Not so safe?

I had dinner with my co-teachers earlier tonight and they told me that a local Korean woman was murdered by her husband recently. I was quite shocked! I've always thought of Korea as a safe place. Well, it IS. No place goes without any crime. My co-teachers told me that the husband had chopped up his wife's body and threw it in the reservoir in my city. I tried to search for an article online and after several google searches, I found this from yonhapnews.co.kr:


GWANGJU, Sept. 20 (Yonhap) -- The body of a local police officer's wife has been found here, four days after the woman was allegedly killed and mutilated by her husband, police said Monday.

Investigators at Gwangju Seobu Police Station said they retrieved a black bag carrying the woman's torso cut into three parts and her amputated fingers, and another plastic bag with the remaining parts of the body from a reservoir here, 329 kilometers south of Seoul.

The murder suspect, identified as a 57-year-old lieutenant surnamed Kim, was pronounced brain-dead Monday afternoon after an unsuccessful suicide attempt in the middle of police questioning, according to the investigators.

Police discovered the body one day after Kim, who used to work at the same police station, was taken into custody on suspicion of having strangled his 43-year-old wife during a quarrel at their home last week. Before the suicide attempt, Kim was quoted by police as saying that he had frequent arguments with his wife over her late returns home and regular overnight absences. Kim said he strangled his wife, identified only by her surname Baik, after she came home late from drinking.

The couple, who had been married for 18 years with a 9-year-old daughter, had filed for divorce last month.

Police said Kim appeared to have tried to confuse investigators by claiming that he cut up his wife's body and placed it in 13 separate plastic bags, which he buried in nearby neighborhoods.

Kim also tried to cover up his actions by reporting to duty the day after the crime and reporting his wife as missing, police said. He went further by parking his wife's car outside the clothes shop that she ran and making phone calls there to check on her whereabouts.

Investigators, however, suspected Kim's involvement after finding bloodstains in his car and at his home, and after hearing his daughter's original testimony that she saw her mother lying down the morning after the crime. She later tried to reverse her account after Kim told her that he may be punished if she told the truth.

Police had planned to request an arrest warrant for Kim later Monday on charges including murder, but are facing delays after the suspect attempted to kill himself by swallowing toilet paper in the bathroom. He had tried to kill himself by doing the same during questioning on Sunday but was stopped by the police.

My co-teacher said that she knew the lady because she owns a clothing shop near her home. I asked her the store name and she told me. When we dropped her off today, we passed by the store and it was closed and the windows were covered with newspaper. It's such a tragic story!

Half-way

Yesterday marked the 6-month mark!! I've been here in South Korea for half a year already!! It doesn't even seem like it has been that long. I feel like I've only been here for about a week or two!

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a 6-day weekend. I'm still on it actually! We had a 6-day weekend because it is 추석, Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. I spent my time in Seoul, did a lot of touristy things that I hadn't done before. I definitely fell in love with Seoul a lot more this time around. It's an amazing city!

Some things I did:

walking along the Chongyecheon River:


Leeum Museum:


walking along the Han River:


The Story of King Sejong Exhibition Hall in Gwanghwamun Square:



and not pictured: Insadong, and Uijeongbu (an hour subway ride outside of central Seoul, had decent vietnamese food there!).

I've definitely learned and grown a lot since I first arrived in South Korea. This is an amazing experience that I have been enjoying wholeheartedly and I can't wait to see what the next half-year has in store for me!

I hope to travel more throughout Korea and Asia in general. I also need to figure out whether I'm gonna renew my contract, move and teach elsewhere, or go back home. Oh decisions, decisions.

Up in Northern S. Korea

This past weekend, I made my way to the Northern part of South Korea, not to be confused with North Korea! I went up there to meet up with my friend Shirlen (my orientation roommate) since I haven't seen her since my first trip to Seoul. She had planned a wonderful weekend with White Water Rafting and Everland, the Disneyland of Korea. I was very very excited to spend time with her as well as her boyfriend and old friends and her friends whom I have never met. I stayed at a guesthouse on Friday night. I arrived in Seoul around 1030p and I made my way to the guesthouse. I could've stayed with Shirlen but she lives about an hour away from Seoul, so I didn't wanna travel all that way just to wake up super early to get back to Seoul because that's where we were gonna meet up for our trek to the river. I wanted to get as much sleep as possible. I thought I had left the guesthouse with enough time for me to get to the meeting spot at 840am. The bus was set to leave at 9am. I didn't know that. Anyways, I was still on the subway at 840am. 845am. 850am. I finally get off the subway at 854am and I scan my T-Money card to get out of the subway, but it says there's an error. I was like, OH CRAP! I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE! The bus leaves soon and I don't know where the bus is! I try scanning it a couple more times to no avail. I hurry and put 10,000 won on it because I thought maybe there wasn't enough credit on it, though I was sure there was. After I put the 10,000 on, it still didn't work! I was panicking! There was no one around. No other train riders, no employees, so I climbed underneath the turnstile and ran for the exit. Thankfully the bus was right outside the subway exit. I had made it with 2 minute to spare! Onward to white water rafting! I was quite happy and hungry. haha

White water rafting was a blast! I had so much fun! I was worried that my glasses would fly off, but Shirlen bought some of those librarian glasses string thingies for me! So sweet! Then the rafting people also gave me something similar, so I had double the protection! The river was so nice! It was so clear that you could see to the bottom. The water was an aqua color too. So beautiful. The scenery was amazing. The other people that were there were from Singapore and they spoke perfect English. They were incredibly nice! I couldn't have asked for a better first rafting experience!

After rafting, I went to Myeongdong to do some shopping. Of course I had to stop by Forever 21. I bought some basics (a blue thermal, purple dress, jeans) and a pretty floral dress! Then I met up with Jarrod and watched some Koreans dance to kpop music. Some of them were really good, notably the nerds! Yeay Nerds!! Then I wanted to get boba at Quickly, but they were closed. I don't know if it was forever or just for the night. It looked like forever. I was sad! Is it too much to ask for a freaken boba milk tea around here?? Geez Louise! Instead, we went to a cafe for some tiramisu and patbingsu. Yum =9 Then we walked around a little bit more.

After Myeongdong, I went back to the guesthouse only to find that I've been kicked out of my room. I was to move to another room on a different floor because 2 big parties were coming in. I didn't hide my displeasure and I asked, "Why?" Shouldn't the other people be the ones who have to work around me? I didn't wanna move because I was so beat from rafting, but I'm a very flexible person, so I acquiesced. I went to the next floor with the person running the guesthouse and he showed me my room. There was already someone in there. There were 4 beds. She was not very welcoming, so the guy told me to go to a different room. I was like, uhhh, okkkkk. Why are girls so strange?

The day after, I was supposed to go to Everland (the Disneyland of Korea), but I ended up bailing the morning of because I had school the following day and I hadn't planned my lessons yet. Plus, Everland is really far away from the bus station, so I'd have to leave Everland early to get to the bus station at a reasonable time in order to get home to plan my lessons. Too much. So I decided to go to Everland another time, when I had time to enjoy every part of it. Instead, I went to Dongdaemun, one of the largest if not the largest, market in South Korea. It was raining and I didn't see much that I liked unfortunately. I also came across the pet shop section. It was a horrible sight! So many animals stuffed into one cage, and the cage wasn't even a good one. It was really terrible. And it wasn't just one or two stores. There was a whole bunch of them, with cats, dogs, birds, lots of birds, amphibians, reptiles, mice, hedgehogs, etc. They were all crowded and huddled inside their tiny cages. My heart was breaking for them! This one cat was SO tiny but it wasn't a newborn. It kept purring at me as if begging me to save it. It was depressing!

I decided to give up on my sightseeing plans and go to the bus terminal to do some shopping at a vintage store that I had always passed by when I came to Seoul but never actually shopped in. I looked around, but didn't see anything that I wanted to buy. I started to roam around and I found more and more shops. A LOT MORE. After about an hour and a half of shopping, I decided to call it quits as to save my wallet from an extra brutal beatdown.

I had school today and it was not so bad. The periods were a little bit shorter (by 5 minutes) and all we did was listen to Justin Bieber. The kids love him and I had all girls today, so it was the perfect song choice for the listening activity, however, I think it may have been too fast, or I chose really hard words. I'm not sure. The kids had a hoot and a holler when it was Ludracris' rap part! haha Unfortunately, I didn't get any students to try the rap. Sadness. I really wanted to hear someone try!!!

So, tomorrow begins my 6-day weekend! How many of you can say you've had a 6-day weekend??? It's gonna be amazing! I'm going back to Seoul for a few days to see Shirlen and the others again. I need to get all the time with them that I can because I can't see them on a weekly basis. Gotta get all the chances I can!

Don't look at me when I'm talking to you!!!

One Korean complaint of foreigners is that they don't like it when we look them in the eye during a conversation. I guess that's just how westerners do. We like to gaze into each others' eyes when speaking. My question is how do Koreans know we're looking into their eyes if they don't look into people's eyes when talking?? I've thought about this before and I still don't have the answer. Additionally, all the Koreans I talk to DO look me straight in the eyes, with one exception, the Vice Principal. It's very strange! She looks at the person next to me (no one is there...) while speaking with me. I wonder if she's even talking to me. And how would you know the person you're speaking to is actually listening? They might also be looking at the person next to you, or behind you, or even better, rolling their eyes. I think that the Korean culture is slowly evolving though. Maybe the VP is just an old fashioned kinda gal. Next thing you know, Koreans will be staring at you even if you're not involved in a conversation. Oh wait, they already do that (if you're visibly foreign, i.e., not me.).

On a completely different topic, in first period today, I saw the boy who was part of the boyfriend/girlfriend duo I saw the other day after school. I could discern his bowl cut from the rest of the class. While I had them do an activity, I went up to him and I put my hand on his shoulder and started laughing. At first, he was confused. Then I saw the light bulb turn on and he started laughing as well. Then he said, "Please forget. Please forget." And I said, "I remember...I remember!" So funny! My co-teacher also knows that he has a girlfriend! She said she knew a long time ago. But we both don't know who the girl is! She hid her face pretty well from me!

I Love My Job

No matter how much I complain about my job, I really do love it. Deep down inside. Sometimes it crawls up to the surface though. Today was one of those days. Everything was great. And if it wasn't, I made the most of it. Can't live life any other way, right?

Today was the first day I had to teach with my new male co-teacher who was the replacement for my favorite co-teacher. My favorite co-teacher had taken over new responsibilities at her main school, so now, she's unable to come to my school to teach with me. This new co-teacher of mine is a new teacher. Newer than me! This is his first semester teaching in school; however, he has taught for a couple years (?) at an academy. His English is pretty good, so I'm happy about that. I asked him if he was ready for today and he said that he was nervous. I told him that he didn't need to be, that it'll be easy, and he doesn't really need to do anything. When we got into the classroom, you could not tell he was nervous, THANK GOODNESS! If the students take a whiff of any nervousness, you're dead meat. I think it also helps that he is a male, a little more intimidating than a woman, sadly. The classes I had with him went well. We did a lesson on giving advice today and I asked the new co if he had any problems he needed help with and to ask the students for help. He told them that he wanted to go to the movies with a date, but he doesn't have a girlfriend. One girl said to take me, and he said, "That's a good idea." hahaha That was part of the dialogue, but still! I would've been like, "hahah, no."

After our first class together, he told me that his impression of me was that I'm an expert at teaching. I was like, WHAAAAAA? No no no, I'm bad! But it was a really really really really good feeling to hear that from someone. I feel like the other co-teachers are always bashing me, so it was nice to have some positivity for a change.

After school, I was at the corner waiting to cross the street and I saw two of my students walking together. A boy and a girl!!! Sharing an umbrella. Awww! That was quite amazing! In school, my classes are separated by gender and even during lunch, the boys sit with the boys, the girls sit with the girls. I NEVER EVER EVER see boys and girls interacting. This particular boy and girl are actually a COUPLE! They spotted me and the girl covered her face and started squealing and running down the street in the drizzle, away from her boyfriend and the protective umbrella. It was the most hilarious thing ever!!! Can't wait to see them at school and make fun of them. :)

Monday Monday Monday

I don't like Mondays because I have to wake up early to go to school after two full days where I can wake up at whatever time I please (before noon). I refuse to wake up in the PM. Always AM. The other day I woke up at 11:58am. Still counts as morning to me!

At the end of last semester, my co-teacher said that I don't have to teach out of the book anymore. I was delighted and she knew it. Then today, she comes to my desk, "So we're starting Lesson 7 today?" I guess so...I will never be able to stray from this book!! But it's OK. The 2nd grade book is a lot better than the 3rd grade book. But still frustrating because I feel tied to the book. But then again, it helps me with lesson planning because it's already done for me. This has become a debate and you probably don't care. So the end about school.


Back to the my wonderful weekends of waking up late..but still in the morning. So Friday night, I had dinner with some of the August people. I'm glad I have integrated into that group because they're a bunch of wonderful people. After dinner, we headed to Crazy Horse for some drinks. The first time I went there, I don't think I liked it, but now I do! Well, only if friends are there. If not, it's pretty boring. Afterwards, we went to Mix, which I think is really boring now. The first time I went, it was fun, but it has been downhill ever since. I've given it many chances too. Then we went to Bubble Bar for a short time. I took a taxi home alone and when I was approaching my place, I was getting money out to get ready to pay. I realized I didn't have enough money. I asked the driver if a credit card would be OK and he said no and I said, Crap. I ran into the 7-11 and took some money out. Thank goodness it wasn't one of those times when you can't get money out of the ATMs. I paid the driver and he didn't even charge me for the waiting period. Oh Koreans, so nice.


Saturday, Okailey had a little shindig at her apartment. The turnout was larger than expected. We played King's Cup/Ring of Fire most of the time when the group was a bit smaller, and when more people came, we ended the game and just talked. Oh, I lost (or won?) the first game. I've never had to drink the King's Cup before. It wasn't that bad because we didn't mix much. We left Okailey's place around midnight to head to downtown. We went to Mix, which was packed, but I'm still bored there. Then we went to Crazy Horse which was empty. And Bubble Bar which was empty. Then we went to Lounge Skyy, which was not empty but not crowded. We had drinks and chatted. It was a good way to end the evening.



Sunday, I met up with Laurence to go to the Kimdaejung Convention Center for Art Gwangju. The art there was amazing. I loved almost everything that displayed and there were tons of pieces. The above photo is my favorite! There were definitely a lot of other things that were more aesthetically pleasing, but this one was just really impressive! The whole image was made out of trash. If you look closely, there are sandals, bolts, rusty cans, plastic bags, and the list goes on and on. I stared at it for so long. It was amazing. We browsed around for about 4 hours. I think I was able to see everything. All in all, a good weekend, but it's Monday now. On the bright side, fun events to go to this Saturday! And after this week and next week of teaching, it will be Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. Woohoo!

A walk down memory lane...

I've been studying Korean with a website called Talk to Me in Korean (www.talktomeinkorean.com) and it has been rather helpful! I'm just reviewing so everything's been pretty easy. They only focus on 1-3 things per lesson, so it's relatively easy for my memory.

Speaking of memory, y'all know my memory is probably the worst out there. Now I have the most extreme example of this. So while I was in Japan, I thought my bike was stolen from the subway station. I had told my friend to get it for me while I was abroad and he said that it wasn't there. I was quite sad, but it's not the greatest bike in the world, so I wasn't too heartbroken. Well, the other day, I was walking by the OTHER subway station and I saw a bike similar to mine. I didn't wanna get my hopes up, so I went to it and checked to see if it was mine. Mine is a little messed up, so I looked, and it was MINE!!! But I could've sworn I didn't park my bike at this particular subway station. I didn't have my key for the lock, so I had to leave my bike there until I found my key and had time to walk to the station. A couple days later, I fetched it and as I was going home, I was thinking about the last time I rode my bike and then it dawned on me that I DID park it at that subway station! I usually park it at the OTHER subway station. I'm such a moron. I thought it was lost for like 3 weeks. It's all rusty now too. hahaha It's such a crappy bike, but at least I don't have to spend money on buying a new one!

P.S. I'm back at school and not that excited about it. I've had a taste of the vacation life and I want it back!

P.P.S. Some of my new friends here have moved back home. So sad! I wish I had more time with them :(

Reaching new heights

I've been a horrible blogger. Sorry! To all 3 of my followers. haha

So let's see. Nothing much has been going on...except that I had to teach 3 weeks of summer school, which was a bit of a drag, but it was nice seeing the kids every day of the week. I actually learned some of their names, which was very exciting for me! I love my kids! They're so cool. Some notable things that we did were grow some flowers (most of them had some germination), make ice cream out of clay, a treasure hunt in the sweltering heat, made smores, and create new sports for Universiade.


Oh, another small update is that I went to JAPAN!!! My second Asian country visited. I am going to conquer this continent! haha It was a great trip, but VERY expensive! I left Friday right after my summer school ended and went to Gwangju airport where I was put onto an earlier flight. But that flight brought me to Seoul, so I didn't get to Tokyo any sooner than planned. Once I arrived in Tokyo (at around 10pm), I met up with Brian and Adam at the hostel. It took me a long time to get there, so I arrived around midnight. We chatted a little then we tried to get me a pair of Summer Sonic tickets which was to be held the next 2 days, (Summer Sonic is a music festival.) but we failed. Since I arrived so late, it was time to sleep! The next morning, we tried to get me tickets again, but I was only able to get a ticket for Day 2, which was fine by me because that was the day that I preferred. Since I didn't have Day 1 tickets, I was all alone cuz the others had tickets for both days. I went sightseeing by myself! I went to Tokyo Tower, walked around and shopped at Shibuya, some random Buddhist temple that I



came across where some sort of festival was happening, Tsujiki fish market (I think!), and the Ginza shopping area where the high end shops are. It was a nice first full day, but it was rather lonely!



The second day, I went to Summer Sonic!!! It was such a great music festival! There were many different artists there representing all types of music. Some artists that I got the chance to see were Jason Derulo, Orianthi, Coheed & Cambria, Big Bang, Sum41, A Tribe Called Quest, Hole, Taylor Swift, and Stevie Wonder!!! It was great! Stevie Wonder was definitely the highlight, even though he made us wait about 20 minutes before starting his show, not even with an apology! I was standing in the crowd for a LONG time! I was getting tired and it was the end of the day. It was the longest wait ever, but it was well worth it!


Some other things that I did while in Japan were visiting the Imperial Palace (on a Monday...when it's closed...), went to the

Government buildings where there are observation decks from which you can have a nice view of the city, ate at restaurants where you order from a vending machine, ate at a Denny's which is nothing like American Denny's, stayed at a capsule hotel (for 3 glorious nights), saw Asakusa temple and Nakamisa shopping street, ate at a restaurant where you order by using a pen and pointing to things in the menu, went to Ueno Park, went to Ameyayokocho (shopping street), made many new friends from all over the world, rented a bike and rode along the river, and .... oh yeah, I also CLIMBED MT. FUJI!!!



It was a grueling challenge, but I completed it! It was the best part of my Japan trip but it was also the worst!! It was the best because ... well, that's pretty self-explanatory, but it was the worst because of the descent. I was completely miserable on my way down the mountain. All the pressure was on my toes and my knees and legs and entire body was exhausted from the climb up. The ascent was fairly easy, but the descent was deadly! It rained the entire way down. My clothes were not waterproof as they said they would be, so I was drenched. My hands were as white as snow, of which I was thankful there was none. I made it to the top of the mountain, but I was barely there for about 2 minutes. The whole purpose of the climb was to see the sun rise from the top, but it was cloudy and rainy. No sight of blue skies at all. It was so windy that it blew me off course several times on the way up. It was quite scary. The stranger who became my friend on the way up suggested that we head down the mountain as soon as we got to the top because the conditions were dangerous. At first I was resistant, but I realized that I wasn't gonna get what I wanted (a sun rise), so I acquiesced and we went down. I didn't even get a photo! My camera probably would've died if I did. For my hike, I bought a hiking stick for which you can get brand marks at each station. I got all of them except for the 6th station because we took the wrong route up, and I didn't get the 10th one because it was just plain crazy at the top that I didn't even think about it until I was already en route to the bottom. We started our hike at around 815pm and reached the top at around 4am. We could've arrived there sooner, but we took a lot of breaks to acclimate to the thinning oxygen levels and to kill time so we wouldn't get to the top too early. It took about 4 hours to reach the bottom because I was in utter pain. My new hiking friend was frustrated with me, but I really couldn't help it. I was miserable.


Japan was such a great experience! I loved it and I would like to go back again, but only after I've conquered all the other countries that I want to visit. Another thing to note about Japan was that I found it very difficult to find a sushi restaurant. They are hard to come by! That was disappointing!

School starts in about 5 days and I am dreading that day. I don't want school to start again! I had a taste of vacation/being away from school and I am thoroughly enjoying my time away from teaching. But the day is inevitable.

Hitler gets Frustrated with Coteachers too!

Here is some insight to being a native English teacher in South Korea.

You can visit www.roketship.com to see some incredibly accurate depictions of the life of a foreigner in South Korea. In addition, below is a video of how Hitler is frustrated with his coteacher and the educational system here.

Foreigner vs. Koreans

Friday night was quite eventful. First, there was a gathering at Austin & Mesa's apartment which was really fun. Their apartment is HUGE and adorned with freaky mannequins, including one in the bathroom which can come as quite a shock your first time there. Good conversation, good company. The Usual left around 2am and headed to downtown. We went to Mix Lounge and were waiting for our other friends to come. They took quite a while but eventually made it. We went to the rooftop and were just talking and people watching when all of a sudden, a fight broke out between a stupid foreigner and an equally stupid Korean (and his friends). I don't know why it started, but I'm sure it was a stupid reason. I've never been in a situation like this before, so I wasn't able to foresee what I was gonna do next, which was step in between the two feuding groups and try to stop it. I was banking on the assumption that these guys would not hit a girl. Quite a risky move in Korea but I was thinking in American. I held back this little Korean guy who obviously had five too many plastic surgeries on his face (probably the result of instigating fist fights at bars). I kept telling him "aniyo! NO! stop!" etc. I was pretty successful. At one point I let him go because he was calm and was talking to the manager of Mix (who wasn't doing ANYTHING! except what is in his job description: looking pretty). Then the foreigner was going mad crazy and I got in front of him when he was in the process of lunging towards the stupid Korean who had begun to run his mouth. I held this foreigner by his two arms holding him back. He was about a foot taller than me so he was able to have a clear view of this stupid Korean. I was talking him out of it and he agreed with what I had to say but he said, "Can't you just let me get him one time. He's just right there..." and I was like, "NO! Just go home." Eventually the girl he was with made him leave but not without the trailing Koreans. Someone else attempted to stop them and eventually just left with them. We stayed on the rooftop for several minutes and then decided to leave as well only to find the Koreans and the foreigners (who were also trying to stop the fight) right outside. They were fine; eating, apologizing, talking. Then the stupid Korean had one of the foreigner's phone and would not give it back. This stupid Korean was just looking for a fight. Anyway, I tried to get the phone from the guy, but he's stupid. Then Sonia dug her nails into his hand and eventually got the phone. They were causing a scene and after we got the phone, we decided to just walk away and get away from it all, but these dumb Koreans wanted to follow. We go down the road and who do we see at the intersection? None other than the first foreigner who was going at it with the stupid Korean. I don't know what happened there cuz we decided to leave it completely or someone was gonna get deported. I got home around 630am that morning. It was horrible. The following night, we went back to Mix. No fight this time. Oh yeah, I also watched Eclipse. It was actually a good movie!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than Twilight and New Moon. Like WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better! Jacob vs. Edward, it's just like foreigners vs. Koreans. OK, not really...just trying to relate my subjects together...