Anseong Ramblings 1-4-2010

After the first snowfall of the new decade, on January 4th I rambled around town to see what I could find. There is not much to say about the actual rambling, other than it was frigid, but here are a few interesting photos I shot. I will have a series coming up pretty soon, with the theme of "mirrors," involving nothing but pictures taken through traffic mirrors, as there are so many of them here. Enjoy.

There is not much wildlife here in Korea, I think it has something to do with the North Koreans blasting anything that moves in the DMZ, rendering Korea an isolated island, much like the Galapagos but without the wildlife.

I am not sure which is more telling of my city, the shack in the background or the mangy dog in front of it. Either way, this part of Korea is still a bit behind the "Seoul of Asia."

I do like the Korean pickup truck, all the sides are tailgates and they get wicked good gas mileage. Im not saying they could pull a horse trailer or anything like that, but they are pretty cool.

English Program in Korea Training (EPIK)

These pictures are from the weekend of December 12, 2009. Shortly after my arrival in Korea, they sent me to Seoul for 5 days for a training and orientation program. Although the program was only slightly more than useless, I did get to meet some cool people and we ventured out into Seoul for the first time. We also went, as a large group, to the Korean War Memorial and whatever the largest museum in Asia is called (I wasn't overly impressed and was slightly bitter that we spent about 2/3 of the day at the museum and only a couple hours at the War Memorial, which was much more interesting). Having said that, the museum might have been more enjoyable if the descriptions of artifacts were in English as well as Korean.

This area is in downtown Seoul, right near the last picture in this set, in Myeong-dong

This is from the Korean War Memorial. The writing says it all.

This is a sculpture at the Korean War Memorial made of dog tags.

A tribute to countries that contributed to fighting off the North Koreans.

Interesting Architecture.

A view from the second floor of the KWM of the entrance.

This is the ChonGae Canal, which runs through downtown Seoul. This particular section is in Myeong-dong, a popular shopping area (although I guess most areas are).

Notice

Video will work soon, there is a crisis of some sort on blogger, apparently it happened to everyone and the admins are working on it.

Night in Bucheon

So this is my first multimedia video overseas. Not exactly up to my personal standards, but it was shot in one hazy night (my very first night out in Korea), with an 18-55 3.5-5.6 in very low light, a thrifty 50, and I wasn't even allowed to take pictures in the last club of the night.

The first pictures are from my first Korean dinner, sam gup sal, which is the most delicious thing in Korea. It is thick pieces of bacon grilled in front of you (you do it yourself) wrapped in lettuce and filled with all sorts of interesting side dishes...oh and of course kimchee.

Then we went to Devin's apartment for some pregaming before heading to, the details are a little blurry at this point, but I think it was called Rhythm and Booze.

The no picture taking at the end of the night probably had something to do with the fact that after leaving Rhythm and Booze we accidentally wandered into a "club" instead of a "night club" or maybe it is the other way around. But either way, one is the normal kind of club, and the other (the one we accidentally ended up in) is not.

So we walked into the entrance of this place, and we were immediately surrounded by bouncers and ushers, who proceeded to escort us to a table. We thought "oh that is kind of nice/strange" then they brought us a bottle of whiskey, a huge platter of fruit, and beers. Then they started, one by one, bringing all of these Korean girls to us. Since I don't speak the language, I am not entirely sure what the deal was, but I am fairly sure they were trying to sell them to us. We promptly left...after I got yelled at for taking pictures, but not before I shot all of these from the hip. Stickin' it to the man.

Winter Camp-The Kids

So these are the "die hards" of the "Englishee" language. The students that attend extra classes during winter vacation to work on their English speaking. I have about 22 students, 11 from 9 to 10:30 and 11 different ones from 10:30 till 12. Some of them are actually good at English and the rest were sent by their parents either instead of babysitting, or in hopes that they will learn at least something. So basically they are from both ends of the spectum, either no English at all or really good--this makes it really hard to make a lesson plan that caters to all levels, but at least, for the most part, they are all enthusiastic. If they start losing focus, I act like an idiot--they all laugh--and then we are back on track.

Caleb--not so good at English, but a good kid.

Sarah--pretty good at English, and I am going to adopt her.

Kyle, good at English, and is awesome. Favorite student.

This is just one of the groups of students--the grade 5s. As you can see, a select few are terrified of the camera, but its a miracle I could get them to all at least stand in a group for a few photos.

Climbing the Hill Part 2

These are the mountains to the north of my city, in between the mountains and this guy are little shacks and rice patties, which are not growing at the moment--due to the frozen arctic tundra that is Korea--good god it is cold here. You know it is cold when on the 5 minute walk to school, my nose starts running and I can immediately feel the icicles forming in my nose. A pleasant experience.
If you look about a quarter of the way over from the right hand side, a little below the high rise apartment buildings closest to the middle of the picture, you can see a big white patch of snow. That is my school's playground. Since the school is so old and the land was purchased before there was actually a city here, the school has one of the largest playgrounds around the area.

Climbing the Hill

I have seen this mountain in the distance everyday on my way to work in the mornings. Finally, when it was -25 C I decided that it was time to climb it to see what was up there. I first found this gazebo with an awesome view of Anseong, and I would have been happy if that was all I found. I noticed a different trail opposite the one I came up, and decided to follow it. What I found was one of the neatest things I have seen as far as traditional culture goes here in Korea. Nestled in the middle of the woods on the way up the mountain was a temple. Granted, nobody was there that I could tell, probably due to the snow, but it was still pretty awesome. Maybe when the weather gets better the monks will come back, and so will I. There are also a series of hiking trails throughout the area on top of the mountain, some as long as 7km, so I will be exploring those in the coming weeks.

Incheon Bridge

James, my co-teacher looking out the window on our staff trip to see the Incheon bridge. After this, we stopped for what I was told was a smoke break, so I left my camera on the bus. What actually happened was we were whisked away on a cruise with a show of some of the craziest dancing from around the world I have ever seen, and the most delicious meal I have had in Korea. I wish I had my camera. Then we all went on top of the cruise ship, released balloons with wishes written on them, and there was a hella fireworks show--with the 18km long, newly completed, Incheon bridge in the background. I was so mad.

Soup for the Soul

So, Caroline arrived yesterday and will be with Julian for three weeks. Wanting to introduce her to some authentic Korean cuisine, we went out in search of some Korean bbq. As it was 10 at night on New Years Day, nothing was open. So we went to the first restaurant we could find...BIG mistake.

They served us this soup--and to give them some credit, the broth tasted good after putting every spice on the table in it--the kicker, however, was the "meat" in the soup. This meat was actually intestines, tripe, and god knows what else. Always keeping an open mind when it comes to Korean cuisine is necessary, but this stuff was awful, just terrible stuff.

I thought I had gotten rid of my gag reflex about three meals after being in Korea, but this stuff took it to a whole new level. The problem is I don't know what it was called so there is a decent chance I will get it again in the future. We promptly ordered more beer and soju, and left in search of some pizza. Which we didn't find.