What's not to like about Jeju-do?

Including, respectively: animal-shaped rocks, strange phone booths, amazing feats with hula-hoops, intriguing museums, more than its fair share of strange statuary, and gorgeous scenery.
















































































































And I've barely begun before re-taking off... this time for Bangkok.

Ciao! --Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

By reputation, Jeju Island is to Korea what Hawaii is to us in the States: a tropical paradise. Dominated by a volcanic peak that is highest in the Republic, Jeju-do (pronounced “cheajew-doe”; “do” = island) produces mouth-watering tangerines and is a popular destination for Korean honeymooners equipped with digital cameras and dressed in matching outfits. Although personally not honeymooning and skeptical of the existence of an actual tropical climate a mere 280 kilometers from Daegu, whose average winter temperature hovers around 0 degrees, a visit from my friend Emily and my 31^st birthday seemed sufficient excuses to visit.

Which is how Emily, me, and my friend Julie could be found at 6 pm on Friday night in Jeju International Airport pawing through racks of brochures, pursing our lips at the tourist map, double-checking our guidebooks, negotiating car rental counters, and investigating tour options. Julie and I have been in Korea long enough to realize that (us) making plans is foolhardy and we had investigated Jeju-do to the point of understanding that the airport was far and away the best place to plan our trip.

Skip forward a few hours and we had been settled by a staff of too many into a posh hotel for an off-season steal, consumed a dinner of pork samgypsal and Hite beer and berry wine, and were standing at the empty front desk of the hotel’s basement noribang, ready for some Friday night fun. A noribang is basically a karaoke bar with a few notable differences. Instead of a stage in front of a big room, you are given your own private room, equipped with a karaoke machine, microphones, a table to hold the necessary tools (music menu, a music selection consul, drinks, and tambourines), and lined with couches. Our noribang had a large empty room bordered by a u-shaped shaped-bar and dominated by a well-lit stage, with 4 private rooms off to one side. One room had music pounding but when we cautiously peered through the door seeking an attendant, no one was there. We made our way down a near staircase and found ourselves the subject of stares in what inexplicably felt like an all male domain. Slightly daunted but caught by curiosity, we crept from room to room, calling to each other when we discovered an empty balcony peering over a darkened ballroom which caused my friends to wrinkle their noses and comment on mildew. The ballroom was enormous and it was easy to imagine the place in the summer, flashing with colored lights, brimming with guests swilling their soju and frenetically enjoying the dance floor. But right then, our imaginations only magnified the emptiness of the room.

Finally, we talked the downstairs bartender into helping us with the noribang, picked a room, settled on the couches and began the serious pursuit of singing. We had great fun flipping through the book to select songs and then singing solo, in twos or in threes, depending on the song. I should’ve been a pop star, Julie should’ve been Michael Jackson, and Emily has a penchant for music that neither Julie nor I were familiar with – and this kept us busy for longer than we paid, longer than was sensible considering that we had to be up early for a tour on the morrow.

Well, what can I say? Girls just wanna have fun! --Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

A few Sunday mornings ago, my phone rang to announce that my friend Emily from Seattle had arrived at the Daegu train station – an hour earlier than expected. I hastened into a cab, spent the anxious journey learning Hangul from my cab driver, and after checking six different places where my friend could’ve been dropped off, I found her drooping with exhaustion on a sidewalk. We heaved her luggage into another cab, returned to my apartment and I gave her approximately 30 seconds to recuperate before marching her down into the subway and up into the best place I could think of to delay jet-lagged sleep: Daegu’s amusement park.

Dubbed “Woobang Tower Land” by a creative team obviously wanting in creativity, the park contains a variety of actual amusements including a cheesy haunted house (that Emily and I nonetheless clutched hands and anxiously listened for the scary), an Aladdin play land, a roller coaster called the Boomerang that disconcerted me to the point of needing to sit until my knees quit shaking, and Woobang Tower – big tower with nice viewing platform of the city. Emily and I quite enjoyed the day: stopping to watch marching bands, posing for pictures with the strange characters, sampling the Korean delicacy of a hotdog on a stick covered with fried potatoes, and delighting our Korean audience with “crazy meeguk-im” (American) antics such as whoo-hooing on the non-scary log ride. The sun was setting as we returned to my apartment, where I bustled to prepare my favorite Thai curry, she unpacked the goodies that she had hauled for me, and I moaned that I had to return to work the next day.

On Monday morning, while Emily tuned into the Super Bowl via the web, I grabbed my cuppa of coffee and returned to school for “spring” quarter. When originally informed of this time when students and teachers alike return to school but little educating is done, now somewhat assimilated to Korean school system ways, I shrugged about the why - but shook my head at the name:

“I’m sorry.” I interrupted. “Did you just say that Spring Quarter is in February?”

My guiding teacher confirmed.

Still mystified I pressed: “Is February spring in Korea?”

“No.” My guiding teacher laughed.

I didn’t get it. And I still don’t. But I dutifully returned to my desk in the faculty room and filled my days with school stuff – while my friend Emily filled her days with well-deserved relaxation interspersed with forays around Daegu. Although ironically, the rain that I was crazy for arrived and cancelled the city tour that Emily was supposed to go on.

On Thursday, students and teachers and parents alike dressed to the nines and gathered in the gymnasium to graduate our seniors (actually known as “third graders”). Although I had not taught the third graders, I am acquainted with many and was touched to observe them so serious in their suits, officially done with their childhoods. And I found their graduation ceremony especially pleasing as “Pomp and Circumstance” was not played and I was not expected to actually listen to the dull podium speakers. The ceremony ended with the graduates standing and saluting their parents with a chorus “thank you” and a bow.

On Friday, there was another assembly to mark the 1^st and 2^nd graders ascension to 2^nd and 3^rd grades. Again, I couldn’t understand a word but was far from bored as my British co-teacher, guiding teacher, and I stood in the back and chatted about next quarter. Then I found myself bidding a temporary good-bye to my guiding teacher and British co-teacher and a more final good-bye to the teachers that are departing from our school: including my reading comprehension co-teacher, the home economics teacher whom I quite liked despite not being able to actually talk with, my good friend Ji Young, and my next-desk neighbor, the beloved Handsome Mr. Park. Good-byes make me very sad.

But my friend Emily was there to give me a much needed hug. We took ourselves for a walk, zipped our bags, and hailed a cab to the airport. My duties now suspended, we were off to the very south and very north of the Republic of Korea.

Hooray!!!! --Laura

At graduation, in the company of the best....

Dear Family & Friends,

I'm about to do what has been too usual for me: apologize for a blog silence. A friend is visiting from the US and at first we played and I worked but now we are hitting the road. We are off to Jeju Island and then to Seoul and then it will be the Lunar New Year and then I'm escorting a group of my students to Thailand for a week to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. My laptop will not be going with me - and believe me and my fingers will spend the entire time itching for it.

There soon will be plenty of new adventures to share with you all!

With love,

Laura

PS: Today's pic: me at an amusement park... you might say that I was getting to know the locals.

Dear Friends and Family,

It has not rained since November. Daegu landscapes are brown in uniform, with smatters of pine needle greens. Shriveled leaves gather at tree trunks between gritty gusts of wind. Winters in Korea parch and crack open the land. Day by January day, as we wound our way up Mt. Palgongsan, we noticed that the mountains became deeply and deeper entrenched into mist until one day their edges disappeared altogether and the only vistas left to admire were distant shadows.

No doubt you all will think me a lunatic to say it: but I miss rain. I miss the rhythm of rain against pavement, the splatter of rain against windows. I miss tipping my head back to meet drops face-on. I miss air laden with water before the start of rain drops. I miss hair-curling humidity. I miss the challenge of preparing my dress - just in case it rains. I miss the variety in rain: sprinkles, rain showers, deluges. I miss the smell of just before, and just after a good rain. I miss rain sweeping air pollution to the ground, sweeping pollution into the gutters. I miss the dust-dampening relief that rain affords. I miss rain so badly that sometimes I imagine myself in a mad dash away from the city, stopping only when I am knee-deep into the sea.

Last Saturday morning, silent shadows on my window scurried me from bed to coat to outside, where the shadows were actually snowflakes. Enough snow flurried in Daegu to return some relief to the edges of the mountains. But sadly, there wasn’t enough to relieve me. --Laura

* * * *

“Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth;
without rain, there would be no life.”
- John Updike

Dear Family and Friends,

With school officially out until March 2nd, it would appear, on paper, that I could be a lady of leisure. And the beginning of January did offer me a span of days for the solitary pleasures of resting, writing, hiking, cleaning, reading, studying, and thinking. Yet that time all too soon dissipated into rejoining the world. First, I went to Korean classes, then I enjoyed my first ever ski trip, and then all leisure time vanished into lesson preparation. Sadly, there was not too much leisure for this lady.

Soon lesson preparation actuated itself into class appearances at the Daegu Educational Training Institute, located high in the mountains northeast of the city. My days began at a starlit 6 am, when I would pull on layers, swaddle my iPod, and take a walk, puffing into the air. Afterwards, my limbs would tingle as they warmed in the shower and I hurried towards the 7:45 pick-up that my British co-teacher and I had arranged. During our drive, from my front seat vantage, I did not need be concerned as taxis changed lanes without signaling, as cars clogged our shortcut to the freeway. Instead I had the luxury to appreciate the orange ball of a sun mid-high on the horizon, pouring its rays through morning mists that cloud the city, pouring through the smoke and steam rising from the just-warming smoke stacks and industry that lines the highway. Eventually, my co-teacher driver would turn away from the traffic, the factories, the city… and drive into the hills.

On good mornings, we would drive past egrets picking their way through streams and rows of still-dark plant nurseries. We would wipe away window condensation to enjoy glimpses favorite riverbeds, wend through fields of still-frosted cattails, pretend not to see garbage in the fields, joke about the faithful police car that sat on one corner to prevent dangerous left turns, and speed past lumbering buses. At one point in our drive, the road began to lead up… and topping certain hills, turning through certain curves, would afford us breath-taking views of misty blue hills and descending rows of hibernating grape vines. Arriving at the Mt. Palgong training institute always involved a sigh stemming from appreciation of a glorious view, and relief.

There were 6 of us “native teachers.” My American self, my British co-teacher, a Canadian, an Australian, a Kiwi, and another from the States – resulting in a perfect blend of accents, male and female, and teaching styles. On the first day, per usual Korean camp procedure, we were dumped in our classrooms the moment that our first class began. And we found that we must switch classrooms rather than the students switching classrooms. I am not fond of the practice of switching classrooms - but the classes were easy to “teach” in the sense that the students were motivated and their level of English is comparatively high – and hard in the sense that every “student” was actually an experienced teacher, with high expectations. Some days went better than others, some classes were more enthusiastic than others, some students were more advanced than others. Some of the classes conduced by us natives included creating a tour of Daegu, compliments + a discussion of fashions, salsa dancing (!), Jeopardy, Simon Says (from a genuine Simon), and a discussion akin to Survivor. As time went on, I found myself playing the role of the friendly but hard teacher – I knew that other native teachers were playing a lot of games and felt little guilt in planning classes that challenged the skills of the teachers. My last two classes were a Clue-inspired revised murder mystery dinner party game – which was both hard and fun. Saying good-bye to the student/teachers just a few days ago was hard – there were so many that I liked working with. But it was also easy because the teaching was exhausting.

Anyway, each mid-afternoon, our teaching would end and for the return to the city, all 6 of us would shoehorn ourselves into the car. After one 4-hour post-car ride bout with carsickness, I settled into a permanent claim of the front passenger seat, simultaneously sympathizing with the driver and needling the back seat conversation. Our conversations were rarely edifying but always amusing. Then, almost as a rule, upon being jauntily jettisoned from the car near my apartment, I would trudge up stairs, twist open my door, drop my bags, set my alarm, and crash into bed.

January, for me, passed swiftly and quietly. Weekday teaching, evenings often dominated by lesson planning, weekends of Korean lessons and socializing. Now February has arrived and I am itching, no, burning to burst from my quiet. And so I shall. Soon.

Cordially yours,

Laura

PS: About my first ski trip: it was remarkable as one of the most unKorean experiences I’ve had in Korea! I had never skied before but was game - even when I learned that we needed to get up at 3 am! A co-teacher friend picked us from my friend’s apartment and then we soon boarded a comfortable bus to travel three hours north to a Vivaldi Park

"Vivaldi, as in the composer?" I asked. And was told "Yes - and all the slopes are named after different kinds of music." Hmm….

Anyway, we first stopped at an equipment rental shop, I pulled on a pair of ski pants that made me look like a mushroom and was crammed into a pair of ski boots. By the time we reached the slopes, my ski boots were almost painful. So soon after our arrival, I and one of my friends returned to the rental shop. On the drive back, it became evident that my boots were so tight that my feet had fallen asleep and I sincerely had to stop myself from yelping with pain. But we greatly enjoyed our conversation with the shop manager, who goes by the name "Big Choi."

Once the boots were bearable and we had returned to the slopes, the skiing was fun – although I show no aptitude for the sport. And the people watching was great. The only obvious signs that we were in Korea: the stuffed animal hats that the kids were wearing on the slopes. Ubber cute.

I didn’t get home ‘til 11 pm that night – long day! And the next day, I hurt. A lot. And yet, I’m determined to try skiing again. I loved the snow –and my crashing – skiing – is bound to improve!