Sobey's Star of Christmas

When I was younger, you knew it was almost Christmas in Atlantic Canada when the local TV stations started running the Sobey's "Star of Christmas" commercial. Sobey's is an east-coast chain of grocery stores. I had my first real job working there during university, and Sobey's was also where Mel and I first met.

So, when it came time to teach my students a few Christmas songs for our Christmas concert, what other song could I choose? It was hard for them at first because it was an unfamiliar song, but before long I was catching them singing it while they worked and even my co-teacher complained that my beautiful grocery store commercial song was getting stuck in her head at home.

After the performance I replayed this video for the kids so they could see what a good job they did. We had a few minutes left over in the class so I brought up the Sobey's website and read them the new sales flyer. I think in the new year I'll plan a Bargain Harley's-related lesson as well.

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdW8peytzik

and the original, if you're unfamiliar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRckzCCEBdQ

Clash of the Carols: Who Sang It Better?

Around a month ago my 7-year-old class started preparing for our school Christmas concert. They're learning three songs and one of them, chosen by my co-teacher, is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

Around the same time, in my Korean class, our teacher told us that we would be having a Christmas concert of our own at the community center where we take our lessons. Guess what song she chose for us? Five points if you guessed "울면 안돼" AKA "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

So, in an act that proves that karma certainly does exist, my students and I studied our lyrics and dances over the same month-long period. They learned in English and I learned in Korean. My performance was tonight, and my teacher was nice enough to take a video for me. So here you go... who sang it better?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwmX-xf7hCg&feature=player_embedded

7-year old Panda Class or...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQK5dCSAho&feature=player_embedded
The Waygookins in 1B?

Either way, we've all come a long way in the past 9 months, when all persons present in both videos were illiterate in the opposing languages. I think we all did a good job and deserve a sticker prize. How about you?

Assignment: Draw Mother Teresa

You should have seen the fighter jets they drew Amelia Earhart flying in.

Ostrich Rides

I may as well quit trying, because I'm not sure what more I can do in life to top this. A very special and precious dream was realized yesterday. Yes, this weekend, I rode an ostrich and here's how:

For starters, the Ostrich Safari was in the middle of nowhere. We found directions on the visitkorea website that were ridiculous. No, a 15 minute bus ride from Suwon station will not get you to the Ostrich Safari so if you read all of this and still want to find the place just make it easy on yourself and take a taxi. We were on the bus for half an hour and were sure we'd missed our stop so we got off and had a cab phoned for us by some guys at a gas station. We were lucky and got a great cabbie. Most taxi drivers in Korea throw their hands up in a big 'X' shape at the first sign that something might be difficult, but this guy drove us through a single-lane dirt road in a landfill to get us to our ostriches. My hat's off to you, Mr. Driver.

"Ta-joe Safari"! We'd found it!

The reputable-looking enterprise. The website described a petting farm, overnight camp, a chance to feed the ostrich babies, a restaurant, egg-painting facilities and egg bowling on top of the ostrich rides but it was clear that most of these frills had been scaled back over the years. The place was run by a father and daughter team who were just the teensiest bit anti-social. There wasn't a soul there besides us when we arrived and when the daughter noticed that we were there she took one look at us, turned around and went back to helping her father tinker with some old heating equipment. Since there was no clear place to inquire about the rides or other amenities, I approached her for assistance and for 5,000 Won a piece she begrudgingly led us to her ostrich corral.

What happened next was the most ridiculous scene I've ever been a part of. There were four unfriendly-looking ostriches being kept in a center pen, which was surrounded by the track where we would take our rides. The daughter went in to fetch an ostrich and of course they all hissed, flapped their wings and ran away from her. She eventually gets this one female ostrich out of the center pen and into the track area and the bird starts running all alone and at top speed around the track. The father collected the bird and brought it up to the side of the fence where there was a small ladder for us to climb and and then mount the bird. Of course the group of us are just pissing ourselves laughing at what we're about to be a part of and, boy oh boy, I was so glad to not be going first.

I did have the honor of going second, though, and although I knew this ride was going to be the crowning accomplishment of my life I was very nervous to climb on the back of an ostrich! Have you ever gotten up close to an ostrich? They are not very friendly! Picture how someone would feel as they were about to leap out of an airplane or how an astronaut might feel just before lift-off... this was the anxiety I felt. The daughter lifted up the ostrich's wings and instructed me to climb on. The ostrich was a bit matted on top from all the rides she's given and she was warmer than I expected. The daughter put the wings back down over my legs and told me to hold onto them tightly. I felt like I was going to pull the feathers right out!

And off we went! It was the most ridiculous view in the world with that skinny little neck in front of me and a fistfull of ostrich plume in my bare hands. I started to fall off a bit at first but I was able to readjust and hold on well.

The freakiest part was that the ostriches in the center of the track were freaking out, especially this big male ostrich that was a good 2 feet taller than the one I was riding. As I turned one of the corners it started hissing and flapping its wings about a foot away from me and I was pretty sure I was going to get pecked in the head. You can kind of see him yelling at me in the above picture.

Next it was Mel's turn. By this point the ostrich was pretty much over it and was being pretty docile. I just asked Mel how she'd like me to relate her experience with the ostrich on this blog and she said "warm... and once in a lifetime". LOL! That's my girl.

As you can see a fun time was had by all. Best picture ever.

Last, Hannah and the ostrich became fast friends. When we were done the father offered Hannah his dirty-ass ostrich rag to clean herself off with and then they went right back to ignoring us and tinkering with their heating equipment.

Being ignored was fine with us because that just meant we could be left alone while we looked around this large ostrich farm. They were a couple dozen of the birds spread out in a bunch of different pens, but there were also BUNNIES! There was even one brave bunny that liked to sneak into the ostrich cages to hang out. Careful, bunny dude!

There were also ponies, but who wants to ride one of those?

You could tell this llama had never seen a foreigner before. I get the same stares in Seoul sometimes.

It didn't take long for the father to start yelling at us from a distance, so we took that as our cue to leave. As we were leaving I inquired about buying an ostrich egg because I thought it might be fun to paint. The daughter was willing to sell me one for 15,000 Won, but that seemed a bit pricey considering they already took out all the yummy insides. Plus, Mel assured me that we could get an ostrich egg cheaper somewhere else. Now where that would be I don't know, but maybe I'll check Myeongdong this weekend for one.

Did I mention that this place was in the middle of nowhere? We didn't figure the unfriendly owners would be too interested in calling us a taxi, so we headed out on foot to find... well I'm not exactly sure what we thought we'd find to get us home, but it seemed like the best idea at the time.

Pretty bad when the only sign of life is a graveyard.

We walked for probably 20-30 minutes through a hayfield full of the most birds I've ever seen in one place before we found this "Heavy Industry" factory. We asked an adjoshi on a forklift to call us a taxi and he did so with a smile. Pretttty sure they don't get too many groups like us in there.

When our taxi arrived we were so excited. We wouldn't have to go back and steal an ostrich to ride home after all.

We wound up having a beer on the roof of our old apartment building in Suwon. We had a lot of good times on that roof. It was nice to see that the place where we buried little Heathcliff is now growing some cabbages for someone.

The nostalgia tour continued with an order of grilled pork a ribs at our favorite galbi restaurant.

Then it was a trip to the Crazy Duck Self Club Bar, which was a place that the Villagey staff found after we had left the school. We always heard soooo much about the Crazy Duck so it was fun to ch-ch-check it out.

Across the road from the Duck was "Boobi Boobi". Hannah tells me "Boobi Boobi" in Korean means to be tactile with other people. Like she had a teacher friend whose school wanted her to be more boobi boobi with the children- to touch/hug/toss them around more. I wonder what goes on at this Boobi Boobi bar?

Later, we went to the alien norebang, the best non-luxury norebang in Korea! We scored many 100s, sang all the hits, got loads of service time, and just generally missed Shanda who is always the life of the norebang party <3

Our midnight snack was roast chicken, popcorn and ketchup salad at Cabin Oak.

We'd planned to go back to Seoul on Saturday night but all of a sudden it was really late so we decided to just stay in Suwon. We got a room around the corner from the chicken place called Motel Style. The rooms were pretty nice, and you know I have high standards for my love motel rooms, HOWEVER the next morning when we went to fill up the hot tub there was no hot water! They'd turned it off so we didn't even get to enjoy the best part of the room. The complimentary Maxims certainly did not make up for this cruel service.

For lunch we went to this Italian place, Provence, near our old school which I had completely forgotten about until Mel mentioned it in the morning. My favorite, the steak and pasta entree wasn't on the menu any more, but the bacon spaghetti I ordered was awesome and I was just happy to see that the restaurant was still operating after all this time.

We scoffed at the rate of inflation that seems to have taken over the clothes shopping in the CGV building, and then went to Home Plus for a few groceries. The Suwon Home Plus has some amazing new products in stock including the crackers pictured above: DICK STICKS!!! If you had dick sticks on your Christmas list this year, you could be in luck because we may have bought several packages of these.

The Christmas section was all set up and a female mannequin had been dressed up as a D-cup Santa.

We weren't going to get a tree this year because we won't be here for Christmas, but we couldn't resist getting a little plastic tree with all the ornaments for 5,000 Won. I didn't think my life could get an more cheery after my lap on that ostrich yesterday, but the tree has been a nice touch to the apartment.

Mind Your Manners

Last week my school took our 7-year-old students to the Marriott for a manners luncheon for the low, low price of only 40,000 Won per child. I don't know if I've ever spent that much money on a meal for myself, so it's not surprising that some of my students' parents weren't too impressed by the price tag. Luckily, that meant that my two most manners-challenged students stayed at home in protest and the event wasn't the gong show that I had initially pictured it might be with them there.

At the entrance there was a big ice sculpture made for our school.

At first I thought there were way too many forks on the table, but during the presentation I learned that they were supposed to be there.

Ryan didn't quite get the part of the presentation about playing with your napkin. I looked over and he was waving it like a matador and exclaiming "come on, ox!"

In an excellent display of pomp which I quite appreciated, the servers brought out our food while marching in synchronized patterns through the room. Cream of corn soup was the appetizer. My first instinct after learning the soup's flavor was to push the bowl aside untouched, but when I tried it I thought it was really delicious. It tasted like a cross between popcorn and gravy- amazing!

After my students informed me that the server wouldn't take my soup away until I put my spoon on the right side of the plate, my dish was taken and the main course arrived. I was starting to think that maybe I was learning more about table manners than the kids. My students were served hamburger steak and fries, which I'm pretty sure costs about 5,000 Won in any food court around here, but they seemed happy with what their 40,000 Won had bought them.

Teachers were served some beef with roasted veggies. It was a bit rarer than I like, but it was pretty good. It was a nice touch for them to serve us something different from the kids (though I did steal a few of their fries anyway).

Dessert was ice cream served on white cake with chocolate sauce, a chocolate ribbon, a cookie and whipped cream! I'm pretty sure I was the only one at my table who finished this since we'd already eaten two courses on top of a morning snack 2 hours earlier. It was surely the only time I've ever heard kids moan "I don't want to eat ice cream".

Cheers!

The hotel looked really nice with all of the Christmas decorations. The kids dressed up for the dinner and it was cute. I don't know if they learned anything new, but it was fun to have a different activity to do during the day.

On the way out of the hotel I had a weird sense of deja vu: 10 months ago this was where Mel and I met the rep from my school who took us to our officetel after our flight from Taiwan. What a confusing evening that had been. He wasn't there when we showed up and there was no ice sculpture for us either! There was only one pay phone to use in the hotel and this DOUCHE would not get off of it. We were there for over an hour before our guy showed up, smelling of whiskey. When we left he even took us to the wrong apartment before finding the right place. Then he told me he'd meet me the next morning to show me my new school and he never showed up. Then, a week later he arrived unannounced at 9am. I was in my pajamas and he was all ready to take me to my first day of work.

I liked this trip to the Marriott better.

Searching For The Cover of Lonely Planet in Cheongju

With South Korea and the U.S. planning a fun weekend of war games, we decided it would be a good weekend to get the hell out of central Seoul. But what to do? As it gets colder there's less and less incentive to hike around and sightsee while our bodies freeze in the elements. We decided to give it a go anyway and we took the cover of our Lonely Planet as inspiration. "Let's find the cover," we thought. So we headed toward Cheongju and Songnisan National Park.

Cheongju was only an hour and a half from Seoul, so though it was nice to get out of the city, it was also nice to not endure a long bus ride like we did on our trip to Gyeongju last month. After we got off the bus in Cheongju it looked like we'd been let off into some sort of royal palace, because most of the love motels (and there are probably over 50) were shaped like castles. We chose one that we understood to be called the "Penis Motel" in Hangul, but the English on the towels revealed it to actually be the "Venus Motel".

The room was pretty good for 50,000 Won. There was a computer that worked with the big flatscreen TV, a super comfy bed and a huge bathtub. We had to change rooms because our computer's speakers were messed up... and trust me, this was a long ordeal, but we liked the place enough to stay there both nights of our trip. It was the bed that made it for us. So comfy!

Our NOT Penis Motel was conveniently located across from the Don't Tell Mama Nightclub. Awesome name, but Mama knows.

A few minutes walk away from the hotel, and right outside the bus terminal was the Dream Plus Department Store. As you can see from the above photo, this dream had seen better days. We'd only gone there Saturday morning to get some lunch at the food court and we had a great meal at an Italian restaurant that only seemed to serve Korean food. Mel had a bibimbap and I had the ddok baegi bulgogi- a nice warm soup to fight the cold rainy day outside. We'd planned to spend Saturday at Songnisan National Park, but like I said, it was pouring rain and cold so we decided to go on Sunday instead. We were off in search of something to do.

In Korea, I find that you can tell what kind of town you're in based on the number of BYCs that you see. BYC is like the lowest of the low, crappiest fashion retailer in Korea. They seem to prosper best in ajumma and ajoshi, dinky, boring little places. Not that Cheongju is all that bad but... we did see 5 BYCs in one day. And Mel did comment that she was bored pretty often.

At the G20 conference earlier in the month, one of Korea's top priorities was to speak with France about returning one of it's national treasures called Jikji. It is the oldest metal-printed book ever made, and it was made in Cheongju. There's a claim to fame for ya. For the record, France is returning the book on a "permanent loan" basis.

We asked a taxi driver to take us to Jungmun, which Lonely Planet calls an "entertainment district" near a university. There was meant to be a lot of cheap shopping and food. There definitely was a lot of cheap food and night clubs, but we'd already eaten and it was a wee early for a bender. We walked around a bit, certain that we'd eventually find the shops that our guide book had mentioned. There were no shops but there was an ajumma with her pants pulled down, full-on peeing on the side of the main road. I looked around and saw so very many buildings that would have had public bathrooms for her to use. It was very strange. We carried on and found a street full of old broken mirrors and shelves, and at least there were no old ladies pissing, so we walked up there (as you do).

The street led to a small covered market. There were several in Cheongju, and most contained at least one BYC outlet.

Ever wonder what your sea monkeys tasted like? You can eat them by the shovel-full at this market.

We were cold and ready for coffee. NOT Penis Motel had kindly left us some Maxim's to enjoy but we were ready for another fix, so we found ourselves at the lovely A Bear Fall in Coffee Cafe.

Trying to find our way out of Jungmun we spotted this abandoned building with random, dirty models of Elvis and Jack Sparrow creeping things up nicely. Who needs Vegas? C'mon Elvis, let's move the wedding to Cheongju!

We hailed another taxi and headed to the Cheongju Department Store. If you want to do a little shopping in Cheongju, this is where everything is. There's a solid 4 or 5 blocks of decent stores and it's a nice place to kill a few hours.

There were quite a few good little clothing stores (and yep, a BYC), and Mel found this sweater with a pretty blunt sense of identity.

For supper, we went back to Jungmun because I'd spotted a Mongolian restaurant that I wanted to try. Little did we realize that the restaurant was completely abandoned and possibly full of Elvis mannequins. We went for BBQ instead, and let me tell you, when the guide book said this was a cheap area for food they were right. $5/each for a massive plate full of BBQ bacon, all the sides, drinks and a naengmyeon. Ridiculous!

Sunday morning we woke up to ICE! It seems like everytime we go away for the weekend the weather changes. Sokcho was the first time I wore sleeves in 4 months, and now Cheongju was where I bought my first winter hat! I hate winter- HATE HATE HATE! But at least the ice was the thin, crunchy stuff that's fun to jump on.

We decided to buy bus tickets to Songnisan, then grab some food, use the bathroom, get a Latte and then get on the bus. Well, I bought the tickets and the cashier (who had maintained her composure throughout the entire transaction) started yelling "BALLI BALLI SHEEPCHIL ORANJOK BALI". We needed to hurry our asses to bus stop 17. It took some convincing for the driver to let Mel use the bathroom first and as soon as we were on the bus, it took off. Just under 2 hours later were were at the park. We were hungry! We walked through a virtual village of restaurants and couldn't find a thing to eat. I know a heck of a lot of Korean food names and I didn't recognize anything these folks were selling. One place sold 15,000 Won bulgogi, but wouldn't make only one portion, we HAD to order two, so we just left. I bought some chicken on a stick and Mel got a hot dog. What a sad lunch. We decided to make up for it by buying coffees. When the cashier told me the two drinks I held in my hand (and the cups were so light it felt like I'd be drinking air) were 14,000 Won we were about ready to leave Songi-effing-san park before we'd even really got there.

The trail was quite nice... but where was our Buddha from the Lonely Planet cover?

We found this amazing temple called Beopjusa, built around its amazing $4 Million giant Buddha.

It's like he wants a high five but someone left him hanging.

Amazing buildings that made it feel as if we were walking through some old postcard or famous painting.

At most of these temples they just play a CD of the monks playing their music, but at this place they had a real live guy doing his thing. And I was happy to see that they set up a heat fan next to him. It was cold!

When we didn't see our Buddha from the cover of the guide book anywhere, we thought we might be onto the right track when we saw some cool rock carvings off the main path, but nope! We never found it. And with the last bus back to Gangnam leaving any minute we had no time left to search. It was also a surprise to us that we were as low on money as were and that there were no ATMs around. Our tickets home were 30,800 Won together and we only had 32,000 Won on us! If we'd spent another minute looking for Buddha we'd have missed our bus, and if we'd bought that expensive bulgogi we couldn't have paid our way home. Food just wasn't in the cards for us today. We were hungry, but at least we were heading home. The bus was completely full and started turning people away. They weren't very happy about it either. We saw some angry ass Koreans today. We were really in the middle of nowhere, so I don't know how I would have taken the news either.

If anyone out there in the blogosphere has seen this fellow, can you let me know where he was?

We were finally rescued from our diet of chewing gum by a 15 minute bus break back in Cheongju. There was exactly one restaurant in the bus terminal, and it was called Americana Burgers. I couldn't have been happier.

And guess what was waiting for us when we got back to Gangnam a few hours later? The first snow of the season. It was pretty light, but the season has definitely changed. Makes me all the more ready for our vacation on the beach in a few short weeks. Can't wait!