Something I should have been proud of sooner.

Chinese New Year... In China!

So the Lunar New Year was approaching, all I could think was that I'm sitting here, a two hour flight away from CHINA, the words "CHINESE New Year" bouncing around my head, I may have possibly been eating CHINESE food at the time... It seemed like I had no other choice and without thought or hesitation I rounded up some friends, some visas and some air tickets and we were off to Beijing for the long weekend.

There were a number of memorable moments within my short 3 day stay in the city, such as the Great Wall, the great hostel and the not so great duck; but I feel that I should focus my attention on the New Year itself.

Much like my skiing experience, I had an image in my head of what to expect. It included parades, dragons, one massive firework display somewhere central, more dragons, street shows, dragons, bright lights, dragons and fireworks. Unlike my skiing experience, all my expectations were surpassed and were nothing like I had imagined.

On Saturday we went on a hunt for action. Where are the people? The People setting up camp for the evenings show? I grew up in Australia, and my idea of a firework display included setting up during day light to secure a spot. Where were the dragons?!?!? Had we come to the wrong city?

After chatting a few times to our wonderful hostel staff, they assured us there was "no where to be", which disappointed us greatly. Luckily, the manager took a liking to us and said to be back by midnight to join her on the roof of the hostel for a drink.

We wandered the streets and side-alleys for a while, only to watch all the locals setting off firecrackers everywhere and anywhere. I even saw children lighting them and cars driving around them; it was madness. This sight is unbelievable within itself, for 15 days straight this is a normality; every where you go, day or night, you will either hear or see explosions; its how I imagine a war-zone to be... obviously, without all the death.
Midnight came and we headed up to the roof of the hostel with our beer; and in the cheesiest words I could think of "the magic happened." This is a sight that I feel everybody MUST experience at least once in their lifetime. The city is literally on fire! All around you, 360 degrees, every Person in the city is burning up the sky. I was over-whelmed and had no idea which direction to even look in. Fireworks were exploding next to me, behind me, to the left and right and above me... to top it off, this doesn't end. It peeks at midnight and continues for possibly an hour and then slowly calms down but still continues throughout the night.

The hostel manager explained why this was happening all across the country. There is an old story that tells of a ghost that brings bad luck; the ghosts name in Chinese means "Year". The Chinese people believe that if every year, they make as much noise and light as they can outside their homes and work places, they will scare off the ghost for yet another year. I wouldn't want to be the one person in China who forgets. She also explained that the Chinese people happily spend on these 15 days, buying as many of the most elaborate fireworks as they can; regardless of income.

Long story short... It was Awesome.

ASR... A Ski Rant

Skiing is not for everybody.

Let me start by saying that I am not judging the sport itself nor the people who do it. I'm just sharing my first experience and the disaster it was. If you LOVE skiing, you may want to stop reading because realistically, I'm going to be doing some heavy whinging.

This weekend I visited Muju ski resort (South Korea.)

I left JeonJu with so much excitement, I knew I wasn't going to master the sport in a weekend but I looked forward to the image I had running around in my head; cabins, lodges, hot chocolates, romantic ski lifts, beautiful people laughing, cute ski bunnies, snow fights oh and of course a bit of skiing; which to be honest looked a lot like this:

Obviously that reference would have made a lot more sense if there were actually people skiing in that video. Don't question me! They were holding skis, that's enough for me.

This is what it really looks like.

I got there, its bloody cold obviously, and I ask some people where the beginners go, they point at a queue and I get in. I stand in line for what feels like forever before getting on the ski lift which takes me to the top of a massive mountain (not for beginners). I fall while getting off the ski lift; at this point I realize that there is a possibility I may have not been ready for what it is I was about to face. I panic when I see just how steep the slope really is and instantly head into the mountain-top cafe (lodge?) for the hot chocolate I had dreamed of.

It turns out the lodge was actually a small dirty room filled with a few benches, a man who serves you an instant hot chocolate for twice the price and another man who after one sip comes over, tells you to throw away your drink and get off the mountain as they are closing the slope. Thanks for telling me this AFTER I buy the bloody thing.

I get my skis back on and look down the slope only to realize that I have absolutely no idea how to ski. No one has ever spoken to me or told me anything about skiing and here I am alone, looking down and thinking to myself;
"what the hell do I actually do???" More men come over and tell me to get off the mountain...

In their best English "GO! GO! SKI! NOW! SLOPE CLOSE! GO"

I make an attempt, I fall, I don't know how to get up, I remove a ski, get up, put the ski back on. I go, I fall, oh for god sake! All the while these men are still yelling at me to go. I manage to get going only to realize I don't know how to turn which leads me into a fence. Finally a man holds my hands and skis backwards in front of me down the mountain. He lets go, I fall. (This is starting to sound like a joke.) Finally after a long time of the man laughing to himself as to how the hell I ended up on that slope in the first place, he calls over some sort of embarrassing stretcher and throws me on it to be taken down the mountain to face my friends at the bottom. Humiliation at its finest.

The experience slightly improved in the evening when I actually found the beginner slope and practiced alongside all the other people just as bad as me... but here is my summary of skiing: I can't ski, it sucked, I sucked... even when I got the hang of it (at 9pm on the beginners slope) it still sucked. Its cold, frustrating, expensive, uncomfortable, scary and abusive.

Okay now I've gotten that off my chest. Honestly, its probably not that bad. I may have just had an exceptionally bad first experience. I'm assuming that if my day had gone the other way around, hitting the big slope AFTER learning how to turn or stop; I would be sitting here saying how absolutely amazing skiing is but it all kind of happened backwards for me. Never mind... I guess skiing just is not for everybody.

On a final note. ASR (a ski rant) may also refer to A.S Roma, Air-sea rescue, apple software restore, and Asian soybean rust. ^^*

The joy of teaching

Being a teacher is not without its perks; I'm sure many teachers will agree. Please do not get me wrong, there are days where I look at the students staring blankly at me or shouting and throwing pieces of their table and think to myself; Why would anyone put themselves through this torture day in day out for the entirety of their lives?

Anyway, the big perk for me is just some of the funny stuff these kids come out with... pure gold. I felt I should share some of these moments with you.

When asking a child to form a sentence using the word "bee."
Student: My mother is not bee......... ..... ?

During a game of scattegories, the letter is R; category is animals: A middle school student yells out with such pride... "RION!" after a short explanation as to why this is wrong whilst his fellow students laugh to themselves, the next category is girls names... once again with pure pride the boy yells "RIORA!!!" His friends next to him crack up and all start shouting L around the room.

"I have many books. In these books I have a diary. The diary is empty. This is because I can't write words. This is because I am dead."
- What I get when I ask middle schoolers to write a story about books.

Teacher: What is bob doing in the living room?
Student: Tv?
Teacher: YES! Watching tv... ok can we make a sentence... Bob *blank* watching tv. Fill the blank...
Student: MONKEY?

^^ yes that is David Beckham giving me a headshot...

Playing a game of word "go fish" and a middle schooler seems to have figured out the basic formula to making words. He throws together "H,E,M,P" I ask him to make a sentence and out of panic he says "Hemp is delicious" I only then let him look the word up on his dictionary at which point whilst trying to hide his face in horror he retracts his previous statement.

Teacher: Who is your best friend? Describe them.
Student: My best friend is Obama, he has black skin and smart and has good character.

I hope you enjoyed these moments as much as I did and remember;

Pepero Day

For years I have heard phrases like "consumer" and "greeting card" holidays but these have only really ever been used to describe days such as Valentines day and in some cases the modern versions of Easter and Christmas, but S.Korea has actually taken these words to a whole new meaning all together.

Inspired by valentines day, the company Pepero (a brand of chocolate biscuits/bread-sticks much like the more widely spread Japanese "Pocky") decided to celebrate itself on 11/11 purely because the four digits resemble four of the chocolate coated sticks that they market. They claim that the holiday was actually started by a group of middle school girls who on 11/11 gave each other Pepero and repeated to each other "may you grow to be tall and thin like a Pepero," which is fairly ironic as I doubt a bread stick coated in chocolate could ever aid in the growing or dieting process.

As the day has progressed and grown it has become a big tradition here in Korea to buy Pepero in abundance and basically hand it out to anyone you feel like really. Boyfriends are expected to shower their girlfriends in large boxes of the treats or overly sized versions. Children buy D-I-Y kits and decorate their own at home, some just buy backpacks full of it, even bakeries sell their own freshly-baked versions.

As a teacher; I spent my Pepero day being greeted at the beginning of every class with a new box of the stuff and as much as I appreciated the gesture it did make me laugh. I have always laughed at the concept of Easter; buying a disgusting amount of chocolate eggs to hand out to friends only to receive the exact same number of eggs in return as it would only be rude to accept and not to give. The joke was always when the gift giving and receiving was over, you realize that you technically bought yourself a room full of chocolate that isn't really all that good and you probably preferred the brands you gave away anyway.

My collection by the end of the day.

After a few giggles; I began to think to myself just how genius this idea really was. A single company has basically managed to create a national holiday that all children adore and take part in every year. I would love to know how much Pepero sales actually boost by in November. The only figure I was able to actually find was on wiki which says;

"Lotte usually does about 55% of their Pepero business in November every year."

I wonder if such an concept would be possible in other countries; Many people in the UK and USA already turn their noses up at valentines day claiming that it was created by greeting card companies. I just wonder what would happen if Cadburys or Heinz ever decided to devote a day to celebrating themselves, do you think it could actually hold any success on the other side of the world?

Three Fishy stories...

“I would read my new book but I need to update my facebook… my facebook? I mean… my thing….
BLOG! BLOGGITY BLOG BLOG!”

Wow, my vocabulary has suffered from all the Kongrish I’ve been speaking lately, (for those of you unfamiliar with Kongrish; it is the simplified English mixed with a dose of Korean basics, which can pretty much be used to get you by living in Korea.)

I wanted to tell some stories, just a couple of funny and odd moments. Completely coincidentally, the three stories I ended up writing all appear to have a sort of “fishy” theme. This is completely unintentional but does make me chuckle as I present to you; Korea, in all its “fishy” glory.

Makgeolli

Makgeolli; a foul drink served in massive pots, which they say is made from rice (much like many Asian alcoholic beverages) and as Andrew so delicately puts it; “It tastes like the water you collect from your drain pipes.”

Obviously you don’t drink it for its taste. It can be perceived as a Korean drinking game of sorts. The more you drink; the more free food they bring you. Once you have drunk a good few rounds, (enough to make the rest of your night a bit of a haze) out comes the grand prize…

THE LIVE OCTOPUS!



Not really something I imagine anyone (other than Koreans) really eats for any other purpose other than to film it and show friends back home to be honest.

Dr.Fish

When I first heard about this it was all I could think about, I just HAD to do it.
Little fish that eat dead skin; do I need to say more to sell this? Little fishies that will give you a pedicure for less than the cost of a cup of coffee.

This is the reality: Little fish are EATING YOUR FEET! Its like a horror movie; you dip your feet in to be attacked by hundreds of hungry little fish; lets be honest, that’s just plain scary.

Ok so I’m over –reacting, once you actually get used to the sensation of the tiny teeth sort of kissing and nibbling at you, it sort of just tickles. When your twenty minutes are up your feet feel all the better for the strange experience they just went through.

Tuna

Alarm bells should have been ringing in my head when my boss first invited us out for a dinner of raw tuna. I’ve learned by now that the Korean way is never the way you expect but somehow learning never seems to stop me.

The night started off as I expected. We sat at a bar and were instantly served sushi; the very normal kind, rectangles of rice with raw tuna delicately laid across it, served with wasabi and soy sauce (delicious to say the least). Next course was also pleasant and interesting, a plate of cold stones, covered in different cuts of tuna, quite an enjoyable experience learning the different textures one fish has to offer. Once we had eaten as much raw fish as we could and were ready to move on to a bar; the chef insists on bringing us a little gift (Service as the Koreans love to call it.)

Out comes, I’m not joking with you here and how I wish I had taken a photo, an entire tuna head. Yes, I said HEAD; cooked up in some shape or form and chopped and crumbled in front of our very eyes. The chef even stood and watched us with enjoyment as we politely dug into the collapsing skull. We did discover that if you close your eyes and pretend your food isn’t grinning at you, it does taste pretty much like a basic tuna steak.

So we’re done, finished, ready to go, oh no of course not, the service is actually yet to come. The chef brings over a beautiful tea pot and a couple of shot glasses; he then proceeds to pour out shots while our boss explains that we will be drinking… wait for it… alcoholic tuna tears… with gold flakes. Now I enjoy cocktails and shots but this is just plain ridiculous.

A shout out of “one shot” and down the hatch it goes. Now I’ve just swallowed something that I feel can only be described as flemmy and potent and I’m ready to grab the first thing I see to drink or chew just to forget about what was now entering my digestive system.

I open my eyes (did I mention my eyes were closed? No never mind). I open my eyes to see a piece of food being held in front of my mouth. I grab, chew and swallow without a moment of hesitation. The second I hear myself gulp down the mysterious food, I begin to wonder what it is I’ve just eaten. My boss, already laughing at me, proceeds to inform me that I had just eaten tuna BRAIN… Now I’m not sure if my next discovery makes it better or worse but the chef informs my boss that he is mistaken and that it was in fact the tendon behind the tuna’s eye.

Now I’m done, finished and ready to go, full of raw tuna, tuna head, tuna tears, tuna eye tendon. I’m done with tuna for a while to say the least...

... and with fish in general if I'm honest.

Blog grooming. Injoy it.

Writing something like a blog or a diary is hard. Not necessarily the act of writing it or finding the words, more that it needs to be maintained; like a pet or a garden. If it goes unkempt or forgotten, even for a short while… its death is pretty imminent.

I recently re-discovered this old blog, to find that it was so out of date, I wouldn’t even know where to begin on the next entry; almost made me want to scrap it and start all over again but that just felt like a waste of words. So how do you begin a story that actually takes place over seven months without boring the life out of the reader or yourself?

I was nearing an entire year of nothing other than a couple of unsteady shifts, frustrations, arguments and boredom that was only held together by video games, a couple of faithful friends and the hope that things would soon improve. I had finally had enough, the fear that this cycle would continue on for another year was far too great to just sit back and watch it happen. So long story short, I signed a contract, packed my bags and left the country; trying my hardest not to look back. The flight took me back to a country I hadn’t visited since the day I left in 1995 (I think that’s when I left at least), Australia. Those few weeks were great and almost tempted me to never leave.

I have been thinking for days, trying to find the right way to word my time in Australia. The problem is Australia was nice, the people were nice, the weather was nice, my family and friends were nice, the food was nice; hardly going to make the most exciting read really. I had a great time out there, I wasn’t a tourist, I didn’t do tourist things, I was at home meeting family and seeing a different life that kind of motivated me to work towards a goal that I didn’t even know I wanted until then. So I guess I’ll leave it at that; Australia was nice for a lack of a better word or thesaurus.

Onto another plane and over to Taipei, which had very little to offer me other than a night of being delusional in a motel room and waking up sitting in a bath with a cup of green tea and a diary entry next to me at about 4am very confused. Nothing to tempt me to stay any longer, next plane, next stop South Korea.

I arrived only to be stopped by sniffer dogs; I laughed, thinking it was because I had been carrying brie in my bag, after a quick explanation the security guard laughed and let me go… in hindsight; I realise I was using my brothers old backpack which might have been the cause of attention. I was re-united with Andy, hopped on a bus to Jeonju and, well, everything between then and now is a bunch of short stories; anecdotes and a lot of boring work related moments.

So long story short, here I am, teaching English in the city of Jeonju of South Korea. I live in a small apartment with my boyfriend Andy; I go to work and teach children English (to the ones who listen at least) and live a slightly more exciting life than the one I was living when I had all the time in the world to maintain a blog.

Images: © Leora Bermeister