goddamnit,

I just agreed to climb Suri-san (the 4-peaked beast I blogged about in January) again this Sunday. At least it won't be frigid this time. Maybe there will even be flowers.

The downside is that when I climbed it before I didn't have to teach the next week, so my aching body was allowed to recuperate in the comfort of my apartment. But next week, I have to teach. I also have to climb a LOT of stairs.

Here's hoping I don't get as stiff this time around. Here's hoping I eat another pupa.

pupation

If, after the last post, you are wondering what a silk-worm pupa looks like, here is a pretty accurate visual of the brand of pupa I consumed:

KoHo, you LIED to me.

They do a funny thing here. They call a thing a mountain, when it's really a miniature mountain range.

Which is to say, when I talk to Park Mi-Ran next week, I will tell her I climbed 수리산 (Suri-san) today. But the truth (as I see it) is that I climbed 4 mountains today. Because Suri-san has 4 peaks, and we couldn't just climb ONE.

The trail itself was not difficult. In fact, I was doing pretty good right up until we started the descent of peak #3, at which point I decided I wanted to die. Then we cooked lunch on our propane stove and drank makkoli (rice wine) with hot ramen, and I wanted to die less. Then we climbed peak #4, and I wanted to die again. But there was more makkoli to be had at the top of peak #4, so I didn't want to die anymore for a brief span of time. But the descent of peak #4 was a shitstorm. The whole thing took about 7 hours, including our lunch-break. Which is to say, we climbed those mountains FAST.

But I made it, I guess. Apparently KoHo's hiking club is impressed with me and wants to teach me how to rock-climb this spring.

Other accomplishments of the day: not losing my T-money card, peeling a clementine in one fell swoop, eating a silk-worm pupa (part of our mountain lunch) while being knowingly scrutinized by every member of hiking club, and keeping my gag reflex successfully in check. In fact, I've found that it really helps me eat something gross if there's someone staring intensely into my eyes while I'm chewing.

For dinner, we had smoked pork, and somehow they made it taste like cinnamon applesauce. It was delicious.

But both cinnamon-applesauce-pork and silk-worm-pupa would definitely have made me gag in private. (Also: no one forced me to eat that silk-worm pupa. Is it strange if I am purposely taking advantage of the absence of my gag reflex in public to try eating animals that I have never eaten before?)




Sitting at home now, and my hips feel like someone murdered them. My body is going to hate me tomorrow, and I am going to love it a little.

the dubious (mental) status of my vegetarianism

Last week, one of the teachers who comes to teachers' winter English camp brought me a rice sandwich for lunch. Sticky rice patties instead of bread, and what looked to be ham and cheese inside. I normally leave school right after teachers' class these days, so I thanked her profusely and told her that it looked delicious and that I would eat it at home.

And you know, I got home with full intentions of eating that goddamned sandwich. I wasn't excited about it or anything, but I figured it would save me preparing my own lunch. After all, ham is nothing my stomach hasn't seen a hundred times over these past months.

But I got the sandwich out, took a bite of it, and just couldn't do it. Granted, there was some caviar in it I hadn't previously noticed which had a bit of an off-putting fishy smell. But really, I've eaten a lot of things that grossed me out way more than a little bit of caviar ever could. Crab guts, for fuck's sake.

I couldn't go through with it. I was too disgusted. I threw the sandwich away. And it made me realize something about the aforementioned "rapid decline of my vegetarianism": I have trained myself to react unemotionally and without disgust when presented with meat - BUT ONLY IN THE PUBLIC EYE. Formerly, I hadn't ever tried to eat meat when someone wasn't watching me; I always cook vegetarian food for myself. But I'd assumed that if I tried to eat meat when alone, I would be able to do it. It seemed like the natural conclusion.

NOT SO. I have done something strange to my brain. I thought I had completely gotten over my original disgust towards meat - but no, the original disgust is still there. But somehow I have managed to hide it away so effectively [in public] that I thought it had ceased to exist.

pickled radish, pickled

jellyfish, I mean, same goddamn difference.

LOOK AT THIS MAN. ISN'T HE MAGNIFICENT. (I'm a creeper, duh.)

BUKHANSAN. The beast of Seoul.

Teacher's tea time topic: are you an adventurous person? I'm really not trying to stack my own ego, but I was well and truly flabbergasted by my co-teachers' collective response to this topic. I was the only one willing to try most things. And they were appalled to learn that I had, in fact, already swum in a lake at night, and more than once, too.

Sweet potato noodles, sesame. I eat sesames in almost everything now.

Big-ass maple leaves carpet the streets. <3

If those aren't rainbow mosaic sculptures of poo, then I haven't a goddamned idea what they are.

I used to say I'd never teach,

and I meant it, too. But here I fucking am.

I've also said (a number of times, and recently too) that I didn't think I'd ever be able to stomach octopus. But I went for seafood ddukbogi with Shin Sung-Min today, and damned if I didn't let my manners (plus a bit of curiosity) get the best of me again. It wasn't as chewy or slimy as imagined; rather, it was a little crunchy - like a slightly steamed carrot. And the flavor was pretty bland. All in all, not as bad as I had thought. But octopus of the fresh variety still makes me want to vomit, so that's off the menu. For now.

Also, ate shellfish and cuttlefish for the first time. How many more "first times" do I have left? (With seafood, I mean.)

Also, drank yuja tea. Yuja is a fruit which looks and tastes quite similar to lemon, except it is sweet, not sour. Koreans love it, it seems, when the weather turns cold. And all the vitamin C can't hurt in warding off the swine flu.

like white silk, like orange gummy bears

they were sorting crabs when we arrived:

live crabs, two
piles: male,
female, tossed into tubs, belly-
up, crawling at the air.
which is the opposite, exactly, of
yesterday, your hands tremblingly
on my head (I leaned
into them, I found it hard to
breathe, I wondered what
it would be like to have a live
crab in my hair) -
we bought females (the sweeter
flesh, the egg sac) belly-up (beautiful
bellies, purplue. kkote geh, they
call them, flower) still

alive, wrapped in

newspaper. I didn't see them again until

I ate them,

I ate them,

I cracked them wide open and

ate.

yes, I really ate crab.

It wasn't raw. The flesh was soft and silky, and it was easy to get down (except for when I accidentally ate a bit of guts with the flesh, then it was really hard not to gag).

Also, whole shrimp. The first time I tried to rip off the head (you don't eat that part), a bit of brain-juice (or something) oozed out, and I squealed. After that, my co-teachers ripped off the heads for me.

Also, another fish. Fuck fish, fuck it hard.

I went with the English department (6 people, myself included) to the seafood market and then to a nearby restaurant that cooked the crab for us. Funny thing is, none of us except for Han Jin-An (the older male teacher who reads but doesn't speak English) wanted to go to a seafood restaurant. But age and gender carry a lot of authority here. We went, and then after Han Jin-An left we (me, Yena, Young-Kyung, Shin-Jung, and Park Mi-Ran) got coffee together and bitched.

All of that happened earlier this week. Highlight of today: I had my second graders each come up with a dangerous situation and have one person give warnings to the other person. One student wrote: "Gary, don't talk to girls! You could hurt yourself!" / "Gary, watch out! A girl's coming!" I could hardly contain myself.

Here and here is what a flower crab looks like.
Here is what the belly of a flower crab looks like. But the ones I saw had purplue lines along the creases in their shells. (Luckily, they weren't nearly as beautiful once they were dead/cooked. Maybe the ones in this picture are dead?)
Here is what the white crab flesh looks like.
And here is something like what the piles of crabs at the market looked like. But imagine that the pile is oh so much bigger than this one, that the crabs are squirming and sliding off the pile, and that there are 100 more piles exactly like this one with various types of crabs.

화장실: hwa-jang-sheel: powder room

On my walk in to school this morning, Han Tae-Gyu caught up with me again. He had a dream, he told me, that I gave him a present of soap. Twice. I couldn't tell whether he meant that he had the same dream two times, or that I gave him soap two times in one dream.

He also asked if I liked soy milk, and said that the next time he saw me he would give me a box of soy milk. They have a way of saying things to me that doesn't seem to allow me to argue, and I still don't know when it's okay for me to decline a gift. If it's ever okay.

This week is midterm-exam-week, and I have no official classes. But I still go in to work every day, and for a few hours every morning hold an "English cafe" in the English classroom, for any teachers who want to come and practice their English with me. It's fun! Despite my expectations, Kim Yeon (the overeager, rude teacher I mentioned before) has been a scarce presence in the cafe, and my more frequent visitors are 3 techies who I have had little to no interaction with previously. They've been coming every day, and staying for about 2 hours most of the time. We have coffee and eat fruit and less healthy snacks, and talk about travel and pets and language and things.

But that's all beside the point. The point was this: mountain #3: I-don't-know-the-name-of-this-san, on the south-east periphery of Seoul. I didn't actually climb this one, though.

Rather, three of my English-speaking teacher-family members and I went out to lunch together, and then Park Mi-Ran drove us most of the way up the mountain. Then we had a self-serve traditional Korean tea ceremony at the top, which was splendid.

Lunch was mostly things I've had before. But also, we had fish. And not silly fish patties or fish sandwiches, either. They cooked a small fish whole, and then put it on a plate and gave it to me. And I ate it. I pried it open with my chopsticks, and peeled the skin away, and plucked the meat away from the bones, and ate it. I didn't love it or anything, and I only ate as much as I thought necessary to show that I wasn't sticking up my nose. But I didn't gag. Apparently cooked fish is now on the list of things I can stomach, which means it's now part of my school diet. I'm continually amazed at how easily I am transitioning to a diet which scarcely resembles anything I've eaten for the past 12 years, or ever.

This is a 500-year-old ginko tree next to the Water Bell Temple, where we had the tea ceremony. Many women pray next to it for fertility, since it produces so many fruit. Also, did you know that ginko fruit smell like sewage when you crush them? It's true.

I have already written more here than I wrote the entire year I was in London.

Do I need to cut back, or is it simply that more things are happening to me in Seoul?

Over the weekend, Young-Kyeong took me to meet one of her fellow Korean English teacher friends, who teaches at a rich high school in Seocho, in the same district as my school. We had dduk-bogi (similar to bulgogi, for those of you with a working knowledge of Korean food, but with long white dduk fried in the red pepper paste instead of pork/beef, often fried along with various vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, and somewhat tasteless thin fish patties). Ddukbogi is really spicy, and Young-Kyeong was really concerned that I wouldn't be okay with it, but I swear, if you saw me now, you would never know that I used to avoid spicy food. I loved it.

Then, they took me on a tour of Namsangol Hanok village, one of the traditional-style villages that are open for tourists, and afterwards, Young-Kyeong took me to Namsan (Nam Mountain) Tower (the aforementioned phallic symbol, which doubles as a lookout tower). Here's a sampling:

I am peeking through a Gisaeng (gee-sayng) cutout, Korea's version of geisha.

Young-Kyeong, in queen's garb.

In-Jeong, I think? In "nice lady" clothes.

Portrait view of Namsan Tower.

Chonggyecheon (Chonggye Stream), which makes a semi-circle around downtown Seoul and deadends in the Hangang (Han River). It's an old (OLD) highway, I think, that was unearthed and converted into a stream about 10 years ago in an effort to make the city greener.

Trees, then skyscrapers, then trees on top of skyscrapers. (@andmyfeetare it's okay if you replace "trees" with "buildings," as long as you don't replace trees with buildings.)

In Namsan Tower viewing deck, @bird_esque. You can tell we're doing a touristy thing because I was not the only Caucasian person there.

@warmandbarky, Buenos Aires was behind the candy machines.

Young-Kyeong, next to the window looking towards her hometown, Busan (on the southern/southeastern coast of Korea).

Hello, U.S.A. How are things?

Y'know, tevs.

Horizontal lines of yellow lights = bridges across the Hangang; vertical lines of light = lights lining the river docks. I <3 the river at night.

"It's been long time since I drunk."

The Seoul skyline from the top of Umyeon Mountain, behind Park Mi-Ran's house. The string of yellow lights marks the Han River (which divides Seoul into it's north and south districts). A little beyond that, the little vertical sliver of white light is Namsang Tower, Seoul's great phallic symbol, built on top of another mountain.

Today was a wonderful day.

It started with sleeping in, then lounging about on the internet, then lounging to my local supermarket to pick out a nice wine to give to Park Mi-Ran as thanks.

Then, Park Mi-Ran met me at her subway stop (about 30 minutes from my place by subway), and we went grocery shopping to buy the ingredients for dinner: sweet potato noodles, finely sliced beef, fresh spinach and carrots and mushrooms, etc. Back to her place to cook dinner together and swoon over Brad Pitt (she was in the middle of watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button when she came to pick me up, so we finished watching it while making dinner).

First, we boiled water and dipped each spinach leaf in the water for a few seconds (just enough to soften it). The spinach was then squeezed dry and mixed with minced garlic.

Next, we chopped the carrots and onions and sauteed them with sesame oil and salt. Then, We thinly sliced the mushrooms and mixed them with the beef, then added salt, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and tuna oil to the beef/mushroom bowl. Next: fry the beef/mushrooms.

Finally, we boiled the sweet potato noodles, then rinsed them with cold water. Everything was mixed together and dressed with more soy sauce for the final dish. Dinner was served with kimchi (obviously), chicken salad, beans and rice, and anchovies. I did not partake of the anchovies.

After dinner, a spot of watching America's Next Top Model with Park Mi-Ran's daughter, who is about to graduate from high school and attend industrial design school in the States. Then, off to night-hike Umyeon Mountain. We met up with her husband, who had just gotten back to the city after golfing in the suburbs all day, and they lent me a headlamp and a walking stick. Up, up, up. I was sweaty and exhausted by the top, but it was lovely, and so was the view. There was no one else on the mountain, so we got the peace and quiet all to ourselves. On the way down, there were Buddhist monks singing their evening prayers at Daesungsa temple, half-way up the mountain.

At the bottom: Seoul's version of a musical fountain, and nachos and beers with Park Mi-Ran and her husband. Discovered that Mi-Ran is a lightweight (courtesy of the title quote), and on the walk back to the subway station, shocked both of them by reading the names of buildings in Korean. Mi-Ran has proclaimed that after December, she will only speak Korean to me, and then proceeded to tell me how sincere I seem in my desire to both learn about Korea and teach English to the students.

That's all I can hope for, isn't it? My confidence is up. Am I doing well here?

My laundry machine just played me a song to let me know it was finished, so that's all for tonight. Love, peace, etc. to you all.

lotus lanterns, mountain vegetables

Sanchon Temple Vegetarian Restaurant, in Insadong district, about a 50 minute subway journey from my place. Lots of Buddhist-inspired stores and restaurants and temples in this area.

Lotus lanterns!

Tofu, potato, zucchini, onion soup. Warm and savory.

Teapot, tofu and seaweed. Bland.

Breaded mushrooms. Like french fries, only chewier.

Breaded zucchini and squash.

Seaweed, mountain vegetables, radishes, unnamed things.

Mountain vegetables, mountain vegetables, mountain vegetables. Spicy mountain vegetables.

Top: vegetarian kimchi; left: potatoes; bottom: celery? rhubarb? some type of root? cooked in sesame sauce. Very tasty.

Top: bland rice pudding; left: seaweed soup; bottom: woody-tasting tea.

While we ate, there were various dance performances going on in the center of the room. Above: chicken walk (?) made creepy and ghostlike by blacklights.

[Here, imagine that you are watching a video of a woman wearing a dress of colorful bows and drumming while spinning in circles. Blogger wouldn't upload it. Maybe I will try it again later.]

Drumming and rhythm, I have discovered, is quite fundamental to Korean music and dance.

They made me get up in the center of the room and wave a fan about while other audience members danced and drummed around me. Anji decided it was a brilliant idea to document me looking silly.

the mountains climb themselves

1. 무궁화, mugunghwa (mugung = eternal, hwa = flower), hibiscus syriacus, rose of sharon: the national flower of Korea.


2. I just banged my knee against the corner of my desk, and then had the strangest urge to lick the tiny film of blood that has formed over the scratch.

3. When you say you like hiking here, be prepared to follow through. They don't fuck around with hiking. Two of my co-workers have taken me hiking over the mountain behind the school so far, and many more offers are pouring in from others to take me mountain climbing on weekends. Wednesday's steep climb made me want to die (but in a really good, happy way). Some of my co-workers hike over the mountain to work. Contemplating joining them.

4. Lesson planning, lesson planning, revising, lesson planning, "do you have any suggestions?", revising, lesson planning. Most of my C-level kids can't read English.

5. I made a 2nd grade girl cry today, then felt like a useless turd for the rest of the day. The first day I taught her class, I made all of the students do short introductions of themselves in English. She was shy, that day, and it was obvious to me that she didn't want to get up and introduce herself, and she wouldn't meet my eyes, etc.... but golly. Today I asked the students to practice a dialogue in pairs for a few minutes, and when I got to her and her partner to check up on them, they weren't talking. So I asked them if they had any questions. Do you understand? Do you what I asked you to do? Are the words hard? Do you need help pronouncing them? No response. Her table partner tried urging her in Korean. My co-teacher, Shin-Jeung, came over and tried urging her in Korean. She wouldn't speak in Korean or English, wouldn't meet our eyes. Please try, please repeat what I say (pointing to the dialogue). Nothing. This is English conversation class, you have to try to speak. Don't worry, you can do it. Please try. She started tearing up. Oh, fuck. I didn't mean to make you cry! Next class, I said, I'm going to ask you to speak again. Finally, a nod of comprehension, and a meeting of my eyes. What on earth should I do? How do I help her?

6. Goddamnit, stop serving fish patties for lunch. But those pheasant eggs are delicious, mmhmmm.

7. Just discovered aloe juice with aloe pulp at the supermarket. This might well replace my love affair with mango juice.

8. I feel overextended. Can you tell that I feel overextended?

9. But sometimes, over-extension makes me happy. Maybe this is one of those times.

10. The mosquitoes here have quick reflexes. Think killing mosquitoes is easy? American mosquitoes are lazy. Korean mosquitoes are fast. It land on your foot --> you start thinking about your foot --> that damn-ass mosquito is out that bitch. Tricky mind readers.

I just killed one, though, that had been torturing me for a half-hour. Damn, I love killing mosquitoes.

awkward Korean soap operas / who wants to be a millionaire?

First day of teaching is over, and I think I did okay? I think my first-grade classes went a lot better than the second-grade classes, mainly because they've asked me to stick more closely to the book (which is rather boring) for the second grade.

I've tweaked my lesson plans for tomorrow, in the hopes that the wrinkles will be ironed out. For some reason, teaching is turning out not to be nearly the nerve-wracking experience I expected it to be - perhaps partially due to the help I receive from my co-teachers, and partially due to my newly-formed-and-steadily-growing love of the spotlight.

Today, pork bulgogi, seaweed and shrimp soup, sweet potato noodles with chicken, more radish kimchi with spicy shrimp sauce. What on earth have I gotten myself into.

Also, Park Mi-Ran brought me a whole raw tomato for breakfast this morning. Does she have a knack for picking out foods that I normally avoid? Granted, this one was a lot easier to get down than the tuna-fish and caviar. But still. It's awfully kind of her and I appreciate the gesture... but I really wish she'd stop.

My co-workers are all very consistently concerned that I am not eating enough,

so my co-teacher, Park Mi-Ran, brought me breakfast at work this morning. It was a tuna fish and caviar rice cake sandwich.

Oh, lordy. Fish makes me want to vomit, quite literally. It's really hard to get it down past my gag reflex. But if I've made one rule for myself here, it's to go to any lengths and all costs to be respectful and welcoming towards everyone I meet here, especially my co-workers. So I took it, made myself a large cup of strong green tea, and got the sandwich down bite by bite while making pre-class small talk with the English teachers. I had a bit of a stomach ache afterward, which could have been from the caviar (which I have never eaten before), or could have been from the fish, which I haven't eaten for a long, long time, far before I officially became a vegetarian.

My school got a new principal and vice-principal this week, so all week the school has been celebrating by showering us with snacks of dduk, shikka (a rice drink which tastes vaguely like rice milk, only sweeter), and walnut-cookie-red-bean-paste-filled snacks whose name I can't remember. I didn't even eat lunch today, I was so full from all of the snacks. Again, my co-workers expressed extreme concern that I wasn't getting enough food. :)

Though I'm still officially only doing introductions in each class I go to, I've started taking the leading role in the classes, a state which I think will continue once I officially start teaching next week. Invitations to join other teachers for coffee and snacks continue in plenty. Today, I visited the office of [Fuck! I can't remember her name! I swear I'm trying hard, but there are so many new names to remember]. Of all my co-workers, she is probably the most excited to see me, and the most eager to learn English from me. She frequently seeks me out to chat, and generally greets me with "Pah-may-lah, Pamela, Pamela" in a sing-song voice. During my visit today, I was served fresh-brewed coffee (!!) by my eager lady and her co-worker, who both teach electronics classes, and was told to come by their office if I ever wanted fresh coffee or expresso. Omfg, they have an expresso machine. Let's be friends. All I've had since I got to Seoul is instant coffee, and I am so, so tired of it.

The classes I've led/participated in are going pretty well so far. The lower level students are really challenging to teach, since they have no motivation whatsoever to learn English, but hopefully I will find some ways to make them more interested as the year goes on. The medium- and upper-level classes are usually really fun. They students are very curious about me, for the most part, and eager to ask me questions. One of the B-level girls asked Yong-gyeun to take a picture of me and her (the student) on her cell-phone today. I was cuted out.

After school today, I went exploring about my neighborhood, and managed to find a nearby supermarket (up until now, I've been subsisting on market stalls and convenience stores) and stationary shop (where I will buy the things to write to you all). So far, I haven't seen one postcard stand in Seoul, but I think that's because I haven't been in any of the touristy areas yet. Have no fear; I've no intentions of letting the absence of postcards get in the way of me sending you things. In the future, I'm going to try to set aside frequent days for exploring my neighborhood in ever-widening circles until I know the location of everything that I could ever possibly want or need.

Love, peace, heartz.

I am watching an ostrich with a heart-shaped tongue to make myself feel less insane,

i.e., I now have a tv with cable, and I am using it almost exclusively to watch Korean cartoons.

Also, I'm constipated and bloated after the aforementioned foray into my meat-eating past (which I continued today with a chicken patty and boiled beef noodle soup). Ah, well. All things shall pass.

Yeun-gyun, my youngest co-teacher, took me to the immigration office to get my alien registration card today. It will be delivered in 10 days. She also offered to help me buy a cell phone, be my Seoul tour guide, teach me Korean, introduce me to her friends who are studying English at University, and show me around Korea University, one of the top Korean universities, which has a reputation for having a beautiful campus. Everyone is so nice and helpful! Even the Korean teachers who speak little to no English go out of their way to introduce themselves to me and invite me to have tea and rice cakes with them during break time.

Wait, the talking eel in the cartoon just died after falling off of a waterfall! And one of the frogs almost got eaten by an owl! Whaaaaaa? Korean cartoons actually portray death and danger in a realistic and saddening way? I can't handle all of this emotion.

In other news, I am going through super-human amounts of mango juice and am no longer a vegetarian.

I ate chunky beef soup today. You know, just to see if I could do it. Also, chicken dumplings. Also, breaded fish sticks.

Okay, so the fish sticks were really hard to get down, and I didn't even attempt the fish steaks that were also being served. But the other two were pretty do-able. It was definitely strange to eat something that I've eschewed for so long (12 years, I think), but I wasn't disgusted, and I think a small, hidden part of me actually missed the taste of beef. None of it made me sick, or even gassy.

This doesn't mean that I've suddenly stopped loving vegetables and fruits above all else, and it definitely doesn't mean that I suddenly don't care about the health (both human and animal) problems involved in commercial meat markets, or about the environmental impact of large-scale meat consumption. But right now, learning about and trying different Korean foods, with a special emphasis on being respectful towards the co-teachers with whom I eat lunch, is simply more important to me. When my co-teachers commented on the fact that I had considerably more vegetables piled on my tray than proteins, I told them that I used to be a vegetarian, but that now I ate some meats. They were amazed that I could have grown so tall without any meat in my diet.

Next week, the 1st graders (i.e. 10th graders, in the U.S.) are studying comparisons in English, and I've begun to put together a powerpoint with pictures of myself, Michigan, London... and Mom, Dad, Owen, Sara, and Nora. Merely for purposes of who's taller, stronger, etc. Hope you guys don't mind. The students get much more excited about things when they get to hear about my personal life at the same time. :)

There are two options for how to get home after school: 1. walk in a straight line until I get to a subway station further away from the school (Sadang), or 2. zigzag up and down and across bridges for two minutes to get to the closest subway station (Namtaeryung). Yesterday, I opted for the simpler but longer route; today, I tried to challenge myself to find the closer subway station. No cigar. I was on the verge of getting lost, but I came across one of the eager B-level (the first grade classes are separated into English skill levels A, B, and C, A being the highest) first grade girls I met in class today, and her gaggle of friends. Popsicles in hand, they guided me to the station, succumbed to my plying them with English questions along the way, and waved to me when I got off at my stop.

It was rather fun, but I'm glad it was the eager-girl crowd rather than the rowdy-boy crowd. All day today, in various classrooms, I've been trying to come up with an authoritative way to fend off "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Do you think I'm handsome?" "I love you!" etc. Heteronormativity, you are inexorably approaching. How discourage him (them)?

Wait, we have a cheese room?

Classes classes classes. They all say virtually the same thing: get the students to speak in English using games, boost confidence with games, make class more fun using games. Play lots of games.

After class, took the subway for the first time (with my aforementioned Hello Kitty subway card). With a few small differences (like escalator etiquette), it's just like the London Underground - so an easy adjustment for me. There's a lovely Indian restaurant just one subway stop away from the dorm, and one of my vegetarian classmates and I were growing a bit tired of the same old cafeteria routine: fried egg, white rice, lettuce, kimchi. Sometimes: broccoli, sweet potatoes, corn. Rarely: pasta. So instead: palak panir, vegetable curry, samosas, garlic naan. Since I'm trying to get used to Korean food, I'm not going to allow myself to do this very often, but hey - it's been a rough week.

We got drenched on the way back to the dorm (contrary to my former complaints re: not enough rain, it rains plenty. And not just a little). Which meant we had to run and change before tonight's entertainment: Nanta - one part theater, two parts Iron Chef bastard child, two parts objectification of the scantily dressed female chef, three parts really cool Korean rhythms/drumming/stomp. No pictures allowed inside of the theater, unfortunately.

That's all right now! Love.

Like a clean cicada, like aromatic citrus fruit.

Ten thousand cicadas, everywhere, all the time. Apparently, Koreans like cicadas because they have a reputation as diligent insects. It's good that they like them, because they permeate the outdoors here.

Last night, I climbed a mountain. Okay, so it was a small mountain about a 15 minute walk from my dorm with paved trails all the way up to the top. The big mountains aren't going anywhere (@bird_esque after all, life goal # [I don't remember] = climb a mountain on every continent).

Looking out from the mountain on the night lights of Seoul.

My fellow trainees, perched on the wall on the mountaintop.

Can you see this? It's a man exercising on an elliptical machine. They have various exercise machines at the top of the mountain.

Halfway up the mountain, we encountered a stage, and this:

Life goal number (51 or so?): eat squid.

Wait. That can't be right. Today we took a field trip into Jonju (about a 3-hour drive from Seoul), famous for its traditional culture and bibimbap. For dinner, the vegetarians were separated out from the rest of the group for a different fare. I mistakenly assumed that all the dishes we were served were therefore safe, and proceeded to try everything. I was mid-chew on some spicy, crispy-yet-chewy morsels when I was informed by my pescatarian table neighbor that I was chewing on squid legs.

Oh. Well, can't be helped, I suppose. A few seconds later, the fishy taste kicked in, and I had to force myself not to vomit, but force myself I did. My Leo pride rearing it's ugly head? I stopped chewing and swallowed them whole.

Status of vegetarianism: ?

Aside from eating misadventures, we took a bit of a tour of Jonju palace, briefly learned how to play traditional Korean drums, enacted a traditional wedding ceremony, and made our own traditional Korean fans (red, yellow, and blue swirled together, representing harmony between sky, earth, and humans. Our guides were in conflict over which color represented which). I'm all tradition-ed out.

Dorm-mate Trina, being overwhelmed about the drumming we're about to do (and also surprised by my sneak camera attack). By the way, we hadn't yet figured out that the drums go horizontally, not vertically. The two sides produce different sounds.

Jonju cultural center.


Decorations appearing on the outside woodwork of many traditional buildings (possibly from the Joseon dynasty).

Gate at the entrance to the palace, designed to keep devilish spirits out. They're big on ghosts here.

The interior of the first Catholic church ever built in Korea (purportedly), on the site of the spot where Catholics used to be executed for their rebellion against Confucianism. As our guide (the lady in the white gloves and hat) put it, mainstream Korea didn't like Catholicism because it didn't promote enough respect of elders.

On the drive back to Seoul, we started watching "The Good, The Bad, The Weird" (Korean film with English subtitles), which proved to be a sexist and gory gang film, the kind that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would love (@twcwar @bird_esque @warmandbarky). To my great joy, about halfway through the drive the movie started skipping, and we switched to a DVD of JLo in concert for the remainder of the trip. Yes, plz.

Heartz to all. Hope you enjoyed the show.

팜

I can now read most Korean characters, and am capable of producing hangul (the Korean system of writing) on or off my computer. The above is Pam (pronounced "pahm," the British way) in hangul.

Three Korean cafeteria meals later, my vegetarianism is still intact, minus one accidental bite of a fish patty that I thought was breaded zucchini. The food is quite good, especially once I learned that the vast majority of the sauces are quite spicy and thus, for me, something to be avoided (for now). Hopefully, my spice tolerance will improve in the course of the year. I'm especially a fan of how much they rely on fresh fruits and vegetables over here. I have mango juice and bananas with nearly every meal, as well as broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, etc.

I hadn't bonded much with my roommate (Christina) before, but yesterday she asked me if I'd pooped since I got here. "Yes" was the answer, but then she followed up: "Yeah, but was it a good poop?" No. It wasn't. I'm officially in love. We are also mutually open about the fact that we tend to fart in our sleep.

As of now, I have a Hello Kitty subway card and nearly no free time. I get up every morning around 7 and it's beginning to seem not only normal, but preferable. I hardly recognize myself.