my coffee place

i'm sure i've previously alluded to the challenge of getting to town.
the teachers live 10 minutes from town by car and, though there is a bus, the bus is consistently unreliable.

this morning, i jumped a ride with some teachers going on town errands.
my purpose? none. i looped the same streets over and over, waiting for the store doors to open and, specifically waiting for my favorite cafe to open.

Feel Espresso is run by a girl who is probably about my age. she speaks little english, but i think she's pretty cool. she even knows my name.

the cafe is supposed to open at 11am, it was 11:18 when she got there. i tried not to make it obvious that i had been waiting, looping the town for over an hour. because, in this country, when anyone thinks you like something or you're offended, they give you things.

(case in point: last month i complimented earrings and left the restaurant wearing them)

when i entered the cafe, she greeted me enthusiastically and then explained in hand motions and smiles that, for some reason, coffee couldn't be made for 20 more minutes. i assured her, in hand motions and smiles, that it was fine, i would wait, it was no problem.

i grabbed a chair, whipped out a book and waited. She brought me mango juice on the house. and then, just as she said, 20 minutes later, she made my americano.

my point? these times when i get into town, or get to seoul are the times when i actually feel like my old self again. that is, i actually feel grown up and human. it is as i walk into a cafe and am greeted by a familiar smile that i am most content. and, though living in asia has certainly made my life feel far away, it has not changed how i survive it.

there are things i need. perhaps because i am spoiled or greedy or needy.
or, perhaps just because i am wired this way.

it has been hard to find those things often here in korea. this place is not conducive to the lifestyle i love, meeting friends at coffee shops and admittedly viewing coffee consumption as my biggest vice. but, when i get it, when i get to have a cup of coffee in a cafe whose owner knows my name, i am prone to think that i'll be okay.

and today, at Feel, i felt okay.

rice farmers are cool

these are some random shots of the rice farming process next to the school. it was pouring down rain that day.

happy birthday katie!

esther, eunice, katie and i celebrated katie's birthday on sunday. we tried to go to seoul, but the traffic was horrendous. instead we went to a one of esther's favorite restaurants near town.

i keep thinking i've had all the korean food there is to have. but, i am continuously surprised by new, stranger, more delicious things. sunday was yet another one of those discoveries.

it looked exactly like spaghetti. exactly. but, the "noodles" were actually the very typical bean sprouts that are in most dishes here. the "sauce" was a very spicy red sauce that even i found hard to bare (and i can out-spice most koreans, i swear). mix in every kind of seafood i have ever seen and many things i have never seen. and, of course, the octopus.
yes, that is an entire octopus that eunice is holding up to her face.

fun times.

by the way, i think there are more restaurants in relatively small korea then in all of america. i'm not exaggerating.

and, while in korea i've developed some "different" eating habits. don't say i didn't warn you.

koreans tend to share plates, eat straight off the platters, etc. in korea, do as the koreans. so, if we're eating together in the future, keep that in mind or, guard your food.

climbing a warmer mountain

very flattering picture of me, i realize.
esther and husband

rice alcohol

the old tree

inside the buddhist temple

green onion pancake thing

back in february, i had gone to Yongmun Mt. with korean hannah. it was absolutely freezing. on saturday, esther called and asked if i wanted to come with her family to the same place. it was much hotter this time. esther, her husband and daughter and i went up the mountain first where i was photographed (again) in front of Asia's 2nd oldest tree. then we looked at some Buddhist temples and then went down.
at the bottom is a typical collection of money making tactics, stores of things to buy, places to eat and...yes, an small amusement park.
we ate some wonderful green onion pancake thing (ok, that's not what they are called but, that's what i called them) and got some forbidden korean rice wine. the salt and spice of the food was a wonderful match to the sweet milky alcohol.

teacher's day

the food at the boss' house and (below) the bus driver and one of the korean preschool teachers.

according to my korean sources, some schools in korea actually shut down for Teacher's Day because Korean parents were giving such outlandishly large gifts to the teachers. i don't see why that's a bad thing. but, our school didn't shut down. too bad.
i had high hopes to get lots of exciting things. i got socks, fried chicken, a potted flower, chocolate, and cough drops. and, a couple of notes in suspiciously accurate english that said things like, "Laura Teacher, I like you SO MUCH!".
then, our boss had all the teachers over to his house where we ate pizza and chicken and chinese food and multiple other foods that aren't typically served at the same time. but, i wasn't complaining.

aquariums and parks

chloe, being eating alive, yet still smiling.
picnic in korea almost always center around kimbap, a seaweed wrap with rice and vegatables. delicious.
chloe, fully recovered from the shark attack.
at the park we played strange games.


yes, there are fish in that toilet.

these are "doctor fish", the same fish that you can find at some korean spas where you pay extra money to lay in a pool where the tiny fish bit at your skin. weird, but strangely relaxing.

i've always found aquariums a bit boring, kind of like i've always found the idea of having a pet fish a bit boring. this past friday, the preschool went on another field trip to Seoul's CoEx Mall Aquarium. (it's funny, we went 6 months without a field trip and then went on 3). after a few hours in the aquarium, we went to a park and played games and had a picnic.

going on field trips to seoul is always a little sad because i just want to break off from the group and explore. that probably means i'm not a good preschool teacher.

retreat continued...

these are sort of like korean tacos. in middle tray are little crepe/taco-like pieces where you build your own little rolls. delicious.

i forgot to mention a few things in my blog about the little church retreat i went on. we left Sokcho area and went somewhere else (about an hour away) to some restaurant connected to the church. we ate a phenomenal meal and went on a big walk and then drove home. actually, quite a boring day.

mountains/sea

Donuts and Enjoy. Huh? living in asia, i get used to this sort of nonsense. my hotel room (i shared it with another english teacher) notice: no beds, just thin little pads to sleep on. but, surprisingly, not that uncomfortable.
the house of some significant korean person.

this is our yummy seafood meal we ate at the hotel.
eating the yummy meal (again) with esther smiling
this is a korean boardwalk. it felt so much like Ocean City, New Jersey (or maybe i just wanted it to)
lots of fried seafood for ridiculously cheap prices
the shadows of my korean posse
katie, foot-surfing the pacific.
the Pacific ocean!
our mountainous hotel
again, our hotel and (below) the fabulous view from our hotel. and...remember, the ocean is a mere 10 minutes away.

the church went on a retreat on sunday-monday (may 11-12). i confess, i was a bit hesitant to go because i sometimes i just get tired of being around people who don't speak my language (and on a retreat, you can't really escape it). plus, we were driving 3 hours each way to spend less than 12 hours there. but, i went to what i was told was a trip to the mountains. it's my fault that i didn't do the research, but everyone failed to mention that the sea and the mountains are at the same place (and much, much colder because of it). i'm from the east coast, we drive for hours of flatness to see the sea.
so, we went to Sarack Mountain and stayed in a hotel owned by a friend of a church member. 10 minutes from our place was Sokcho...the real ocean. this was, by the way, my first time to ever touch the Pacific Ocean.

so, the retreat was okay fun. not super fun, but the kind of fun you have when you don't have any control over what's happening or any clue about what's happening. the highlight of the day was CNN on the tv in the hotel lobby. my first news in English in awhile.

ketchup/catch up

this blog has entirely everything to do with catch up, nothing to do with ketchup.

may is apparently a month to be very very busy in korea.
the start of the month was children's day (which i've already explained) then, there is parents day (not a big deal for me) and teacher's day (a very big deal for me) and of course, Buddha's Birthday. We had the first 2 mondays of the month off (hallelujah and amen). the first for children's day, the second for Buddha's Birthday. And, i should add that, in that order, those are the 2 most important things to koreans.

so, in the following entries, i will catch you up on no less than 1 preschool fieldtrip to the aquarium, 1 church retreat to the mountain/sea, 1 birthday celebration for a member of my korean posse and a smattering of other delightful korean episodes.

this picture, however, has nothing to do with anything else. Mr. Pizza has intrigued me from day one in korea. i find the marketing approach so strange. "Mr Pizza, made for women" though, there is nothing else about the restaurant that is especially "womeny". so, i don't know, did i go here because i was attracted to it as a woman? i guess we'll never know.

awkward and unfortunate

in a routine tuesday night drive home from work (well, by "home from work", we were about 17 feet away from the school) we encountered an irritatingly regular problem of facing an oncoming car on the oh-so-narrow "two way" roads. so, we started to backup.......

the backup went a bit further to the left then was intended. and, let's just say that, though the elevated roads are great for avoiding flooding during the rice field planting season, the are not so great for slight backup errors.

and, in case you are like all the people 17 feet away from the "incident" at school, no we weren't hurt.
we dropped like 6 inches, no need to be so dramatic.