Konglish

We’re official aliens, hoorah. We have received our Alien Registration Cards and are fully-fledged foreign teachers in Korea. Contrary to the name, this means we can now explore more of this incredible country and the local delicacies.

My favourite quirk so far is the convenience stores. Each little shop is treated, in its own right, as a place to eat and drink. They have tables inside and out, microwaves, boiling water to cook noodles, cups, chopsticks; everything you could need for a stand-up meal. For a mere ₩5,000 (about £3) we can stop by for delicious ramen and Soju. So Co-Op, you can provide me with endless ready meals and plan my funeral but I will not be impressed until I can consider your store as a place to eat and get merry.

I am also learning the Hangul (or ‘Konglish’: Korean with English grammar). Albeit I am still revising my flashcards, but soon enough I will be able to read in Korean. It wasn’t too difficult to learn, each block (symbol) is a syllable and each block has to contain a consonant and a vowel – but if you do not need a consonant, you just have a little ‘o’, which means ‘nothing’. Once you’ve worked out what each symbol means, you can just sound it out.

Gwangju-Si

The middle school students are going through an exam period, they have eleven exams four times a year. So we have spent the last couple of weeks supporting them, playing games and bypassing homework. Charlie also discovered his name literally translates to ‘White Boy’, ‘Pale Face’ and ‘Whitey’ – I think it suits him.

Our apartment backs on to a public school playground. This unfortunately means every morning we are awoken loudly by what can only be described as a drum parade. As the students are arriving at school, drums are played and announcements are made over a speakerphone. Apparently, this is common in public schools in Korea. We are gradually getting used to the sound, but the first morning was quite a shock.

We have enjoyed spending the rest of our time wandering around our Korean town, where we have discovered a World Mart (finally some Indian spices!) and a market full of fruit, vegetables, whole chicken, octopus, mountains of fish and the largest quantity of garlic I have seen in my life.

 

Namaste Jeonju

This weekend we took a trip to Jeonju, to take part in the ‘Bhoga Yoga’ workshop; a mountain hike with a yoga class at the peak. Prior to arriving in Korea and accepting a job at ‘Scott’s Tots’ we were offered a position in Jeonju, a city down south famous for its food and traditional culture. The current teachers decided to stay, but I had still done lots of research so I was eager to explore.

With time to spare before the bus journey, we had a wander around Seongnam (a town close to us, with lots of restaurants, bars and a cinema where we saw the Jungle Book). Tucked away behind a river and embankment of pink flowers, was the Seongnam Football and Baseball Stadium. I already cannot wait to watch some sport here.

Nestled in the heart of Jeonju city, is the Hanok Village, a charming place where past and present coexist in harmony. It’s full of food stalls, coffee shops, boutiques and couples dressed in traditional Korean clothes, riding around on electric bikes. And in true Korean style, at the end of the village next to a beautiful river was an outdoor gym (seriously, how is anyone overweight here?).

Bright and early the next morning we met the yoga tribe at the summit of the mountain. Of the group of ten, there were people from all over America, Canada, Korea and the bright lights of Milton Keynes. We were all teachers; some people had been here for over fifteen years and had married Koreans, others for around three years and some were just finishing their first year contracts. It was awesome to meet people with so many great stories and experiences in Korea. It also highlighted what amazing opportunities a country can bring to people all over the world.

It took around three hours to reach the peak, 603m high. We had stopped on the way for homemade bagels (yum), fruit, and soy chai. Once we were at the top we enjoyed a yoga and meditation class, which focused on our connection to the earth and universe. The instructor had moved to Korea from Cheshire seven years ago and now has her own yoga school, as well as being a Kindergarten teacher. After the hike, we had a well deserved Korean Temple Food buffet.

 

Delicious Offerings

In the previous post, I introduced you to Korean Temple Food. It turns out there are quite a few temple-style salad bars in Korea. Our director, Michael, took us to a ‘Shabu and Salad Bar’ for lunch one afternoon. He enjoyed the thinly sliced beef served with boiling water – but we were spoilt for choice at the buffet. Rice, noodles, five or six different types of salads, fresh pizza, mushrooms, roasted vegetables, raw vegetables and watermelon; to name a few options. The waitress, who could speak excellent English, was also a vegetarian and was happy to hear we were too.

We went out for some dinner with friends in Seongnam, they have already nailed their Hangul, so were able to look for somewhere with vegetarian options. We ate in a place called ‘Rastar’; the chef came out to help us with the order and despite understanding how to read Korean, we ended up drawing little pictures representing no fish, eggs and meat. I had the spicy ramen with green vegetable dumplings.

Korean food is certainly delicious, but my favourite cuisine has to be Indian. And we hit the jackpot with this little restaurant located high in a building in Seongnam. The chef told us that, to his knowledge, this restaurant is the only one in Korea with garlic and coconut naan bread. It was incredible.

Look at the size of it! Not even gonna lie, we ordered two.

Koreans are a big fan of coffee shops and bakeries, with literally one being every other shop. There is always fresh bread, vegetable croquettes and an abundance of sweet cakes. Here’s pictures of one of the bakeries in Gwangju and a Nutella waffle I enjoyed from a cart on the street.

And of course, the ramen. Obscene amounts of ramen.

 

Dog Spotting

This posts dog spotting feature unfortunately doesn’t have as many weird and wonderful situations; there is only so many times you can chase after a person with a dog and the crazies seem to be based in Seoul. Nonetheless, I still managed to snap some pictures of puppies in a window, dogs being carried as accessories (starting to not feel like a spot, more the norm out here) and a QT drinking out of a cup at a rest stop, which reminded me of my canine hero, Harvey :’)

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Happy Thoughts

So hear me out, this story was a bit of a personal nightmare but the idea of Happy Thoughts is to leave you with a little moment that gives an insight to the personalities of wonderful Korean people.

After a day wandering around the village, exercising by the river and watching skateboarding in Jeonju, we had worked up quite an appetite. I thought, whilst I am here I will get some money out (we have found it quite difficult to get money out of an English card but now we’re aliens we can have our own Korean account, thank the lord). Long story short, the machine swallowed my bankcard and was making an unbearable beeping sound. The cash machines in Korea are usually inside a small building, next to a bank, but the bank is rarely open during the evenings and weekends.

Thankfully, Korean people are incredibly helpful; four different people were using the phones next to the machines to ask for help – they arranged for a telecommunications representative to come to the bank and release the card and insisted on waiting with us. However as we are waiting, we start to notice above our heads a gathering of spiders… just hanging there, slowly descending down from the ceiling. Feeling hot and on edge, I began to become very aware of my surroundings; the next man who walks in for cash, unknowingly had a spider on his back. Of course, I thought, leave the card I will just call the bank; but the Koreans were determined to get the foreign card back. The forty-five minute wait for the guy to turn up felt nothing short of an eternity, but at least we had good company (minus the spiders).

I did get it back ok and decided against getting cash out, so off to the convenience store we went for ramen for two and lemon Soju; god bless you 7 Eleven.