Pictures Galore!

I don't know why, but I went nuts taking pictures on Tuesday...  Enjoy!

First, I took some pictures around town on my way to E-Mart to catch the bus to Seoul.

Some by my school... I had to run an errand there real quick before I left for the day.  I ran into Mr. Shin (my head teacher) on my way down the hill and had a nice chat with him.  He told me that that afternoon all of the woman teachers (his words, not mine!) would go home half way through the day while all of man teachers (again...his words) would climb the mountain behind our school.  Nice!  He also told me I had several pieces of mail on my desk since I hadn't been there for almost a week.  (Thanks again to all the senders!)  I walked into the office and one of the older male teachers looked up and said, "Oh!  Long time, no see!"  Nice English, sir!

Jesus.  Outside the auditorium

The view from the top of the steps to the Academic High School

This picture was taken facing my neighborhood, but the view is obstructed by the trees that line the road to and from the school.  Hopefully you can get a sense of how high up the hill I walk each day!

I took a couple of photos of my neighborhood, but they turned out to be pretty lame, so I'll take some better ones when the students are out and about so you can what a normal day looks like....

Here are photos closer to downtown and E-Mart.

A mass exodus of students to catch a bus home

The river that sort of divides the town...

An example of wonky parking.  This is a sidewalk.

Gwangju.  Taken from the same spot as the river, but opposite direction

So, my plan for Tuesday was to eat lunch at E-Mart before heading to Seoul to meet Diane and Qiaoqiao (a Chinese foreign teacher at Diane's school) at N Seoul Tower which is on Namsan Mountain in Seoul.  The building that houses E-Mart has a bus depot and a sizable food court with E-Mart downstairs and two floors of pseudo department store shopping above.  I've only eaten at one of the food vendors in the food court and gotten coffee at a couple of the shops.  I played it safe and ate at the vendor that sells duk boki (if you'll think back to my first experience eating out with Emily, this is what we ate).  I've only eaten at this place three times now, but they remember me every time!  The man even said hi and started to dish up the duk buki (even though they sell other items) before I uttered a word!  Last time, I ordered wrong and didn't receive any of the fried food that gets dipped into the duk buki, which is the best part in my opinion.  This time, I remembered to point to the correct sign and ended up with two pieces of squid, one piece of sweet potato and a common street food concoction of glass noodles (clear thin spaghetti) wrapped in seaweed and fried.  The woman who gathered my fried food was a pal and cut everything into bite sized (chop-stick friendly!) pieces for me.  As I was getting ready to carry my food to a table, I heard someone call my name.  I turned around and there was my neighbor Toni who teaches at the academic high school.  She brought her Popeye's chicken over to where I was sitting and we had a lovely chat.  She invited me to go shopping with her husband and her once a month on the Friday after payday.  They have a car because her husband Steven works for an imports company here and drives to work so they take their car to E-Mart once a month to buy the big items that are cumbersome to carry home.  I'm grateful for the offer because when I bought water last week, I had a heck of a time carrying everything home!  Anyway, here's my duk buki!

Yum!

So, in the background is the fried food that you dip into the plate in the foreground.  The red biz in the foreground is comprised of fish cake (the square bits in the middle that look like meat but are basically seasoned fish spam which tastes much better than I just made it sound), rice cake, which is the other chunks you see and a sauce made from pepper paste and water.  This is really spicy, but the fried food that gets dipped into the duk buki seems to cut the spice a little.  The water cup at the top of the picture is the typical beverage serving size at restaurants.  They aren't big on drinking with their meals here unless it's soju or beer.  During lunch at school, I don't drink anything, which is odd because if you've even dined with me in America, you know I drink truckloads of water (preferably with lime!) at most every meal.  It's taken some getting used to, but now I don't feel like I need to drink nearly as much water with every meal.  It's honestly more of a hassle to drink beverages during meals because of the customs that go with pouring and consuming beverages with meals (i.e. you NEVER pour your own drink and always fill everyone's cups before yours so there is often no more water left by the time you make it to your own cup, etc.).

After my impromptu lunch with Toni, I boarded the bus to Seoul.  I had to get off at a different stop than usual to get on a different line on the subway, so I was a little unclear on where to get off the bus.  I got off the bus at what I thought was Gangdong station, and walked around a little to try to find the train.  There was no train in sight.  I asked a woman and she told me to turn left and walk for a long time.  Knowing I was in the wrong place, I decided just to get back on the bus and go to my usual bus stop and make the extra transfers on the train.  This also proved to be a problem because my bus only stops at this place if someone on the bus needs to get off there.  Three buses whizzed by without stopping.  I was getting frustrated because I was going to be really late to meet Diane and Qiaoqiao.  Just as I was about to investigate a different bus line, a 1113 bus pulled right up to where I was standing and a woman got off.  I went over and knocked on the door, which the driver opened with a confused look on his face and I was finally able, after a good 20 minutes of being stranded, to board the bus.  Not ten minutes later, the bus stopped at my originally planned destination and I got off and had a quite pleasant half hour train ride to meet Diane and Qiaoqiao.

Once I finally arrived, ee ventured through some random allies and streets (as per our internet directions!) to purchase a ride to N Seoul Tower via cable car.  The cable car ride was super sweet: smooth and quick!  From the cable car, it was a pretty steep hike up to the tower sight.  Here's a picture I took on the way:

Seoul!

At the tower, there are several restaurants, an observatory to take in several views of Seoul, an outdoor platform which will be explained shortly, and a Teddy Bear Museum that shows Seoul's history with Teddy Bears...  that move.  The tower also boasts the bathroom with the best view of Seoul.  There are floor to ceiling windows! 

Here's a kind of lame video of the Teddy Bear Museum.  It gives you an idea of the intensity of these bears:

Picture time...

As much of the tower as my camera could capture

Seoul...

The bathroom!

More Seoul...

And...some more.

In the tower, there are two Twosome Place cafes (the place that didn't have sandwiches despite their vigorous mention of said sandwiches).  Guess what?  We found their sandwiches.  LAME.  They also serve a delightful white chocolate mocha using the same Ghirardelli chocolate that we used at the Business Cafe, in case you were wondering. 

The aforementioned outdoor platform was quite interesting.  For some reason, this tower is geared toward couples.  There are walls covered (almost floor to ceiling) with magnets made by couples to document the love they have for each other (barf.).  Here's an example with a cute kid that I found more fun to look at them those cutesy couples.

that's a lot of love.

So, outside on the platform, the love theme continues.  Diane told me that couples come to the tower, bring or buy a lock, sign the lock with whatever cheesy junk they want, attach the locks to the fence, lock them and throw the key over the edge to signify their never ending love / bond.  Some people take this pretty seriously...

walls, upon walls of locks

a cutting board attached to a lock.  What the H.

Group love on the bike lock.

Loner love.

As I was taking pictures of the locks, I noticed a couple struggling with a self portrait.  I offered to take their picture for them.  Their standard point and shoot camera had a mind of its own and kept taking pictures when I wasn't meaning to.  I would like to apologize to you for the image I may have conveyed to this couple about Americans.  He was real nice, though, and offered to take our picture.  He even took artsy angles.  He didn't mess around.

In Asia, do as the Asians do.  Throwin' the peace signs.

After the tower, we ventured to a shopping district near the tower for dinner and, of course, some shopping.  EXCITEMENT:  I found TWO pairs of pants that fit me.  They were real cheap too.  Thank you Forever 21 (a tried and true American brand that is everywhere).  Now I had cords to wear to school in the winter, and a little classier winter coat (camel with black toggles!) than my fleece and down vest ensemble.  Delightful.  We also happened upon a seemingly random K-Pop (Korean pop music) dance contest near the train station.  The kids had moves.  That's all I have to say about that.

Today I made an appearance at school.  Since the girls are still taking midterms, I sat at my desk and cultivated ideas for next week's lesson plans.  I also found out that I am teaching on Friday.  News to me.  It's a good thing I have some fresh ideas from my teacher's training for some games.  I don't want to get in the routine of starting new lessons on Fridays because that seems awkward to me, so Friday's classes will be geared toward a good time.  Plus, the girls have been taking exams ALL week, so I don't want to overwhelm them.  I also met the new foreign teacher at the EB high school!  Her name is Dionne.  She's also new to teaching ESL although she and her husband have been in Korea for the last five years teaching at a private institute that is run as an American school.  She's really nice and has lots of teaching experience, though none in ESL or high school, so we'll learn together!