Transportation Ups & Downs, Ins & Outs

I've been on various transportation systems all over the place - The NYC Subways, the Metro in Washington DC, the T in Boston, the LA Subways, NJ Transit, etc etc. I find them fascinating and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe its because I grew up in small town america where public transportation just wasn't really prevalent or something anyone ever did... and if you did use it there was a stigma that you were of a poorer background (that being said, I did use it when needed).

But I have never been more impressed and confused by a subway system than the subways in Seoul. A few of us went into Seoul last night via bus and got dropped off in Insadong. We walked around a bit, and got into the subway station to find a payphone to figure out the plans for the evening. We then needed to go from Insadong to Itaewan which is foreigner central (which will have its own blogpost at some other time, that is for sure). But there's no inbound/outbound, or uptown/downtown cues to help you navigate where you're going. Not even so much as a N,S,E,W, directional guide really... so you just kind of have to know where you need to go. Luckily its written in Hangul & English:


There are multiple ways to get yourself onto the subway. First off the subway stops are virtually underground malls. Obviously some are bigger than others, and I have only now just seen a couple of them, but when you walk into them everything is very large, and very high ceilings, and windows where you can buy tickets for the subway. I was fortunate enough to have a T-Money Card left for me by the girl that I replaced at my school, which is basically a debit card. They can apparently be bought at 7-11s & possibly even the subway stop (I'm not sure) for like 2000 Won, and then it will act as a declining balance. I put 5000 Won on my card and then as you pass through the turnstiles you tap it as if it were a PayPass (they're currently testing a version of this out in the NYC Subways). The great thing about this card is that if you have it, you basically get a discount on the price of your trip. Seoul operates on a zone system (a la DC) so if you go from point A to point B and it costs 1000 Won then by using this card it might cost you 900 instead. You can also just go to the windows and buy a ticket individually, but the T Money card eliminates a need for lines, and you wind up saving money on something that can be used on the buses, subways, and various other convenient stores.

Overall, the subways were extremely clean, very spacious, and looked as if they were a week old:




















The stations AND the tracks were free of grime and vermin and semi easy to navigate.



















And I can't wait until I do it again... the only downside is that almost all public transportation virtually shuts down at midnight so getting home when you live 45 minutes away is NOT fun nor cheap.

Field Trip: KBS (Korean Broadcasting Station)

This morning myself, one other foreign teacher, a handful of Korean teachers, and about 30 korean preschool children went to the Korean Broadcasting System on a field trip. And I have to tell you, field trips are just as much fun when you're an adult as they were when you were a kid. The only difference is that you have to pay attention as an adult so you don't LOSE your children (which no one did today). Also, since I do not speak Korean it was almost a license to do what I wanted.

KBS is comparable to NPR in America. Now, I don't know much about NPR's complete set up to speak on it, but I do know that KBS is pretty big here. We went to its operation located in Suwon, which was about a 30 minute drive from Suji on a very hazy day. Both of my preschool classes were in attendance and today definitely helped me find my inner child. Believe it or not, even though I always thought myself to be a big kid (I like toys, cartoons, and generally don't ever want to act like an adult) I've had a hard time being creative and thinking child-like when it comes to these kids.

Anyway, we got the kids on the bus... got to KBS, wandered through the museum part and then onto the actual tv sets. The best part was when we got outside and walked through this old tyme Korean Western Village:



The day overall was pretty great. The kids were really well behaved and enjoying themselves, and there was so much korean spoken that I really have no idea what was going on, but it was some place I never expected to go, and that in and of itself is cool.

Lego Buildings & Construction

Construction in this country occurs at an alarming rate. I've been here for only a few weeks and already I have seen dozens of countruction sites all over place using equipment I have never seen anywhere else.

When I first came here I learned that the Koreans have hundreds of gorgeous mountains everywhere throughout the country that are not allowed to be built on. I believed this to be for conservation reasons and the idea that Koreans want to keep the things that make this country beautiful around. That they were continuing to build these gigantic sprawling metropolises around the mountains to preserve something unique.

Well that couldn't be further from the truth. What they do is use these mountains as natural resources. They will bulldoze a mountain to make granite, sand, and rock to be used for their construction materials. The exact opposite of the conservation efforts I had envisioned and respected.

Oh well.

What is kind of crazy is what they build. The city I live in, Suji, is roughly 8 years old, has 200,000 people, is nearly impossible to find on any map due to its newness, and almost completely made up of apartment buildings. The Koreans will build apartment building clusters and the only way to tell them apart is by the rather large numbers they put on each building:


^Random Apartment City

These clusters are built very quickly because they are built the exact same way, at the exact same time, using some of the cheapest materials around. The idea behind it is basically they don't need to pay some design company to make something modern and trendy, and if you can make one of something that someone will buy, why not make 5 more just like it?

However from a distance they can be quite pretty in a way because this just isn't something you see at home:


Suji is a suburb of Seoul but supposedly within the next 10 years or so it is expected to be another rather large city directly next to Seoul, a la Incheon. Maybe these apartment buildings are just the start of getting ready for the city that will grow up around them.

The Sun Will Never Shine Again

*This was originally posted on Thursday September 6, 2007. Immediately following this post, the sun did in fact finally show itself on Friday, Saturday AND Sunday. It's amazing how a little sun can make a place seem 10x better. **See Picture Below

Well I officially hit week two in South Korea, and the sun has yet to show itself.

It was last seen in North America, at roughly 7:30am, with a brief sighting again somewhere over the international dateline before my brief stopover in Toyko. Ya know, I vaguely remember in my traveling haze noticing that while it was 5pm at the Toyko airport two Thursdays ago, it looked very cloudly and serene, as if the sun were rising but not just quite there yet. Maybe because my body thought it was really 4am, but I really thought that everything looked like very early morning, especially because there were no people around.

Regardless of all of that, my first 4-5 days here weather wise were odd. It was a different type of humidity than I had ever experienced. For anyone that is from or ever been to New York, imagine what the middle of August feels like when you're standing on the subway platform at rush hour waiting endlessly for a train to come. It was THAT kind of humidity, only so thick that I almost felt like I was taking a sip from a glass of water everytime I took a breath. It was so humid and hot that I was falling asleep standing up b/c I couldn't really function properly. We were easily reaching temperatures in the 90s, with around 85-95% humidity, and most places have minimal air conditioning.

However all of that feels like it was ages ago, because this week it has done nothing but rain. It became an immediate fall, but instead of really pretty color changing trees & leaves, its just grey. Everything is grey. And this is in no way me saying that things are depressing or not, just merely observing the color of the place. One of the korean teachers on my staff assured me that at some point soon we should be seeing blue skies, but I believe this to be a complete fabrication as the Korean Sky is most surely continuously grey. They were giving me false hope.

Not only do I need to see the sun for my own happiness, I need it to happy purely at an educational standpoint. When I walk into my class in the morning, and ask my students to tell me what the weather is like, I need to be able to teach them more phrases other than "cloudy" "rainy" "cold".


^A grey cloudy sky on the way back from Seoul to Suji


^The view from my balcony on a sunny, blue sky day

My First Trip to Seoul

My first thought... "Now this is where I wanted to be"

Now in all fairness, I do like Suji, and in the long run this little ghetto-fabulous area of the world will do me a lot of good. BUT compared to how amazing Seoul was, it was a bit to swallow on the first trip in.

First off, I was going to get out of Suji today if it killed me. There's only so many places you can really go here, and wherever you do wind up going I guarantee all you'll really see is neon signs or apartment (lego) buildings. My favorite part of Suji so far is the Lotte Mart, and it is just a gigantic piece of property with a very huge target/walmart/sam's club/bj's type place all mixed into one.

However, like any big city, Seoul is where the culture is. There are museums, and markets, and squares, and shopping districts, and architecture and restaurants and everything. Sure it'll cost you, but you at least have variety and options. I was lucky enough to go into Seoul with a couple of the girls on my staff to see the Monet Exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art. For 10,000 Won (~$10) we went into a Museum with 3 floors and perused some of the most famous paintings in the world. After two hours or so we just happened to walk around Seoul a bit, find some food at a place called, "The Place" which happened to cater primarily towards american food (sandwiches, pasta, salads) and was pretty cheap all things considered and hopped back on the bus. I gotta tell ya... salad has never tasted so good.

The interesting thing about Seoul is that there's a gigantic Mountain in the middle of it, as well as the Han River. There's a walking path along the river that if it ever stops raining here, I will definitely walk on. I also cannot wait to do Seoul Tower (one of the largest buildings in Asia) and the Zoo, and anything else it has to offer.



I imagine I will be spending most of my weekend time enjoying Seoul....

Eating is Pretty Much a Guessing Game

I'm really new to this SoKo stuff, but a girl does have to eat in order to sustain life, so this is definitely something that deserves some attention.

I'm finding that there's a fair amount of english going on here. At least most people know enough to communicate on a basic level, and when all else fails, I've definitely used pointing or sign language to get the jist across. I've learned various words... Hello (anyeonghaseyo), Thank you (Kamsanida), tired (anja***), and bottle opener (peontage), but the words for food just are not sticking in my head for whatever reason. I've learned that bap is rice, galbi is beef, bulgogi is beef soup, Chuseyo is 'for me please' and that's basically about it.

We go to a place called Sharon's everyday for lunch at work. We call it sharon's because the little korean woman who runs the place is named Sharon, after Sharon Stone. And i've had various things... Tuna Rice, Mahndu (kimchi filled, or beef filled), ramyan (spicy ramen soup), mahndu ramyan, pork cutlet in some weird bbq sauce, some sort of crispy rice thing with a ton of vegetables, and that's about it. Luckily I've had my fair share of pizza here too (pizza hut, and a place called pizza school make really good pizza).

But the best thing I've had so far is Korean BBQ. There's some cheap stuff for like $3, and then there's some great stuff for like $12. The sides are all basically the same at these places - lettuce, salt, ginger, bean curd, sprouts, kimchi, etc etc. But the grades of meat are basically where the money comes into place. You can tell the difference, but the bad meat is definitely still good. They marinate the meat for 3-4 days before serving it, bring it out on a plate when you order it, and then slab the uncooked raw stuff onto a huge grill of some kind. They bring out tongs and scissors, and you wait to cook it. You can throw some garlic cloves on there, or grill some kimchi, and basically just wait. The meat is then cut by someone at your table, and then people just have it with their metal flat chopsticks (which is an art form, let me tell you).

You can eat just piece by piece, or make yourself a little sandwich like I do by putting a piece or two in a big piece of lettuce, adding some rice, and some random side, closing it up and then consuming. It's really really good.

Anyway, it's about dinner time now. SO when I figure out what more stuff is, then you will as well.



***All words in here are basically my interpretation of how to spell something.

One whole week in Korea

I have now been in South Korea for one week.

I'd like to say that I waited a week to post anything to truly reflect on what it means to be in a foreign country and not be judgemental, BUT that is not at all the case.

After 27 hours total of travel time, we found ourselves on the other side of the world by way of Toyko, by way of Chicago, by way of Syracuse (or newark). United was an fantastic airline. Very friendly, and they somehow bumped me up to economy PLUS. More leg room, but just shy of business class. Anyway, after 50 something games of gin rummy we landed at Incheon Airport in Seoul, South Korea around 9:30pm. I wish i had had my camera out from the very beginning because after going through customs and getting our baggage, we walked through a gigantic set of doors out into what only reminds me a movie premiere. Hundreds of people crowded behind a line screaming out people's names, and holding signs of welcome, and flashes of lights from cameras. We recognized our people holding our names, and tried to get through the massive crowd to meet them. From there on out it was just surreal.

We drove about 40 minutes to Suji (the city where my school is) in a car that smelled like it was made in a factory to specifically smell like an ashtray and dropped off our stuff to our apartment. If it was one thing I learned in my first 24 hours, Korea is land of the cigarette. Even though I was praying to any type of deity that would listen for just a tiny bit of sleep, we ended up going out to dinner anyway at a nice place for some Korean BBQ. Which is really amazing stuff, and i'll write more about the food later. I eventually found myself in a spare bedroom of an apartment dead asleep by 1am.

At 7:30am sharp i was awake in a room that had no AC to head off to school at 930am to be even more surprised by the school that I will be spending most of my time in. I had no real expectations, but it was very bright, and colorful, and loud. The teacher's room is cramped but cozy and everyone's got their own desks, and the staff hangs out in there during their 10 minute breaks. After a meeting with the director, and a SHORT tour, we were taken to the bank downstairs to open up our accounts and exchange our traveler's checks. Then back up to the school to get our schedules and start obvserving classes. MWF school goes from 10-7, and T/Th it goes from 10-6, BUT this whole month i get to come in at 11:30am and leave by 5 or 7. Its really not so bad.

And to keep this 7 words short of a novel, after my friend was so kind enough to share 3 nights of his a hotel room to get some AC and some sleep, we FINALLY moved into our apartments, got access to internet, and a great night's sleep after our first official day of teaching.

Basically the jist of all of this is that my first week in Korea was insane, good and bad, and full of some serious cuture shock (a concept i never really believed in until now). Overall, i'm excited to be somewhat settled in here and have loads to tell you all about in the future. Also as soon as I have all of my information, those that are close to me will also get it as well (phone/address/etc etc).

this is where I would put goodbye and goodnight in korean, if i knew it.

**OH and if anyone knows how to make blogger be an english website instead of showing up in ALL korean, that'd be absolutely amazing.