Weekend in Seoul

It's already been nine months since I arrived in Korea and time has flown by. Surprisingly, I haven't made a trip back to Seoul since my initial few days in the country. The COVID19 situation has kept me close to home for the most part, but I decided it was time for a weekend away.

I wasn't aware of this in advance, but Friday was an administrative day where the students were able to go home after lunch. Likewise, many of the teachers were free to leave a little early. Instead of catching the train around 6pm as I planned, I was on my way to the Busan KTX (Korea Train eXpress) station by 2pm. I had wondered if buying train tickets in advance was necessary, but not to worry. I was able to catch a train to Seoul about 10 minutes after arriving at the station.

I had a little trouble with the automatic ticket kiosk. It had an English option but for some reason had rejected my card. The friendly staff person got me sorted out and I was on my way to Seoul. It was quite easy to find my train and seat because all of the signage was in English and Korean.

The train offered a smooth ride with nice views of the Korean countryside, autumn colours and rolling mountains. After 2.5 hours on the train, I arrived in Seoul.

My hotel was a short walk from Seoul Station in metro Seoul at the Ramada Hotel & Suites Seoul Namdaemun. I chose the Ramada because I had such a good experience at the Ramada hotel in Jeju back in August. The hotel in Seoul was a little run down and due for an upgrade but was convenient and the staff happily helped with all of my questions.

Korean food is amazingly delicious but when I saw this restaurant next to the hotel, I knew exactly what I was having for dinner. Subway. Nine months without a proper sandwich was just too long. I ordered a barbecue chicken footlong on Italian bread with lots of toppings and mayonnaise, and it was amazing! 

The next morning I was up bright and early for a buffet breakfast in the hotel with a surrounding view of Seoul from the 24th floor. The front desk had warned me that breakfast would be very crowded because it was the weekend, but at 7am I was the first customer and had the whole place to myself. In fact, I was so early that the bacon wasn't even ready for my meal. Still, I had my fill of mostly western food.

For sightseeing, I wanted to check out some of the traditional sites in Seoul, especially the famous palaces and shrines. My hotel was central to these places, so I was able to travel quickly and easily by subway. 

My first stop was at the Jongmyo Shrine when it first opened at 9am. Seoul can be overwhelming with its crowds, noise and towering skyscrapers, but Jongmyo Shrine during a quiet autumn morning is peaceful and scenic. Originally from the 16th century, the Jongmyo shrine is where Korean royalty came to for religious rites and ceremonies. Today, rituals and dances are held on the grounds, but for me, it was a peaceful escape in the beautiful scenery.

A short subway trip from Jongmyo is the amazing palace Gyeongbokgung. This iconic palace is often featured in guidebooks or youtube videos for those interested in travelling to Seoul. I had visited Gyeongbokgung back in 2009, and it was just as spectacular today. The mountains in the background on a clear day make for an amazing scene. Originally built in 1395, Gyeongbokgung was home to the Korean royalty, featuring their residences, throne hall, and a huge traditional gate. I arrived at the palace later in the morning as tourists started to arrive. As with many of the historic sites in Seoul, if you wear a traditional Korean outfit, called Hanbok, then admission to the site is free. There are shops around the palace that rent the garments. I decided to pay the admission fee instead. Maybe I'll dress up another time.

Next, I went to another royal palace called Changdeokgung. Full of beautiful buildings with traditional architecture, Changdeokgung is extra special because of the surrounding park and landscape. Changdeokgung is a UNESCO world heritage site. By the afternoon, the palace grounds were filling up with tourists.

The final stop of my palace exploration was right next door at the Changgyeongung Palace. This relatively compact site is beautiful for the pond and gardens, with overhanging trees coloured red and orange in autumn. Honestly, after hours of looking at palaces and shrines, they all sort of blended together and started looking the same. I sat down and people-watched for a while. All in all, not a bad day, but I was exhausted from sightseeing so I travelled back to the hotel.

Normally, hours and hours of sightseeing and taking pictures would be plenty for me, but I had special plans that evening to meet my friend. She's Korean and lives in Seoul so I was excited to see the city with a local. The problem with doing things the local way is that Seoul is a city that never sleeps. While I'm usually in bed around 10pm, I was starting the night with my friend at 11pm when she picked me up at the hotel. Loaded up with coffee, we drove off into the Seoul night.

We drove up a winding mountain road to a place called the Bugak Skyway for a night view of the city. The skyway is on the northeastern ridge of Mount Bugaksan overlooking Seoul. It features an octagonal pavillion and is an idyllic hangout for young Seoul night owls. There was a short wait for parking, even after 11pm. But once we were admitted, the views were spectacular. I had another coffee for the caffeine hit while enjoying the lights of Seoul.

Next, we went to the banks of the Han River to hang out by the water and eat late-night ramen. The convenience stores along the river are open 24 hours because people visit the river at all hours of the night. Usually, before midnight the bridges are lit with colourful lights, but we arrived well past midnight. The convenience store had an incredible selection of instant ramen, and a side room to prepare and heat the noodles in boiling water. It was a quiet night by the river, but there were still a few other groups nearby enjoying the evening.

Before I knew it, my whirlwind tour of Seoul was over. After an abbreviated snooze at the hotel, I was back on the train bound for Busan. Seoul has a lot to offer and I'm sure I'll be back for a visit again. Unfortunately, Seoul tends to get more COVID19 cases than the rest of Korea, so I have to be careful when I choose to visit. At the time of writing this, Korea has had over 300 new cases of COVID19 per day for the last 4 days. This is higher than our typical 100 cases per day, so I'll be sticking close to Busan for the time being as we see what happens with this latest spike. Take care.

Scandia Moss with the 4H Club

The 4H Club is getting craftier and craftier. Our latest project was a framed arrangement of scandia moss. I was able to join, participate and even take home my very own finished project.

This time I sat at a boys' table and they helped translate for me and understand the instructions of the crafts teacher. Again, it was a fun, casual environment and very nice to hang out with the students away from the classroom. The girls were hard at work making their beautiful frames while the boys put moss in each other's hair.

I'm not sure if scandia moss is native to Korea, but apparently it is an ideal indoor plant. I have seen it used to decorate various businesses including a Starbucks in Busan. The moss can be dyed in different colours to make a beautiful arrangement. Our moss was pre-dyed green, blue, pink, and purple.

We first pulled out all of the extraneous debris, then packed a little metal grate full of green moss. This would be the backdrop of the frame. The instructor wanted us to make sure that there were no open spaces, so we really had to use a lot of green moss and pack it in.

After that, we pulled open a piece of the grate that was previously cut to form something like a small basket in the frame. This is where we were to arrange the other colours of moss into a bouquet. Again, the girls were meticulous and made some very nice-looking bouquets. The boys, myself included, were less careful but did the best we could. Mine ended up looking less like a bouquet and more like a trash bin stuffed with moss. 

Next, we accessorized the frame and bouquet with various extras for style. I pinned in a few mushrooms and stuck on some plastic ladybugs on the frame.

Well, the crafts teacher wasn't impressed with my work. She scoffed and grumbled something in Korean and walked off with my frame. She removed my bouquet and basically remade it. Honestly, it looked much better after her remodel but I felt like my efforts were wasted. Oh well, I wasn't really interested in doing crafts, just hanging out with the kids. Anyway, I thanked the teacher and took the frame home and it is now displayed on my table next to the TV.

We were told that the moss should last a long time and when it gets dry, we can just lightly mist it with water or put it in the shower room so it collects some of the moisture.

My relatively bare apartment is becoming nicely decorated because of the 4H Club.

School Discipline

Something must be in the water because more and more students are misbehaving these days. It could be that I'm having more face time with my students since the majority of classes are now in-person as opposed to online. It wasn't until October that I first met my Grade 2 students at the boys school (the semester started in August). It also could have something to do with the fact that it is exam season now. The students were on edge before the exams and are now unencumbered after completing the exams. Either way, the craziness is at a new level.

Generally speaking, my youngest students (the Grade 1s at my boys school) were relatively well behaved but now that they've been in middle school for a full semester, they are quite comfortable. More than comfortable actually, they're taking over the classroom. That was the explanation from my co-teacher anyway. The timid little angels are taking the noise level up a notch, and the high-jinx follows along with it.

In the first eight months here I didn't have to discipline a single student. The most I had to do was stare at a student and they would fall in line, or other students would shout something at them to get them to pay attention. I like using the peer pressure approach as it takes some of the onus off of me. But in the past two weeks, I've had to reach into my bag of tricks to keep order in the class. 

A boy on the baseball team was playing with his ball and glove in class, tossing and catching it while I was trying to teach. He put those away after a good staredown, but then he pulled out his hand grip exerciser thingy and kept playing with it in class. I asked him to put it in his backpack, which he did, but as soon as I turned my back he took it out again. I don't want to be the hard teacher, but something like that which completely undermines my authority cannot be allowed. I called him to the front of the classroom, took it and put it in my bag for the remainder of the class. Immediately at the end of class, he rushed up to collect it. I made him do five pushups right there in the classroom. First time I've ever done anything like that. I guess because he's an athlete I hoped he'd understand. I'll give him ten pushups the next time, and so on until he can't push no more.

At the start of the lesson I usually ask everyone if they have their notebook, textbook, and pencil. A rowdy 1st grader shouted back, "Do you have a d***?" It was more for the laughs than malicious, and I guess I should be happy he's speaking English. Still, I couldn't let that slide either. I called him up to the front of the room and asked him repeatedly to tell me his name. He kept saying, "Sorry, sorry teacher" and refused to tell me his name. But I verified his name on the roll sheet and he seemed genuinely afraid for the next 15 minutes that I was going to report him. That didn't last because he returned to his irreverent self before long. I never did report him.

This week I have been confiscating notes and candy, dodging paper airplanes, and taking markers so kids would stop writing on their desks. I called a kid to the front of the room because he smacked another boy in the back of the head. And I had to jump out of the way as a boy carelessly tipped over his desk and it came crashing down on the floor. 

While my co-teachers at my main school generally take care of discipline issues, not that there are many issues in my classes, the teachers at the boys school are less helpful. Quite often, I am the only teacher in the room. Other times, the teacher is at the back of the class working on their laptop or on their phone. One teacher has taken to putting in his earphones and facing away from the class. I guess the students are too noisy for him to do whatever it is he's doing, instead of assisting with the class.

However, I'm not the only teacher dealing with behavioural issues. I observed a humorous incident in the faculty room at my main school. A mother walked her boy into the room and stood back while the boy approached the discipline officer. It was clear that the mother sent her son in to apologize to the teacher. The boy was obviously opposed to the idea and didn't apologize at all. The mother approached and gave a few stern words, then with a smack on the back, physically forced the boy to bend into a bow. The boy resisted and was still backtalking the teacher as the mother pulled him out of the room. I actually had to stifle my laugh. It was quite a sight.

I also saw a strange case of corporal punishment at my boys school. My desk is with a few other teachers in a side room off of the main faculty office. An older teacher brought in a group of boys and apologized for interrupting our work. She lectured the boys, then had them stand in a semi-circle. The boys were instructed to lift up their knees, and then the teacher whacked their thighs with a wooden backscratcher. 

Another lecture ensued, and further whacks were administered. All in all, each boy got four hits each - three with the flat part and one with the edge of the backscratcher. It was a very odd scene. Clearly, the whacks smarted on their legs, but the boys were laughing and dancing around. The teacher seemed in good spirits rather than angry.

After the punishment was finished, I mentioned to another teacher that school is very different in Korea than Canada and something like this wouldn't be allowed these days. She wasn't very pleased with the scene but couldn't do anything because she was a junior teacher. But she said that this was not normal and shouldn't happen in school. I asked what the students did to earn their punishment? Apparently, the boys didn't clean up when they were on cleaning duty. 

Strange times at middle school in Korea.

Another Random Week in October

This week started with a meet up with my friend in Seomyeon, the downtown area of Busan. I hadn't really explored Seomyeon since arriving in Korea, having only passed through on the subway travelling to other places. Seomyeon is about 60 minutes by train so the distance plus wanting to avoid crowds kept me away until now.

My friend is also an English teacher and a Canadian, and we met during our orientation back in February. She lives about 90 minutes away, so I don't see her very often. 

Seomyeon is a bustling area of the city with ample shopping and nightlife. It was fairly active on Sunday afternoon. We wandered for a while in the market and side streets until we found a Japanese restaurant serving up curry rice with an omelette. I hadn't had anything like this since I lived in Japan, so it was a nice treat.

We took our temperature and recorded our contact information in the log at the front of the restaurant, and then enjoyed our meal. Conversing with a native speaker was refreshing after months of speaking with students and those with limited conversational abilities.

Later, we went to a massive coffee shop/lounge called Q Lounge on the 8th floor of a shopping center. The view of the mountains was wonderful and the coffee and desserts were, naturally, overpriced but very good. I then walked through the extensive underground shopping centre, back to the subway and returned home.

At school, students were finishing up what we think could be the last of our online lessons. While I don't give homework during in-class lessons, I need to assign some work for online students as it is a way to track their attendance and engagement with the lesson. Usually, I just ask them to write a sentence or two using the language points from the lesson. This week, I received the homework and a sweet note from a student. Sometimes I forget how long it is between seeing the students in person.

Students were asked to use 'please' in a sentence and indicate its meaning.

Friday's school lunch had an interesting item. Normally, I would be pretty excited about pizza, but you'll notice the crust on this slice is black. The pizza dough was made with squid ink! Doesn't have a strong taste, but I was left wondering just one question. Why? Why do this to a pizza?

This is also exam season for semester two and the students are extra-sleepy in class. The grade three students are gearing up for their big final exams next week, and the grade twos have their mid-terms. It's a strange feature of Korean education that the grade threes will write their final exams, in order to apply for high school admission, when there is still over 3 months left in the school year. I assume it's just fun and games after the final exam. I get to shift my lessons away from the textbook and plan fun activities and movies.

But before the exams, the students must once again complete their writing and speaking assessments with me. The third graders wrote about their favourite book and had an interview with me about the same topic. I evaluated their writing and speaking performance. The lowest possible score is 40/100 and that is earned by writing zero sentences and speaking zero English words during the interview. Any effort beyond that bumps up their score.

A surprising number of boys wrote about The Three Little Pigs. Most of the other students wrote about their favourite Korean books, but some chose interesting books to discuss. Several students read Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, or Harry Potter. There were even students who read Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and The Diary of Anne Frank. These students had a similar assignment in semester one where they were to recommend a famous place in Korea for foreigners to visit. 

The interviews were hilarious, as usual. Students were nervous, fidgety, and giggly. Some students were unprepared and sat in silence, while the top students spoke in near-perfect fluency. One student explained beforehand that he didn't have time to prepare, so he was going to have a free conversation with me. He actually did really well and it was a refreshing change from the memorized speeches of the other students. I gave him an A+.

I learned late in the week that there was to be a mandatory department meeting after school, starting at 5pm on Friday. Turns out it was not really a work meeting but rather dinner at a restaurant with colleagues. These sorts of outings haven't happened at all this year, so it was a nice way to end the week. 

We drove to the outskirts of Busan to a restaurant on the banks of the river. I wondered why we needed to go so far for a ShabuShabu restaurant, but apparently, this restaurant was particularly unique because it served clams and other shellfish in the ShabuShabu, which is not available elsewhere.

ShabuShabu is a multi-course style of dinner where everything is eaten out of a pot. First, we ate grilled pork and shellfish in the pot with beansprouts and other vegetables. Of course, all sorts of sides were provided in Korean fashion. Then the pot was converted to soup by adding broth and more leafy vegetables and shellfish. After we finished that, ramen noodles were added to the pot, and the flavours were soaked up by the noodles. For the final course, rice and carrots were added to make a stew.

Soju - Korean alcohol

The teachers and restaurant staff were very kind to me and I felt like the star of the show. Everyone wanted to know how I liked the Korean food, and they were watching me eat attentively, which made me nervous. Honestly, they treated me like a baby by putting food on my plate, teaching me how to eat, which sauce to use, and when to use the spoon versus the chopsticks. I was corrected when trying to fold too much food into my ginger leaf. Graciously, the restaurant staff brought me some extra vegetables and an extra tangerine. I drank soju, which is Korean alcohol made from rice and grains. We drank it straight and its alcohol percentage is about 20% so you have to be careful not to drink too much at one's first office party. We shared one bottle.

The meal was paid for with funds collected monthly from each teacher. I think we had a few won left over after dinner, so we made a run to Starbucks, where we ended the night with coffee and tea. 

Hopefully, with COVID-19 numbers remaining low, we'll be able to have more outings like this throughout the year.