Kate’s sister, Molly, came to visit us in Korea in late December.  She stayed for about 10 days and we had a great time with her.  It was wonderful to actually get to share this place with someone from home.  The last 4 days that she was here we were off work and we all went to Seoul.  The trip was mainly a whirlwind tour of the city’s hot spots.  Here are some pictures from Seoul.   There are more in the gallery to the left.  As always – click for a larger image.

We stopped at a KimBap Restaurant (Korean Fast Food) for a cheap snack before heading off for the afternoon.  This is Ram-bokki a combination of Ramen Noodles and Dakbokki – spicy sauce and rice cake.  In the background you can see Kim Bap (Korean sushi rolls without the sushi) and Mandu (Korean Dumplings).  Molly had a pretty good amount of Korean food while she was here… its definitely an experience.  Kate and I love this stuff now

There was an Andy Warhol Portraits exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art, so naturally we checked it out.  It was a coooold night but we ventured out.  The exhibit was fantastic!  A really wide range of his work and a lot of historical information and artifacts about his life.  The English translations of the commentary were also really entertaining.

We got a little lost walking back to the subway which wasn’t good because it was about 1 degree outside…but we made it!

The next day we went to Bongeun-sa Temple near the Coex Mall.  Every Thursday they have a “Temple Life” program where foreigners can get a tour of the temple, learn some basic meditation practices, participate in the Tea Ceremony and make lotus flowers.  It was about 2 hours and a really great way to experience Korean Buddhism up close.  We had hoped to do an overnight Temple Stay the weekend before, but Kate was sick and it didn’t seem like a good idea.  This was a nice way to still get at least some of the experience.

Lanterns are hung at the temples for a period of time before and after the four major Buddhist holidays.  I think these were up for the New Year.

This is one of the tallest Buddha Statues in Korea.  The picture doesn’t really do it justice but it was huge!

Tea ceremony!

Kate and Molly making Lotus Flowers

The Temple is right in the middle of the city – providing an interesting contrast between the skyscrapers and apartment buildings all around it.

Kate and Molly on the Subway.  Seoul has one of the best subways I’ve ever been on.  It’s quiet, clean, and fast… amazing!

The last day we took a bus tour around the city.  This was the easiest and cheapest way to see all the highlights of the city.  It was a fun way to spend the day.

I think this is Namdaemoon, or Dongdaemoon …  From the bus.

We also went to see Avatar in 3D one afternoon, and ate some Mexican food in Itaewon.  On Saturday we took Molly to the airport for her early morning flight, then we waited there for our 9:30pm flight.  Stuck in the airport for 13 hours… not too fun.  Incheon is kind of the most amazing airport in the world though, so it was not a problem… more on that in the next post… Manila!

]]> http://www.spicyfishy.com/winter-vacation-part-1-seoul/feed/ 1 http://www.spicyfishy.com/school-photo/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/school-photo/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:29:23 +0000 http://www.spicyfishy.com/?p=987 We had school pictures a couple of months ago and our teachers all took these two pictures together.  We also took individual photos, which we never saw, but we were given these a few days later – just getting around to posting them now, sorry.

The first is a standard posed picture – (from the roof of the school) with all of the Geundeok teachers and staff.  This is everybody

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The second picture is a new-age-awesomeness picture envisioned by the artiste photographers… If we were a band, we would be awesome… but we’re not, we’re elementary school teachers – so it’s just goofy.  But that’s Korea!!

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Some of these people are really amazing.  We’ve become great friends with a number of them and will miss them greatly when leave in a few months.  One advantage of being at such a small school is that it’s really like an extended family.  I know every one of these people pretty well and some of them are really our best friends in Korea.  That’s much less possible at a school with 80 teachers that is departmentalized and divided.   I’d list the names and positions of everyone in the picture but it would probably be silly.  Our closest friends are the woman on the far left (black sweater tan skirt) – She’s the 5th grade teacher, teacher Kim Young-mi and is a year older than us.  She came this year from Taebaek and has been a great friend!  Can’t imagine the past year without her great sense of humor and fantastic English.  The woman in the front with the White Jacket (younger woman) is our official Co-teacher, Son Eun-Jin.  She’s amazing!  Such a fantastic friend and always willing to help us when we have problems.  (And she’s the hardest working person in our school ) In front of Kate (to the left a bit) in all black is Teacher Kim Suk-jin.  She was our first friend here in Korea and really helped us a lot our first semester here.  She was in the U.S. last summer studying English and is now teaching most of our classes with us (long story).  She’s great and we will miss her a lot.  Hopefully some of these ladies will come to our wedding!!  There are a number of other teachers I’d love to tell you about and surely will sometime soon, but for now that’s it  Just wanted post these pictures while I was thinking of it.

All the best…

Kate and I are enjoying homemade apple pie and whip cream tonight.  Thanks KATE!

-Chad

Recently our school went on a double field trip day with some of our Garden school funding.

NOTE: Our school was designated a “Garden School” earlier this year and given some huge amount of money to renovate and redesign the programming.  Kate and I have no idea really why our school was given this “honor” but we can assume it has something to do with our Vice Principal who last year was a supervisor at the office of education, so he has lots of connections.  This all doesn’t really affect us toooo much except that everyone is going crazy trying to figure out how to spend all the money and we’re cramming in a bunch of field trips before the end of the school year to use some of it up.  Hence.. the double field trip day.

The 4-6 graders went to Seoul for 2 days to visit another Garden school and to see some museums etc.  The 1st-3rd graders went to Gyeungju.  This city is about 3 hours south of Samcheok and used to be one of the dynasty capitals before the country was unified and Seoul became the capital.  We’re talking 600-1000 years ago…  So we toured some of the major historic sites, a museum, and a famous Buddhist temple.  I’m glad we got to go on this trip even though the 1st-3rd graders are more difficult to handle than the older kids.  We’ve seen Seoul so many times, it was nice to check off another place (even if our trip was very fast and not at all comprehensive ).

Here are some of our pictures from the trip.  If you’d like to see the full gallery check it out in the photo pages or click here.

*A note to the reader, Chad did the grunt work for this and I am filling in the captions.  Now you know why Chad suddenly became much more effeminate.  It’s just me!    -K

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The sunrise on our way to see the old city.  We have to leave at 7!

I’m also in the process of uploading videos from the event.  They’ll be up soon. UPDATE: They’re up now!

As always – click the image to see a larger version.

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This is MinJae – one of the students in our skit.  He’s amazing… and has the best smile around!

N-Seoul Tower is a “space-needle” like tower in the middle of seoul on a big hill.  Great view – but it was a bit cloudy the day we were there so it’s hard to see everything in the pictures.  Still impressive though.  Hopefully you can see enough to get an idea of just how large the city is.  Pretty incredible.

Again you might need to download a plugin to view the photosynth.

Enjoy -

-Chad

The reason I want to share this with you is that reading this essay  proved to us that the little things we do are paying off.  Not soon after we arrived here we realized that we were not in Korea to make sure everyone can respond to “How are you?” twenty different ways.  We are here as diplomats of the English language and western culture.  Our goals became much bigger that the difference in the pronunciation of ‘rice’ and ‘lice.’   Every time we reach out to those kids and accept them for who they are and for what they already know, they will become more and more comfortable with us and our way of life.  Every time Chad treats me as an equal or says that he cooked dinner he is showing the students that  women and men are equal.  It’s a much bigger goal than we had originally anticipated but much more fulfilling.

Mi Guem’s essay proved to us that our efforts are working.  The entire essay can be read bellow but the parts that pertain to my blog post are in boldface.

안녕하세요. 만나서 반갑습니다.

Hello. Nice to meet you.

저는 근덕초등학교 4학년 진미금입니다.

I’m Jin Mi-geum, a 4th grader at Geundeok Elementary School.

저는 오늘 우리 학교에 대해 말하고자합니다.

I want to tell you about my school.

우리(our) 학교는(school) 한(each) 학년에(Grade) 한반씩(have 1 class) 있는 작은(small) 학교(school)입니다.(is)

My school is a small. We only have one class for each grade.

근덕초등학교에 와 보신적이 있나요?

Have you ever been to my school?

우리(our) 학교는(school) 작지만(small but) 예쁜(pretty or beautiful) 학교(school)입니다.

It is a small but pretty school.

운동장에는(in the playground) 잔디(grass)가 있고,

There is grass on the playground.

교실앞에는(before classroom or in front of my classroom) 정원과(garden) 큰 나무(big tree),

We have gardens and a large tree outside the classrooms.

언제나(every time, or always, all the time) 앉아서(sit) 쉴 수 있는(be able to rest) 긴의자(long chair, bench)가 있습니다.(there are)

There are benches where I rest everyday before class.

여름에(in summer) 나무(tree) 그늘(shade or dusk) 밑의(under) 긴의자에(bench) 앉아있으면(sit),

In the summer I sat under the trees in the shade.

불어오는(swelled up?) 시원한(cool) 바람에(wind or breeze) 기분이 좋습니다.(I feel good)

The cool breeze made me feel good.

우리(our) 학교(school)에는 2명(two person)의 원어민영어선생님(EPIK teacher)이 있습니다.(there are)

There are two EPIK teachers at our school.

선생님의 이름은 케이트와 채드입니다.

Their names are Kate and Chad.

성은 몰라요

I don’t know their last names.

저는 그냥 케이트, 채드라고 부릅니다.

I just call them Kate and Chad.

한국 선생님들은(korea teachers) 케이트 선생님(teacher kate), 채드 선생님(teacher chad)이라고 부르라고(call) 하는데, 이름만(just name) 불러도(call) 영어선생님들은(EPIK teacher) 화내시지 않아요.(don’t angry)

Korean teachers tell me I should call them “Teacher Kate and Teacher Chad” but they don’t get angry if I just call them by their names.

그래서(so) 더(more) 가깝게(close, intimately, friendly, near) 느껴집니다.(feeling)

This makes me feel closer to them.

저는(I) 영어 선생님들과(with EPIK teachers or English teachers) 공부하는(studying) 수업(class)시간(time, hour)이 정말(really) 좋습니다.(like, good)

I really like English class with the EPIK teachers.

영어선생님들(EPIK teachers)은 참(really) 재미있게(fun, interestedly ) 가르쳐주십니다.(teach our)

Their classes are very fun and interesting.

그리고(and) 제가(I) 서툰(terrible, don’t know well, wrong) 말(words)로 물어보아도(ask) 잘(good) 알아듣고(understand) 대답해주십니다. (answer, respond)

If I ask a lame question, they always understand and answer.

케이트, 채드 선생님은 제가 3학년일때 우리 학교에 왔습니다.

Kate and Chad came to my school when I was in the 3rd Grade.

영어선생님들을(EPIK teachers, English teachers) 만나서(meet) 영어가(English) 더욱(more) 좋아졌어요.(like)

I like English more now because I met them.

우리 학교는(our school, my school) 올해(this year) 전원학교에(garden school) 뽑혔다(voted, was singled out, be elected, was chosen)고 합니다.(I heard)

I heard that this year my school was chosen to be a Garden School.

사실(In fact) 전원학교가 무엇인지(what garden school) 저는 잘 모릅니다.(I don’t know well)

To be honest, I don’t know very much about Garden Schools.

하지만 전원학교가 되어서 기쁩니다.

But I am very glad that my school is one.

전원학교가 된 이후로(since be garden school, after garden school) ‘야간(evening) 무료(free, pay free) 반딧불(firefly) 교실(class)’이 생겼어요.(create, make, come into being)

Because my school is now a Garden School, there are special after school classes for free in the evening.

야간 수업으로는 핸드 페인팅, 기타, 바이올린, 영어자격증반이 있는데,

Some of the evening classes include hand painting class, guitar class, violin class and English License Certification class.

부모님들도 배우러 오세요.

Even our parents get to come and study!

모든(every) 수업이(class) 무료(free, pay free)이고 기타(guitars)와 바이올린도(and violins) 학교에서(at the school) 학생들에게(to students) 줍니다.(give)

Each class is free and they even give the students violins and guitars.

저는 영어자격증반에 공부하러 가요.

I go to the English License Certification class to study.

5,6학년이랑 같이 수업을 받아요.

I study with 5th and 6th grade students in the class.

조금(little) 어렵기는(difficult) 하지만(but) 영어수업(enlish class) 받으러 가는게(go) 즐거워요.(fun. be pleasant)

It is a little difficult but I think the class is fun!

5,6학년 언니들은 이번에 영어자격증 시험을 봤어요.

(5th,6th Grade student took English license exam)

합격했는지는 아직 모르겠어요.

The 5th and 6th grade students already took the exam. I don’t know whether they passed yet.

저도 내년에는 영어자격증 시험을 보고 싶어요.

My school got extra money to train students to take the English License exam.

시험보는(testing, exam) 돈(money)도 학교에서(at school) 내줬어요.(gave, pursed, open one’s purse, lay out )

내년에(next year) 제가 시험볼때도(when I take exam) 그랬으면(same happen) 좋겠어요.(I hope. I want)

I plan to take the exam next year.

선생님(teacher)이 말씀하시길(say), 다른(other) 지역(city)으로 체험학습(field learning experience trip, learning trip)도 갈 거래요.

저는(I) 앞으로(future, forward) 기대(expect)가 많이(many, big, a lots) 되요.

My teacher said that we will go on many field trips to other cities. I am excited for the future trips.

시간이 되시면, 우리 학교에 구경오세요(lionize, watch, see the sight of).

If you have time, please come tour our wonderful school.

지금까지, 경청해주셔서 감사합니다. Thank you for listening.

좋은 시간 되세요. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

STOP

I think I could write an entire book about Mi Geum’s essay.  I hope that every foreign teacher with goals similar to ours gets to see how his or her work effected their students.

A note, most of you have probably picked up on the name thing here.  How you address someone is incredibly important.  We have been making a point to always be respectful to everyone – not just those above us. I love the Mi Guem thinks Kate and Chad are our last names.   Chad made a post recently, Annoying Our Students, in it we are teasing them about not understanding when they ask if Chad and I are a couple.  In the first video I say that Mi Guem is my friend, she spazzes out and says “No, you are my teacher!”  It’s cute, especially after reading this essay.

- – -

On another note, look forward to more pictures!  Chad sold our two old digital cameras and got an amazing new lense!  He had some great pictures of our DMZ trip but some are now gone, that’s for another blog post.

One more final tidbit from the lived of Chad and Kate, I took the GRE on Saturday.  My last name, Korroch, is smack bad between Kim and Lee.  I had to raise my hand and ask that the protor read the directions in English!

Chad is out getting a haircut and curry ingrediants.  He is wonderful.  :)  I’m about to start nursing my cold with some Ugly Betty and EMERGEN-C.

OH, MY SISTER MOLLY IS COMING HERE FOR TWO WEEKS IN DECEMBER AND JANUARY!!!

I’m done.

Happy Hump Day!

Love,

Kate & Chad

Enjoy -

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I’ve been having some fun with photoshop lately so I thought I’d share what I’ve been up to.  These are just a few photos I’ve tinkered with or put together with photoshop.  Nothing too special but some interesting shots.

Click the images to see a larger version…

1.   This was taken on Samcheok beach back in June or July.

2.  I took the panorama a few weeks ago from Samcheok Mountain.  It’s facing toward the sea port and you can see the bright lights of the squid boats out in the water.  That’s not exaggerated.. they really are that bright.  (click this image once.. then again to see an even larger version.)

3. I love this picture of Kate!  It’s pretty cheesy I know and the vingetting is really strong .. but that’s what I was trying to learn how to do .. hah so enjoy that beautiful smile

4. Jump!  This was taken last semester during a traditional korean festival day at school.  This is a popular traditional Korean game.  Just some simple dodge and burn to accentuate the action.

5. This is my first attempt at an HDR photo – (High Dynamic Range).  It was taken from the mountain in Samcheok (of Samcheok) and wasn’t intended to be an HDR photo.  I was taking some shots for a panorama but I think it turned out alright.  It’s my first attempt so don’t judge it too harshly.  My dodge and burn attempts are reallllly spotty but that’s not what I was trying to learn how to do.  It was also a really gloomy/dark day – so it was a tough day to shoot pictures.

I’ll be posting some pictures from a hike we did the other day at Hwansangul soon.  We’re hosting our first Couch surfers tonight – so I’m going to go be social with them.  Some nice Lithuanian girls who are in Seoul for the Semester.

—Chad