area... but let's just say that we did a good bit of walking. And of course, I took a bunch of photos.

Donna on the pedestrian bridge


Another Geumho River and duck boat shot :-)


Donna and Turtle, Mangudang Park


You've seen this statue before;
I just wanted to give you a sense of scale.


Old South Gate thingy across from Mangudang


Ceiling inside the gate - Dragons!!


Inside the swank Hotel Inter-Burgo


Me, posing as an Inter-Burgo guest


Inside the Inter-Burgo;
that wall to the right is actually an indoor waterfall.


Crazy chandalier inside the Inter-Burgo


Chandalier up close


The view from the hotel


Donna, outside the hotel

Also, when we were downtown,
I bought a crazy cool clock :-)

I HAVE CRAZY MAD ASIAN HAIR!!!!!

For all those who ever worked at ServiceZone (speaking of Lake City and all...)

In early 2002 I spent six terrible weeks working at a call-center in Lake City, Florida, which at the time was called ServiceZone. At the time ServiceZone out-sourced to Dell Computers, and provided staff for Dell Product Support, Dell Sales, and Dell Financial Services. I was hired to work for Dell Financial Services. They were six long, terrible weeks. I was shocked at the multitude of unethical business practices conducted by Dell, to which the company turned a blind eye. People threatened to sue Dell (and me personally!) every day. After those six weeks, I thought I'd be hearing about a class action suit against Dell any day. Five years later, it's finally happened.

The New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, announced yesterday that his office had filed a lawsuit against Dell Inc. and its Dell Financial Services unit, accusing them of deceptive business practices and of failing to provide adequate customer service. [...] More specifically, he said, Dell failed to provide repair service to customers who bought contracts for onsite and expedited service. In addition, he said, Dell routinely sought to attract customers by promotional offers claiming that the financing was interest-free. Instead, the suit charges, many customers faced interest rates on their purchases that were as high as 29 percent. [full article here]

Oh. My. God. Every day I was there, I pretty much spent eight hours straight (and more) trying to "help" people who had been scammed by their salesperson. They'd essentially been tricked into accepting a contract which they thought gave them 0% APR, but which turned out to be 29% APR. And you know what I could do to help them? NOTHING. Of course, as soon as I would tell someone that I couldn't help them (which was the truth!), they would demand to speak to my manager. Now, since there was nothing our managers could do to help them either, we were required to do everything in our power to convince the customer that they really didn't want to talk to the manager after all. Not surprisingly, I got cussed out several times a day.

Here's hoping Andrew Cuomo kicks Dell's ass!

That fire's still burning towards Lake City!

The fire continued its march south on Thursday, driving through the dry swamp beds and tinderbox scrublands of drought-stricken Columbia and Baker counties. They are two of the state's most rural counties, but the fire remains on a path toward the more populous Lake City. As 700 state and federal firefighters descended on this city of about 11,000 residents two weeks ago, many thought their stay would be quick and easy, mostly mop-up operations to keep the fire from spreading. Now, though, the endgame seems far off, and some officials say the fire could rage for the rest of the month. [full article]

Meanwhile, Gwen's getting ready to go on a month-long vacation to Lake City!

Way to freak out the little ones:

Remember my little-kids class (the one featured in this post)? Well, today they were learning words beginning with the letter A, including angel, apple, ant and alligator. Now, when I'm back in the US, I live pretty damn close to the Okefenokee Swamp, which is home to a rather astonishingly large number of alligators who just love to be photographed. And I love photographing them. This means that when I get to teach classes about alligators, I have awesome props. The kids were utterly thrilled with my plethora of alligator shots, including this one:

Then I busted out my finale:

That's a shot of my brother, with his head in the mouth of a stuffed (dead) alligator. The kids went apeshit. I could tell that they couldn't decide if this was thrilling or terrifying. One girl asked me in grave seriousness: "Teacher brother... angel?"

Meanwhile, when Gwen showed that same photo to her class of the same level, the reaction was to ask if the alligator was computer generated!

Teachers' Day Flower Massacre!

Today was Teachers' Day here in South Korea. I think the day could have been improved substantially had I not had to teach on Teachers' Day, but what can one do? Yesterday one of my students gave me a little basket of red flowers in honor of Teachers' Day (I also received a pot of yellow roses today). As you might expect, Mia immediately attacked the flowers.

Yum!


I moved them to the TV, but they weren't safe there either.


They seem to have made it safely through the day
on my shelf, hiding among the Maneki Nekos.


Who me? I would never eat your flowers!
Wait... is that a rose bush??


Yes, yes it is....

Happy Teachers' Day!

The worst thing I've ever eaten...

...is up for debate.

Do you remember the fantabulous duck boats and pedestrian bridge on the Geumho River? Well, that lovely little area of Daegu was the scene of much tomfoolery, intoxication and the forced consumption of some genuinely nasty shite. Rob and I decided to take one of the duck boats out for a spin, as seriously, how could anyone resist them? The duck boats were quite fun, although as aquatic vehicles go, remarkably inefficient. We were also rammed numerous times by duck-boats manned small children who then asked us repeatedly: How are you? How are you? How are you? Luckily, these things stood up to repeated impacts pretty well. Due to our embarrassingly shoddy Korean language skills, we weren't entirely certain how long we had out on the river in our crazy craft. After about an hour, we spotted the fellow we'd rented the bird from, speeding our way in a motorboat, pointing furiously at the shore. Whoops. At least we made it in under our own power; we saw several people being towed in. Possibly against their will.

Me in duck boat.


Rob in duck boat.










Why peddle?


Mother [duck] Ship!

Remember my camel? Well, we did try to mount it, but unfortunately it was both too tall and too flimsy. Turns out it's made of plastic! I could easily picture death coming in the form of a toppling giant plastic camel. Damn. After discovering that the camel could not be mounted, we decided to head over to the pedestrian bridge. On one end of the bridge are little tables, making a bridge-based bar. We decided to stop in for a beer... and stayed way too long.

The little tables are shaded by umbrellas.
As in the type you carry when it rains.

Bundaegi - silkworm larvae

The old ajumma staffing the restaurant brought us a free dish of bundaegi (silkworm larvae). We debated what we should do with them. I mean, it's rather rude not to eat something that's given to you for free, right? Well... after scrutinizing the bundaegi we decided that we'd just have to be rude. That was until several hours (and beers) later, when the ajumma literally forced one of these nasty little things into each of our mouths. I'm rather amazed that neither of us puked right then and there. Shortly thereafter, this group of drunken businessmen at a nearby table ordered a plate of something that, from a distance, looked yummy - and rather like something that would get the asstastic taste of bundaegi out of my mouth. I asked the ajumma what it was, and was told (in Korean) "pig meat" - well, I like Korean pork, so we decided to order some. Well, what the ajumma had neglected to mention was that by "pig meat" what she meant was "no meat whatsoever, and lots of lukewarm pig fat covered in hot red pepper paste." Foul. (I personally think that the bundaegi tasted worse, although Rob seems to think that the pig fat wins for nastiness.) We decided that we couldn't not eat the pig fat, since we'd ordered it... except that being unable to force ourselves to consume the stuff, we opted for chucking it off the bridge when no one was looking.

After finally leaving the bridge, we decided that we desperately needed palatable food. Unfortunately, the restaurants in the area were a bit pricey, and we were rather low on cash. We ended up splitting one undersized and over-priced portion of galbi (pig meat that is actual MEAT), which came with a dessert potato. Trust me, the real situation made as much sense as that sentence.

After dinner, I stumbled home - planning to fall promptly into bed - only to discover that Mr. Yu (my landlord) was having a small party on his front lawn. Somehow I got suckered into drinking rice wine with Mr. Yu and his middle aged Korean dude buddies. They also managed to convince me to eat something involving squid tentacles and something else that, best I could tell, was squid jerky. I met the dude who lives in the apartment next door to me, who wanted to know what it was inside my apartment that made the "Yeeow!" noise. (Hmmmm.... seems Mia's been making a racket when I'm not at home!) I also had a weird conversation with one of the fellows, who wanted to know why American women are always pretty before marriage, but then as soon as they get married, they get fat. Sigh. That was around the point when I took myself off to bed.

More on South GA / North FL Fires

Smoke Closes Roads, Hampers Firefighters (Possibly the only time ever that Lake City has been featured on NPR)

Fire Closes Highways in Georgia, Florida

Evacuees Deal With Smoke, Stress as Fire Near Lake City Grows

Wildfire Smoke Closes Interstates in Florida

Rest of Florida Smolders Too

State of Emergency in Columbia County

As I mentioned in this post, I grew up in Florida. I lived for the first 18 years of my life ten miles south of Lake City in Columbia County, and it wasn't until 2003 that I left the LC for good. Nonetheless, I still have friends in Columbia County. I just checked my friend Stephanie's blog to discover that she's been asked to evacuate as a result of the fires. Then I checked the news... Things are scary down there right now.

Fire Causes State of Emergency in Columbia County: Columbia County was under a state of emergency late Friday after a massive fire prompted officials to notify about 500 families to evacuate their homes.Thousands of children were sent home from school early, and state troopers kept close tabs on area roads as visibility fell to a quarter mile Friday.

Crews Attack Massive Fire from Air, Ground: Calling the blaze moving through Baker and Columbia counties the largest and most dangerous fire in the state, firefighters said Friday they have managed to protect homes from a fire that advanced nine to 10 miles in 24 hours.
Driven by winds, fire sparked by lightning in the Okefenokee Swamp on Sunday has spread out of Ware County, Ga., through Baker County to threaten homes on the outskirts of Lake City. It has burned 180,000 acres in three or four days.

Lake City Brush Fire Named One of the Biggest: One of the biggest brush fires is near the Georgia border in Lake City, where people have been evacuated from their homes. On all of the roads, smoke is making visibility difficult for driving. Over Thursday night, nearly 600 homes were evacuated in Columbia County.

179,000 Acre Fire Threatens 1-10 and Homes Near Lake City: Firefighters said today that a wildfire that has raced through the Okefenokee Swamp in southeast Georgia and into northern Florida has charred at least 179,000 acres -- or 281 square miles -- since a lightning strike ignited it a week ago.The fire, which started last Saturday in the middle of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, took just six days to grow larger than a wildfire that has burned 116,000 acres ofGeorgia forest and swampland over more than three weeks.The fast-growing fire more than doubled in size, from 88,250 acres Thursday as wind from the northeast fanned it across dry swamp grasses.Its movement slowed today, but firefighters expect the blaze to keep growing.Schools closed early in Columbia County Friday as the fire that started in Georgia crossed the Florida border.About 570 homes in northern Columbia County were evacuated overnight. Heavy smoke blanketed the area and visibility along Interstate 10 was down to about a quarter of a mile.The leading edge of the fire is four miles east of US 441 and seven miles north of Interstate 10.

Calm Winds Aid Firefighters: Wildfires scorched the wooded northern area of Columbia County Thursday at an alarming rate, but began to slow Friday as calm winds assisted firefighters in their task of slowing down one of the most dangerous fires in the county's history.The blaze remained in the Deep Creek area Friday night, located approximately two miles east of U.S. 441 and six miles north of Interstate 10.With wildfires having burned more than 82,588 acres in Columbia and Baker counties by late Friday, the Columbia County Board of County Commissioners and Lake City City Council both declared a state of emergency for the area. The city also declared a water shortage because of the firefighting emergencies.

Evacuees Reluctantly Retreat to Shelters: People took shelter at Winfield Community Center as wildfires raged in northern Columbia County beginning at about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday. By 8:30 a.m., Friday, about 30 people had evacuated to the temporary Red Cross shelter, volunteer Sylvia DeLoach said.

Nothing like news linking two of my favorite countries.

Sigh.

A 20-year-old Kazakhstan native turned himself over to police Friday, ending a three-hour standoff and safely releasing a man he had been holding at the Russian Embassy in Costa Rica, authorities said. Roman Bogdanyants covered his face as he was escorted by police from the building, followed by a Russian man that police spokesman Francisco Ruiz identified as a former hostage. Officials originally reported an armed man had seized eight hostages, quickly releasing five. But Russian Ambassador Valery Nikolayenko told Channel 7 Telenoticias in a phone interview during the standoff that he and three other officials had remained in the building to help negotiate a peaceful end to the situation. Immigration spokeswoman Heidi Bonilla told The Associated Press that Bogdanyants arrived in Costa Rica in 2005. Police earlier had described him as an Uzbek. A family friend, Artur Mitiniani, told Channel 7 that the family had lost $54,000 because of problems with a Russian citizen whom Bogdanyants met at the embassy. [from here]

Fire in GA/FL

Well, the Georgia wildfire has shifted enough that at this point in time it is no longer a direct threat to Waycross. However, the fire spread to the Okefenokee Swamp, made its way southward, and hopped the St. Mary's River into Florida. Additionally, there are apparently hundreds of fires currently burning throughout the state of Florida. Now, I am currently a resident of Georgia, but I grew up in Florida, and many of my friends still live there. Below are some images taken by friends in Lake City, FL.

Taken at 3:45pm, Thursday, May 10 by Stephanie Tyson
(Yes, that photo was taken in the middle of the afternoon)


Photo by Caitlin St. John - flakes of ash on her dad's truck

The Broken Doll is Sad

Turns out Youngmee won't be able to come to Korea after all :-(

Random Festivals Downtown

This afternoon I met up with my friend and former coworker Donna who's in town for a while. We planned to spend the afternoon walking around downtown, window shopping and hunting down a place to dine on some tasty Korean foods. In addition to a yummy stop at a Korean barbecue buffet, and the accidental purchase of a ridiculous lime green konglish t-shirt, we discovered that there were apparently TWO festivals going on in the pedestrian areas of downtown Daegu. One, in the main shopping drag featured free samples of soju and rice wine, in addition to free samples of various make-up products and face-painting for kids. I sampled the free booze and passed on the make-up.

Free booze in the main downtown pedestrian drag.

We wandered down to the Gukchaebosang Park (or in English, the National Debt Repayment Movement Park) took some photos.

Approaching Gukchaebosang Park

Gukchaebosang Park Bell Pavilion


Gukchaebosang Park Bell Pavilion

We then made our way to the Herbal Medicine Market, where the Yangnyeongsi Herb Medicine Festival was underway, celebrating the 350 year anniversiary of the market. Herb gardens had been literally transplanted into the middle of the street, and they were hopping with rabbits! There were booths of people displaying various traditional herbal medicines and medical procedures and such... and more free samples. I was coaxed into drinking some very strange herbal tea, as all the ajushis and ajummas cheered and clapped. Absurdity!

Traditional herbal medicine demonstration


Donna in front of one of the temporary herb gardens


Rabbit in the herb garden!


They weren't penned in; I can't imagine why they didn't escape!


This was the fellow who insisted I drink the strange herbal tea,
and who led the clapping while I drank.


Me, at the gate to the Herbal Medicine Market