The Smirk

Something weird happened to me on Wednesday. I know what you're thinking, "Hey V, when does weird shit NOT happen to you in Korea?" To which I would reply, "Touché, my friend. Touché."

Anyway, I left school around noon to meet Noel and a new Korean English teacher (Monica) for lunch. We met at a place that I frequent because the food is delicious, cheap, and better than most fast food. I arrived a little early, so I sat and waited for the other to show up. At the time, there were no other customers in the store, only about 5 employees with nothing to do. Naturally, they were curious why the Waygook was sitting alone, not eating. To give em a hint, I went and got three glasses of water to indicate I would not be alone for long. Still, they asked me something in Korean, which I couldn't catch and finally I said "chingu" (friend) and pointed to the seats across from me. This shed some light on the situation and they settled down. While I was looking out the wondow for Noel, I glanced over at two women and they were chatting and looking my way. (This is a big signal that someone is talking about you:P).

Then, the younger of the two women walked over to me, and without hestiation, leaned in really close and touched my nose. That's right she fully took the tip of my nose between her thumb and fore finger and wiggled it around a little, making a noise to indicate both surprise and happiness in her discovery. Now, I'm aware that my nose is somewhat special in Boseong. My students tell me all the time that it's very "Tall". Whatever. But thus far, in 18 months, no one had ever touched it!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry, just amused. If it had happened in the city, maybe I would'v ebeen more put off, but I go to this restaurant at least once a week and the peeps are nice there. I think she only did it because I was alone, so it lower our mutual embarassment levels. While she was pinching the tip of my nose, I couldn't help but giggle. I mean, come on!! How often can someone say that's happened to them. Thanks lady, for another good story!
________________________________________________________

I was given a single rose yesterday. It made me smile and continues to make me smile as it sits on my table.
________________________________________________________
And now for the main feature: Mel's Birthday Party. Here's a preamble to indicate how the night would go. This poem was the jist of the party invitation:

Shamrocks are green
Moustaches are dirty
come join the fun
cuz Mel's turnin' 30

Mel's 30th was on March 14th and we celebrated with class on Friday, the 16th. Due to the proximity to St Patty's Day (and the fact that her fave colour is green), we thought people should wear some green. Also, in true weird form, we decided that people should also wear moustaches. The idea came from a few different places:

1) In the back of my mind, I remember some people in uni having a moustache party to call an end to dis-O-week (the first week of the 2nd semster, the antithesis of O-week).
2) After a fun party in Mokpo, many moths ago, Carol took off her fake eyelashes and proceeded to re-stick them to her face in various ways that caused fits of laughter, and possibl, incontinence.
3) While in Thailand, I happened upon real fake moustaches and was inspired to have a party where moustaches were necessary. The first party we had after vacation happened to be Mel's bday party, and she was up for it!!

Anyway, here's a link to close up pics of all the fab moustaches. There was an overwhelming amount of full beards, but alas, not on the ladies.

Moustaches Galore!!

As you can see, my 'stache of choice was the dirtiest pair of handlebars I could muster.

The only way I could pull off these beauties was to smirk in the chotchiest way possible. Did I do a good job? I'd say so. I had some of the ladies sweating, and one particular dude very put off :P

One of the best parts of the evening, was just watching everyone (esp the people with fakies on) have normal conversations with the most ridiculous moustaches. The best real moustache, by far, was Stu's. He was so into that he shaved his goatee that he had had for the past year, and cut a magnificent molestache. Cudos to you, Stubie!!

I suppose most importantly, Mel had a great time at her b-day and really cleaned up at the gift table! Big BIG thanks to Carol for hosting said shindig. She is possibly one of the best, most gracious party hosts around! w00t!

BIKIDO'd!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, this weekend, I had the honour and priviledge to experience BIKIDO.

Before I go on at length about it's awesomeness, I should tell you what, exactly, BIKIDO is. Briefly and perfectly described by my friend, Matt, BIKIDO is a bikini but with spare hair. Also, BIKIDO happens to be the name of the face-melting ensemble of Matt, Darren, their guitars, a mixer and a looper. Well, face-melting not in the heavy-metal-power-screaming way, but more in the mellow and harmonically head-asploding way. In short, BIKIDO is musically awesome...with spare hair.

Origins
Matt and Darren formed their ensemble not too long ago and decided to put on a little open-house concert at Matt's new favourite cafe in Gwangju. Whilst they were rehearsing, Matt mentioned that he intended to where a bikini to the gig. Darren breathed a sigh of relief stating that it would go perfectly with his speedo. Thus, BIKIDO was born.

Carol and I were especially excited about the concert because, while we didn't know Darren at the time, Matt is certainly up there in terms of cool people we know in Korea, and quite possibly, the world. We wanted to do something special for Matt on his concert debut, so we went cheesy and decided to make groupie t-shirts. We designed a logo that depicted a bikini, but with spare hair and then chose a fitting motto. Feast your eyes:

Matt's the one with the beard..uh..on the right.

Look closely and you can see the spare hair ^^
Also, in case you can't see clearly, the motto is "grab life by the short and curlies".

The night started out with a good ol' fashioned Western dinner at TGIFs, then we headed over to Cafe Provence for a fun night. We got there pretty early and, I'm proud to say, we were the last ones to leave at around 2:30am :P

As for the music, Matt and Darren each did a solo set and then finally came together as BIKIDO.
To accurately describe their music, they did a cover of "The Sound of Silence" and it was beautiful. There music was mellow, folky, and all around enjoyable. I wish you could hear it. Instead, however, you can just look at pictures!

Carol and Mel

Me and Hang Bin

Depressed Matt
Awesome Matt!!

Carol and Virgina

Me and Stu

tunes rule my life

It's amazing what a good tune in your ear can do for one's morale and attention span. Allow me to explain. School started a week ago and I haven't started teaching classes yet. This is no surprise to me as I won't start until the schedule is confirmed. So, coming in on Monday, I knew I had a week of desk-sitting ahead of me. no problem, this would give me time to lesson plan my brains out. Unfortunately, as each day wore on, my attention span would shrink to that of a goldfish, and not even a good book or a YouTube video could keep me focussed for more than a few mintues. As you can imagine, the hours crawled by.

TODAY, however, my fortunes have improved because I finally got wise and brought my iPod to school. With the aide of music to keep my mind aflame, I have managed to do more today than the previous 4 days of school combined. w00t!

As a result of my days of inactivity (both intellectual and physical), my evenings have been disproportionately eventful. Eventful borderline annoying. Monday night was volleyball, and awesome, so no complaints there. I'm getting better at spiking - I'm at about 50% success rate, minus the volleyball net. Once that net is thrown into the equation, my percentage will go way down :P.

Tuesday was bitterly cold (for Korea). Well below zero, which is annoying considering the two previous weeks were 10+ degrees. According to a Korean saying, "Winter is jealous of Spring." According to Vanessa, "March is fucked up, screw you, Weather." Right, Tuesday night. I met my two Korean friends for some free English instruction (I'm nice, I know). After that I went to get some much-needed groceries. At the store I noticed that Champ, my faithful motorbike, had a flat tire. I was unable to drive him home, so I left him at the store and walked home. Twenty-five minutes later I was home and cursing like a sailor because I had left my keys in the ignition. Luckily I had left my window unlocked and was able to "Mission Impossible" through it. I called Mr Son and he arranged for the mechanic to pick it up in the morning. My keys would be safe until then.

In a bizarre twist, when I picked up my bike today, the keys were there, but someone had taken my big yellow helmet. Who takes a helmet, but not the bike? (she asked, relieved but thoroughly confused). I posed this question to Carol, who glibly pointed out that my motorbike has, among other things, stitches in the metal. She may have been implying that my helmet was more worth stealing than the bike...huh.

Wednesday night was also a little weird. I went out to dinner with co-workers and the principal, once again, gave me my fair share of soju. I was tipsy upon returning home and decided that going to volleyball drunk would not be in my best interest. This was a good thing, because around 7:30 I noticed that my thermostat was blinking...I had run complete out of oil for my boiler and it was sucking in air. The floor was still warm, so my pipes hadn't frozen yet, thank goodness. Once again, I called Mr Son to come to my aide and he got the oil dude over poste-haste.

I bought him lunch today.

The Beginning Again

Well, after a two month hiatus, here I am, back at school, doing that whole "teacher" thing. Well, not quite yet. The farthest I've gotten in teacherdom is lesson planning. The hard part's over, now I only have to worry about the delivery, eh?

Today is the first day of a new school year (yes, March and yes, a Friday. don't ask, it's Korea, that's all you need to know). Lots of changes are swirling around right now. Thankfully, my schedule is exactly the same. It's sweet, so I'm glad they don't mess with it. However, both of the Korean English teachers from last year are gone, so I have two new co-teachers to meet, get to know and become accustomed to. My official co-teacher is Jeong Eun Hae, a fiesty young woman (under 30, single) who taught at the boys middle school last year and who I have known since coming to Korea because she is in my teacher workshops. Score 1 for Vanessa. She's got quite the workload this year because, aside from being my co-teacher, she is also a third grade homeroom teacher (a very busy job) and has other admin responsibilities within the staff room. Why so busy? Well, they tend to give lots of work to the young single pups who don't have the rigeurs of family life to deal with.

My other English teacher is a dude, Mr Na. This will be my first experience teaching with a male co-teacher, but he seems nice enough and I'm sure everything will be fine *crosses fingers*.

Also, two of my favourite teachers from my workshops, Mrs Shin and Mrs Park have moved on to different schools in different counties, so I won't be seeing them anymore *sigh*. They were awesome and now another native speaker will experience their awesomeness.
_________________________________________________________
The Spring Vacation Haps

After coming back from my Cambodia Thailand vacation I spent a boring week in school for graduation week and then got another 2 weeks off. This last two weeks is called "Spring Vacation" here. Last year, I didn't understand this as the weather was still pretty bitter, but THIS year, it was quite delightful. Spring has certainly sprung in the these parts.

The first weekend of spring vacation happen to be Solal, a very big holiday in Korea. (Known to most westerner's as Chinese New Year's or Lunar New Year's.) Young Min invited me to experience the holiday with her family in Boseong and I was both honoured and excited to take part. on New Year's Eve I went to her house in the morning and helped her cook traditional Korean New Year's grub. We cooked for about 5 hours and it wasn't jus tthe two of us. Her cousin Min Young (who happens to be my student) and my friend Hang Bin also joined in the fun!

The next day I went to Young Min's house bright and early (8am) to have the traditional Korean New Year's breakfast. YUMMY! After breakfast, the young people bow to their elders and receive money from them. I was looking forward to seeing this custom but to my surprise, I didn't just see it, I LIVED it!!

First, I bowed to her Grandmother (we all bowed to her, including Young Min's parents). She gave me money!! I was quite embarassed. Then we bowed to her Aunt, and then her parents, all of whom gave me some money. Finally, Min Young (my student, the youngest) bowed to me and Young Min, so we gave her some money.

[aside: i realise how confusing some of the names may be. espeically since my friend, Young Min and her cousin/my student, Min Young, have the same two syllables, only reversed. This is only a taste of what learning Korean names is like :P]

So, Korean New Year's was a special experience for me. The rest of the vacation I pretty much spent hanging out with my Korean friends in Boseong. I played volleyball, I played a bit off soccer (from which I earned 3 goals and a pulled quad muscle), I slept, I read, I watched movies, I chatted.

Another fun experience was the Korean birthday party I was privy to. My friend, Hang Bin, turned 27 (korean age, 26 in Canada) and decided he would throw a bash. He rented a condo and had what I can only describe as a kind of house party. We cooked food and ate dinner, then the drinking began. Now, at a Western b-day house party, the drinking would be accompanied by music, chatting, etc, etc. There was music and chatting here, to be sure, but there was also another, very important aspect...the GAMES. We played games all night long. All kinds of games. Jenga, card games, drinking games, childhood games that Koreans all know, but I can't describe, whose penatlies for losing included getting whacked on the back by everyone else. The piece de resistance, methinks, would have to be the round of hide and go seek that we played outside at 3am. CLASSY!!! Even though I was the only foreigner and understood less than half of the conversations, I still had a blast!!

Anyway, the long and short of it is that vacation life was gravy, and I'm sad that it's over. HOWEVER!! I'm happy to be back at school because I always have a good time and I'm looking forward to what the next 6 months has instore for me!