Premature farewells

In the past two weeks, I’ve had final days at two of my five schools. I officially end my contract on the 28th, but this month has thus far been a sort of unending goodbye.

Here are some highlights from Goodbye Jungang, and So long, Wolchon.

My grade 4 class at Jungang Elementary (I had just given them Canadian nickels, and they were pretty happy about that)

My grade 3s -- really, really good class

I did after school classes at Jungang, this is a mix of grade 1, 2 & 3 students

Wolchon 3rd graders -- small school, small classes, small kids

Grade 4, me looking like one of the kids

Grade 5

Grade 6ers (I'll explain those outfits in a second)

This past Tuesday was the county-wide choir and orchestra competition. The students suited up and performed for judges who appeared and disappeared in a matter of minutes.
It’s rather hypnotic to watch them sway in unison, and the second song has been in my head all week.

I was lucky enough to find myself at these schools, and will always keep fond memories of my time there.

A superfast moment on the superfast train

I finally emptied the contents of a jam-packed video-camera last week.
For whatever reason, this is the only thing I feel compelled to put up for the moment.
I’d emptied it to make room for footage of my hike at Jirisan this past weekend, so that should show up some day, in some form.

This was on the Shinkansen in Japan, going from Hiroshima to Shimonoseki. It’s remarkable how unremarkable going 300km/hr can be.

I went to Japan

It was 2 months ago that I boarded the super-fast Beetle ferry in Busan, en route to Fukuoka, Japan. About 3 hours later, we landed.

Border Fun:

Having neither accommodations for the night, nor a return ticket home, the Japanese officials were initially hesitant to welcome us with open arms. To add to our delays, I had decided to test out my new square-tipped push-pencil on the declaration forms, and was soon instructed to find a new form and restart the process in ink.
(note: I had also purchased a multicolored pencil that had offered great temptation at the initial fill-in/fill-out)

While I was busy reiterating that I had no firearms, illicit substances or an excess of cash, Jonathan, my accomplice in poorly planned travel, was being introduced to the hazards of poorly planned travel. We were apparently a rather baffling case, as we had not put enough thought into our voyage to even figure out where to go once we were allowed to enter the country. The rest of our ship’s passengers had disappeared, while we were stuck with the border officials, as they tried to figure out whether we were idiots or criminal masterminds.

The mood remained light, and we were not whisked away to interrogation rooms or made to feel intimidated (I may be mistaken, here, but I believe Jonathan had recently watched (at least the beginning of) a copy of Midnight Express that I had passed along, and we had been discussing the first part of the movie while waiting in line, before running into the obstacles we now faced). We gladly provided names of friends (I had yet to meet) that we would be seeing later on in the trip, and were told to wait while they were contacted. I was handed the wrong passport and asked to answer questions meant for Jonathan, mostly pertaining to my friends I’d never met. Jonathan was right beside me, though, so I let him do the talking.

Our friends, the lovely Ted & Tomiko Bonnah, who shall no longer remain nameless, did a good enough job in convincing our border pals that we were harmless, if not pitiable, and so we were allowed to proceed to the next step of unpacking and searching our bags and persons.

We continued to baffle at every turn. Me, with my wallet made to look like folded paper, having only packed a bathing suit, some underwear, an extra shirt and tie (to go with the suit I would continue to wear for the remainder of our stay), and Jonathan, whose guitar-case containing no guitar left many a head well-scratched. I was using my brief-bag, normally used for work, which still contained some 30 stray candies (rewards/brides for my students) and some encouraging stickers and stamps (i.e. Best Job!, Youre One!, etc!). Everything had to be emptied. I found it rather amusing to watch them discover the underwear I had so meticulously stuffed into an obscure outer pocket, and had no problems remaining all smiles, knowing I had nothing to hide. I was briefly questioned about the contents of my pocket-notebook, which mostly consisted of childish (multicolored!) scribbles and doodles, as well as far too much space devoted to anagrams on the name Edward Chevrier — the best I came up with were: river chewer, river-dad chewer, and rich, rewarded, while a quick Internet query has provided 100s of better possibilities (a chew rev did err, acid rev drew her, and so on).
(another note: River chewer had become my hypothetical nickname on the ferry-ride over, but was quickly forgotten)

I was given the go-ahead to repack my things and, after offering to share my candy (which was Hello Kitty themed, though they would have none of it), was escorted by a lone officer in a direction altogether different from where we had seen our shipmates exit. There was no indication that we were in the clear, as we were now being led to a door at the other end of the room, with no explanation of what would come next. At this point, the very intrusive thought pounded in my head, which aimed to convince me that a cavity search was imminent. Luckily, however, there is no climax to this story. Instead, we were (rather unceremoniously) dismissed through a back exit and suddenly found ourselves free in Japan.

We still had no idea what to do next.

(this came out longer than intended, so the next chapter will follow shortly, and with pictures)

Just a taste

Here is a short video which should serve as a prelude to another post about fishing and, eventually, my trip to Japan.

It was filmed at a fluvarium near Kyoto.  I don’t remember the name of these fish*, but I appreciated their whiskers and enthusiasm.

For my brother, whenever he may see it.

*Apparently they are no more exotic than catfish

Here and there

Here are some pictures from different times over the past 9 months.

The first couple are from January, at a co-teacher’s home in Masan.

The next bunch are from Ipgok county park, about 15 minutes from my home. My (former) school accountant, Mr. Pak, left Gunbuk elementary to work for another (rival) school. This was our farewell park visit.

From there, we hit the mean streets of downtown Haman. These pictures are mostly from the main drag that runs through town, but there are other areas that should be allotted ample space some other time.

Then, there are a few shots from my most recent trip to Seoul (back in June or July).

Finally, we finish up with some more countryside.

here's me, sweating in the January heat, with a baby I know -- I believe it was about 6:14 when this was taken

his sisters joined us for some Duplo-type block building

me, from a strange angle, looking rather alien

with my co-teacher, Mrs. Heo

Mr. Pak in the center of blurriness

South Korea 1150

an entrance to the market in Haman-Gaya

a chicken and beer place along the main strip of town

towards the outskirts of town

Haman bus terminal, next to the biggest grocery store in Haman -- they even have wholewheat bread!

some public art near Hongdae, in Seoul

more

more, still

fields of lotus flowers next to 15-storey apartment buildings -- such is Haman

sneaking up on Gunbuk elementary from behind

the view from the garden up the hill, still behind Gunbuk elementary

looking in the other direction -- that's Gunbuk High School in white

flooded rice fields

half of me winking

More next time.

Custom fit

It has been 7.5 months since I set off for Haman, with little of any idea of what I was getting myself into. In one of my first posts, I mentioned my intentions of buying a tailored suit — whatever it was I was going to experience, I wanted to look good experiencing it. Well, that dream got sidetracked (perhaps by the fine quality shirts and ties for low, low prices down at the local Trial Mart), but it finally became a reality.

It's not as white as the angelic lighting would have you believe, but it's not too far-off. (mind the lack of socks and shoes)

Boy, whoever steals this is gonna have a lot of s'plaining to do. Aha, aha, aha... (sigh)

“Be there more important things in life

than fancy suits, and shirts and ties?

The world doth feast with hungry eyes,

and all that glitters fuels the fight.”

- Kublai Khan, or something

Something old

I came across a video I took (and promptly forgot about) way back in December. It’s a little long, rather boring, and of poor quality, but if you like little kids and Judo, than you just might enjoy it.

I don’t think I ever told you about how I studied Judo for two months, did I? Well, that will have to wait for another time.

Countrysides, coastlines, a rainy day and ships

Haman celebrates

Yeosu in early May

tall ships

turtle ship

detractor

rainy Daegu barber pole

brite-lite

standing still

walking to Gunbuk

Murder or mayhem

I just killed my first cockroach. It was in the corner of my bathroom, staring at the wall, and trying not to exist. Before that were the fruit flies that invade my sink after every meal, and before them, the two sizes of ants that infested the inside of my wall. This is their story…

I’m still a little on edge about the cockroach thing. I have traps all over my apartment, announcing the threat of their presence, and these traps were already set up when I moved in, so I guess this was an inevitable encounter. The puzzling thing, however, is that the traps don’t seem big enough to accommodate the creature I just sprayed to death a moment ago. Unfortunately, my camera is completely out of batteries right now, so I’ll have to take a picture if there’s a next time, and you’ll have to take my word for it in the meantime. It was big. Not ridiculously big, but big enough that I had to put some thought into killing it. Let’s say it was an inch and a half long, and it was holding a gun, why not, so I had to kill it before it killed me.

Meanwhile, the flies made themselves known earlier in the week despite my diligence on dishwashing duties and garbage disposal. They seem to have chilled out a little bit over the last few days, though, so I won’t bash them too much for the time being.

Lastly, I want to pay special notice to the ants that live in my wall. About a month back I discovered four heavily trafficked “ant highways” as they might be termed. Three of these were in my bathroom, neatly set between the tiles, while the fourth was on the outside corner of that wall, next to my kitchen. Their proximity to my kitchen led to many ants showing up in my morning tea, making the move from the pot of water I leave on the stove for boiling. I mulled over the situation, and came at it with my best course of action. Ridiculously enough, my solution to the problem was taping up the holes in the corner of the ceiling and floor that I figured they were coming and going from, and more ridiculous yet is that this worked. I don’t know if my attempt to cut them off from the outside wall meant the end of their civilization or if their population is still flourishing where my eyes cannot go, but I’m satisfied with our current arrangement, and the tape really adds a nice flair to the place.

I was actually uploading pictures when my camera died, so I should be posting some of those soon.

(215)

As mentioned in my last post, I recently took a trip to Namhae-do (an island south of my town). The reason for the trip was that my co-teachers learned I had never been fishing and so they insisted on taking me. I didn’t manage to reel anything in (actually, as a group, we were incredibly unsuccessful over an 8 hour span), but it was fun and made for a relaxing weekend. It was almost like the type of relaxing I like best, but every once in a while I was made to touch a worm. I usually try to avoid that. I think we’ll be going again some time soon.

The following weekend, I was told that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO SEE the Cherry Blossom Festival in nearby Jinhae.
It was okay.
I have several cherry blossom trees right outside my front door, and it doesn’t take me 30 minutes on an overcrowded bus to get there. In all fairness, I was told that the cold weather earlier in the week had delayed the real spectacle.

Finally, I decided to throw a little money around this week, investing in a new laptop. I bought it online from a Korean auction site, and it arrived 3 days later. It’s a TG Sambo (Korean company) Averatec Buddy HS-100, and seems to be a pretty good deal for everything I got. It came with a lot of praise from my colleagues, and ended up costing me about a third the price of my old laptop (which I’m still using because the new one came preinstalled with Windows in Korean and I have yet to do a clean reinstall). It also weighs about half as much as my old laptop and can practically fit in my pocket.
I’m either gonna call it White Lightning or New Laptop.

fishing in the rain, umbrellas all around

the insatiable Mr. Pak

three folks, a rod, and a big ol' umbrella

Mr. Pak, with someone else's fish

a boat I admired for a few minutes the next morning

downright fishing (when you get right down to it)

it doesn't really look like I knew what I was doing, but by the end of it I kind of did

rock'n'rope

in Jinhae with my eyes closed, thinking about cherry blossoms

and there they are

metallic cherries

outside my front door

in with the new, out with the old, slow, fat and stupid