Korea is Teaching Me Patience ...

...or at least trying to! Maybe that is the greater reason why I came here this year, maybe I will come back with the ability to wait for things patiently and to understand that things cannot happen instantaneously without getting frustrating ...or maybe, I will come back a complete wreck, having used up all of my freakin patience in this country.

Examples of the lessons in patience that I am currently undergoing:

I have been here for approximately 23 days and I am still waiting for a dresser and some type of furniture (whether that be a couch or another single bed) to sit on. We currently spend all of our time sitting on the bed ...may seem fine, but I assure you, it's at the point where I may throw that bed through the window soon.

Along with not having a dresser or a couch, I also do not have the internet or cable yet. Again, I have been here for 23 days.

Yesterday we went to wait for the bus. We continued to wait for that bus for another hour and 10 minutes, because there is no regular schedule. It comes when it comes.

My school schedule is such that you have to be here for an allotted amount of time (hence the opportunity to write blogs) ...regardles of whether or not you are teaching. Thus - I wait and watch the clock from 7:15-9pm. Every single evening.

Last week we had our coworkers over for a housewarming party (and no, there was nowhere for them to sit) one of the girls was bringing the dinner. We waited until 11:30pm for it to come, over 2 hours from when we all left work.

Whenever we meet up with people, it is said that they will typically be the 'Korean 15 late' ...which means 15 minutes late. I think they may want to rename it to the 'Korean 30 - 60'.

The list goes on and on, but I'm guessing that you get the picture!

ps. blogging is very therapeutic ...it also wasted about 20 minutes of my wait time tonight!

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Nanta

Loosely translated - Nanta means "to pound on something" and I like to translate this to be somewhat synonymous with 'Stomp.' But it also translates onto the stage as fabulous!

Yesterday, Wayne & I spent our Sunday afternoon with some of our Korean colleagues and went to the play Nanta. The funny part about it was that Nanta has been around in Korea for the past 12 years and is the longest running play/performance of it's time, but none of our colleagues have ever seen it ...while Wayne has. I suppose it is more of a tourist attraction, as there were many people there from all areas - Japan, China and a handful of either Americans or Canadians (tough to distinguish until you talk to them.)

For those of you that know me very well (or perhaps I am more transparent than I think) know that I absolutely love musicals and all things that sing and dance! I even went to see Highschool Musical in the theatres and I am begging my brother to download Fame and send it this way because I think it will change my life in some dramatic way. I dream about a world where you could be standing in line at the mall, or sitting alongside your friends in the cafeteria and all of a sudden the room would just break out into a song and dance number. I get chills just thinking about it.

I also lay awake some nights wondering how I could be blessed with a love of performing and entertaining, but without any type of talents to go along with this love. I guess that falls into the category of 'Life's Not Fair.'

Anyways, Nanta was incredible. It combined humour with dancing and acting throughout a storyline that kept the audience entertained for the entire one a half hour performance. They even included the audience in the storyline a number of times and had people in hysterics when they were dragged onto the stage. Although it was set in a Korean kitchen, there was a great deal of english spoken and there was never a language barrier for the guests ...the facial expressions combined with the motions of the actors were enough to tell the entire story.

The cast was fabulous, consisting of 5 different actors and from what I can tell, they have about 5 different sets of actors that perform the play. The play all takes place in the kitchen, where a wedding is set to take place in less than 2 hours time. And I will say this - that kitchen becomes messy and the knives that they use (along with the fire and the water) are real! You would be amazed at how many pieces they can make out of a carrot or a cucumber.

I would recommend this show to absolutely everyone that comes to visit us, it was worth the money and the theatre was small enough that every single seat would be fine to see the stage from.

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Friends

I found out what I deem to be the most interesting and perplexing thing that I have yet to encounter in the Korean culture. Koreans can not and will not be friends with people that are not the same age as them. This is why, when Koreans meet new people they will automatically ask them their age, to determine whether or not they can be friends with them.

Doesn't that blow your mind slightly? And they are very blunt and real about this fact.

Which means - Trina, Carina, Tanya, InField girls ...if we were Korean ....we wouldn't be friends. Sooooooo strange to think about it.

Aaaannndddd ...for the record Andrew - they do not consider siblings friends. Younger siblings are below them. (So technically - you should start bowing to me!)

Makes me thankful that our culture is very different in this regard.

As a sidenote: Koreans are actually a year (or potentially 2 depending on when your birthday falls) older than us because when they are born they are automatically one, and then they age every new year. Which would make me 30 already, without a 30th birthday party ...which does not sit very well at all.

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The Grasshopper and the Road

I just wanted to confirm for those of you that might have wondered - PMS is definitely just as bad when you are in a different time zone.  In fact, I might even argue that it is slightly worse because you are without the comforts of home. Horrible.

But: just when you are certain that you are going to kill someone because you are so grumpy and every situation is frustrating you ...an 8 year old tells you that the book you are about to read, entitled "The Grasshopper and the Road" is probably going to be about a grasshopper that starts hopping down the road and gets squashed.  And says this sentence in completely broken english, with a huge grin across his face, making sure you understand what he is saying by the dramatic hang gestures that go along with the sentence ...but dead serious at the same time.

Classic. Gotta love kids. And that is when you realize that there just might be a cure for hormones ...maybe.

And yes ...poor, poor Wayne:)

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Our Apartment

I know that this has been a long time coming, but I would like to welcome everyone into our apartment!  I have to warn you that 'someone' may be sleeping at the time of these pictures (therefore the bed is unmade) and we don't have any real furniture in our 'living room' ...but if I wait for that to come, you may not see these pictures until we get home!

So, here we go ...first this is the building in which we live. 

And then we are going to enter through the front door ...

...and walk right into the kitchen.(How cute is our red table!)

Our family room, which is straight through the kitchen is currently home to our clothes and our fridge ...and not much else:)  But it is definitely on it's way to getting organized!  Now if we could only get ourselves a dresser ...

And now ...since I think that I am currently on an episode of Cribs, here is a look inside our fridge.  And for those of you that are fairly observant, you will notice that we have some pretty important pics on the fridge:)  (And Linds, if you are wondering where my fav pic is ...it's my bookmark so that I can see it about 5 times a day!)

And if you had of turned left when you entered the front door, rather than making your way into our kitchen, you would have walked right into our bathroom.  Are you wondering where the shower is?

The entire bathroom is our shower stall!  Yep, it just sits over top of the sink and the whole bathroom floods when we shower.

Again, Cribs.

And, if you walk straight through the front door ...you would find our bedroom!  And on this particular day, someone recovering from the night before.  And a mess:)

And last, but not least, our 'balcony' ...which is home to our washing machine.  And apparently Hallsy was not lying, there are no dryers here.  So you can only imagine what our place looks like on laundry day!

And that concludes the tour of our apartment, I hope that you enjoyed the ride ...and if you would ever like a more personal tour, we would love to have you as our guests!

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Extra, Extra ...Read All About It ...

Well ...it took less than 2 weeks to have a run in with the Korean police force. And I swear mom, it wasn't my fault!


As you will see in the pics below, our neighbour invited us over for a 'little fire,' and well ...we all know how good Americans/Canadians are at managing the size of fires! If by managing you mean, making sure that we get the biggest fire possible. Except that we forgot that we weren't in Matt's backyard in Acton, but next to a new building being built, about 50 yards from the road in South Korea.

Needless to say, we were at the bonfire for no more than 10 minutes before the cops arrived. And since you are seeing these pictures from our upstairs window in our apartment, it is safe to say that Wayne & I ran out of there at the first opportunity!

ps. we have a pretty good video from our window which I am trying to upload!

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Chuseok

Wikipedia defines 'Chuseok' as the following: Originally known as Hangawee (한가위) (from archaic Korean for "great middle"), is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Like many other harvest festivals, notably the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, it is held around the Autumn Equinox. As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food.


For us, this meant a gift from our school (24 cans of tuna,) a day off of work, a bottle of wine, and a potluck with all of the foreigners in our area! In short, tons of fun.


From what I can gather, Chuseok is a great deal like Thanksgiving at home, except that it holds a great deal more emphasis, some considering it bigger than Christmas in this culture. I spoke with one of my colleagues and she said that everyone typically goes to the first born sons home, or the grandparents house, depending on the family. The women spend the better part of Friday cooking, and then the majority of the day on Saturday cooking and preparing as well. When I asked what the men are doing while all of this is going on? She didn't have much of an answer. At home, I am certain they would be on the couch watching football ...here, not so sure.


The actual holiday is on the Saturday and the feast is on the Saturday night. (Which explains why the PC Bong - the Computer lab that we go to) is absolutely busting at the seams with children right now ...their moms probably wanted them out of their hair while they prepared. I can't even imagine how much food they have after over 10 hours of cooking, with all of the women in the family contributing! Also to note is that a married couple always goes to the mens family dinner (don't worry mom - I reminded Wayne that we are neither traditional or Korean.) Their feist consists of traditional dishes and they give thanks to their elders.


What did we do? Well ...since this town is kinda like a ghost town right now, with pretty much nothing open except for the odd restaurant and the 7/11 (yes we have a 7/11!) we gathered all of the white misfits in the town and set about cooking half-assed meals in our barely functioning kitches!

What we ended up with was yummy though! As you will see (to the left), Wayne & I (and I am good to admit that it was 90% Wayne) cooked 'traditional' shephards pie with pork rather than beef! Also a part of the dining table (a blanket on the grass) was grilled cheese, an apple/chocolate concoction that was fabulous, pasta salad and hot dogs! Can't go wrong ...when Canada meets the United States, this is what we come up with.

So we met at a nearby park at 5, had downed all the food by 5:30 and were slightly intoxicated by 5:30 ...ended up to be a very fun evening!

Wayne even managed to get himself a parting gift ...

...(this is a metal bird off a fence near our place!)

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