Deja Vu

History has certainly been repeating itself over the course of our first week back in Korea. When we were preparing to come back here we had a laundry list of foods we wanted to eat and stores we wanted to visit again... and we haven't wasted much time!!

Galbi! Marinated pork, beef or chicken lovingly barbecued at your table by a gentle ajumma. We've already gone out for pork galbi twice and chicken galbi twice as well. There has been some exciting developments in chicken galbi in the last few years (or maybe we just never knew about this) but you can add noodles and cheese to the stir fry as well. I could never have it cheeseless again. So good.

Home Plus! In Suwon we were spoiled because we lived 5 minutes from a Home Plus and we probably went there 5 times a week as a social outing. There's not always a lot to do in Suwon! When we got here and needed to pick up some things for our apartment we promptly found the closest Home Plusuh in Jamsil (25 minutes or so away), but I have to say the layout wasn't quite as nice as I remembered and the prices were ridiculous. We'll be back... but after pay day!

Hot Tracks stationary (and other random foolishness) store! We found this on our first afternoon and also visited three other favorites that same day: Quiznos (LOVE!!!!), The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and the Kyobo book store, which has a large selection of English books. We used to travel for close to 2 hours to visit these places and now they're a 10 minute walk away. It's going to be a different kind of year!

Mr. Pizza! I love love LOVE Mr. Pizza and when we pulled up to our apartment for the first time I was very happy to see that one of their restaurants across the road from our place. Dangerously convenient. On our first night we ordered the classic "Mr. Pizza special" and requested 5 packages of garlic sauce, my favorite and most-missed condiment.

Myeongdong!! This shopping area has a ridiculous 10,000 or so shops and restaurants. Of course there have been some changes over the years- actually, my 2 favorite clothing stores (the dirt-cheap Myeongdong Department Store and Salvation Paradiso above the old Kosney) are missing, but The Gap, Forever 21, Zara and a 4-story H&M have all moved in and I certainly approve of these additions. We just window shopped on our visit, but that will only last for so long :P

The wanker in the above photo is holding a Remix, a cooler with 10% alcohol that tastes like cough medicine. Love!

Dakbokki! Rice cakes shaped like pasta and stir fried in a spicy sauce... yum. One of the first Korean foods that I really liked and we got to have some again on Tuesday night. We bought them from an ajumma at a street cart, just the way we like 'em.

Speaking of street food, we've also had hottoks (pancakes filled with brown sugar and nuts), chicken on a stick, and waffles this week. Actually, there's a waffle lady really close to our apartment so I have a feeling we'll be enjoying this often. For $1 she fills the waffle with frosting and then your choice of chocolate, caramel, apple, kiwi, blueberry or strawberry filling.

Chinese food! Well, not real Chinese food... the American-style stuff. We really missed this when we were in Taiwan. We went back to Ho Lee Chow's in Itaewon yesterday for sweet and sour chicken and noodles. So delicious, and there were ads in the restaurant for other Ho Lee Chow locations that seem to be even closer to our place than the Itaewon location. Win! After our meal we went back to another old favorite, the Hannam Supermarket, to buy some over-priced black market sour cream and then we went for dinner and a concert in Hongdae, a favorite bar district and the birthplace of the horse head. Which is still on sale, by the way!

Basically, it's nice to be back! There's still a few places that we're itching to visit, like a favorite Thai place in Songtan, a beloved galbi restaurant in Suwon, and shopping in Dongdaemun. And we'll do our best to get back to the Jeju sexy park, but no promises :P

Korea vs Taiwan

Yes, we're back in Korea where our Englishy teaching careers began. It's so hard to believe that it's been 2 1/2 years since we were last here and in some ways it's like we never left but a lot of things have, of course, changed. It's the little things that you forget about a place when you're away for a while and we catch ourselves constantly comparing things to Taiwan, so I thought I'd type up a list of differences I've noticed based on first impressions before I forget all those little things about Taiwan too.


Seoul= Big
Taipei= Little
I forgot what a huge, sprawling city Seoul is, with so many unique districts. Taipei has lots of unique districts as well but on a smaller scale. For example, the Taipei Subway line has 3 lines where the Seoul Metro has 9 lines and I feel like such a noob trying to bumble my way through all the transfers and stations. The buildings are a lot larger here too- there must be 10x more skyscrapers in Seoul. A lot of the buildings in Taipei seemed to be 6 floors or less.

Seoul= expensive!!
Taipei= cheap
We could not even believe how expensive a trip to the grocery store was this weekend. After 6 months in Taiwan I guess anywhere would seem expensive, though. The food prices in Seoul are at least double and the same goes for almost any other product you can think of. For the price of the hamburger I got at Hooters yesterday I could have ordered 2 or 3 dishes at our favorite Thai place in Taipei and that hamburger was the lunch special! Luckily we've been able to buy a lot of the things we need to start off with in Korea from people on Craig's List for really good prices.

Seoul= soft landing
Taipei= hard landing
It has been much easier to get set up in Seoul. Mind you, it was a lot of work getting our documents together from overseas but it's so nice to have everything taken care of for us. The flight? Paid for. My trip to Taipei was out of my own pocket. The apartment? free. Is it a little small? Yep, but it's free. In Taipei we got so frustrated looking for an apartment and our school didn't offer us a lick of help either. And even before our first day of work our schools in Korea have already given us over $1200/CAN in landing bonuses and housing subsidies. It took me a month to even find a job in Taipei. Easy. Landing.

Seoul= stairs!
Taipei= escalators!
Of course there are escalators in Seoul but there are more places without them than with. My legs burn after walking so many flights of stairs this week- I don't know how the ajummas do it!

Seoul= olds!
Taipei= youngs
Speaking of ajummas (old ladies)- there are so many of them! I don't remember Seoul being full of so many old ladies with perms. Taipei is definitely filled with a younger crowd.

Taipei= run your garbage down when the musical truck drives by once a day
Seoul= leave your garbage downstairs whenever you like

Seoul= BBQ
Taipei= Hot Pot

Seoul= Pushy
Taipei= A slow mosey
Koreans PUSH! Everyone seems to be in a hurry and I have been elbowed all over the place walking around Seoul the last few days. It's okay, I can elbow with the best of 'em. In Taipei the foot traffic seems more laid back and orderly, but for us it was too slow and we were always trying to get around groups of slow-mo walkers. In Korea, when the subway train stops at the station people push their way onto the train through the people who are trying to get off the train and then shamelessly run to any available seat. In Taipei, everyone on the train is let off first before the people boarding the train try to enter and seats are gladly given up for the elderly or passed up all together.

Taipei= all-day fireworks and funeral parades
Seoul= TV truck with a loud speaker

Seoul= dry!
Taipei= humid!
In Taiwan, our clothes and bedding smelled like fart and our apartment was covered in mold. It was just so damp all of the time. In Korea, my hands are dry, my fingers are covered in hangnails, and I wake up so thirsty. Mel bought a Hello Kitty humidifier from Craig's List yesterday :P Temperature-wise though, it's about 10 degrees cooler in Seoul but I'm not noticing much of a difference... probably due to the lack of humidity.

Taipei= Hello Kitty, Ampanman and Domo
Seoul= Miffy and Dalki
There is a marked lack of cuteness in Seoul... maybe I just haven't found the Domo store yet but there seems to be a lot fewer cute characters and mascots at the stores here. Mister Donut still has Pon De Lion and his sweet friends, but there's no Open John at 7-Eleven or Domo noodle shops. Korea likes Dalki and Miffy, which are NOT global celebrities and are- let's face it- LAME.

Seoul= affordable stores and malls (and by affordable I mean a little overpriced, but when the paychecks start coming in, y'know...)
Taipei= cheap night markets or extraordinarily overpriced luxury malls

Seoul= spicy food and fried things
Taipei= organs
I don't think the Koreans have much interest in eating organs, and if they do it's certainly not as widespread as in Taipei. There was a guy with a cartfull of organs on just about every street in Taipei, but things here are a little more recognizable.

Seoul= beer and chicken
Taipei= tea and cake
I can't get over how many bars there are in Seoul- Koreans love to drink. The only bars we saw in Taipei were swanky clubs, so maybe Taiwanese prefer their drinks in more classy settings.

Seoul= men smoking
Taipei= everybody smoking
Also, there's indoor smoking in Seoul! It was so shocking to be asked "smoking or non?" at a restaurant yesterday.

Seoul= so many foreigners
Taipei= hey, look- there's a foreigner!
We went to a bar with Hannah and Shanda last night and everyone was foreign! It was so strange. In Taipei there are foreigners of course, but you'd only see 1 or 2 on a trip out. ESL is a booming business in Seoul!

Seoul Tower= meh
Taipei 101= awesome

Seoul= clean and new!
Taipei= could use a visit from the Clean Sweep crew
There is a lot of clutter and hoarding going on in Taipei and, outside of the Xinyi district, the buildings were often kind of dingy and grey and the clutter of stores spilled out onto the street and sidewalk. There are areas like that here too, but since Seoul was conveniently bombed a few decades ago things are a bit more modern and shiny.

Taipei= Cone hats
Seoul= Huge visors on permed heads

Seoul= less-frequent trains but you can eat on them
Taipei= frequent trains but you're hungry
I had a granola bar on the subway today. It was awesome. I also waited 7 minutes for a train. Does not like.

Taipei= so many temples!
Seoul= so many Coffee Bean & Tea Leafs!
I think there are more sights to see in Taipei. The emphasis in Seoul definitely seems to be on eating and shopping.

Seoul= orderly traffic and pleasant, spacious sidewalks
Taipei= watch out for that scooter! Better walk on the road because there's clutter and scooters parked all over the sidewalk.

Seoul= English music
Taipei= Korean music

Basically, both cities are great but they each have their own quirks. Right now, we are really enjoying being right in the middle of Seoul with so much yummy food and great shopping around us. I never realized how limited we were when we lived in Suwon. Seoul is the place to be, I tell ya. But we're already starting to miss our special trips for guava (Mel) at the night market in Sinjhuang and only spending $5 on a big meal in Taipei.

Also, I keep wanting to speak Chinese to the Koreans here. That would probably be pretty rude, right? I've got to learn some more Korean.

Change Of Address

So, we've left Taiwan. Shhhhhh.... don't tell anyone!

It just wasn't working out. I'm an experienced teacher and in 6 months and dozens of applications I still couldn't find a full-time job in Taiwan. I can see on online forums that a lot of people are having this problem right now with the economy the way it is. The timing just wasn't right for me and although it was a REALLY NICE country, I was tired of being poor in Taiwan- that's not why I'm here. My ass has student loans to pay down. Oh yeah, and the school we worked at jerked us around one too many times **cough cough lyingbastards cough**

So, boo-urns... on to plan B. Posts soon!

We Now Pause For Station Identification

The Museum Of Drinking Water

Yes, on Monday we went to see The Museum Of Drinking Water. I've been bugging Mel to go to the museum with me for weeks now just because it sounded SO BORING that I thought it would be funny and she finally relented on Monday, but only because she wanted to shop for boots at a nearby market. I was so excited to visit that I even called ahead first to make sure they were open. We've hit a new low. Ever feel like you were on vacation in a place where you felt like you'd done everything you wanted to and the vacation really could've ended a while ago? Yeah, that's where we're at right now. Can we go back to work now?

There was a room full of water pumps!

Pipes, through the decades.

You could climb up a small ladder to see this amazing air vent passage!!

A collection of fittings!

There was a garden full of old pipes to pose with!

And the garden was conveniently accessed through- you guessed it- pipes! The museum is a little cheeky!

Look at all the pipes! Isn't this SO INTERESTING?????

Random ape to pose with. We really had to muscle our way through the crowds to get our picture!

We came to a random hiking trail and decided to check it out, to get the most out of our $50NT admission. At the base of the trail there was a sign warning about snakes (cobras actually, according to the picture). But wait a minute- why is the word "snakes" taped onto the sign? What did it originally say?

"SNACKS" are active in this area!! Aha ha aha hahah ah ahahaaaa!!!

At the top of the trail was this thing.

We continued to follow the trail which brought us to this interesting piece of pipe, which was bent during the 9/21 earthquake that happened 10 years ago. Imagine the force of the earthquake that would have bent a pipe like this? 2,400 people died and 100,000 people were left homeless. There's a museum about the earthquake too, but it's not located in Taipei and we's po.

The trail continued around through the woods and we passed by a row of seductively dressed palm trees. It had started to rain, as always, so the "Beware of slip" signs the park had posted were useful reminders. PS: Neither Mel nor I bewared of slip enough and wound up almost falling twice. Not a good thing because Nareesa would surely have left us to be eaten alive by snacks. The trail ended at a closed gate near some sludge tanks and a closed water park so we turned around and walked back home to dream further about pipes and fittings.

The Museum Of Drinking Water- don't miss it.

Bonus: Their canteen sells "papcarn"!

Fancy Bowling

And we continue to delve into the arcade culture of Taiwan. On Friday night we went with Nareesa to get some Thai Food and Charmy at the Shilin Night Market and afterwards we went to the nearby City Jungle arcade building that Kris had told us about to go bowling. This was the nicest bowling alley I've ever been to! Located in the basement of City Jungle, under a few floors full of arcade games, the bowling alley looks more than a nightclub than one of the dingy, dying bowling alleys we see at home. The lights were dimmed, there were leather sofas embellished with faux-diamonds to relax on and a computer automatically calculated your score.

The walls were lined with big screen TVs showing music videos. Here's Katy Perry mocking my bowling skills in the shot above.

It was big ball (American style?) bowling at this alley, which Mel and I had only played once before. We usually play with small balls at home (that's what she said). As you can see in the scores above, it took me FIVE rounds to get past 3 points!! Those are some heavy balls (WHAT SHE SAID).

After bowling we played our favorite basketball game and a few rounds of darts which was pretty fun... I like the dart boards that automatically keep your score. The one thing we didn't try, and will have to come back to do this week, is the coin-operated mechanical bull!! Loving the arcades here!

Winter In Taiwan...

It's not snow, but it's getting really, really old.

Super Mario Fever And A Duck Gang Bang At The Lin Family Mansion

I've wanted to play the new Super Mario for Wii ever since I saw the first screenshots online early last year, but the game isn't for sale yet in Taiwan. Luckily, my industrious friend Kris has a magic chip in his Wii that allows the system to play downloaded games. We've taken over his apartment to play Mario twice in the last week but I don't think he minds, because it's a 4-player game and he said it's lonely playing with just 1 character at a time. So. Much. Fun. I want.

After a shift of Mario on Wednesday afternoon, Mel and I went with Kris and Eve to a Japanese restaurant in Banciao. Check out all this food that comes with your meal, and check out the tray of free vegetables that is clearly pushed as far away from my spot at the table as possible. I know, I know, I'm gonna die.

After our meal we went down one floor to Tom's World. Tom's World is a popular chain of arcades. We've passed the arcades many times but had never played any games there. Big mistake! They had the coolest air hockey game ever. The table was wider than usual, so you could play in teams of two, and after a few points were scored the machine started shooting out 3 pucks at a time! This is a major advancement in the field of air hockey. We need this machine in Canada!

We played some basketball too. This game has become our new obsession and we've gone to play this at different arcades almost every day since this night. Mel's a much better shot than I am, but the kid playing to her right really seemed to have a good strategy too.

The best and most cathartic game of all was the one in the picture above: you throw balls at a screen to kill MOSQUITOES! The loyal blog reader will be aware of the torment that has been caused to us by our apartments' mosquito infestation. I wish we could just throw rubber balls at all our mosquitoes at home too.

The night finished with a ride on our favorite ferris wheel at Movenpick! This store wasn't as kind as the one in Taipei- they only let us choose 3 of the 7 flavors :( Still, nothing beats Movenpick.

On Thursday it was 30 degrees! Thirty! In mid-February! We decided we had to spend this day outside, so we went to visit the Lin Family Mansion and Garden in Banciao, which isn't too far from where we live in Sinjhuang. It's been one of those places that we'd been meaning to visit for so long but kept putting it off because it's so close. The mansion and garden are over 100 years old and are a good representation of the (well-to-do) architecture of that era.

Some of the corridors were pretty narrow.

The mansion itself was quite big, and the architecture is nice but it's not what you picture when you think of the word "mansion". The rooms were empty so all the parts of the house looked the same to me... it was just a big Asiany-looking mass of concrete. And though the courtyard with the pond was nice (but dingy-looking) the gardens were non-existent (although it is winter, but I don't know where the "garden" would be even in the summer). Basically, I would say this is the most boring touristy place we have visited in Taiwan (even worse than the Nougat Museum!) and if you're looking for some interesting old-timey Asian architecture, I'd suggest going to one of the many temples instead.

The one thing that saved our trip to Banciao from being a complete snoozefest was the DUCKS! We love ducks! In all the public parks and ponds we've visited here we have never seen a single duck. In fact the only ducks we've ever seen in Taiwan look like this:

Mmmmm, head still attached, that would be... crunchy. These restaurants are everywhere.

Anyway, so we were watching the ducks when right in front of us three males and a female duck met in a circle and starting doing this synchronized craning of the neck. Before the words "Mel, are they doing a mating dance?" could leave my mouth one of the male ducks climbed on the female and they started sexing! Have you ever seen duck sex? It's kinky! He was biting her and drowning her! And then.. THEN the next guy climbs on top! Slut!!! The third duck just watched like a creepy voyeur... kind of like what we were doing LOL. When they were done they all washed off and went on as if a giant GANG BANG hadn't just happened! It was time to go home.

Mel quote after reading the previous paragraph: "You were way too into those ducks"

So, to summarize:
Ducks>Mario>Lin Family Mansion

Cycling In Fulong

At 9am the alarm went off and we snoozed for an hour. We made ourselves get up... ugh, vacation has ruined our already-undisciplined sleeping schedule, but the temperature was going to hit 27 degrees on Tuesday and we'd really been looking forward to having a sunny day that would be worthy of taking a cycling trip to Fulong. Is this too much for a Canadian to dream of in February? We took a bus and then a crowded train (but we scored seats, booyeah!) for about 2 hours to Fulong, possibly my favorite area in Taiwan, where I've already visited 4 times in the last 6 months. We grabbed a quick bento lunch and then went to rent our bikes. The price? $2/CAN for a whole day rental. Crazy. Even crazier? The security! All I had to give was my phone number and a signature... no ID or anything... and off we went with 2 very expensive, new bikes.

Biking is a pretty popular past time in Fulong and we shared the trails with dozens and dozens of other bikers. There are quite a few marked trails and maps in English to help you get around to the sights. First we went to see the Caoling Tunnel, which we'd never heard of but when we arrived we found that it was an old railway tunnel. The new trains drive through a new tunnel built right next to it. The tunnel is a little over 2km long, and it's flat which makes for fun, fast biking. It was cool inside which was great on this sweaty day, and had there was music being pumped into the tunnel along with train noises, which was a bit strange and kept us on guard for any approaching trains that might decide to join us in the tunnel.

When we reached the end of the tunnel we exited to find a little fort, a beach and the mountains towering over us. Beautiful. We rested for a bit, enjoyed the view, had some snacks and headed back through the tunnel. This entire trail was so fun to bike- for some reason it seemed like it was a mostly downhill route both ways and everyone knows coasting downhill is the best part.

Next we biked down to the beach, where we've visited many times before. The first time we were there was our first weekend in Taiwan in the summer and it was so hot. The sand was too hot to touch and the water offered no relief. The second time I was there it was nice but raining. The third time it was freezing cold, but on Tuesday it was perfect. We layed on our stolen China Air blankets and slept in the sun for a few hours.

After consulting one of the on-site maps we decided to follow another trail which led along the beach towards a suspension bridge. This is surely the best place I have ever biked. Check out the view above.

And the beach to my right as we biked along the trail.

We left our bikes at a small park and walked across the bridge, though everyone else had somehow found a different path leading to the bridge that allowed them to bike across.

On the other side of the bridge we found a tree that was apparently growing pea pods, which I didn't realize grew on giant trees.

Happy with our day, we returned our $2 bikes, grabbed an additional bento and took a train home- a deluxe train this time, with cushy seats that put us both to sleep. It's supposed to be 30 degrees tomorrow, so hopefully we've caught up on our sleep enough to get up and actually enjoy some of that sun while it lasts because the next day the forecast is calling for 14 degrees :(