Sports Night in Korea

I watched my first soccer match last month. A friendly between FC Seoul and Manchester United. It was pretty big deal because Park Ji-Sung is the first Korean (and Asian) to captain Man U. The stadium erupted every time he was on the big screen.  Lots of fun and lots of people.

I have started frequenting the Seoul Sports Complex for baseball games, too. 12,000 Won ($10) Gets you a ticket anywhere in the outfield and two beers outside the stadium. That's right, you can bring ANYTHING YOU WANT into the stadium. People bring full traditional korean meals to the games and set up a picnic in the nosebleeds. Plus, the prices in the stadium for refreshments are barely more expensive than outside. No $8 beer here. 


By default I cheer for the LG Twins, who share a logo with the Twins of Minnesota. I may be bad luck though.. they get trounced whenever I am present.


Baseball is great to watch. The cheering is different (organized cheers lead by a guy with a whistle), they don't have ball boys (they have ball girls in tiny shorts and belly shirts), and people eat squid instead of peanuts (although you can order peanut-flavored squid which is surprisingly good), but there is something still so familiar about it. The rules haven't changed, the double plays and home runs are just as exciting... It's a piece of home that I can visit any night of the week. 






Except Monday. They don't have games on Mondays. 

A Retired Korean Shortstop and Me

I met him on the ferry from Gyeokpo to Wido. Actually I met him right after I bought my ticket for the ferry. He came over to me and said:

"NAME! PASSPORT!! NAME!! PASSPORT!!" while violently pointing to my ticket. 

Apparently I needed to write my name and passport number on the ticket. I guess in case the boat sank they could figure out who was on it.

I climbed on the ferry and sat towards the back. He sat next to me, one backpack with two fishing poles and a tackle box. He had been chatting up a cute woman on the dock and she joined us, also. Without my knowing, we had become friends after our first encounter. He impressed me with his english, pointing to his mosquito bites and saying, "Vampire! Ahhhh!!!" He asked if I was solo, and that he was solo, also, so we should stay together. We were best friends for two days.

김덕영 Kim Deok Yeong

We found a minbak (like a hotel, with no beds, just a floor and blankets) just past Wido Beach and headed out to the water to do some fishing. 

But it had rained all day. 

"Too Rainy! No pishy pishy."

There were no fish.

So we walked to a restaurant and feasted on fish we didn't catch. With my Korean-English dictionary on my iPhone I found out that he was a retired shortstop. He played 12 years for the Doosan Bears... I think... With my limited Korean I haven't been able to find career stats yet.

Looking back to our minbak across the bay.

After our delicious meal of fish we were treated with fresh clams when we returned to the minbak. Other guests joined us and we drank soju long into the night.

Our two day friendship ended as abruptly as it started. The next morning he stayed on the bay to fish and I walked about five miles to a beach. I thought we had and understanding that when he left "C" (minback) he would pass "B" (my beach) on route to "A" (the ferry) and we were going to go back to the mainland and head south to another island. But maybe I over estimated my ability to explain the plan. He called me once, I called him twice. Someone else answered his phone and explained they were on the ferry already. 

The strangeness of the relationship is hard to put into words. It is amazing how much was shared without being able to really speak to each other. 

Also, soju is a great translator. It almost seemed like I could understand him at times...

Fooooood

This past week I had summer vacation, so I went south without much of a plan. I will break my adventures up into parts, and the first one will be about food. Only about food. I will explain the towns and people later, so if you feel lost, just know that feeling is OK.

This is the general path I took:
Seoul-->  Jeonju-->  Gyeokpo--> Wido Island--> Jeonju--> Seoul
I say general because there were off shoots to other small places, too.

김치찌개

This was the first meal I had in Gyeokpo, which is a little town on a spur of land out into the West Sea. The big bowl is kimchi jjigae, which is like a stew made of kimchi, tofu and pork. Jjigae means soup, so it is kimchi soup. It is very popular in Korea and is one of my favorites. I had it for supper, and it is often eaten for breakfast, also.  

All this food was for me, the kimchi jjigae, rice and eleven side dishes. I'll start in the back left corner:

The soup bowl is a vinegar/seaweed soup that is eaten in the summer because it is cool, to the right of that is a cooked seaweed, next is pickled garlic and last is squash. The second row on the left is regular kimchi, then a bunch of dried, salted fish which I do not like (but my students eat as snacks all the time), then some sort of other kimchi, and lastly a dried and warmed seaweed. The front row starts with a vegetable omelet, two whole, cooked fish, and finally sweet and sour clam strips. I paid 5,000 Won for the meal, about $4. It was wonderful.

The next morning I had almost the same thing I had for supper, except this was a seafood variety of jjigae with clam and fish. I had a few less side dishes this time because the waitress knew I wasn't going to eat the salted fish. This morning I also got lettuce, which is used to wrap rice and pepper paste and really anything else you choose to eat. 

It rained my first day on Wido, so Young and I spent the afternoon eating seafood and drinking Soju. It was great. I can't remember what it all was, or what specific fish we ate. The big plate in the middle on the left is all raw fish that we dipped in soy sauce, wasabi, and korean barbecue sauce. We had clam soup and krill, also. This meal was 50,000 Won, about $40 between the two of us, but was well worth it on a rainy, lazy afternoon.

And the Winner is...

A few weeks ago I put up an experiment, where I asked you to listen to my students singing a song. I really appreciate the responses. So here is what they are actually saying:

I like oranges,

I like grapes,

I like colors,

I like shapes,

I like hats,

I like capes,

I like you very much.

So, obviously, Jarrod is the closest, based on a very scientific formula that I can't divulge for fear the internet would collapse.

Jarrod has won a luxurious all expenses paid* stay in a quaint, one bedroom apartment on the lower east side of Seoul.

*Transportation and most expenses not included. You also must share the apartment with me. I will make you cereal in the morning, and Arosh in the evening.

A Trim and a Shave

One of the great things about a new country is experiencing something that back home would be routine. Such as grocery shopping, seeing a movie or eating out. Today I went to a barbershop.

My hair had been getting decently long and I had let my beard grow unkempt, as I am prone to do. My friends and coworkers had all warned me about Korean barbers. Sara wanted a trim and they cut eight inches off. Ben got a haircut, and explicitly said he wanted to keep his sideburns and they shaved them up to his temple. But I was prepared to deal with any mistakes. Hair grows back and all pictures are digital, so I can manipulate them to my heart's content.

I asked my boss, Jenny, to write a note I could deliver to the barber telling him I wanted a trim and a shave. Don't take more than 3 cm off, and please, for the love of God, let me keep my sideburns. I think I have had sideburns since the 9th grade and I have no idea what my face would look like with out them. She drove me to a barber that her father-in-law frequents, which is four blocks from my apartment.

I entered the building and wandered around, trying to recognize the characters for "Barbershop." It was tucked away behind a half-dozen dry-cleaners in the south-east corner of the first floor. I walked in and found a husband and wife, flashed them my handmade sign and shared a laugh as they sat me in the chair.

I was the only customer in the small, corner store. I filled one of the two available chairs. It looked like it could've been from Valley City, ND in the 1950's. There were doilies hanging on the wall, Korean cross-stitch and trinkets that their grandchildren had given them.. Collections of seashells they collected on trips to the coast were stacked in corner shelves around the room.

The haircut proved uneventful, which is a great adjective for a haircut. The chair was set up pretty high and there wasn't a foot pedal to raise or lower me and it didn't swivel around. In front of me was the sink, a big, wide sink that belonged in the back room of an upscale hardware store, one where they used porcelain instead of plastic. On top of the sink was a made-to-fit cushion, which was where I rested my legs when I reclined and prepared for the shave. They also provided a mattress underneath my body to help me be comfortable.

At this point the woman took over. This couple performed a well rehearsed duet, both spinning around each other, knowing where they had to be, which towels to warm, which elixirs to set out. She covered my entire face in a medium consistency gel, and topped that with a warm towel. I could hear her mixing the cream in a metal cup; the wooden handle of the brush banging against the tin. It wasn't a labored or rushed process. The preparation was just as important as the job.

She used a thick steel blade and shaved every part of my face: my nose, forehead, neck and ears, besides the parts that actually needed it. It was such a calming, careful situation that I fell asleep more than once. It was a strange sensation of waking back up, almost startled, but being aware of some distant my brain catching my body before it could jerk out of place and send the blade into my jugular.

When she was done, she covered my face in thin slices of cucumber, and I sat for about 10 minutes, drifting back asleep. When she pulled them off, my face felt wonderful. She sat me up and handed my head back to her husband.. like a grocer handing eggs to a customer.

He proceeded to stick my head under a cold tap and washed my hair and face with the vigor one scrubs freshly dug potatoes. He tipped my head back and started to dry my hair and his wife surprised me by jamming Q-Tips in my ears. There were no more than a handful of words shared between them the entire time I was there, but they knew exactly what was next.

I spent about an hour and twenty minutes in that barbershop. When I finished they handed me a Korean yoghurt, which is kind of like a thick juice, and had me sit down while I looked in the mirror. They seemed very proud, too. The entire process cost KRW 12,000 which is right about $10. It was one of the most enjoyable things I have done in recent memory. It was such a great feeling to be that taken care of.

So, if anyone is planning on visiting me, start growing your beard now. It will be worth the wait.

An Experiment

I have my iPhone with me at all times, even though I have no service in South Korea. They use the same CDMA technology that Verizon and Alltel use, so my very convenient, jailbroken GSM phone is of no use here. Decently frustrating, but what it does give me is a a camera, audio recorder, subway map, gaming system, and all around conversation starter, because even though the iPhone is not sold here, every Korean wants to have one.

So I usually have it in class. I recorded some of the kids singing a song they learned. It is short and cute. The person you can hear the clearest is Jennet. She is short and cute also. So, my experiment involves you: try to understand what they are saying, and post your results in the comments. Thanks.

PS - The song is called "I Like." That should help a lot.

PPS - If you can understand it, I taught it to them... if you can't, this song is actually from the lesson before I started teaching... so I will blame their previous teacher...

PPPS - I found Houndbite to host this audio file.. I was just going to put it into YouTube, but I can't upload from Korea. They have laws in place protecting the public.

Peace in the City

Ogeum Park [Google Maps link] is an escape. It is large enough to almost leave the city behind. I find it remarkable how different I feel surrounded by trees. It could be just in my head, but the air seems fresh, almost scrubbed. The park is about two stories above street level. The entrance closest to Ogeum station has a pond that looks out over the city, and is recessed enough to kind of escape the sound of cars.

Recently, I have been going to this park after work. It is a nice place to unwind and let my mind untwist after a day of teaching (see also: yelling, pleading, weeping). The first thing I always do is meander to the reflexology footpath.

This is a happy discovery. The path starts with small rocks, moves to wood laid at the diagonal, large rocks (the size of your foot), rounded stumps and then reverses the process to the end. It does feel great to walk on and it is something that puts my mind immediately on the present. Whatever has happened in the day up to this point is not more important than my walk.



The end of the path leads right into what I will call an adult jungle gym. These are in every park I have seen, and old people love them. There are a number of fitness machines that look like they should be endorsed by Tony Little. There is the Gazelle, a couple twisty discs, and parallel bars. Old people are all over these things! So I am to. If it is good enough for an ajuma, it is good enough for me.


This specific gym has a couple pull up bars, a sit up platform and a bench press. It is a nice, free workout in the woods. I am the only non-Korean there, and a lot of people stare at me, but I am getting used to it.

It is a nice little park and is becoming part of my daily routine.