George Silver: September 2006

Here are the pics of me lighting fireworks on my birthday.

And this, dear friends, is a picture of bananas. For our Australian readers. I get them at the school in the canteen lunches.

It was my birthday last Tuesday so I went to the bar that Sandra frequents after work.

(damn rooster outside my window)

It's a pretty decent place that we have all to ourselves until about 7. The owner is a big fan of WWE so all his TVs have that on when ever he can. For 2000won each we get a stein of local beer, usually Cass, a bowl of popcorn and some seaweed and soysauce dipping stuff. It is very good after-work medicine. Later on I'll have to find a trendy bar to take my champagne medicine but for now this bar is sweet.

After dinner we bought some beer and went to a park nearby to use my present. She got me a glass mug for school and three firecrackers.

hmmm, gotta post the pics later. Not letting me do it atm.

I had my first afternoon class today. Usual children being hyperactive after lunchtime. Because I was a new teacher, I asked all my classes to ask me any question they wanted to know the answer to of me. Here are some samples.

"Where are you from?"
"How old are you?"

These two would always be the first questions asked. They seemed surprised that I was 25 (26 tomorrow).

"Are you married?"
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Do you want a girlfriend?"

80% of the time I was asked these questions is was by a boy. The last one was asked by an 8 year old in my last regular class today.

"Who was your first lover?"

I thought WTF!? What the hell do these kids watch on TV to ask questions like that? I replied "She was in my chinese class at university". When I told Sandra about this on the way home she asked if I'd said that she wasn't a student.

And my favourite of the day was in the afternoon class. These classes are made up of students based on their proficiency in english, not their age. And then there are some students there that seem to stay in these classes as quasi childcare while the parents work/want a break. On the way out from the level 6 class, last of the day at 1715, this little girl of 9 asks me about Sandra...

**9: Do you like Sandra?**
**G: Uh, we're just friends.**
**9: But you go home together.**
**G: Yeah, we live together, ummmm, in the same building. I live on the 5th floor and she lives on the 1st floor.**
**9: Are you dating?**

Well, I guess this kind of thing has always happened. I had a classmate at uni who I would always be around and unbelievably we were never an item. Isn't it amazing that a man and a woman can have a non-sexual relationship?

uh, such a nub at this blogger thing. Thanks for all your help Van (be sure to step into her wacky world from my links column). I was tempted to turn comment moderation on but that smacks of censorship.

So on my way back from my little adventure on the subway I stop by the convenience store to pick up some cereal for the week. Remembering what June told me last week when I made my cereal purchase....

**J: Here is the cereal. Which one do you want?**

He picks a Kellogs one with almond flakes. Looks pretty tasty. Because I don't want to pick the same one, I go for the chocolate cereal. Imagine Weetibits but hollowed out and a lattice structure like waffles (will post a pic next time I get them).

**G: How much are these?**
**J: X000 won. But these are normally what kids eat.**

So I paid for them and I was thinking about what was going on here. On the way back to our place I asked him about antiperspirant deoderant because I wasn't in the mood to be frisked if taking pressurised items into a plane was illegal....

**G: Do you know where I can get deoderant from? Do they sell it there?**
**J: What do you mean?**
**G: You know, so when you sweat it doesn't smell.**
**J: Korean people normally have a shower.**

Pretty funny guy. The strange thing is, I would say things like that to people too.

Weekend recap.
Did nothing on Saturday except sleep and bludge around. I needed and deserved a break from small children for one day.

Sunday was an interesting day. The people I live with found out where the Greek Orthodox Church is in Seoul. There is one church in every major city in Korea, which I think is pretty cool since there are only 3000 or so Greeks here. From where I live it was only one transfer to that place. I only realised this week how central Subway Line 2 is and how close I am to everything.

This is a view of the cathedral fromn the street just outside Aogae Station. It's one of those places that you would miss if you weren't standing right in front of it.

The front entrance of the cathedral. Typical of Orthodox churches.

Getting to the cathedral was pretty easy. What surprised me though was the number of people there that weren't Greek (at least the non-Koreans didn't look Greek to me). And what was really surprising was that while I was inside the cathedral there was a bible study (I got there about 1pm, so after the liturgy) in Korean. Next time I will be dressed as is fitting a place of worship.

Here you can see the bells that were a gift from the Hellenic Republic to Korea. They are normally only rung at major festivals. But it is to the deacon's discretion as each diocese takes guidance from the patriarchy only (self-automonous in most respects)

The translation in Greek says "Established 1978. A gift from the Hellenic Republic. These three bells were cast in the forges of the Hellenic Army".

This is the event hall that was built with a donation from the naval corporation "Eletson Corporation in Piraeus". Well, this is the plague on the building anyway.

The cathedral also has a guest book for intrepid travellers like me. I was glad to see that people from all sorts of countries have visited this cathedral.

What a hectic week it has been. I'm like a celebrity at the school (I'm sure the kids will get over it soon) with anklebiters following me around all day. The classrooms are pretty sweet with massive LG flatscreen TVs and an interesting series of computer languge programs.

They also get lunch every day. Man, it is so difficult to get them to concentrate in the 15 minutes before lunch.

I went to Dongdaemun yesterday with Sandra to purchase a vacuum cleaner (long story). Apparently that area is the biggest shopping mall in Asia. I just couldn't believe the amount of traffic in that area at 3pm, which isn't even rush hour.
W were also accosted by an English (?) woman wanting directions to the mall while she was standing right in front of it (the name of the mall was in english).

As part of our grand adventure to find a vacuum cleaner we went down this dodgy alley in search of a coffee. So we come across this door and go upstairs to find the coolest looking bar I've ever seen. Looking outside the window you see the market stalls and street food vendors while you're sitting on comfy leather armchairs. Prices weren't too bad either. Especially since they have better coffee than Campos in Newtown, double the size too! And a glass of water without needing to ask. Shame on you Sydney baristas.

At the electronics area of the mall, they had heated marble bed frames! Gonna go back there and take some photos (I was too busy carrying the vacuum cleaner to take any that time).

I have been asked to post a picture of the place i'm living at. So here it is...

I have also been doing some reading about Korea while I'm here. President Rho Moo Hyun was in Greece last week meeting with Korean residents in Greece. I think there are about 250 Koreans living in Greece. He also met with leaders of the shipping industry seeing that Greece controls international shipping (ala "Brittania rules the seas" just better) and Korea is the largest shipping manufacturer in the world. Quite interesting.

And there are quite a few societies to foster Hellenic - Korean relations even though there so few Koreans in the Hellenic Republic.

Not normal for me to post twice in one day, but this is for real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgrvQWmZTWA&NR

Another fine day in Seoul. The temperature hit 25C today and it was rather hot.

I caught the subway to the school today with the other teacher who lives in my building. She's from Adelaide and has been here for about 6 weeks already. Although she did warn me that we would be facing a crowd when we changed trains I had no idea it would be a sea of people that I had to swim against. She suggested that the best way to deal with it is to hide in some nook or cranny until the surge passes.
Even though this week is the first 'real' teaching week (they just finished summer vacation) and we finish early to beat the rush hour the trains are still pretty full. I guess that is to be expected in a city of 11 million people ( about half of the nations population I believe).

Speaking of transit systems, I bought my transit card yesterday. It cost 5000 won but it does you a discount on train fares and can be loaded with any amount of money as many times as you like. It's great, especially when all you need to do is pass it over the sensor at the gate. It also displays the cost of the fare (800 won lets you go pretty much anywhere) and the amount remaining on your card.

I have it on my phone as a fashion accessory :P (sorry Sony, but your default strap just doesn't cut it these days).

The weather report reccomends wearing clothes today as it might get a little chilly :P

In other news, I climbed Gwanak mountain near Seoul yesterday. It stands about 600m tall and they have a wireless communications centre at the summit. I also went past the Buddhist temple there too. I think there might have been a festival there that day because there were so many people.

Here's some pics of the view from the mountain.

This is the tower I was climbing towards. It is visible from my room in the city.

The summit of the mountain. Don't mind the random people there. It was a Sunday and mountainclimbing seems to be very popular in Seoul. My guide (and roommate) said that the professional climbers, the ones with two skiing sticks, can reach the top in about 30 minutes. It took us about an hour I think.

This is the Buddhist monastery located near the top of the mountain. There are several smaller temples around as well.

And apparently this is a really really small bell. The bells at the larger monasteries, I was told, are at least 4 times as big as this one.

On the other side of the mountain, where we got off the bus, is a park which is right next to Seoul National University with a really cool lake/fountain thing.