Week 4: What the Book?

Nothing like some good ol' bbq chicken feet. 

Work, Work, Work

ON THURSDAY, the internet was down at the school. While technology help was called in to fix the problem, I sat scrambling for ideas on what to do for class. My beautifully detailed power point on Halloween was virtual miles away on my email. My older co-teacher grinned at me. "We teachers are always prepared in case the internet does not work," she said.

So my lucky classes got to sing. The tune for one of the house song videos was pretty memorable, so I jotted it out for them, and then we rehearsed a cappella. A singing competition soon followed. Hey, they've got to get good at karaoke somehow.  As one of my co-teachers told me, the kids always love competitions.

This week I've been able to sit back  and pick up many simple, quick games from the more experienced teachers. I also have more of an idea of where my students stand, English level-wise. Walking back to the bus after work, I chat with the kids, one of whom has a familiar, high-pitched voice  ringtone.

"Justin Bieber?" I ask.

"Ooh! Ooh! You know!" he exclaims, and gives me a high-five.

By Friday, I was feeling a cold creeping up my throat. I'd heard I'd most likely get sick my first few weeks in the country, being unused to the viruses, water, and air. My co-teachers were immediately concerned, and gave me 쌍화탕 (ssang hwa tang). This earthy brown brew is heated up in the microwave, and then served with two pills. Very strong flavor, and the only scent my clogged nose could pick up was something like molasses.

Itaewon Strip

I woke on a warm Saturday morning and smiled. Yes, my nose still felt like a dripping faucet, but it was the weekend!

Last weekend, some friends and I set out to conquer Seoul. It's taken three days so far. The first day, we rode the subway for so long that we finally decided to just get off in Dongdaemun Market. It was a good choice, very vibrant with sky-high towers overlooking the threads of people. We shopped, enjoyed coffee (an easy keo-pi in Korean), dined on a fried seafood basket, and ordered soju straight. If you want to get drunk for cheap, then soju's definitely got Monarch vodka beat. It comes in innocent-looking green bottles at 3,000 won (3 dollars) a pop, and in just 2 1/2 shots, I was feeling cheery (and brave) enough to spout off Korean phrases as to where a noraebong was (karaoke). They're all over the place.

The next day we met up with one of my friends from Korea, who showed us around Myeong-dong, Seoul's esteemed shopping district. We spent significant time at Insa-Dong, a long street with traditional Korean wares flanking it on all sides, offering pottery, masks, hanboks, and stringy candy. There I enjoyed my new favorite (sorry, jja jang myeon), the spicy

Tteokbokki rice cakes in hot sauce, and washed it down with a gray fruit smoothie. Our Korean friend showed us the correct way to drink soju: as a fusion drink.

This has been two full days in Seoul, but we still have yet to see the palaces or the nightlife (the subways and buses stop running around midnight). Today, we explore Itaewon.

You immediately know you're in different territory when you step out of the subway, and a McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Calvin Klein greet you. I saw more foreigners in five minutes than I saw in my entire week in Guri. Itaewon is an international street, with everything from falafel restaurants to cafes playing Spanish music to a high proximity of English-speaking shopkeepers.

During the foreign military occupations, Itaewon was center stage for bars and brothels. Many women, willingly or unwillingly, served as "comfort women," and both they and their children were shunned by the rest of the country. Nowadays there have been numerous prostitution crack-downs, but its presence remains visible.

My friend and I made our way to the foreign food mart, where we found many spices from home and yes, Macaroni and Cheese! There were also big blocks of pepperjack and cheddar cheese (non-existent in most groceries), tortillas, curries, and an aisle of Reeses and Hersheys from home. The vendors on the streets were vocal, but not overly-aggressive about selling. If you said no, they looked disappointed, but didn't pursue the matter. Many shops boasted names such as, "Big and Tall," "The Hulk," and "All Sizes," hinting that they catered to Western sizes. We spent some time with a man who identified himself as "The Jokeman" in his tailor shop, where he showed us the different peat coats he'd designed for foreigners, and chatted in English. True to his word, he gave us a free joke: "Judge Judy asks the prisoner, 'I don't understand. Why do you break into the same store three times?' The man replies, 'I was getting a dress for my wife. She didn't like the first two.' "

My friend and I didn't hear the word "break into" the first two times, so there was a lot of creative guessing at the punch line before we got it.

Another great place tucked away in a loft is called: What the Book? It is a new/used English bookshop with a great variety of titles. You could find everything from Obama's biography to a steamy romance. I scoped out their Korean language section, and bought a book with 2 Cds for only 9,300 won ($9.30). Since it's so interactive, maybe I'll sit down and study it. Maybe. There's a lot riding on this, after all. I have a diner at a co-teacher's house next week, and I want to be able to say more than "kamsahamnida" (Thank you). A fellow teacher in the building is also taking a free Korean class in Seoul on Saturdays, and that'll definitely be something to check into once I'm settled into the routine.

Escape from the Mall: Yeongdungpo Market

At this point, our bellies were rattling. Shops were closing down, and we had a while to go before bars would start opening.  The Changgyeonggung Palace I'd wanted to see had closed for the day, but my friend mentioned that there was a huge mall nearby. So we hitched a ride on the subway and got off in Yeongdungpo Market. People swarmed through bottleneck-wide sidewalks, and I began to feel pretty suffocated and woozy from my cold. I needed food.

We ducked into a Korean BBQ, away from all the hustle and bustle. This was the first restaurant I'd been to with absolutely no pictures on the menu, so we squinted at the characters ferociously for any familiar words. Soju. Well, that wasn't what I wanted at the moment. Our waitress arrived, and we began a little charades game. She would point to an item and mime; we would guess.

The first one I felt confident about. Beef. Ok. The next one appeared to be some type of fish. I glanced over at our neighbors' table. Alive on the grill, thrashing, was a pile of eels, all paddling madly away from the heat. The diner calmly clamped them with the tongs, and tossed them back on the hearth. The eel began to wriggle frantically again. It was both pitiable and mesmerizing. I couldn't look away. I knew how good eel tasted…

I looked back at my waitress and shook my head. She pointed at the next item and made a wing motion.

"Chicken?"

"Neh! Chicken!" She clenched my arm excitedly, and made a clawing motion with her hand. Now my friend and I were both laughing.

"Yes! Chicken! Hana!"

She made the clawing motion again. I wondered why she kept doing that. Then she shrugged, marked the menu, and brought us our side dishes. We grinned at the savory marinated beef. Then she brought out the chicken feet.

We stared at the crooked claws dripping in red sauce for a second. Then I made the scratching motion with my hand. "Chicken...feet… Ohhhh." Nevertheless, it was barbecued along with the beef. The tendons popped rather unpleasantly in my mouth, and a bone pricked my gum, like when you bite into fish and the little white bones are left in. However, it didn't taste bad. Perhaps it was because I had a cold, but the feet didn't really taste like anything. It was more of the texture, and popping tendons, which required vigorous chewing.

It was good we had the food in our belly, because the subway route that had seemed so simple and clear to get there suddenly became complex  and subject to much more walking. We trekked back and forth through the underground shopping center about three times trying to find the right exit. First we ended up at the train station by following the signs for "tracks," and when we tried to back-track to our original subway station, it had mysterious vanished (or our aching feet refused to go any further). We kept seeing exit signs, but no subway signs. Finally, a vendor attempting to sell us something decided we could benefit from his travel guidance instead, and directed us to the subway line: the area we were originally in. Not caring where the subway was going at this point, we clambered on, glad to escape from the mall.

Excited to be celebrating a far-from-home Halloween next weekend; have fun in the States, everyone!

The above is presented as opinion, not fact.