money.food.language.

to market, to market, to buy a fat fish.

Although it's slowly but surely getting easier, life in Korea has thrown a few obstacles my way and of those, the ones I've had the biggest difficulties with have been money, food, and language, in that order. 

As cliche as it sounds, money changes everything, and with pay day still 14 days away (and counting), it's become pretty clear how much of an affect it can have on all aspects of life. 

I arrived in Korea with about 1000$ worth of Korean won.  I thought this would be plenty. I am not starving, by any means, and am living quite comfortably (87$ gym membership), but I didn't think I would spend as much as I have. We have finally found a few bank machines that let us withdraw money with a foreign card, and can use our Visa cards at the grocery store, so again, I'd be lying if I said we were hard up at all.  

I had naively, and hopefully envisioned everything in Korea costing no more than 2$, and so I was disappointed to see that groceries cost about the same as home, fruit being slightly more expensive, and clothing is also not substantially cheaper, depending where you go and what you are buying.  I'm not unhappy about this, because the last thing I need is another 3 suitcases of clothes to bring back to Canada.

Things that are cheap include: 

-eating out ( 10$ is expensive for a meal, average price is 5-6$)

-cabs (a 15 minute cab ride is about 5$ for 2 people)

-subway/bus ( 1$ average price, depending where you are going)

-soju (1$ for a bottle, though you'd have to pay me 10$ to drink it)

-ice creamy treats ( there is a sale at our corner store and ice cream is 50cents for one...danger bay)

I see I have seamlessly segued into the 'food' category...

Food in Korea could be better, could be worse.  There are certain things I have already fallen in love with (red pepper paste/sauce, bibimbap, asian pears), certain things that are growing on me (kimchi, bean sprouts), and certain things that I think  I will just have to deal with (white rice, fatty meat, white bread, bottled water).

I find it really hard to find any protein, besides eggs and yogurt.  Chicken is reasonably priced, as is pork, but beef is astonishingly expensive, at almost 20$ for a pound of ground meat.  

Apples are great here, but kind of pricey, about 5$ for a bag.

I guess I am being a bit culturally lazy and just looking for a quick meal that I'd eat at home, and hopefully I will gradually kick my western habits.

When all else fails, there is always McDonalds (about 11$ for 2 combos, not bad!).

shanghai spice burger please.

As for language, it really hasn't been too much of an issue, for most things.  My most frustrating experience has been with trying to register for races in Korea, because all of the websites are in Korean.  This past week, I got really upset, because I found a race on October 3rd that goes across the 7km bridge in Busan.  I could not find any english information about it, and was ready to give up, but I asked my friend Tracy ( one of the Korean teachers at the school) to help me navigate the site.  Not only did she translate it for me, but she called up the race director and registered Tim and me, paid for the fee, and faxed in our information.  I could not have been happier! It turned out that she called on the last possible day for registration.  Thank you Tracy Teacher!

Week 3 of teaching in Korea flew by like ' woah'.  We actually only had 4 'real days of work and on Friday we attended a 2 hour meeting with all of the new teachers at the Corem chain of schools in Busan.  This was a great excuse to not teach kindergarten for the morning, meet some new people, and hear other new teachers complain about the exact same things I have problems with.  Even if there is not much hope of things changing, it's nice to know you are not the only one who feels frustrated with some aspects of the job.

We got to see our friend Christine, and a couple of other teachers that we have met along the way. Most of the teachers are from Canada, with a handful from Australia and the UK.  Obvi I am biased, but I can't help but wonder how the Aussie/English accent comes across to kids who don't know english.... 

While we were at this 'meeting', (which was pretty much a venting session), the kindergarten kids were having a Birthday Party Day at school.  Since birthdays are not a huge deal in Korea, at the school they hold a big party every month for the kids who were born in that month.  Kids here actually use a different age system which makes them 1 year old when they are born, and one year older every lunar new year. 

Here's a link explaining it better than I can:

asian age system explained

The theme for the party this month was Chuseok, which is the Korean Thanksgiving holiday in September (or October, depending on the moon).  All of the kids were dressed up in their Hanboks, traditional Korean costumes, and they were super cute.  I was sad to miss the party, but we will be able to see it next year, because it will be just at the end of our 13 month contract.

Eileen, Kelly and Joy 

When the week was over, we spent part of Saturday cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, then decided to venture up into the mountain behind our apartment, up, up, up the mountain ( Jangsan ).

I was SO happy to finally be around some trees, and nature, and to not smell any sewer-ness wafting through the street grates ( not a common thing, but not pleasant either).

Tim showed me the way up through the Dong's steep and windy streets, and into the trails on the mountain side.  There weren't too many Koreans out hiking, but we ran into a few, decked out in their vests and full hiking gear.

Near the start of the trail was an outdoor gym with benches and jungle gyms and stretching stations.  This is pretty typical in Korea, and an awesome idea, I think.  It TRICKS you into working out, cause it's so much fun! Also it's outside, so you can pretend to be Arnold on Venice Beach. Kind of.

a PB lift

As we trekked up the mountain we were pretty cocky, and thought we'd reach the peak in no time.  We took some side paths to do some bouldering (fun, really hard, kind of scary) and were rewarded with some amazing views of Busan.  After some time, and ending up in the bush, we decided to give up for the day and we headed back down the mountain, stopping at a bakery for some tasty treats, of course. 

Saturday night was a write-off, and on Sunday morning I headed out to the gym, hoping to do a treadmill run as I have been feeling a bit wheezy running outside.  I got up to the 7th floor only to find the door to the fitness centre locked!! Choking back tears, I managed to find out through sign language from the front desk staff that the fitness centre is closed until THURSDAY for Chuseok! That's five days!  I was not happy, but don't really have the language skills to ask for 5 extra days on my monthly membership so I just ran up the hill to Venice Beach.

Sunday afternoon, we were lucky to have Randi, another foreign teacher at our school, take us on the subway to Nampodong, a giant market near the Jagalchi fish market, close to downtown Busan. 

It was an awesome afternoon, though I didn't buy anything, there is definitely lots of opportunity to spend money there, if you are willing. It would also be simple to get lost, but we had Randi navigating so, no worries. 

After browsing through counterfeit sunglasses, Northface tshirts, and Adidas track suits, Randi took us to a 'new' restaurant that serves Kongbul, a dish that comes to your table on a grill, with a mountain of bean sprouts, sauce and lean-ish pork.  The staff cook it for you at the table and you eat it with rice, of course. MAN! Was it good! I was hesitant when I saw the bean sprout mountain, but after it cooked down, it was def. a tasty dish. I thought I might faint from the spice, but I couldn't stop eating it. 

This meal cost us 18$ for 3 of us.  Good deal.

garden on a plate

Clearly, I had to wash this down with something sweet, so I bought a waffle treat from a street vendor. Amazing. 

While I was enjoying this, a Korean university student came up to the three of us and asked if we could help him with a school project.  We agreed, and each of us had to pose for a picture doing an extremely angry face.  Strange but true story.

We continued on to the Jagalchi Fish Market, which was a huge building selling nothing but creatures of the sea.   A pretty incredible place... as long as you are careful not to slip on the squid/octopus lying on the ground. 

We made our way home after this, then Tim and I continued our exploring at the Shinsegae department store in Haeundae.

Shinsegae is actually certified by the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's largest department store.  It has a lot of high end stores, like Prada, Chanel, blah blah blah and a big grocery store on the main level.  We managed to find some maple syrup from Quebec and some frozen fries from PEI. Only 20 bucks for the maple syrup!

We'll be back to Shinsegae because Tim is set on taking me skating at the indoor rink.  I scoped it out and know I would easily be the best skater in there.  I'm no Bob Seymour, but I can hold my own in an Asian skating rink, I'm sure. 

As of now we are on vacation until next Monday, due to Chuseok.  No big plans for the week, but I hope to go see a temple or two and maybe go back to Nampodong and actually buy some junk.

I have registered for TWO races, one on the 3rd, that I already mentioned, and another in Gyeongju, (the ancient capital of Korea) on October 17th.  There are a few in Seoul that I'd also like to do. 

I cannot physically type anymore, so that is all for now, thanks for listening, keep fit and have fun!!

xoxo

(gossip girl)