The Adorable and Super Incredible

Meet Danny. This super talented little guy was one of Rebecca's students at Miss Stephanie's Montessori School in Pohang. As part of their graduation ceremony, the kids had to perform a monologue. This video was taken by Anna G. and I had to share it. Oh and I forgot to mention his father is a "successful sexual businessman".


It's me, Danny!

AND the super incredible Mr. Frank Lee! If he doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what will!


Mr. Frank

And so concludes ...

We got back from the DMZ feeling pretty exhausted. The DMZ was not the dismal affair I thought it would be, but I was still tuckered out. However, I quickly mustered up some energy for an abbreviated run on the treadmill in the hotel gym. I have a strange penchant for hotel gyms. In fact, I love them.  I detest gyms in general but hotel gyms are different; they’re just better. I’ll leave it at that. We only had a short while to collect ourselves because one of my  good chingus from back home (also teaching in Korea) was making a special trip up to Seoul to see mom during her visit. The thing you must know about Hai … is that her love of food and appetite for eating is larger-than-life. A thing that I have learnt from our relationship is that often times we (people) deprive ourselves of the things we relish.  When you have a friend like Hai, the word deprivation suddenly has no meaning. I have found that indulgence (in the aftermath) is way less painful with a mate. At any rate, my inner fat person was giddy with excitement even before seeing Hai in the lobby of the hotel.  Hai had picked up some warm walnut bread (little nuggets of warm dough with custard and walnuts inside) and sticky buns for Mom and Janis. If I remember correctly, the sticky buns were already half eaten and I think Hai and I managed to polish off the walnut bread.

For the sake of our travelers, we decided to take mom and Janis to a less risky dining place – Korean rice porridge. Rice porridge has been the closest thing to comfort food for me here. I’m quite fond of it. Mom and Janis had chicken sans noodle soup-ish porridge with a large ginseng root for a garnish and Hai and I shared a pumpkin porridge. It was blistering hot (shocker) but very yummy. After supper, mom and Janis decided to take the rest of the night to journal and take a rest (as Koreans would say). Hai and I wandered the underground subway and eventually made our way to the train station looking for dessert. It went something like this – 2 scoops of gelato (mediocre), McDonalds french fries (not exactly dessert but quelled our salt craving…and in Korea you can’t get salty without a little sweet), some kind of giant caramel nut pastry thingy. Yum! After eating like Lords, we managed to roll ourselves back to the hotel and called it a night.

The next day Mom and Janis packed up their stuff and had to say goodbye to queen-sized beds with actual linens and soft plush pillows and proper showers because we were going to Chungju after spending the day at the Korean Folk Village.  We headed towards Seoul station, luggage and all, to jump on the Mugunghwa train to Suwon. We arrived in Suwon and left our luggage in lockers and took a taxi to the Korean Folk Village. The village is like a huge outdoor museum, reenacting  Korean traditional life and culture. We had Prairie Days in 3^rd grade. My entire 3^rd grade class loaded onto buses and drove across the highway to a nearby field (the prairie) and the whole day was dedicated to showing us what real life on the prairie was like (including beef jerky and Indians and teepees, for accuracy sake of course).  The Korean Folk Village puts Prairie Days to shame.

The Folk Village is a neat little time machine that gives you a glimpse of traditional life in a Korean village.  We spent the day meandering our way through it, viewing restored houses of commoners, farmers and noblemen and seeing various folk performances, including a tight rope walker who had to be pushing 60 if not 70, keeping his balance with a single fan in his hand. Apparently acrobatics on a tight rope dates back to the Three Kingdom Period – entertaining like court jesters .

It was a good day but all good things come to an end and we had to say farewell to Hai. Mom, Janis and I hopped on a bus to good ol’ Chung(not Cheong)ju. After a frustrating bus ride home (I mistakenly purchased the stop-at-every-dinky-farm-town-along-the-way bus ticket), we eventually got home. By this time I was dying of hunger. I took the ladies to Shabu Shabu. Our second meal on mats on the floor. It’s basically a sizzling pot of broth (let’s just call it beef broth). Thin slices of beef are dipped into the broth. Similar to fondue but, different.

The next day we added a member to our travel party. Moo is an excellent guide and it’s not because he can speak Korean, altho it helps. We took the KTX (super high-speed fast train) to Gyeongju. Gyeongju has been one of my favorite places in Korea. The city was the capital during the Silla Dynasty. A colossal number of historical sites and ancient relics are within the confines of this city. Gyeongju cannot be experienced all in one day. These were some of my favorite shots of the day.

Time is such a funny thing. I waited for so long for my momma to get here and then with a snap of a finger it was time to say our goodbyes. It wasn’t fair. It hadn’t been enough. The visit was marvelous and the time we had was so intensely fulfilling but I wanted more. At least our next reunion would be half the time we waited for this one. Thank you momma and Janis for the uncountable memories. It was grand.

To see the trip video go here

Korea's odds and ends

The eccentricity that is Korea needs to be documented (in words – I started a photo documentation on FB of “stuff that happens in Korea” but it needs to be explained in words). Tho too difficult of a task to do in a succinct narrative, this will likely just be a running list of random oddities. This is long overdue and so it goes.

1.       At the grocery store:  the assortment of cheeses can be counted on one hand however there are roughly (I say roughly because there are likely more) 60 different varieties of rice to choose from. Same goes for Ramen.

2.       Drinking piping hot things: Koreans like all things scalding. I will be returning stateside with barely a taste bud to call my own. I partly blame the water coolers which only have 2 options – cold and blistering. Water coolers seem to be a standard “appliance” in every household and likewise, every place of business. So when you’re being served a nice hot bowl of yukgaejang, more than likely the water came from the water “cooler”.

3.       Random English words: Words and phrases translated in English pop up everywhere. Their random placement can be found in shop windows, on signs, t-shirts, etc.  Often times it's a literal translation and the result is a nonsensical hodgepodge of words. For example, a few weeks ago I saw above a coffee shop (Café the Park) these words:  “sometimes…memory origins space…maybe, it’s Park”. Another example, I was helping my South African co-teacher sign-up for a cell phone. The two guys working in the store did not speak English but lucky for us they had an English translation program on the computer. There was one last transaction that needed to be resolved before Steph was to be a proud owner of a Korean cell phone. While one of the guys went to the back room to fetch some cookies (?) the other was typing frantically into the computer. As the guy returned from the back room and handed us a bag of cookies, they motioned for us to look at the message on the computer screen. I can’t remember word-for -word but it went something like this “please take our cookies that give you tax and purchase hand phone if you need to change your bed sheets…”. Um yeah. Who knows what they were trying to communicate to us. Steph and I were killing ourselves laughing on the floor and the two guys were staring at us, dumbfounded at the whole thing.

4.       Men walking together: Men walk together with their arms linked. In public and very often.

5.       Men walking with purses: Men walk with handbags. In public and very often. The handbag belonging to their wife, girlfriend, mother, etc. is carried so effortlessly. Let’s not make any hasty judgments tho. Remember, the likes of Kanye West and Snoop Dog? They were/are no strangers to Louis Vuitton hangbags.

6.       Asians come in all shapes and sizes: I know it comes as a shock but not all Asians look alike. I’ve seen some of the tallest people while being in Korea and some of the shortest. Everyone's facial structure is totally different. It's also not uncommon to see a Korean having an uncanny resemblance of a person I know back home. I now believe everyone has an Asian counterpart.

7.    Drunk people in Korea: like nothing you've ever seen.

8.    Witnessing drivers in Korea: it's like watching your life flash before your eyes on a daily basis. The delivery scooters are the worst traffic offenders. I've never seen a stop sign ever and the red lights are merely suggestions.

9.   Asian (South Korean) work culture: This one is deserving of its own posting. Very very strange.