The End(?)

I'm back in the U.S! Maybe I should explain.

One of the things I've tried to do in this blog is remain positive. Which is honestly pretty easy, as there's a lot of stuff to be positive about in Korea (the food, the good times, etc).

BUT.

A big part of living in Korea is, well, working in Korea. And honestly? I'm just not cut out to be a Kindergarten ESL teacher- it's just that this was the position I fell into. So when the opportunity to teach older students at the school in Incheon came up, I was quite excited.

Unfortunately, the school in Incheon wasn't very good. In Ilsan, I just had a bad fit at a good school- Ilsan wasn't the case. The building was cold and drafty, the curriculum was unorganized, and the teacher morale was really low. Furthermore, in the last couple of months, they'd gone through like four or five ESL teachers- a ridiculously high turnover rate. Heck, while I was there, one foreign teacher got fired and another quit.

Things were going bad, and I could see the writing on the wall they were going to get worse. Long shifts with no lunchbreaks, more classes, unpaid overtime. Now, I COULD have just toughed it out for a little while longer until my visa expired...but, after thinking about it, I didn't want to, especially with Christmas coming up.

And so, I caught a plane on Sunday, and now I'm back in St. Louis! Crazy stuff, I know. It's going to take some time to get used to life in the States again, but I'll manage. Ultimately, my Korean adventure is over. Would I go back? Maybe- but only if I could find a really good school (something that's becoming harder and harder to do these days).

Still, keep an eye on this blog! I'll be posting one or two retrospectives as I get ambitious, and I'll probably use this blog to post about other adventures down the line- I'm eyeballing Australia for another jaunt next, but we'll just have to see how things go back here, first!

I think I've fallen into a bit of a pattern. Namely, spend one weekend in Icheon, and then head into Seoul for the next. It's alright, I suppose- if anything, it's cheaper than heading into Seoul EVERY weekend, or something. However, my Cousin's leaving Korea soon, so I won't have her couch to crash on, so my Seoul adventures may be slightly curtailed. That, and it's getting colder, so roaming around the streets has less of an appeal.

Anyway! The Icheon part! On the 20th or so, I hit up Icheon's 'cerapia-' basically, it's a city park/museum/mall thing, devoted to ceramics. It's sort of the town's gimmick, I guess. I went around a little bit, took some pictures. There were some big ceramic sculptures, a thing made to look like a giant kiln, and a little shopping store where one could buy said ceramic stuff- most of which was fairly pricey, as one would expect. I'm sure if I was more interested in ceramics, I'd be fascinated.

There was also a big ceramics museum thing, where, from what I gathered, they actually had people making ceramics or something- but, they were charging admission...and again, I'm not that interested in pottery. Instead, I wandered down the hill to the Icheon city museum. Nothing like the City Museum in St. Louis, of course.

The Icheon museum was small, but kind of interesting. There's some fortress ruins dating back to the three kingdoms period up in the mountains...and other than that, well, it seemed Icheon wasn't a particularly important locale since then. It's developing quickly, though, with a bunch of agriculture and other industry popping up.

Including an OB brewery. I don't think they give tours.

Aaaaanyway, let's move on to the more interesting stuff!

Namely, I spent last Saturday night bouncing from place to place in Hongdae. Again. It was actually a little warmer than I'd expected. I caught the tail end of a flea market, where I picked up a pretty neat handcrafted, leatherbound notebook. I'm almost a little afraid to write in it, as it's fairly nice. Maybe if I go charging off on some quest for the holy grail or something, I'll be able to make use of it. Heh.

Dunkel! That's thick enough it counts as dinner, right?

Also, while wandering about in search of food, I happened on the Queen's Head brewpub. Neat! This was the last of Seoul's microbreweries I hadn't dropped into (yet, at least). All I had time to try was the Dunkel, but it was the perfect beer to have on a cool night like that.

Other Hongdae highlights include seeing some Korean musicians jamming out in the park, with each taking their turn at the spotlight. For example, one woman in the group was a really good tap-dancer, and the drummer was pretty good at freestyle beatboxing. I snapped a few pictures, but it was one of those 'you had to be there' moments.

There's also the Silent Disco, which I didn't go to (I'm not a big fan of dance music to begin with), but I can't help but find it to be a cool concept. Basically, you get a pair of headphones and a balloon, and the music is broadcasted through short-band radio. If you have headphones, you know what's going on- if not, you just see...this.

Kind of a neat concept, really! Finally, I spent most of my evening in Club Spot, which is the best place to see live indie music in Korea. They had a whole mess of bands from all over Korea (and a few from Japan) for what they called an Oi! Festival, despite only having one Oi band on the bill. Even still, that was fine with me, as that left room for everything from 70's style punk (The Swindlers) to Flogging Molly-esque Celtic Rock (Nacho Pupa) to Ska (Rollings & Skasucks) and probably a bunch of other genres that I'm forgetting. It was loud and rowdy and otherwise a good time. I'll spare you my crappy, quicky-snapped pictures I took that night, except for one.

Y'see, at Club Spot, it's okay to jump up on the stage while a band's playing, so long as you fill at least one of two criteria: 1) Know the words to the song, 2) Dance really, really hard. (There might be a third option of 'being a cute girl' as well). So, during Skasucks' last song, I made it a point to do number two- whereupon I managed to snap this picture. Good times!

Icheon is quiet. Music is not.

Again, I'm overdue for an update. Oops.

Icheon! The whole place doesn't look like this, honestly, but I liked the picture.

In any case, I've been keeping busy. I've gotten settled in (mostly) in my new apartment and at my new school. The kids are older, and therefore easier to manage- but at the same time, they're also a lot harder to get engaged. The kindergarteners I taught before were ridiculously enthusiastic, practically climbing over each other to answer questions. Here, I get elementary/middle schoolers who are decidedly 'whatever' about everything.

What hit me hardest was a lesson I did for some 12 year olds. They're a high level class, and pretty good kids, really. The music lesson was about music genres- rock, classical, country, reggae, etc. So naturally, I burned a CD full of examples for them to listen to. And almost universally, no matter what the song, they were like "What is this? I don't like." I'm not even talking about the obscure stuff on my itunes, either! I mean, who can hate on straight up reggae? Pretty much the only reply I could coax out of them was "I like K-pop. Only K-pop." Ah well. They're young. Perhaps they'll branch out once they get older.

Though that did lead to a pretty amusing interchange.

Me: "What's your favorite band?"

Student: "Bestuu."

Me: "Bestooh?"

Student: "No, Bestuu. B-E-A-S-T."

Me: "Beast?"

Student: "No, Bestuu!"

Ah well.

So school is different, but it's alright. Icheon itself is kind of a quiet town, though. On the first weekend in November, I didn't get up to too much- went bowling with some of the other expats, and hit up the expat bar (which is a fairly decent-ish joint, I guess). Went to E-mart on Sunday to get tortillas and imported beer- nothing warranting its own blog post. Took a few pictures, of course.

I'm pretty sure I saw this in a Resident Evil game once.

RX, the local Expat bar.

A traditional Korean gravesite.

While wandering around, however, I came to a realization. Namely, Icheon reminds me a lot of Jefferson City, MO. It's rural-ish, but still developed. Kind of hilly. And...boring. Now, there may be some awesome places to go in Jefferson City (or Icheon!) but I'm afraid I'm unaware of them.

This was thrown into stark relief LAST weekend, in which I went to Seoul! The bus ride's honestly not too long. It's a little over an hour, which is about how long it takes to take the subway from Ilsan to Itaewon. It's certainly less crowded, at least.

My reason for hitting up Seoul was to catch Club Spot's Second Saturday punk rock show- it was Whatever That Means' last show in Korea, so I figured I'd hit it up. They were one of the first bands I saw in Korea, so, y'know, bookending.

In any case, I rolled in, and soon a Korean band, The Attacking Forces, did an Oi-punk cover of "A Message to You Rudy." The evening only got better from there.

Skasucks' frontman, in his element. Not pictured: EVERYONE SKANKING.

Skasucks once again proved they didn't suck, and they really got the crowd (including myself) moving. The frontman really knows how to work a crowd, and it helps that a lot of their songs are really catchy and easy to sing (well, yell) along to.

In between sets, I would exit the club to get some fresh air and roam around Hongdae a bit to take it all in. Club Spot is right by the Park- which is a little playground that is nightly overrun and turned into a street party thing. It was particularly bustling that Saturday night- at one time, there was a breakdancing competition (there's ALWAYS breakdancing competitions in korea), a pole dancing performance, and some indie band playing, all in different corners of the park. Unfortunately, given that I'm pretty short, I wasn't able to get a very good look of any of the acts. Pity!

So yeah. Whatever That Means did a great set- their last in Korea for some time. But! If any of you readers happen to be on the west coast, they're doing a tour in the States, so you should check it out. Google is your friend, and all that. I also picked up a compilation CD of a bunch of Korean punk bands- it's really interesting, as each band on it does a cover of a more well-known song, and then one of their own. I've given it a few listens so far, and there's some really good stuff on here. If nothing else, it lifts my spirits that not EVERYTHING here is saturated in K-pop glitz. Just, uh, a lot of it.

...Whatever That Means.

In any case, I'm just hanging out for now, taking it easy. I'm sure I'll find some more stuff to post about soon! If nothing else, there's another concert I wanna see at Club Spot in two weeks or so. Bunch of Japanese bands will be playing, as well as Nacho Pupa, who I really wanna see again. Should be a good time!

Impressions of Icheon

So! I've been in Icheon for a whopping 48 hours now. The move went rather smoothly- the new school sent a driver to get me, we loaded my stuff up, and off I went. Was about a 90 minute drive from Ilsan, which wasn't too bad.

Even though I've only been here a short time, I already know Icheon's going to be very different from Ilsan. It's a smaller, older city- it's not quite 'middle of nowhere,' but it's nowhere near as big and flashy as Ilsan. I think I'm living in one of the quieter neighborhoods too. There also seems to be far more mom & pop style stores, instead of the big chains one tends to see in Seoul- or if they're chains here, they're far different ones. Furthermore, the recruiter (an American, for the record) told me he thought there was about 60-something expats here, as compared to the at least a few hundred living in Ilsan. Suppose going to LePub every week spoiled me.

I'm not too far from Icheon's strip, which is a shopping plaza sort of thing. It kind of reminds me of Myeong-Dong, only, y'know, smaller and far less crowded. There's a farmer's market at one end, so I imagine I'll at least do well when I want fresh produce. I also saw a store that had a bootleg Superion set to match the bootleg Defensor I got a bit ago- I'm definitely gonna pick that up soon enough. Yay nerdery.

My apartment came pre-furnished, along with a lot of stuff the previous owner (the teacher I'm replacing) left behind. Books, shelves, cooking utensils, computer speakers, dishes- I was quite excited to dig through the stuff to see what was being left behind. There's even a 'Learn Korean' workbook which I should probably start working on soon, too!

On the cons side, the apartment doesn't have a dishwasher, and the bathroom is against an exterior wall so it tends to get kind of cold, and I haven't figured out how to use the washing machine yet. Even still, it's a nice little place, and I've lived in rougher conditions.

In any case, I start work at the new school tomorrow! Exciting times.

Another quickie! I honestly don't think anyone's gonna read this entry 'til the World Series is over, though. :)

Yes, I did a lot this past weekend. In fact, I've been busy this whole week, which as made me either too busy/too tired to put in a blog post.

In any case, I have BIG NEWS. Namely, I'm moving!

Long and short of it is, I'm not that good at teaching Kindergarten- so I wound up finding another job where I'd work with older students, for less hours, for more money. Slick!

The rub, however, is this job is in Icheon, which is something like 50 minutes southeast of Seoul. I've heard it's nice, however- and it's honestly not TOO far fro me to make a weekend trip to the big city whenever the coolest stuff is happening.

The Ilsan school was very accommodating, too, and honestly things went off in the best possible way. I'll miss the kids (some of them, at least), but so things go. It's funny, however- yesterday, when I told the kids goodbye, all the kindergarteners went "NoooOOooo!" and were sad. The elementary school kids, on the other hand, were more like 'So?'

So yeah. Moving! Crazy. My ride should theoretically be here in an hour or so, and the teacher they got to replace me in Ilsan will be moving in around the same timeish, I think? I've spent the last while cleaning up my apartment- right now, it's still a bit dusty and such, but it's no longer something that will terribly horrify my successor. It's unfortunate, though, as we all went and hung out a little bit at the other American teacher's pad on Wednesday, and his pad is MUCH nicer than mine, so we kept on telling my replacement that his apartment is the exception, not the rule.

So yeah. Expect reports to come about the city of Icheon, my new apartment, and even a brief report on nerdery in Korea. Woo!

A quickie!

Yes, I've been tardy in blog posts. But here's an update nonetheless.

Last weekend was fairly low key- it rained a ton on Saturday, so I stayed in. Sunday was gorgeous, however. I traded in some books at What the Book (Seoul's leading English language bookstore) for new ones, and then I met up with my Cousin and our friend T at a big flea market thing at Seoul World Cup stadium. I didn't get anything at the market, however- mostly because the books were in Korean, and the clothes were in Korean sizes. It was still fun going, nonetheless! I also saw a bootleg Bruticus- which I didn't get, as I have the actual mold back home in the states.

Afterward, we took a walk along the river and had some galbi in T's old neighborhood. T's been in Korea for a long while, and she had some really interesting stuff to say about the rapid growth and gentrification of that part of Seoul.

And, uh, that's it. Work's been going fairly well. It helps that I get to teach a Halloween-based unit. "Freddy Kreuger" is one of the vocabulary words. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of showing them random clips from Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein (a movie I'd like to see in its entirety, come to think of it).

Went out boozing last night- LePub's a little different under the new management, but I'm sure it'll be fine. Seemed fairly busyish. Ambled home around 2am, and now I'm awake! Mostly.

This weekend's gonna be a bit more eventful, however- in a few minutes, I'm going out on a work-picnic thing with the other teachers, which should be fun. And after that, there's apparently some sort of comics festival thingamajig going on here in Ilsan, which I'm rather excited about. I'm hoping to get a glimpse at a Korean-nerdy subculture, but it may just be a bunch of bookstores hawking manhwa. Either way, expect overthinking analysis to come!

And because it's a short entry, have some pictures of my beer shelf. I like to keep track of what kinds of beers you can get over here. This isn't ALL of what's available- but it's a good part of it. I'd say at least 75% of these were bought at the same homeplus, too. 

That's all I've got for now. Stay tuned!

Man, you were really drunk on Friday night." The Welshman told me.

"I was?" I said. I then took a tally of the previous evening's imbibements. This...was somewhat of a long list. Really, the part where I'd gone awry was having scotch early on in the evening, mostly because whiskey tends to make me a bit...ah, rowdy. And then Gundam Guy started playing lots of Electric Six on the bar's speaker system, which also tends to make me a bit rowdy.

Not that there wasn't occasion to booze it up, though- y'see, LePub, my primary expat hangout, is being sold to a new owner. Who, admittedly, I hear is pretty cool, but it'll be a change in the bartending staff, at the very least. So it goes!

I made it home safely, though- I may have had quite a bit, but I certainly know when it's time to pack it in. Saturday was fairly quiet. I briefly stopped by the makkoli festival that was going on, but I didn't have anything to drink while I was there- didn't feel like boozing it up, y'see.

I had originally meant to swing by Hongdae for a punk rock show at Club Spot, but I was feeling vaguely sick-ish, so I didn't bother. Nothing too bad, but I just didn't want to pull another all-nighter. Instead, I went...to LePub! Again, as Saturday was the last night it was under the current ownership. I took it much easier this time around. Which was funny, as I ran into The Welshman and Co at LePub, and the lot of them had been partying hard since lunch on account of the Rugby World Cup. I'm actually a bit jealous of their enthusiasm, but what can you do?

Sunday, again, started quiet. Had lunch with some friends of mine, and (after a bit of hemming and hawing on my part) I DID wind up going to Hongdae, whereupon I went to two places I should've visited a long while earlier.

The first was Castle Praha! Yay microbreweries! The decor of the place is certainly neat. Service was a little slowish, though, and the beer was a bit pricey...but I will say their witbier is deliiiicious. Though it's hard not to be when you're up against Korean beer. Heh.

The second place was DGBD, one of Hongdae's leading music venues. Or...something. They were having the 24th Kimchiabilly Night there, and I am very, very glad I went. It's been awhile since I've seen a live show, and it just reminded me how much I love seeing obscure live music while drinking crappy beer. It's the little things, y'know. The place had a fairly neat space going on- you actually entered via the balcony and had to take a stairwell down to the floor. I guess the cool kids hung out up top, but the joke's on them, as the bar's down below!

The crowd was mostly Korean, and a bit thin-ish, being a Sunday night- but I've seen some DAMN good shows on Sundays, too. I think it's got to do with the really enthusiastic fans being the ones who bother to get up to stuff on a weeknight, y'know?

Playing that evening was...

The Strikers, a pretty straightforward punk-rock trio. Good energy, though!

Copy Machine- you can tell they're a ska band 'cause the singer's wearing a neat hat. These guys were GREAT- they had a really peppy, fun, third-wave sort of sound. On the one hand, they kind of cheated, as they didn't have a horn section- the keyboardist just had a Korg set on 'horns.' On the other hand, the keyboardist was playing both sections, so that's pretty impressive anyway.

Peppermint Jam- the only non-Korean band on the list, they were Japanese Rockabilly (which made me kind of wish I'd worn my Guitar Wolf shirt, but eh). Was funny, being an American seeing a Japanese band in Seoul- I think the guys from Peppermint Jam knew about as much Korean as I do- which is to say, not much.

And finally, the Rocktigers! This was my second time seeing them, and they're no less kickass after the first go-round. Velvet Geena is still tiny and full of swagger. Honestly, any one of the bands I saw that evening would've been worth it, but the Rocktigers set was damned solid. What's more impressive is that, according to the Korea gig guide website, the Rocktigers & Peppermint Jam packed their gear up and took it to a different club for a 10:30 gig. That's hustle! I s'pose if I wanted to, I could've checked that out as well for a double dose of radness, but I decided against it, opting to get home at a halfway decent hour. Fancy that!

In any case, I managed to survive yet another Monday. Though with Halloween fast approaching, I really need to get a costume put together. Right now, I'm kind of leaning towards 'cardboard robot' or, if I'm REALLY ambitious, 'cardboard Optimus Prime...because if you're gonna go for something, why not go big, right?