Friday, June 29, 2007

some stuff

works been worky lately. had to bring in the contract to show that we should have 5 days vacation in the summer instead of the 4 sally recently changed it to. now the korean teachers are being a bit cold towards us. They'll still have to work.
I think we're going to ride the bike up the west coast. However, beard was saying something about checking out the phillipines. we'll have to see about that money wise. we want to go to china during our next vacation and i'm not sure we can swing both.
i'm still really excited to come home, but it's going to be weird leaving here.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

lately

i am currently on keith's computer (thank you, keith) because my computer refuses to turn on and is in the shop. as of thursday, they didnt know how to turn in on either. so the waiting begins.
i found out tuesday that our friend ciaran passed away. he had a form a cancer that attacks the lymph nodes and had gone back to ireland for treatment. his girfriend, dajeon, had gotten a visa and was on her way to see him. he died of an asthma attack on the way to the airport to pick her up. ciaran was a wonderful person and will be deeply missed. i want to put a picture of him here but keith doesnt have one on his computer...
ill post again later.

Monday, June 11, 2007

interesting

i know i've mentioned several times about korea having a drinking culutre. here's a related article i read today.

Women gain status in South Korea
Court ruling against drinking linked to job reflects changing society

By NORIMITSU ONISHI, New York Times
First published: Sunday, June 10, 2007
SEOUL, South Korea -- In a time-honored practice in South Korea's corporate culture, the 38-year-old manager at an online game company took his 10-person team on after-work drinking bouts twice a week. He exhorted his subordinates to drink, including a 29-year-old graphic designer who protested that her limit was two glasses of beer.

"Either you drink or you get it from me tomorrow," the boss told her one evening.
She drank, fearing that refusing to do so would hurt her career. But eventually, unable to take the drinking, she quit and sued.
In May, in the first ruling of its kind, the Seoul High Court said that forcing a subordinate to drink alcohol was illegal, and it pronounced the manager guilty of a "violation of human dignity." The court awarded the woman $32,000 in damages for the incidents, which occurred in 2004.
The ruling was as much a testament to women's growing presence in corporate life here as a confirmation of changes already under way. As an increasing number of women have joined companies as professionals in the past half-decade, corporate South Korea has struggled to change the country's thoroughly male-centered corporate culture, starting with alcohol.
An evening out with colleagues here follows a predictable, alcohol-centered pattern: dinner, usually some grilled pork, washed down with soju, Korea's national vodka-like drink; then a second round at a beer hall; then whiskey and singing at a "norae bang," a Korean karaoke club. Exhorted by their bosses to drink, the corporate warriors bond, literally, so that the sight of dark-suited men holding hands, leaning on one another, staggering toward taxis, is part of this city's nighttime streetscape. The next morning, back at the office, they are ready to fight, with reaffirmed unity, for more markets at home and abroad.
Many professional women manage to avoid much of the drinking by adopting well-known strategies. They slip away while their male colleagues indulge in a second or third round of drinking. They pour the drinks into potted plants. They rely on male colleagues, called "knights in shining armor," to take their turns in drinking games.
Companies, too, have begun to respond. Since 2005, Posco, the steel manufacturer, has limited company outings to two hours at its mill in South Korea's southwest. Employees can raise a red card if they do not want to drink or a yellow card if they want to go home early. At Woori Bank, one of South Korea's largest, an alarm rings at 10 p.m. to encourage workers to stop drinking and go home using public transportation, which stops running before midnight.
Still, at least 90 percent of company outings -- called "hoishik," or coming together to eat -- still center on alcohol, according to the Korean Alcohol Research Foundation. The percentage of women who drink has increased as they have joined companies.
South Koreans consume less alcohol than most Europeans, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a research group.
But Cho Sung-gie, the alcohol foundation's research director, estimates that South Koreans rank first in binge drinking: The goal is to drink as much as possible, as quickly as possible, so that co-workers loosen up.

Friday, June 08, 2007

fan death

it seems we have the first reported case of fan death here in the ROK. "a drunken man fell asleep in a motel with the fan on all night without the window open and died of suffocated" is what KBS news reported. you know, because the fan takes the oxygen out of the air. duh.
a couple hypotheses as to what the real story might be: a drunken man fell asleep in a motel with the fan on all night and died of alcohol poisoning. a drunken man died of a heart attack in a motel while having sex with a woman other than his wife. a drunken man committed suicide in a motel room.
all of these tarnish his reputation--fan death it is!
i'll try to keep a running tally. it'll probably be hard to keep up.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

happy birthday, will!

will came to gumi for his 25th birthday. he was meant to buy a bike near here saturday but it had some problems. supposedly "perfect fix" on tuesday. we went out for pizza in gupyeong and then to a bar and then psycho. fun fun.

at the pizza place. jenny, jihye, beard, will, me hanna

uh huh

after a horrible run-in with jenny, will is hiding is nose. understandably.

counting the cash. however, bike upsa.

huge ass pitcher

kids sing happy birthday to will teacher.


will teacher is...

Saturday, June 02, 2007

a few pictures


just below diamond cave

lamps

view from inside diamond cave. on the ceiling are paper lamps

i'm a good driver...

the buggy beef place

saturday afternoon

so, some stuff's happened since i've last blogged.
beard and i registered to take the GRE in Jakarta on November 20th. Our last day at DDD is Nov. 16 so that gives us a couple days to finish packing, travel, rest and take the damn thing. so excited...
second, we finally went to seoraksan--a beautiful national park way up north, near the border. we had the thursday off for buddhas birthday and took friday off so we'd have a long weekend. wednesday we went out for fish with daeyoung and after ended up walking to waegook and from there walking to the bus station to see when buses left and didn't get to bed til 4...these things happen. beard was a little more hungover than planned so we chilled at home til 3 and then took the bus to daegu to catch the express bus to sokcho (town near the park). we had enough time to eat and make the last bus at 6. bus ride was ok. not sickening like the ride to the snow fest in taebaek, thankfully. and on the bus were me, beard and one other chick. nice and quiet. the ride was supposed to take 5.5 hrs and only took 4.5 hours. woohoo. (an aside--i just typed yippee instead of woohoo and then i thought, wait, i never say yippee. does anyone say yippee? i guess i do say it but only sarcastically as in yippee we have an unplanned meeting after work. so i changed ti to woo hoo b/c i DO say woo hoo and i wasn't trying ot be sarcastic at all). we stayed at a cheap yeogwan near the bus station that the driver pointed to. as in most yeogwons the ajumma was sleeping behind the window and we had to wake her up to take us to a room. the door to the room opened directly into the bathroom. not even the traditional area for shoes. we had to take off our shoes in the bathroom. weird. and it wasnt a big bathroom either. the room itself was small but it looked clean and there was an air con if needed and it was only 20,000. deal. we immediatly went back out in the rain to get something to eat. found a pelicana chicken place that said welcome to sokcho in russian. the chicken was pretty good. bought a beer to drink while watching discovery channel. the only decent channel on tv and we don't have it here. we watched mythbusters about shooting a gun into the air but i cant remember the exact myth and something on engineering that was interesting but i can't remember what we learned...
we assumed it would be raining friday, too so we slept in. when we woke up around 11 it was a bright sunshiney day. perfect. we took a taxi to the park--beard thought, wrongly, that it would only cost 5-6K to get there. unfortunately he was mistakend and it was almost 15. we got caught in traffic and every red light. but 15 isn't bad. he took us to the crystal motel which reminded me of my days of crystal meth. you just can't get any good crystal meth these days. mmmmm, meth. i've never felt so dirty yet had my apartment so clean since.
we walked in--no one. no noise. we were looking around to see how much a room would cost, usually it's posted. i leaned over to see if it was on hte wall behind hte counter and BAM the ajumma sat up from her reclining position scaring the shit out of me and beard. she laughed and told us it was 30,000. good deal we thought considering hte location. we checked out the room--screens on windows, big tv w/ discovery channel, non bean-filled pillows, towels, hot water. good enough to be our home for 2 days. we paid and headed out for some much needed food. had the local bibimbop with mountain vegetables. not quite sure what hte veggies were, but they were good. decided to walk to the park and check out the waterfalls. we made it to piryeong (dragon) waterfall but couldnt find the trail to the biggest waterfall in the park. on hte way back we saw a trail with a danger sign that beard thought might be it. i said he could try it but i wasnt going ot. just a little over a week ago we were on a trail that was very steep adn slippery so we took a side trail adn wehn we got further down and looked back there was a danger sign across the trail we were tyring to go down. i wasnt going to do that again. he decided not to either. he called daeyoung when we were closer to the bottom and sure enough, that was the trail...he went on about that for a while, let me tell ya. a better thing was that as we were walking down one of hte many stairways, we saw todd and adrienne. they lived in gumi last year and are now in seoul. we exchanged numbers and arranged to meet later for dinner.
They told us the cable car was worth it so we bought tickets. the ride it self was ok, but form there we hiked up further and it was gorgeous. pretty windy. it was a bit hazy so we couldn't see very far but it was very nice. i'll add pictures in anohter post. we took the car back down and headed to the motel to clean up. met todd and adrienne and had samgypsal. just to remind you all--the last time i ate that i was puking and shitting the day after b/c i hadnt eaten red meat in 5 years. i was more than a bit leery especially since we were supposed to hike the next day. not to worry--everything was fine. it's an ok dish but i like galbi much better. less fatty, more flavor. drank a couple more beers at the mart and were in bed by 1. go us!
Saturday was beautiful. we were up at 8 (!) and ate and walked to the park. we had decided to go up ulsanbawi (ulsan rock) and then down and to biseondae and diamond cave. the walk to ulsanbawi started easy enough and then the 800 steps started. whoa. and it was very, very windy. women were laying down on hte steps at one point. we get to the top and its a huge, exposed rock face. amazing. we sat down immediately b/c i was thinking i might fly off if standing. there were guard rails, but still. i had already lost my bandanna right off my head on the way up. luckily for me a man brought it up. nice guy. we got our picure taken on top. i crawled to the picture area and remained squatting. beard stood for a couple minutes but held on with both hands. and there were kids up there. no way. the way back down was a piece of cake compared to hte way up.
we stopped to try to push over the rocking rock. i think it moved a little, beard denies it. supposedly 2 people can make it rock but 12 can't push it over. or at least that's what hte sign said. then to the river/stream/creak for some gimbop and coffee. when we were back at the crossroads to go to biseondae i was ready for beer and sitting but i'm glad beard talked me into going. the trail was really easy, even paved at the beginning. we got to biseondae viewing area--lots of people were rock climbing that day. and then we took the straight up, stairs all the way, hike to diamond cave. we got to where i thought the cave was but then beard pointed basically straight up to the actual cave--many more steps. we chilled for a while and watched the climbers and then made our way to the cave. there was a monk sitting on a platfrom thing right outside the cave, a woman monk sitting at a little table selling candles and a monk in the inner cave chanting. looking out you see other mountains. very idyllic. i made a video of the monk chanting on the sly. on our way back down the steps we ran into todd and adrienne. todd suggested we stop at the first beer place and get boozy. and we did. again and again. all the way back down. the first beer was 4000, second 3,500, and the third and rest of the beers were 3,000. we ate at a buggy beef place adn returned to our seats at the mart.
i wanted ot know what hte liquor with the penis lid was like. these bottles were everywhere. in the US they would be hidden behind something so the kiddies wouldnt see but this wasn't even a liquor store, just a regular mart. so we bought one. i think it was the bad tasting one. somewhere along hte line someone had the idea that we should each buy a bottle of different liquor to taste it. that probably wasnt the best idea...but it was interesting. we were by a noribang and these older women kept coming out in small groups and usually 2 or more of them had botttles of beer. this is very odd. women RARELY walk around in public with beer. sometimes you see them taking shots of soju in a restaurant after saying no no no. especially older women. but they kept coming. there was also these 2 poodles. one was supposed to be white haired but had lost almost all of his hair and was about 3 times the size it was supposed to be. it didn't even raise it's tail. the other one was brown and very cute. hte owner of hte mart sat with us for a while with the dog. the mart ajumma, im assuming the dudes wife had this nasty sore on the back of her neck. it was in an odd place. we couldn't figure out how she could get injured there. ew. it grosses me out just thinking about it.
Sunday we woke up and showered trying to alleviate the after effects of drinking a lot of beer and hten experimental liquor on top of it and then headed into sokcho to find a bus home. we were thinking of checking out the beach but it looked like rain and was still windy so we left. lots more people on the bus this time but still a decent ride and got home in teh same amount of time.
thirdly, my friend angie has left korea for a while. she is going to japan to see her aunt for a bit and then to victoria island in cananda for a homestay for 6 months, maybe more. victoria island is near bellingham so when i get out there i'm going to try to see her. i'm hoping she can come to hte US but right now she only has a visa for canada. the visa for the states take a lot longer. maybe she can get a visa from canada...not sure.
lastly and perhaps the most important. jen found a way for me to not be constipated. i love the internet. really, what did we do before? so yeah, i take a tablespoon of olive oil mixed wiht a tablespoon of lemon juice 2 times a day. it worked. it really really worked. i am SO happy you can't even imagine. and it's a natural remedy which makes me feel good. i didn't want to take a pill. and it beats my old natural remedy which was drink nasty beer friday night to guarantee a BM on saturday...
i think that's about it...
oh yeah, that stuff about crystal meth--lies. i've never done crystal meth or have even come CLOSE to doing crystal meth. ha.