Out and About in Iksan...

Iksan itself is actually quite an interesting city. There is an outdoor market, which is a great place for fruits and vegetables, as well as a University and University area full of bars/restaurants and shops, many Korean BBQ restaurants, bars, parks, a buddist headquarters, and Iksan itself is on the main train line that goes all over South Korea






Just a few blocks away from our apartments is a LotteMart (similar to a Wal-mart, but bigger). We can get everything from groceries to clothing to appliances to musical instruments.

When we go out for meals, we try to go to different restaurants and bars each time. We have noticed that restaurants often advertise what types of meat they serve using happy animal faces on their windows. The best ones are the ones that have cows or pigs in a smiling thumbs-up position, as if to say “I’m delicious!” We found one restaurant with an angry looking chicken, which, to me, seems a bit more fitting. (I do have a picture of this but for some reason Blogger won't me put it on here.. I'll keep trying though)

Something that seems to be very popular in Iksan is pet shops. It seems as though there are always pet shops around, no matter where we go in Iksan. I’m definitely not complaining because I love to stop and look at all of the puppies. There is a pet store just 2 or 3 buildings over from our school that we pass everyday, and everyday we stop to take a look at the small puppies in the windows. The most surprising thing about these puppies is that sometimes they change colour. We walked by one day to see the little fluffy white dog to be all shaven except for its tail and ears. Its tail and ears had been dyed yellow and orange (i have a picture of this, but once again, technical difficulties). And this wasn’t the first time we saw this!! A few days earlier we saw a white dog with pink wings on its back.

Surprisingly enough, there is also a cat, at the same pet store, that reminds me of one of our old cats named ‘Fluffy’, who ironically had to get frequent haircuts, which made her not-so-fluffy. This cat here was shaven, with a similar haircut to Fluffy’s, and left with just fluffy boots, tail fluff, and head fluff. (See Pam, everyone shaves their cats... but this one had no holes in it)

Bugs?? Why not?

When in Rome.... or should I say, When in Korea, do as the Koreans do...

Even after saying I would NEVER eat a bug... I DID IT!!! Well... Trevor squeezed the juice out of it first, and then I ate it... But the important part is I ate it!! And it wasn't even that bad!! The bugs we ate were actually boiled larva... apparently a lot of Korean children really enjoy them.

AND to add to this, we even ate cow intestines!!! When we first ordered them, we didn't actually know what we had ordered. When it came to the table, as we watched it cook, we took guesses as to what it could be.. My guess was cow intestines. We later found out that I was right... and strangly enough, I was ok with it. Funny part is that just this past weekend, we ended up at a different restaurant, in a DIFFERENT town and accidentally ended up having them again!!!! They just seem to be everywhere... hahaha

Just this past Friday, Trevor and I went to the usual bar, Red Rock where the other foreigners go. Later in the night we were invited to another bar called Montana's. This bar was more like a smaller, crazier version of Bucks, but with more strobe lights. The bar was really fun, but we slowly learned that Koreans dance a bit differently than Canadians. Originally, I had left Red Rock with 4 other girls, and Trevor and some other guys were going to meet us afterwards. So us girls were dancing and soon a group of Korean guys started circling us... Literally!!! They joined hands and danced around us!! They slowly began to push in on our circle so we quickly broke their circle up. Oddly enough, this wasn't even the craziest part of the night. At one point in the night, Trevor and I were dancing, and another guy came up and joined us! Basically, to draw a picture for you-->[TrevorMeKorean Guy]. This was a little different for us but we just laughed... The funniest part was when this guy took a sip of Trevor's beer!!!! It's rare to see a guy share his beer with another guy.... let alone with a guy he doesn't know!!! Regardlessl... it was a really fun night!!!

I must be Canadian eh?

Although I am trying to learn how to speak Korean while here, I think I am learning more about speaking ‘Canadian’. Being Canadian I am used to hearing about all of the stereotypes about ‘speaking Canadian’ however, I never really believed all of them until now. After someone pointed out how often I use the word ‘eh’ at the end of my sentences, I have begun to notice it myself… and I can’t stop it!! I don’t even realize that I am saying it half the time. I am even learning that Canadians do actually have words that some people have never heard of. The other two teachers at our school are from America and neither one of them had ever heard the words ‘toque’ or ‘chesterfield’. So I guess my Canadian Pop Culture prof was right…hmmm…

Japan Visa Run

Our visa run to Japan was a success!! We took one wrong train on the way there, but were able to correct our mistake and still got there on time. We had to take two trains from Iksan to Busan and then catch the Ferry from Busan over to Fukuoka, Japan.

We spent the night in Busan, where we looked around a small tourist area that was right by the train station. My camera battery died so I don't have a lot of Japan pictures... (Trevor has most of them on his blog.)

We only had one night so we didn’t get to see very much, however we still managed to get to a bar where Trevor and the other teacher that was with us, Catharine, did some Karaoke. I wasn’t quite brave enough to do it myself, just then.

In the morning we caught the Ferry over to Fukuoka, Japan and headed straight to the Korean embassy. After which we were able to explore the city. We first went to Canal City, which is a GIGANTIC mall, did a bit of shopping and then left to see some more of Fukuoka. Our Hotel was in a downtown area so we were close to a lot of ‘Soap Girl’ shops. For dinner we ate at a Yatai, which is like a street vendor that you can sit at, and had some Ramen, a REALLY good noodle dish. While we were eating, a Japanese man approached Trevor and I and asked if he could take our picture, of course we said yes!!! And took a picture of him as well. Trevor even got his picture taken with him. (www.travelintrev.blogspot.com)

At nighttime, Trevor and I went out exploring some of the smaller side streets. We found mostly restaurants and bars but also a few arcade places. These arcades were about 4 stories tall, each floor having different types of games on it. There were entire floors dedicated to claw games (the ones where you control the giant claw to try to pick up a prize). Trevor got pretty good at it and won a big Snoopy for me… awww.

It was a Tuesday night, so the streets got pretty quite around 10-11 o’clock, so there wasn’t too much excitement going on. We did not get to experience too much Japanese culture because we only really had the one night to explore.

The next day we picked up our visa’s and after a little bit more shopping, we headed back to the Ferry, and headed home.

Work and Iksan...

Teaching has been pretty hectic. I attempted to make a posting on the Friday night, but after a week of teaching children how to speak English, had left me with little ability to do so myself… which is why this has taken me so long.

Everyone at work is really nice and we are all trying to figure out how and what exactly, to teach. I have 7 different classes that I teach. All of the classes are broken into levels, level 1 being the lowest, then level 2, level 3, and so forth. The younger kids definitely offer some challenges, as they can be extremely hyper and get very excited about games. I think it will just take same time to get used to each other. Thankfully, I have no horror stories from my first week of work. Trevor on the other hand, may have a bit more to say about his first week.

For the most part South Korea has been pretty fun. Our meals are often similar to a guessing game, since neither Trevor nor I have quite mastered how to speak or read Korean yet. When ordering food at restaurants we usually just pick a few items and hope for the best. We can usually recognize some dishes, but have also had a few instances of unknown foods, all of which had been a great part of the experience!!

Contrary to my other postings, we have been experiencing other things than just Korean food. On Friday night, we took part in poker night with some of the other foreigners (Yes, even I played!! Trevor taught me how to play during the week so I wouldn’t have to just sit there and watch). For my first time playing, I think I did pretty well; I even won a few hands (although I didn’t know it most of the time… haha).

Just this weekend all of the teachers went to Jeonju to see Hanook Village. It is a small village of little shops and historical monuments. We went to one shop where we were able to learn how to make some traditional Korean paper artwork called Hanji Konge. The man who was teaching us is currently a student trying to make it as an artist. He taught us about Korean art and told us about his own artwork. He gave us his email so that we can possibly go to some of his at exhibits.
While in Junju we had an amazing lunch!! We had about 4 main dishes, some of which were octopus stew (yes, even I ate the octopus!!) and bulgogi (which is meat and vegetables… a little spicy!!), and maybe 10 side dishes(kimchi, seaweed, mushrooms, other vegetables, etc). The entire table was covered with food!! We barely had enough room for our drinks.

Overall... so far so good!! (I will post some pictures soon, for some reason I was unable to do it when i posted this.)

Feeling Like Celebrities...

Whenever we go out around town, children always point and look at us like we are celebrities. Someone will see us and then pull on the sleeve of their parent or friend to say “look look…” We just smile and wave. Sometimes the younger kids like to come right up and say ‘Hi’ so we always wave and say ‘Hi’ back. It’s actually quite flattering. One day, while shopping for groceries, a man approached us just to ask where we were from… and just said ‘Thank you’ and walked away. I think he and his friend were trying to guess, and needed us to settle the argument.