Christmas With the Keddy's

To the best of my recollection, my Grandfather was born in 1914. Some highlights from the year 1914 include: the first Mother's Day, the first successful blood transfusion, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed and World War I began, Babe Ruth played his first game of professional baseball, stainless steel was invented, and Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) was born.

Yesterday my Grampy (and Grammy) chatted with us over Skype. When we'd hung up, Jason told me he said: "jesus christ, that was some thing going on there with Shawn, amazing"

Pretty cool! Here are some kind of weird pictures from our chat.

I only had to move 15,000 km away to become the center of attention :P

Merry Christmas and Thank You

Love from home is never more welcome than on Christmas day, so thank you one and all for the fun packages that made our morning special!




Rubber chickens, Reeses, pictures, miracle whip, ROOT BEER, magazines, curly hair shampoo... you guys didn't miss a thing !




Lots of Korean couples have matching hats like these and we don't look a bit foolish wearing them, do we?

"mini" Pringles from Emma... odd! The chips are the size of coins and are eaten quite quickly.



Because it's fun to say "FLUMPS"



Big burger from Mel :)


Last but not least, we got enough of our precious Timmies coffee to last until Valentines Day at least- *hint hint*

Well, we're off to dinner at Jo's and then perhaps some festive skating. We hope to be in touch with all of you by phone, skype or email over the holidays.

xoxo

Meloshawn

Staff Christmas Party

The directions were clear. Friday morning Stella wrote the following on the whiteboard in the staff room: "Staff Christmas Party, 6:30pm, the Korean Restaraunt". Ohhhhhhhh, the Korean restaraunt. Obviously. If I look out my bedroom window I can see about 25 Korean restaraunts. Regardless, we were all quite excited about a night out on the company's dollar.

First up was performance and graduation. These were my kids from this week and they did an amazing performance of "Mud Puddle". At graduation we were all rock stars again, signing autographs until the carpel tunnel kicked in. We all went back to our apartments for a quick change and then headed back out to the Korean restaraunt.

This is us on the road, lost, looking for the restaraunt. One of the Korean teachers called "114", (the Korean "411") and got directions for us.

We went to a galbi place, which is Korean BBQ. You can kind of tell from the picture above that the meat is bbq-ed right at your table, and there's a vent that sucks up all the smoke. Usually you flip the meat yourself, but in this case the waiter took pity on us and cooked it for us. It was the most tender beef I have ever, ever eaten. Delicious! Superb! Please note that the table is full of side dishes, which is customary at a any korean restaraunt, and once you've finished a side dish, more is promptly brought out. Please note we are also sitting on the floor. We got a private room, but out in the main area of the restaraunt everone was sitting in chairs...

There is a drinking tradition in Korea which involves one person pouring a shot for another person, and then vice vera... uh, something like that. Anyway, a lot of shots were had, but mostly by the koreans who were pouring them. One of the evenings highlights was definately getting our boss, Stella, to do some shots. The proof is in the video above.

Mel and Cavin. Later in the night Cavin admitted that his hair is "imitation".

Shawn, Bruce and Cavin's glasses

Of course, there was no other way for the evening to end but at a norebang, where Mel promptly found the stash of tambourines. It was a mix of familiar pop songs and obscure Korean music, but everyone was singing and dancing around. Listening to a group of Korean male adults sing "The Greatest Love of All" is priceless. By the end of the night the floor was soaking wet and covered in glass, but Jeannie really wanted to sing "What's Up" with me... and judging by the video it kind of looks like I really wanted to sing "What's Up" with her too...

When we were done at the norebang we headed back to Jo's apartment with a small group. We ordered pig's feet and chatted a little bit before heading to bed. Unfortunately for Jo, her bed was kind of "being used" at the end of the night.

Is this what your staff christmas party was like?

Korean Litter Observed

sys·tol·ic –adj

(of blood pressure) indicating the maximum arterial pressure occurring during contraction of the left ventricle of the heart.

Celebrity Endorsements

What do Kirsten Dunst, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, and Pierce Brosnan have in common? Besides the fact that they're big US movie stars? They hawk clothes in South Korea, of course! And why not- it's an easy way to make a few extra million won. Though they would most likely never appear in an ad campaign for American Eagle or the Gap, these three actors have their faces plastered all over a few stores here as their official spokespeople.

Snaggletooth AKA Kirsten Dunst shills for a store called "Thursday Island", which specializes in 200,000 won hippy sweaters, ponchos, potato sacks, etc. Some of the clothes are ooookay but the prices are scandalous!

Fishsticks AKA Gwyneth Paltrow is the face of "Bean Pole", which is an LL Bean-type of store owned by Samsung. Their clothes are nice and they look well made, but again, I refuse to

pay 175,000 won for a hoodie. Is this post making me sound cheap...?

Forget Cover Girl, it's all about Isa Knox here in Korea, and the lovely Jessica Alba is their spokesperson. I'm not going to pretend to know anything about this company other than saying that Jessica Alba is hot and anything she sells us must be great.

The dashing Pierce Brosnan is the spokesperson for "Galaxy", which is just around the block from our apartment. It's one of those stores at which you know you can't afford to even window shop so I've never gone in the door, but I can tell you that it's a suit shop and all of the employees look like Korean "Bond"s.

When Children Drive You To Drink

We finished our first complete week teaching at Happy Suwon Binglish Village- Woo hoo! Friday was a big day as each teacher was working with a group of kids to put on a play- no easy feat in a second language- and then we had a graduation ceremony for them. This was my group of angels:

They did a really good job with "Mud Puddle", and were rewarded with one Canadian penny each!

After work I went to Bennigan's with Mel, Jo and Sarah. I really only wanted to eat there because it's Butters' favorite restaraunt on South Park. Well, Butters has good taste! There was a kick ass salad bar and free ice cream, so it passed the Shawn test.

Then we went to Beer & Joy, because with beer always comes joy...

We ordered some "bear"...

Which came in a Keg!!! It was 22,000 won for 6 people and I'm pretty sure we got about 20 glasses out of the barrel. Sweet! One of the most charming aspects of Beer & Joy was the table decoram. You know how some restaraunts will use old ads or newspaper articles to decorate? Well, the newspaper used to decorate our table was from the New York Times issue printed on September 11th, 2001! Nice, very uplifting.

Last night we went to Jo's apartment for a festive get-together. It's pretty convenient to go to a party that's just down the hall because you don't have to put your shoes on. Last night we got our first snow of the year (that didn't disolve upon touching the ground), so we went outside and made a snowman. Kudos to Mel for randomly having a carrot!

I think she'd get along well with our maggoty jack-o-latern, don't you?

Modern Technology

We'd gone three months cooking on a hot plate so we decided to treat ourselves to an oven on our last payday. We'd looked around and found one we liked at the Hi-Mart (pronounced Hi-Mart-uh), but for some reason we couldn't just take it home- it had to be delivered. I'd run into this problem before at the Home Plus (pronounced Home Plus-uh) so I think it's a Korea "thing". Well, one of the key aspects of the delivery system is the store's ability to call you before they deliver your item and we didn't have a phone. So we agreed to return to the store 4 days later to pick up the box ourselves. So what did we do all day Saturday? BAKE. Mel made some awesome hashbrowns to go with our breakfast, than I made us BBQ chicken pizzas for supper and then we ruined a batch of cookies. They were more pancake than cookie but I blame the wonky Korean ingredients: such as the brown sugar that was clearly just white granulated sugar colored brown, or the baking soda labeled 'eating soda'. Learning curve: the thermostat was in celcius and that's why the hashbrowns cooked so quickly...

After work on Friday Stella asked us to stick around for a few minutes because she was going to "offer us some cell phone" so we did, as we realized earlier this week having a phone can come in handy sometimes. It took us over 24 hours to figure out how to turn our phone on (Chris showed us- you hold down the red button). I was playing with it at Jo's last night and I was pretty impressed- it's in english, it's small, it has an mp3 player, camera and games... but then our Korean friend Jamie stomped on our dreams and told us it's an "ajumma phone"... which means it's an uncool, old lady phone. She said her Mom has the same phone. Koreans definately have nice cell phones, but ajumma phone or not, at least now I can stare hypnotically into my cell for hours on the subway like the Koreans. When in Rome...

Media Coverage

I mentioned in the last post that there has been some videos and photos of us taken at work this week, but in the last few days this has really been stepped up a notch. Monday was our first day teaching and cameras came into all of the classrooms. It's rather interupting. We each have a homeroom class that we met with Monday morning, and a photographer joined me with my group of kids. My homeroom was in the 'post office' class, but I do not teach post office. Regardless, the photographer got me to hold up some of the classroom materials and pretend to teach my kids about the class. I showed you guys the picture in my last post, and it turns out there was a story in the newspaper about our school the next day and that is the picture they chose to use! I don't usually buy korean-language newspapers but my students told me I was in the Tuesday edition. I wish I'd bought a copy! Who would've thought that my picture would be in a newspaper in Asia? LOL! You can read the article here. (if you can read korean)

At lunch time Mel, Sarah, Aaron and I posed for more pictures with a selected group of photogenic students. The photographers instructions included: look at Aaron, pretend that you are helping this student, everyone look at this one girl, look like you care about this boy, etc...


Tuesday and Wednesday photographers come into our classrooms sporadically but it wasn't as overwhelming as it was on Monday. However, yesterday- Thursday- was the official grand opening. Hundreds of people in suits walked by our classrooms and video cameras were everywhere. We were instructed to keep the children in class at all times and if they asked to use the washroom we had to say no! Melodie had a camera film over a half hour of her 'homestay' class, and in the middle of her 'board game' class she was asked to start teaching 'airplane' to a group of kids that had already had airplane class... so it could be filmed! Poor kids! Poor Mel!

I was teaching science class and we were making soap. Unfortunately, when the soap melts it burns the eyes, it's pretty stinky and the room gets smokey. In hindsight, it's probably not the best activity to use for that class. Just as the classroom got as smokey as it could hundreds of VIPs, including the mayor walked by the class to see all of my students rubbing their eyes and complaining. One student asked if they could get some air and I said no! It's their fault anyway for forgetting their oxygen masks in their lockers.

So this morning when we got to school we watched a video clip of the news story that ran on KBS news last night. If you watch closely you'll see Mel teaching her fake airplane class and me playing "mafia" with my students. Click HERE to see the video.

...and the shit hits the fan

In the last two days we've:

-celebrated three months in Korea... 1/4th of our contract is done!

-taught our first group of students in Suwon

-gotten a package from Megan which included delicious and foreign-to-Korea Big Turks!!! Thanks Meg xoxo


-we got stiffed in our pay! I am supposed to pay 200,000 won a month for three months towards a damage deposit for our apartment. Mel pays nothing as we've agreed to share one apartment, however.... they took 200,000 won from both of our pays!! When we asked about it Stella just told us we'd get it back at the end of the year. We were NOT happy about it. She left the room to ask her boss about it twice as we argued and then told us she'd get back to us. Updates to follow...

-A student told Mel she had a small face

-Mel got an e-mail form Ryan at SEV, who found a letter written to her by a student weeks ago. The student wrote the she had "head like pea and body like chopstick" LOL

-I came into my homeroom class today to find the students gathered around the computer. They'd typed 'Suwon English Village' into "Naver" (the Korean Google) and what came up? A picture of me!! They were telling me about the famous photographer who'd taken the picture... I didn't know my picture was being posted and I felt kind of violated, laughed...



-There's actually been a lot of media visiting the school with all this grand opening hooplah. Mel had a video camera inches away from her face as she taught "airplane" today and her voice got shaky...

-We had lunch with the cast of a Korean historical drama and all the actors were dressed in costume. So basically we were in a cafeteria full of people that looked like this:



-I showed a Korean-language movie to my "Suwon History" class but after five minutes one girl put up her hand: "Shawn-teacher, the movie is in Chinese" ...oops!!!!!

-We ate at a pho (vietnamese noodle) restaraunt and got special treatment from the manager thanks to our whiteness. He offered us drinks and then a basket of egg rolls which I accepted and then noticed tails sticking out the ends of the rolls... shrimp... I told Mel to hide them in her purse to be nice, but she wouldn't.

- Our students this week have excellent English! Better than mine! We have 92 kids from 92 schools. Each student won the chance to be in the first group of kids at the school because of their grades. As a result, all of our lessons are too easy and one kids told me the play they have to put on was childesh.

-We don't have to work on Christmas!!!

-Our bathroom smells intermittantly like garlic and cigarettes, the smells are wafting up from the downstairs neighbors' apartment. Mel wants me to mention that it burns her eyes.

Reading + Food

This was the last weekend before our school opens... three months after arriving in Korea. I still won't believe it until I walk into the building tomorrow and I'm greeted by screaming kids but, yes, word on the street is that we open tomorrow. It's bound to be a long week with many learning curves, but I'm glad to have had the experience at the Seoul English Village... it definately makes me feel more comfortable about the first day. Tomorrow is filled with orientation icebreakers, two computer classes (where I basically let the kids surf the internet for 45 minutes), a theatre class and a homeroom class (where I will be showing them cat pictures and playing Heads Up-Seven Up, my personal favorite game from elementary school).

Our weekend started out strong with another street find, a Last Supper supper tray! Now of course we have absolutely no use (or room) for a Last Supper supper tray but we found it ironic and figured it would be a good addition to our rooftop lounge, "the rusty nail", where all furniture, tables, etc have to be found on the side of the road.

(I forgot to mention that our Saturday morning started out with a loud knock at the door from a mailman. Who delivers mail on Saturday? It was a package from MY family addressed to Mel! Thanks Mom, though she assurses me I have been sent a package as well...)

We went to Gwanghwamun in the afternoon to visit a big ass english book store. By big ass I mean 1/6 the size of the Chapters in Fredericton, but in a country that doesn't speak english it's pretty cool. I picked up The Twits (whch took an hour to read), a sociology book, and two Get Fuzzy comic books. I tried to balance out the comics and kids' book with the sociology book but we all know how the scales are weighted.

There was a Christmas tree at the bookstore. There are a lot of Christmas decorations up around here but it's not nearly as overwhelming as it is at home so you actually take the time to appreciate the deco you do see. Also, by the way, the shopping areas were so busy this weekend! Much busier than any December 24th at home. It was like a mosh pit in the notebook section of the bookstore. Who needs that many notebooks?

After the bookstore we went to Pizza Hut, even though we had previously agreed to never go to Pizza Hut ever again because it was so expensive. My FAVORITE new thing in Korea is garlic dipping sauce. I love it. Most pizza places will give you some with your order and I generally spackel it on my slice with a knife. It's kind of like a garlic flavoured donair sauce, if that description helps you imagine it's goodness. The above picture is me being restrained and dipping (not spackeling) my pizza on Saturday. Funny story: Mel took a video of me eating my pizza and then we watched it back on the camera. All of a sudden we look up and our waitress is at the table to clear our plates and we're sitting there watching a video of ourselves eating her pizza, the video pointing right at her, she probably watched it too. I don't even remember the rest of the meal as it mostly consisted of the two of us with our heads on the table, laughing, embarrassed...

Lastly, we travelled to Hangangjin for some import food! Yeah! I bought three big bags of Reeses', two packages of Eggos and some Ruffles. After that we travelled home, read and ate North American food like pigs. Tonight I've managed to talk Mel into going to see Saw III, a movie I still can't believe I want to see. Wish us luck tomorrow!

UPDATE: That is not me dipping my pizza into garlic sauce, it is Mel, as I do not wear blue nail polish nor do I eat green things on my pizza...

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time, Melodie and I decided to take the subway out of town for a day trip. While waiting for the train to arrive, we purchased some chicken on a stick from the Storyway convenience store.

We went shopping and bought some bath salts and soap at the market. Luckily, the soaps were on sale because of the "Winter Story" promotion.

We felt hungry after our day of shopping, so we ventured to the "Lovestory in Cafe", because a cafe is naturally where you would go to eat some steak.

What a "happy story" of shopping and eating. Of course, we went on to live happily ever after...

Dance Your Cares Away

My mom sent me this link to "Elf Yourself"... visit, upload your photo and watch yourself prance like you never knew you could prance!

If you'd like to come rob us, then here's where we live:

I thought some of you might like to see our 'hood on Google Earth. Click on this link and then choose "view in google earth". We're about 12,000 km to yer left.

Latitude: 37°15'34.84"N
Longitude: 127° 2'2.32"E

UPDATE: I fixed the link. Sorry!

Seoul Tower

Because she didn't want to pay us overtime for our previous months' 12.5 hours of working hours over and above our contracted agreement, our boss gave us the day off. It was tempting to spend the day watching korean infomercials in bed, but we decided to actually "do" something today. It's been cold and we've been working more so we've been kind of lazy in our free time lately. We decided to visit Seoul tower, which is kind of like the CN Tower only about half as tall.



In order to get to the tower we took a quick cable car ride. It was kind of scary.

View from the top!

Our favorite shopping area, Myongdong, from 777ft up.

Proof that Mel and I were there.

Seoul Tower was a lot like the 63 building, which we visited a few months ago. However, the 63 building had a bar on the observation level, a glass floor and costumed characters that followed us around. So of the two landmarks, I'd definately check out the one with constumed characters for a good view. Seoul Tower is positioned on a mountain so you can always see it in the skyline no matter where you are in the city. It was always there, off in the distance reminding us to check it out.

Afterwards we went to Myeongdong for a little bit of window shopping. The were a lot of police dressed in riot gear around, and earlier in the day we'd seen a street full of police buses. When we got to the shopping area there were a large parade of protesters with flags marching throughout the shopping area, and there were a lot of police standing by to make sure everything was peaceful. This was the experience in 2 parts:

I have no idea what they were protesting but it must have been something pretty worthwhile because there were hundreds and hundreds of protesters. It was kind of a crazy scene but we'll never know what it was all about. That's the thing when you don't speak the language... you're kind of out of the loop...



Well, we're back home now and as a public service gesture I'd like to warn everyone out tere to never EVER buy a Braun Italy B126 Hot Water Heater! When we moved in here we were alarmed to discover that our hot water only lasted long enough for a 5 minute shower! The tank also made constant high pitched noises... sort of like the squeek of car brakes. Well, the other day I found the temperature guage so the shower started running about 15 minutes or so, which was awesome and kind of life altering! However this morning we woke to discover that our hot water heater isn't working at all anymore so we now have 0 minute showers :( Unable to phone our landlord we had to email our boss and ask her to do so. It's 10pm, we're dirty and haven't heard back yet....