A Winey Weekend

       As much as I adore everything Korea, it's also good to take a time-out every so often (but not TOO often) and indulge in some other well-known flavors that has penetrated my heart oh so often back in the Western world. COEX Intercontinental in Seoul did the trick! You walk into a shnazzy hotel with enormous purple lounge couches greeting you, and right there smack dab in the middle is your all-you-can-drink wine with tons of appetizers. For a measly 30,000 won, might I add! 
         Taking out a good three hours on a Saturday night to indulge in some sipping on fancy bubbly and some nibbling on delicacy cheese, as you allow the flavors to saturate your taste buds with...Okay, okay, FINE! So I didn't nibble and I didn't sip. Rather, I slammed and I devoured as much as I could, like Kirby in battle mode. But those savory flavors hadn't touched my palate in over seven months, so I allowed my reactions to do as they pleased...and, oh did they! I woke up the next morning with an ungodly headache and a lactose swelled belly. But it was worth those three hours of dressing up fancy shmancy, clinking wine glasses and champaign flutes with great friends, giggling a bubbly giggle, acting ritzy glitzy and artsy fartsy while taking a look at the hotel's sculptures and paintings, and listening to a woman sing beautifully in a melancholy melody at a black grand piano.
     Yes, it was worth every ache and pain in the morning. And after those three classy hours, it all ends. Finishes. No more! The wine stops flowing, the appetizers are carried back to the kitchen, the piano ceases tuning those black and white keys, and the pianist singer seems to vanish as well. Like Cinderella, we were back to reality. Well, kind of. More like a state of fattened inebriation, that is. And if Cinderella turned into that after the clock struck, then she wouldn't have much to cry about, now would she!

Kimchiless in Korea

Korea without cabbage for kimchi is like Mexico without corn for tortillas. Or Texas without cows for beef. Or Japan without seaweed for sushi. Or England without milk for tea. Or Italy without tomatoes for pasta sauce. Or...well, you get the point. During the peak months of cabbage growing and buying and kimchi making, South Korea endured a shock when their staple side dish was not on the table. Long background story short, the crazy fall weather left cabbage crops to die, which caused the price of cabbage to soar to an an insane high, which caused a nationwide kimchi crisis.

This left a dent in my daily kimchi diet. I am only here for a year, and a month-long intake of every kimchi variety except cabbage deducted 31 plus days of my yearlong kimchi experience...and, well, needless to say I was saddened. Gutted. 

But just as everything reaches a low, it also picks back up again. Last week, I smashed my face against the window as my bus drove past the Uijeongbu downtown market. My jaw dropped open, I drooled for a good hard moment, my heart beat faster....there, outside the market, was a heaping mountain of CABBAGE! That sour and salty and spicy fermented baechu vegetable soaked up in red pepper and garlic, that crunches in your mouth and leaves your tongue satisfied. Oh, that first piece you settle on your palate provides a simply perfect moment of Korean pleasure. Addiction is the only word that comes to mind when I think of kimchi...And looking at these potentially delicious kimchi cabbages stacked so high and so wide, I knew that I'd be having me some kimchi rather soon. 

Kimchi crisis, what?!

Single vs. Double

Imagine ordering a single cheeseburger and getting exactly what you asked for. Then you order a double cheeseburger and expect two patties, two layers of cheese, and maybe some ketchup squeezed in the middle. Still, it's a cheeseburger. That, though, is not always true when it comes to singles and doubles here in Korea. Going to a single pole barber shop is one thing, but don't expect a doubly divine haircut when entering a double barber pole shop. The only double you endure is the price range. These double barber pole shops are not easy to enter. They make it quite the mission if you want service from them!
A friend and I went on an hour long search around my city to find out if the rumours of double poles are, in fact, true. And, oh boy, let me tell you! Most of these shops included this enticing experience...
Walk down a flight or two of concrete stairs that smell of urine and stale cigarette smoke. Pass an old, withered fake flower bouquet covered in cobwebs. Crouch down a bit at the foot of the steps as to not smash your dome on a low concrete ceiling. Knock on the yellowing door. And wait for a reply. This barber shop has no traces of recent haircuts, and they might not even own a pair of scissors. This barber shop is dark with a small glow of pink or purple florescent lights. A woman or old man looks us up and down with widening, curious eyes. We say "woops", bow, and turn around. Our work there was done. Our conclusion of double barber pole shops: They are indeed NOT barber shops. I will leave the rest up to your imaginations. But here's a clue: Don't expect a double cheeseburger.  ;)

Fall of Uijeongbu

Back in Texas, leaves either grow with a single solid hue or shrivel up and die. Not so much here in South Korea. I can now place a thorough mental description to the meaning of the word autumn. 

I was told that Korea is all about extremities. Cleanliness, drunkenness, fashion, hobby attire, and even the weather joined in on the extreme action. Fall cooled the country off and magically sprinkled a fresh breeze and new colors into the air. Everything morphed. The leaves took on every possible shade of brown, the evening sky was golden, the sun sunk fat in the sky with a rosy face. Even the autumn air smelled different. Fresh and full. Fall's presence left no evidence of Summer's visit.

But as lovely as fall was, it was only a temporary stay. It came as quickly as it went. Late in November, I was walking home from school. The wind suddenly picked up, the temperature dropped, and a small cloud perked its head from the sky. Then a very strange thing happened that made me realize that fall was soon to vanish from me. The walking signal at an intersection turned red, and suddenly the air filled with snow. Children began hopping, dancing, twirling around, couples drew themselves closer to each other, people all around stopped to smile. It was a two minute moment of magical bliss with white flakes whizzing all about me. Then the light turned green and everything STOPPED. As if it never occurred. Everybody went back to their normal pace in life, the snow vanished from the sky, and the cloud disappeared. I walked across the street, looked back to find tiny puddles from where the snow had fallen. I think it may have been just a daydream. Fall kept on falling without a hint of snow for another couple of weeks.   

Seoul Lantern Festival

I took advantage of the opening night (November 5) of the ten day Seoul Lantern Festival that went on along the Cheonggyecheon stream. By night, the stream was lit up with huge intricate lanterns that represented countries from across the globe. These beautiful paper lanterns glowed in multiple colors and shapes. It was like going down Christmas trails, but without the Christmas theme. As soon as the lights were on, the entrances to the stream below were opened, and was instantly compacted with people. I stayed on street level looking down at the beauty, all whilst drinking a bottle of makgeolli. Of course ^^

Happy Pepero (빼빼로) Day

Pepero Day is like Valentines Day. But instead of giving out chocolate hearts for the ones you love, you give Peperos! And so, what the hell are Peperos? Just some biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate or yogurt. And they are YUM (especially the ones with the almond pieces sprinkled on the chocolate ^^). And the reason it's held on November 11th is genius. 11/11 looks like a bunch of Pepero sticks, right? Ah-ha! It could very well be on January 11th, but four Peperos are better than three!
So rather than celebrating Valentines Day in February, I celebrated Pepero day. When in South Korea, right?

I ♥ Vegemil ( 베지밀 )

THE best soy milk I've ever had. It's addicting. Even if you're not a fan of soy milk, just try this. Seriously. WOW. 

6 Months Deep in Teaching

 
The very first day I landed in South Korea, I was brought to my new life. Oh, and what a new life that was! My very first stop was Chunbo Middle School, my school. That day, as I stood in the hallways talking to my new co-teachers, students from every corner stopped...and stared...and gasped. I had just stepped off a massive flight from Texas, so I thought my jet-lagged look traumatized them.

The next day I walked into my first classroom. It being my first true teaching job, my biggest fear over the prior months was, what if I fail as a teacher? THEN what?! So I stood there with my first lesson, in my first class, in front of 40 kids looking wide-eyed at me...and then everything inside me stopped. All those nervous, sleepless nights and what-ifs and I-can'ts instantly VANISHED the second I said hello. Never in my life have I left work thinking, THIS. THIS is what I want to do with my life. Until that first afternoon.

Six months in and I have become deeply in love with my students. Leaving them in April will be equivalent to 840 heartbreaks in one hit to my gut. It will shatter after leaving Chunbo behind. I can give a million reasons, but one example is, in America, I won't have students running up to me screaming, "Teacher! I LOVE you!" or "Teacher! So pretty! Like flower!" or forming their arms into enormous heart shapes while yelling they love me. This, of course, being a random outburst in the middle of a lecture. No, that won't happen anywhere else but here in Korea.

Aside from my students bursting with love, they also set their minds on creativity, even with the teeny amount of time they have away from their studies. And although MANY of them talk and sleep and pay no attention to my lecture unless I'm dancing and singing and throwing K-Pop stars and games into the lecture, they still have a great amount of creativity and will to learn. Sure they might make paper airplanes out of those worksheets, but those are some damn good airplanes they make! Therefore, I make sure to leave much room for them to create as they wish.

And aside from my students, I nearly run as fast as my students to the cafeteria for some delicious school lunch. I've always been a fan of school lunch food...yes, I am an odd one! But Korean style school lunch food  is QUITE different. Each item goes in a specific section on the I-feel-like-I'm-in-prison metal trays. The soup goes on the right side while the sticky white rice goes on the left. And if you mess that up, be prepared to get some confused looks. Because while both sides are equal in the amount of food they can hold, the soup DOES NOT belong on the left side of the tray! It becomes clear when serving the soup with a huge ladle onto your tray. Why would you drag the ladle across the tray to your left, spilling soup juice all over your rice?! Besides the tray specifics, which took me a good two months to finally get down correctly, the food itself is amazing. AMAZING. Some days I have no clue what I'm eating, but I'd rather not know.

As far as foods go, I will write more about this in a blog alllll about food! For now, I will end this with an I <3 Chunbo.

<3 ReneeInSK