KLB - Free Shipping Bananza!


It pays to read your e-mail once in awhile. I just found out Lulu.com is offering free domestic and international shipping on all orders over $25. That makes a big difference considering they were charging as much as $8 per book before. If you ever wanted to buy KLB - Special Edition but were put off by the shipping cost, now's your chance. This book contains the complete and most recent version of Island of Fantasy as well as 120 pages of theme based posts that used to be on the blog, loads of pictures, and a variety of bonus material. If you order along with the regular version of IOF (makes a great gift or at least a great coaster for drinks), you come out exactly eligible for the free shipping. What luck!

KLB - Birthday Gig


I take back every bad thing I've ever said about Bonnie. She was very nice today and even gave me a bottle of Jacob's Creek Australian Chardonnay, which by coincidence is one of my favorite wines. I love Chardonnay.

The kids were plain terrible all day. A few times Bonnie said they need more discipline and they shouldn't speak Korean so much. What can you expect though when you're throwing a birthday party? Later she said not to worry, she knows she's the reason the kids were acting up and it was important they have fun today. That was nice of her. Personally the kids had me so crazy I almost snuck into the bathroom to down the wine. If only I had had a corkscrew with me.

Julie's having a belated birthday dinner with coworkers (is it me or does it seem our birthday celebrations just keep going on and on?) so I stopped off at Walmart and picked up some boneless strips of chicken breast, a package of mushrooms and some soy sauce. I'm cooking now and will eat alone. Then it's off to the health club. Going to do cardio today to work off this growing gut. I'm getting a little better with the jumprope but basically I have no coordination. Still, it's good exercise and it works for me. I can't stand running machines. Plus it gives me an excuse to watch the aerobics class, as the jump ropes are next to the window. Oh, in case you've been following, Julie never did sign-up. She's just too tired after work. Who can blame her? She leaves here at 9:00 AM and doesn't get home until 7 or 8 usually. At least she seems to like her job. That would drive me nuts - unless it was for a lot of moolah.

After the health club I will come home and watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with Julie. I never thought I'd get into a show with that name, but it is pretty good. Acually I don't like watching TV that much, but Julie does and I catch myself getting interested in the shows she watches just because they're on. Next thing I know, I'm hooked.

Julie usually hits the sack at around 11 these days. She doesn't have much free time during the week, poor girl. But we have 4 days off next week - something to look forward to. Since I don't get up until around 10:00, I usually stay awake until 2:00 or later using the computer, chatting to my friends and family (mostly my sister giving me a long list of reasons to never have kids) playing XBOX, then I drift to sleep watching a video.

Well, time to eat my chicken dinner. Thank you for reading this exciting post. Have a nice day.

KLB - Laying Low


Laying low until I get my new camera this weekend. Nothing really new to report on anyway. Everything is fine at work for the most part. Bonnie will be there once again to watch me all day tomorrow. It's one of those "birthday party" days, meaning she'll hang around until the last ten minutes of class then give out cake to all the kids and little gifts to whoever's b'day falls this month. Maybe I'll get a box of pencils! Yipee!

Basically I hate this day. I mean, who wants their boss watching them teach? Also, the kids can't focus with boxes of cake sitting there and, with three adults roamining around the room, it's a little much. Then the kids make a mess eating and never finish on time and I lose my between-class breaks. Later I'll probably hear about the next "open-house" which is coming soon, hurray. Another day when the parents will sit in chairs in the back of the room and watch me teach their kids. You know, that is just a bad concept. I get the idea - the parents want to know what's going on, but it's contrived and unnatural, not to mention unnerving. Especially with me being a foreigner. It's so awkward and I can't even have a discussion with them after class. Haha, I just got a great - no, ingenious idea. I'll hand out a bunch of puzzles and sit at my desk and read a magazine that day. Half of the parents will yank their kids and I'll have smaller, more quiet and effective classes.

Like I said, most things are going good these days. I've been going to the health club regularly, something I feel very good about, but I've also been eating more than usual; so my arms and chest are getting bigger - but so is my stomach. Would help if I gave up beer, I guess.

I contacted some people about my book tonight and review is in the works for The Korea Herald and Pusanweb, a famous expat site in, you guessed it, Pusan. It's pretty hard and kind of degrading trying to self promote something you've written. I tried going the pay-route and bought some advertising including "adwords" on Google, the latter being a big oops. From them I got about 200 hits over 4 weeks and a bill for $90. I'm not sure how many of those 200 hits resulted in sales but certainly not enough to cover that kind of outrageous fee, so I cancelled. I guess I'm stuck grovelling for book reviews and whatnot and working on this other book geared for the Korean market. I certainly don't regret the experience of writing IOF, but if I could go back in time I'd write it with Koreans in mind, not foreigners, seeing as there are about a zillion Koreans for every foreigner here. That was kind of a bad idea, I must say. Anyway, we'll see. The new idea is something to focus on and keep positive about anyway...

KLB - Happy Birthday To Me


With Julie's birthday last week and then the weekend, it feels like we've been celebrating for ages. But today it was official. I'm 29 again, yay! Julie took me to Outback Steakhouse tonight. She also got me a pretty ice cream cake from Baskin Robins, but we're too full to eat it.

All in all it was certainly a lot better birthday than last year when I sat home all day on a Sunday (after a brief trip to Taiwan) in Nowhere-dong Korea feeding stray cats. My good (and apparently only) friend John came up from Gangnam on the bus and spent the weekend with us again. We were all going to go out but we were unable to step away from the Xbox and ended up just staying here and drinking German beers and playing new games all night.

James, this guy who used to come out and visit once in awhile, didn't show up. He went to someone else's birthday gig instead, I guess. He's been acting a bit weird lately anyway, singing songs praising Takeshima and the Sea of Japan (it's actually Dokdo and the East Sea, if you ask any sensible person) and showing everyone his autographed Apollo Ono photo - you know, the skater that clearly lost in the last Winter Olympics to the Korean, Kim Dong Sun, who was robbed blind!

Julie woke John and I up at the crack of dawn yesterday. It took a bit of effort to get John up and going as he's used to getting up at 2:30 (when his cell phone alarm went off later). Once he got up, we went over to the department store and got some tall coffees from The Coffee Bean, and some chicken "kebaps" and giant mandu dumplings from the food court. Later, after ripping the Xbox control from John's clamped, sweaty hands, we all went out to Migliore in Myongdong. John knew of a shop there that sells perfect knock-off Diesel Jeans and other fakes. They look and feel exactly the same, but instead of paying $200, they cost just $38. Julie bought be a nice pair for me and I picked myself another pair of imitation Paper Denims for about $45. You really can't tell the difference. The only giveaway is a small tear-away tag on the inside of the pants that says Made in Thailand, or Hong Kong. Having been unable to find a decent (affordable) pair of jeans that fit in ages, this was a real treat. Then we went out for a nice pizza dinner and John headed home.

Bonnie sent me a message this morning to wish me a happy birthday, which was nice of her. I guess she made a note off my passport. She informed Ally who made all the kids sing me happy birthday each class. That was pretty cute. Especially the first class, an ear splitting chorus that sounded something like this:

Happy baday to ew
Happy baday ooh ooh

hakky mmmday mmm, mmm, mmm

ooh oh ooh ooh, ooh ooh.

Teacher, no cake? Party! Cake! I'm hungry! No Cake???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, back to shameless self promotion. I just ordered up another big box of Island of Fantasy books. Thirty will be available at Seoul Selection later in the week and I'll drop another 10-20 off at What the Book? in Itaewon. If we get around to it, Julie and I are going to try to contact more bookstores here and in other cities. So far I've only tried those two places, and they've not only stocked my book but have sold out several times. You can also order directly from me, the easiest option if you prefer Paypal or plastic, or if you don't live in Korea. By the way, this newest edition has chapter breaks, a few miscellaneous fixes and the cover is supposed to be printed on glossy white paper to make it brighter. They were using some off-yellow color before, for whatever reason.

Well, that's it for today. Thanks for all the e-mails from everyone. I'm surprised anyone still reads this without any pictures. I'm almost positive I'm going to buy a camera later in the week. Julie is insisting I get one before we take another trip next week. We both have another 4-day weekend and we're going to rent a car again and head into the country, or so we've been planning.

KLB - Good Karma?


Maybe donating to the ASPCA has given me some good Karma because I had a great day today. It started with the train. For the first time in weeks I got a seat! Believe me, it makes a difference between sitting and standing during that hour on the way to work. I don't get a chance to sit at work or on the way home.

Then, my worst two students in A class were absent. Without those two little pencil case-dropping, "no" shouting rascals the class was much quieter. As a matter of fact, a lot of kids were absent today. And, of course, because of the smaller classes, teaching was a lot easier than usual. It's my opinion a foreign teacher should never have more than 10 kids in a class to be effective. Having smaller classes really does make a big difference. The kids that were there today definitely learned a lot more than usual.

Later Julie called me to tell me Seoul Selection wants to order 30 more copies of my book. Apparently they've been selling better than expected. That was nice to hear. I still haven't gotten around to doing any marketing for it. Maybe I should work on that. They won't sell themselves, I guess.

On the way home, the bus driver welcomed me on board with a boisterous "oso-o-shipshio" and when I got off he beeped, smiled and waved goodbye as I crossed the street. Usually the bus drivers just grunt and beep for you to get the hell out of the way.

Now it was two-for-two! I got another seat on the train! That never happens. I almost always stand both ways. The only downside was the guy next to me gagging and clearing his throat every few seconds.

Anyway, it was a nice day and it's not over. Julie, though she still hasn't joined the health club, is in a good mood after a nice birthday yesterday. We will go out and have a simple dinner together. Then it's to work on the new book I've started. See you later.

The news gets better. I came home to find out Jade Empire finished downloading - all 6 GBs. Since it was too big to burn onto a standard DVD-R disk, I extracted the files using XISO. Then it was just a quick transfer via ftp to the Xbox and I'm now playing one of the hottest, most anticipated games of the year without having to wait for it to make it's way to Korea. Bit Torrent is a life savor for those of us living abroad.

Julie's sound asleep. She's been crashing at 10:00 lately. I can't remember the last time I fell asleep that early, except for the night we stayed in the country a few weeks ago. While she's been asleep I worked for a bit on my new book project. I'm existed about it and have a lot ideas, and certainly enough experiences and material to draw on. Before I get too involved this time, however, Julie's working on a proposal for Korean publishers to see if they'd even be interested, as I'm aiming the material towards Koreans this time.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this but a couple of Korean publishers turned down Island of Fantasy because they felt the material would be offensive to Koreans. One guy with some connections even gave the book to a sample audience and several readers thought my actions in the book were plain rude, such as when I turned down an old woman who tried urgently to sell me boiled silkworm larvae. Not to mention my description of "Wonder School" and its owners didn't exactly please them either - I'm sure they just thought of me as an ungrateful foreigner. Maybe I should send the book to some publishers outside of Korea. I need to buy one of the big writer's guides to publishing. For now, at least I've done fairly well with self publishing. I never expected to sell that many copies on my own without paying for a lot of advertising.

Though I didn't think my first book was all that negative - it wasn't my fault my first job was a virtual hell, but I tried to contrast that with the mystery and beauty of Koje Island and the intersting experiences I had - with this new material I will focus on the more upbeat parts /experiences of the last few years. If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to send me an e-mail.

KLB - Happy Birthday Julie!


It's Julie's birthday today. She's now 24 years old. My birthday is 5 days later, and so like last year we've planned to celebrate together this weekend but I couldn't help myself. I just ran over and got her a gift at the department store and will take her to a nice dinner when she gets home. As there are no really formal or romantic restaurants in Korea, I guess it's TGIF again or Outback Steakhouse. Happy birthday, Sweetheart!

KLB - ASPCA


One of our favorite programs on TV is The Protectors on Discovery's Animal Channel. (I guess it's called Animal Precinct in America.) This show documents the animal police in New York city who rescue mistreated animals and, whenever possible, arrest the responsible culprits. Tonight's episode featured two dogs that were left in cages with no food or water in an apartment and abandoned. They were practically dog skeletons when the animal police arrived. Another day or two and the dogs would have died. It was sickening. Fortunately, the ASPCA was able to nurish the dogs back to health and after a few months they were like new dogs, full of energy, licking everybody and wagging their tails. The show is very touching. In the words of Helen Keller: Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

Anyway, after seeing the show so many times, I felt compelled to make a donation to the ASPCA and did so at their website. Click here. You can sign up to donate monthly or give a one time gift. You can also apply for the Chase ASPCA credit card (what a caring bank - just don't make a late payment) which you can read more about on the site.

As for Korea, there is also an organization devoted to the prevention of animal cruelty and they accept donations too, of course. However, the site looks sorely outdated. In fact they even have on there the last update was made in 2002. Perhaps my readers have more information or links to other related organizations in Korea.

KLB - Yay Monday


After a nice weekend, I went to work in positive spirits today and it was a decisively better day than Friday. I like Mondays because I make new seating charts and therefore the kids, insecure about their new group mates, are usually quiet and attentive - until later in the week when they get comfortable and start chattering. Then Friday is always my worst day. Still, the kids are mostly good and you can't blame them for being sick of studying come Friday when they study day and night all week and even on Saturday.

Perhaps Ally was just putting on a show for Cathy last time because today she was very laid back and casual. The first impression I had of her eroded with each class. She basically sat at her desk and did some paper work, always smiling and helping out only when I asked. For example, whan I asked her to translate a few words, she simply did so. Cathy would have had a panic attack. "Shawn! We can't speak Korean!" I could almost hear her saying.

In fact, much to my surprise, Ally didn't interrupt my classes or say a word about planning. She even used the computer room to make a packet for phonics! I was shocked. Nice job! It also impressed me that at exactly 5:00 she declared herself finished and went home. I like that. Cathy never left before at least 5:30 or 6:00, unless she had a meeting downtown, and then she worked at home all night on various work-related paperwork. I never understood that and it bothered me how hard she worked for no real reason other than martydom, it seemed to me. I'm hoping that Ally will be less serious and more efficient as she appeared today.

Also on a postive note, as I was signing out in the main office the secretary, for the first time, struck up a short conversation with me. It was a bit awkward, but I pulled it off and made her chuckle with my goofy sounding Korean. Perhaps because the vice principal wasn't looming at his desk for once, everyone in the office seemed more relaxed, actually. I bet he's the cause of all the tension day to day.

Well, Julie just called. She's on her way home and is hungry. I just put on some rice and now I have to get the side dishes ready. Ajuma-Shawn's work is never done, phew. I bet you feel sorry for me. Well, it's not like I made the side-dishes. I bought them. Wait, actually Julie bought them. All I have to do is open the tupperware lids. As for the rice, just pop open the bap sot, dump in the cleaned rice and add water, close the lid, push a button and poof, 10 minutes later the rice is ready. Eating Korean style is fast and easy.

After a lot of encouragement on my part, Julie is finally joining the health club with me tonight - or so she says. She was supposed to joing Saturday, then yesterday it didn't work out. Now she sounds tired. We'll see.

KLB - Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire?


It was quite an unceremonious end to Cathy's run as assistant today. We didn't tell the kids anything until the last minute of each class, a time when the only thing on their minds was jetting out the door. At the end of the day, I struggled for words. It was an awkward moment. She put her hand on my shoulder and said she really likes me and despite our difference she will miss me a lot, especially my sense of humor. "You, too Cathy. Good luck." And that was that. Basically, I felt nothing. Good riddens!

But, it appears I may be out of the frying pan and into the fire. Her replacement, Ally, started yesterday.

"You must be the new assistant," I said.

"New co-teacher," she interjected. "I am your co-teacher."

"Yeah, whatever," I should have said. "Can you run down and make copies of my middle finger? I have a lot of people I want to give them too lately. You can have the first copy."

She wandered around the classroom all day today, just like Cathy used to do. And she pissed me off, just like Cathy used to do. Especially during my third class, Class C. I had to check the kids' notebooks and I gave out an activity sheet to keep the runts occupied - a basic worksheet where they cut out labled household items and glue them in the respective rooms. I figured I'd let them finish before teaching the vocabulary, so I sat at my desk watching them, the first time I sat down all day.

"The kids don't know the words, Shawn," said Ally. "They don't know anything. What is the point of this? You have to teach the words."

After dealing with Cathy for so long, this almost caused me a heart attack. Already she's trying to tell me what I should be doing! I sighed and bit my lip. "Today is Friday. They've done a good job all week. I'm letting them relax and do this activity and I will teach them the words when they've finished. They're also pretty smart kids and I taught them phonics so they can read." Why do I have to explain this to her? Does she really see herself as a co-teacher?

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry."

During one of my breaks I went down to the office for a cup of coffee. As usual, despite saying hello in Korean, everyone in the office ignored me. They are such a warm bunch. Later I heard the vice principal complained that I forgot to sign out once last week. Is there a place where I can complain that he's a dick?

After school, as I was making a new seating chart for next week, Ally pulled up a chair next to my desk and started drilling me about my lesson plans for next week. "What will you be doing? What pages exactly? I have to know. Do you have a plan for theme day? What will you do? We have to make a plan. It's Earth Day this month. Bonnie said you have to do an Earth Day plan and blah blah blah," Oh my god, just go away!

She then handed me a syllabus that Bonnie put together. Bonnie said I should follow it exactly from now on. The funny thing is it includes a whole "new" daily phonics plan. What, she finally realizes phonics is important? I've been doing this the past 8 months!

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I can't use a book and have to do these themes and whatnot, yet, as usual, no materials have been provided. Once again, I'm not making materials in my spare time. (This is a part time job, in case you haven't been following, that provides a full time E-2 visa but pays by the class). I've been through this again and again. I'm especially not volunteering after this petty BS of combining classes this week whilst cutting my pay. And it's not as if Bonnie's not making money off this program. We have 60 kids. The tuition is 200,000 won per month. That's $12,000 in revenue every month with pretty much no overhead (no busses, kids have to buy the books, etc, etc). And this is only 1 of 8 school programs she runs. So what's with the pettiness?

Then I found out we have yet two more students starting on Monday. It used to be that kids could only join at the beginning of a semester. Now every few days it seems I have new kids. I say nothing, of course. I know it's all about money now. Still, would it hurt anyone to thank me for doing a good job and attracting so many new students? Hah! Right! Remember, they had a foreign-teacher program there before us that failed after a few months because the kids weren't learning anything. Here I am going on 8 months and seems to me I must be doing something right. Or am I? I really have no idea. This situation would make a fantastic episode of The Twilight Zone.

Actually I'm at my wit's end with all the BS. I don't know how I made it this long. I'm going to put in a month's notice on Monday and look into other options. Maybe I can get Julie doing what Bonnie does. That's certainly the better side of the stick, I would say.

KLB - Half Day


There was a little mixup with payment for our internet connection. Turns out they weren't automatically debiting Julies account the last few months as we assumed, and so they cut off our connection yesterday. We called up and they gave us an account number to pay from the post office (you can pay most bills at the post office). After work today, I went down and forked over the dough. Now this is amazing. By the time I got home, 10 minutes later, the connection was back on.

I had a half day at work today and will have the same tomorrow. Turns out the school is taking the kids on a trip again, but as usual a few kids stay behind for whatever reason so I have to teach them. Now I wouldn't mind this if I had all 4 classes, but Bonnie decided to combine all these remainder kids into 2 classes. So, today I taught from 1 until 3 o'clock, two classes full of kids from different levels. Same thing tomorrow. Of course, I don't get paid for the missed classes either - though I'm absolutely certain Bonnie will get the same payment - and I have to travel 90 minutes one way just to basically baby sit, since I can't go ahead with my usual lessons. Oh, and I heard another complaint from Bonnie, who came in yet again last week to watch me, that our kids speak Korean too much. Yeah, of course they do. They're 8 - 10 years old (in the class she watched) and sit in groups for 50 minutes. It's a miracle they don't speak Korean more than what little they do each day. I swear I'm about ready to flip Bonnie the bird too.

I guess she said some other things too but Cathy, seeing me turn red, quickly changed the subject. Just as well. These kind of comments get to me because I have never worked so hard to teach English before and have never been so effective, yet I never get any positive feedback from Bonnie or the school (luckily I do from the parents sometimes) - just petty, irksome complaints.

Well, the sun is out and I'm home early. Now that I've finished A Civil Action, it's time to pick up a new book, so I'm going across the street to Rodamco Department Store.

Speaking of books, I've got a big stack I want to unload. No use keeping around books you're never going to read again. Any suggestions as to what I should do with them? I was thinking of selling them to a used bookstore, but for what little they're likely to give me, I may as well give them to a library or something.

KLB - iPod Mini


Yesterday Julie and I went to Yongsan, the electronics shopping district, and she picked herself up a shiny new 4 GB iPod mini. She'd been planning to get one ever since Apple slashed the prices down to $200.

Now, I recently read in Time magazine that Apple controls 60% of the market share for mp3 players. You wouldn't know it if you live in Korea, that's for sure. I've personally never seen a single Korean using one. Still, I expected them to be readily available at Space 9, the new, huge electronics building connected to Yongsan station. Wrong. Though there were zillions of mp3 players for sale, hardly anyone carried iPods, especially the iPod minis - or so it seemed.

Julie started asking salesmen at random if they had them. It was weird. Some of the clerks said no outright and seemed almost offended we even asked. One guy, an arrogant asshole, reluctantly pulled one out of hiding, but immediately and vehemently pitched the iRiver as a better product. The guy wouldn't shut up. He almost had her convinced, but I kept telling her he was acting suspicious and to stick with the iPod which she came for. When she told him she had to think more about it, he actually scolded her for wasting his time. "If you leave right now after all the effort I made, that will be so rude." We shrugged and walked off. Later, out of desperation, Julie almost went back to him to buy the iPod. I wouldn't let her, though, after the asinine way he left things.

Such a friendly place that Yongsan market is. As we walked by a couple of other rude, aggressive salesmen, one of the jerks told Julie in demeaning Korean, "There are so many Korean guys - why you with a foreigner?" and started laughing. When Julie told me what he said, I was so pissed off I turned to him and stuck my middle finger in his face. He dropped his head and looked away, fortunately. I realized this probably wasn't a smart move on my part - what, with all my recent posting about not fighting. Damn, that made me angry though. What a way to make a sale, you idiot.

Finally we found a nice guy, more friendly and helpful than in-your-face, "Buy! Buy! Buy!" He calmly explained the reason behind the iPod anomaly. With all the price cutting Apple has done recently, there's little profit incentive for the salespeople. He told us straight out his profit on the mini would be just $10. That's why everyone is pushing other brands and not displaying Apple, though they still carry them because foreigners always insist on iPods. I have no proof to his claim, but it seems a reasonable explanation. He was such a nice guy and so polite to us both that we ended up buying the case and battery charger too. To our surprise he charged us $10 less for these accessories than the iRiver-pusher had quoted. I'll probably pick an iPod there up myself soon. I figured I may as well wait and test out Julie's first. So far we both really like it, though it's a little awkward having to use it through iTunes.

Well, time to go to the health club. Believe it or not, I'm actually looking forward to working out.

KLB - Shopping When You're Hungry



My mother always said don't go shopping when you're hungry. Sure enough, she was right. Famished, I went to Walmart the other night and decided upon making a western dinner: fried chicken, asparagus, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh rolls.

I've never seen gravy here and was shocked to find it at Walmart, two lone cans of Campbell's Chicken Gravy sitting inconspicuously on the bottom of the soup shelf. That's what gave me to idea to make the dinner, actually. Then I decided I wanted premium butter - well, non-Korean butter anyway - for the potatoes and rolls, so I picked up a small tub of Australian Bega for a whopping $8. The can of asparagus was also expensive.

I got everything for dinner but kept throwing pricey western things in the cart and ended up with hardly any groceries and a bill for $50. I should have just bought a sandwich.

Anyway, I started getting excited about the meal. Julie's never eaten a chicken dinner of this style in her life, something that if my grandfather found out would probably cause him a coughing spasm and severe chest pain (in addition to being a master chef, he's 80 and smokes 4 packs/day). It even surprised me. Wait until she tries mashed potatoes and gravy and toasted rolls and butter and asparagus!

So, I made the dinner. You might guess where this is going. Julie, though she tried her best to indulge my enthusiasm, really didn't enjoy the meal. At first this bugged me. How can she not love this food? I felt let down. Then I remembered the first time I ate Korean food, kimchi chigae (kimchi soup), and how strange it was to me and the pressure I was under to express enjoyment and gratitude. I understood how she felt. I was also frustrated myself with the chicken dinner. It was good, but it didn't taste nearly as scrumptious as I had longfully anticipated.

Like Julie said later, all the butter and gravy with the mashed potatoes and rolls and the greasy chicken felt too thick and heavy. I agreed. It did seem too much. My stomach hurt right after from the shock of it all. "Do Americans eat like this every day?" Julie wondered. I thought back to my life before Korea - long before kimchi and rice - to when I ate meat and potatoes or some type of fast-food crap every day. "Yes, unfortunately we do. And I can't remember how I could have, now that I think about it."

Of course this wasn't the first time I realized my taste in food has severely changed (for the better I must say). When I went home two years ago I found myself laboring to eat the big meals my grandfather prepared every night like clockwork - always some thick kind of meat, ham, steak, hamburger, chicken and then, of course, potatoes and bread and butter - butter, always butter, and/ or gravy on everything. Having gotten stuck there for some months after breaking my arm and being unable to return to Korea - I slowly found myself re-adapting to that diet (not to mention gaining weight), but I still longed for simple Korean dishes.

Sometimes I would venture downtown, precariously driving my 5-speed Honda Civic one-handed down icy streets, to the Korean store and get some groceries to cook. While my mother enjoyed most of what I prepared - especially mandu guk (dumpling soup), my grandfather would have none of it, and seemed to take serious offense at the offer. He would let us eat and then cook something for himself. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks, I'm afraid," he would repeatedly say.

Well, as I was saying, the chicken dinner failed miserably and I won't be eating the likes of it again, probably, until I go home. Now, don't get me wrong - I still enjoy a good pizza and the occasional burger and steak. But for the most part I'm happy with my Korean diet of rice, soups and vegetables.

KLB - Cheesey Update


There's nothing like a 4-day weekend. You go back to work on Wednesday and it totally feels like Monday. Then before you know it, it's already Friday.

Nothing really new to report. Been doing well at the health club. I feel great. That protein stuff really works - that and eating chicken breast and boiled eggs. I already put on 2.5 kgs (around 5 or 6 pounds) of muscle weight and my strength is improving quickly. Now, if only I could motivate myself to do cardio, then I could trim down my gut. I do a lot of situps but that won't work alone if I want the proverbial 6-pack.

While my upper body is fairing well, my legs - forget it. I did a few sets of squats without any weight the other day and I'm completely sore from just that. Oh well, at least I'm trying finally.

Julie and I stopped at Walmart tonight and I noticed they're now carrying a bunch of American-made cheeses, including blocks of Monteray Jack with jalapeno peppers and a nice looking cheddar and Monetary Jack in the shape of a thick disk - both much cheaper than any of the Austalian cheeses. I bought a block with the peppers, a jar of olives, a couple of plump tomatoes (a whopping $3 for two), and a small bottle of dark beer. That should make a nice snack tonight. Cheese must be the worst thing I could eat for toning up, but whatever - you can only eat so many boiled egg whites. Yuck.

Work had been on a role until today. It still wasn't bad, but first of all I got yet more new students - two of them. You just have to love how they throw these poor kids in the class after 3 weeks into a semester. Both of them sat there completely clueless. They don't even know the sounds yet and I'm almost finished with basic phonics. Argh!

Then Bonnie popped in again by surprise. She never lets us know when she comes anymore and she seems to have a knack for picking the worst possible times. I was using the first fifteen minutes of class to check the kids workbooks finally (you have to mark all the correct answers with a red circle in Korea basically so the parents know you're checking). So I was sitting at my desk, which I rarely do, calling up one kid at a time and the kids who were finished were taking a break and coloring their workbooks. They rarely color unless it's a theme day or some kind of project but I they had little else to do while waiting for me to start the usual phonics routine.

No matter, Bonnie ended up watching the whole class and didn't say anything bad. Of course she didn't bother to say anything good either, even though the kids, in B-level mind you, were reading sentences from a phonics packet Cathy and I made. Sentences like "The fat cat sat on the mat and had a nap," and "The sun is hot but the moon is not." I think that's pretty impressive, myself, considering how little they knew before. They barely even knew the alphabet six months ago beyond singing the first 7-10 letters (then trailing off into a desperate, mumbling, alphabet song imitation). Now they can read, write and understand simple sentences. If I had followed Bonnnie's planning they'd never be at this stage now. They'd simply be memorizing things without any real comprehension.

Well enough about that. In other exciting news, I'm just about finished with A Civil Action. It's one the first books I've read in awhile where I literally cannot put it down. I read it until 3:00 AM last night, woke up and finished a chapter, read it on the way to work and back, then was tempted to bring it to the health club to read in between sets. As a matter of fact, I'm going to cut short this action-filled update and get back to reading.

KLB - 4-day Weekend


Korea must be the only country in the world where teachers and students, depending on the school, get 4 days off for Arbor Day (because it fell on Tuesday). I could understand it more if everyone was actually out planting trees, but I highly doubt they are.

I've been to busy enjoying the mini-vacation to update. Julie and I just got back from a trip. I got the notion that we rent a car. Julie looked online and right near where we live is a rental place. We got a basic car for $50 for 24 hours. They even deliver it to you. Unfortunately once Julie was faced with the reality of driving, she panicked. Sweat beaded on her nose. "I can't do it," she said. "Can you drive?"

I hadn't driven a car at all in the last few years and, except for the few times I've gone back to America, I basically I haven't driven since coming to Korea in 2000. "No problem," I crooned.

It actually went much better than I thought. First we stopped and got gas. Americans, stop complaining. We paid $30 for half a tank. I was shocked. Back home that would have filled my Honda Civic twice, though maybe not anymore.

Anyway, Julie ran over to a book store while I was getting gas and picked up an atlas. We jumped on highway 100, which is just down the road from here, and headed out of the city and into the country. The spring weather was very nice and it felt good to be on the open road. We drove towards Choon Chun, a city famous for dak galbi, (basically chicken and vegetables mixed with chili-pepper paste - see here for a picture -) and stopped after a while at small country town in the middle of nowhere. There, amazingly enough, was a Pizza Hut, the inevitable McDonald's and what the hell, an outlet center for Levis and Addidas, why not? I ended getting a good pair of sandals for half price.

We trudged along (sure wishing I had a camera with me) and out of that town and found some small back roads that twisted and turned through the mountains. Instead of going on to Choon Chun, and since we were so hungry, we decided to stay where we were. All of the back roads are spotted with pensions or minbaks where you can sleep. Pensions are basically houses that you can rent, while minbaks are one-rooms, usually with no bed but lots of clean blankets and pillows. The pensions are a good deal if you're with a big group of people, but since it was just Julie and I, we stayed in a minbak. The room, inside a large, modern styled building, was actually very nice and, because it's an unusual holiday weekend, we paid just half of the busy-season rate and were the only people in the whole place. The view outside was pleasant: a mountain, a rocky stream and, of course, the inevitable site of bags and bags of garbage. You think they could have stored them near the building instead of right by the scenery, but that's the how it goes, I guess.

I forgot to mention that we picked up a load of groceries in that small town before: sam gyeop sal, potatoes, mushrooms, garlic and kimchi. Of course, I got a large beer for myself. The sun went down and we sat outside near a barbecue and cooked up the delicious meal. It was dead quiet save for the crackle of fire and the gentle swoosh of water from the stream.

Though we only stayed one night, it was once of the best times we've had together. It was so quiet and peaceful. We went to bed at 10:00 and slept until 8:00 in the morning, at which time we woke up to the sound of birds. The air was cool and clean with the subtle trace of smoking firewood. We went for a nice long walk down the back road before hitting the highway again. Then we drove through some beautiful scenery - well, as beautiful as it gets here anyway (so many peculiar and unsightly buildings littering an otherwise fantasic view) to Choon Chun. We stopped an older man at a bus stop and asked for directions to the famous dak galbi street. The ajushi jumped right in the back seat. Turns out he was going near there himself.

I thought the meal was delicious, but Julie got pissed off. First of all, you'd think they were selling sex the way the restaurant ajummas hound you the moment you step on the famous street. "Come here, come here, hurry hurry," hoards of them shout at you in Korean. We picked the one restaurant that didn't come out to yell, but the ajummas inside were kind of rude in a different rite. They dumped the mixture on the frying pan, handed Julie the spatula and basically never returned until we asked for a bottle of Coke, even though the place wasn't crowded. That and Julie thought the dak galbi tasted like it does in Seoul but was nearly twice the price. Oh well, that's typical of what you can expect at any touristy place, I suppose. Still, I enjoyed the experience. I stuffed my face!

Finally we headed back toward Seoul. Julie, who had been unbelievably good at guiding us using the atlas (we basically drove all the way to the minbak based on her reading the maps) now had me turn the wrong way on highway 100. That's when we got into a mess. We had to pay a toll just up ahead and then we got off the highway and but couldn't get back on the right way. We had to keep going straight for about 20 minutes. Turns out we were headed for Seoul anyway, but on the city highway, not the nice expressway that goes around the city. Julie suggested we just push on. So, I got my first experience driving through the heart of Seoul. Let me tell you, it's maddening. If you are prone to road rage, never drive in Seoul. Basically nobody can wait a flipping second and they try in anyway possible to cut you off if they can get an inch ahead. Also, the traffic was intense, even at 3:00 in the afternoon. It took us over an hour - a tense, stressful hour - to drive what would have taken 10-15 minutes on that expressway.

Well, Julie has lunch on the table - rice, soup, and a load of side dishes - so I'll cut this short. All in all we had a fantastic time and will be renting a car again. The freedom of being able to drive exactly where you want was nice and we never would have enjoyed the scenery and found that secluded minbak location without one. The next time, however, we'll be sure to go make the correct turn on the expressway.