Closing One Chapter and Starting Another

It's hard to say whether anyone is visiting this site anymore since it hasn't been updated in a month. I am alive and well- enjoying my current adventure but I am missing Korea. I thought long and hard about what to do with my blogging and with this blog and then I decided I wouldn't feel right to keep posting here. It pained me to think that my Korean memories would be bumped further and further into oblivion with each new blog entry so I have created a new blog. You can visit it here and I hope you do. I also put a link on the sidebar for the new blog: Amber of the Moment. I'm working on documenting my travels through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia but it might be sporadic depending on the internet access I have available.

I plan to write a reflection on Korea once I've had some real time to reflect on it. That means there may be another post or two over here in the future. Going to Korea was one of the scariest, craziest, bravest and most rewarding things I've ever done. I feel like I'm closer to the person I want to be. Through the good and the bad I am so fortunate for having two years in the Land of the Morning Calm. 한국, 난 널 사랑해! (Korea, I love you!)

Saying Goodbye to my Best Friend

Here's the final picture of us in Korea.

The best thing that I gained this year was my friend Min Jung and so saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing to do hands down. In my life at least, it's rare to make such a solid, unconditional friend so easily and I really miss seeing her and chatting with her every day. Here are the last pictures we took in our apartment and in Korea. Min Jung spent time with us until we got onto the airport bus and I cried so much saying goodbye that the bus driver almost left without us (and with our luggage under the bus already)! People ask me if I will return to Korea someday and I have to say that if Min Jung decides to stay there, then I most definitely will be back so I can see her. (Don't get me wrong, I made tons of awesome friends! I just worked side by side with Min Jung and became incredibly close with her. I am thankful for all the wonderful people in my life!)

Saying Goodbye to my Students

So it's over- I'm no longer Amber Teacher. Strange to think but no, I am not interested in becoming a teacher in Canada. I like my students well behaved with limited English skills. Less backtalk that way. Hahah. I took a few pictures of students on my last day but this one was my favorite. Look at mischievous Kangmin!! I'm going to miss that little terror! I knew he was doing this too (click on the picture to see). My last day was much easier emotionally than Little Brown. I didn't even shed a tear and I was frantically busy for pretty much the entire shift. Also I was proud of myself because I didn't punch any of the douchey management. This is a bigger accomplishment than you think.

I had a few highlights to my last day- one being that I broke the "serious" rules for once and totally let my favorite class watch a movie instead of reviewing their boring lessons for the 14th time. One boy was so adorable because he was like, "We must keep our books open on our desk so if wonjongnim (the principal) walks by he will think we are studying". Sneaky! It was great though.

Matt decided to order pizza for his last 2 classes of the day and so he had them delivered right to the classroom. There were 5 and they were massive so he gave one to me- the trouble was, I was finished my classes except for my Korean Mom Class. The 3 of them (one is in the US for a vacation) showed up with a pizza and a huge cake! So we spent our last class eating, chatting and giving away pizza to anyone willing to take some. It was excellent. My year with Little Brown was all about my students- I still think of them often. This year was way more about friends and colleagues and so that is who I am really missing. I'll have to write a real reflection post on my life in Korea, maybe when I've had a little more time to process it.

500 Posts and our "KNC Christmas Party"

This is the Little Brown Blog's 500th post!! I feel like I should be toasting with champagne or something. I guess Fresca will have to do. I decided to use this post to talk about our final hurrah- the staff Christmas party that Eddie organized. It was disappointing that more people didn't show up but those that did had a fantastic time. It's hard to get people together when your employers spend all their time and effort trying to alienate people and spoil their relationships. However, Eddie is awesome and a really positive person (they really don't deserve him) so I hope that his influence will help bring some changes over there. Lord knows, they really need it and none of the management is going to do it.
But this isn't about how crappy KNC Hyunjae is (it's really crappy- I can say that now that I am not on payroll) but about how cool our staff made Christmas party was! We all met up for a late dinner of galbi and beer (I stayed away from the soju- yikes!) and then basically went out for more beer and then more beer and norae bang. It was also our last norae bang and I wish I hadn't been still so sick so I could have sang better and more. Oh well. It was a great night and you can see all the scandelous pictures here. I'm really going to miss these people- they are fabulous! Thanks for the great send off and memories!

New Glasses!

One thing I had to do before leaving Korea was take advantage of cheap prescription glasses. Especially considering that there were lots of year end sales that made them even cheaper than usual! I ended up buying 3 pairs of glasses and a bunch of contacts (which aren't cheap but I needed some) for TOTAL $225. Can you believe that? In Canada it is impossible (or very difficult) to purchase one pair of glasses for that price. It's a crime.

So here they are- it's hard to tell them apart but the top left pair is black with white on the inside, the top right is grey, the bottom left is the brown ones I've had for awhile and the bottom right is red. Fun! Maybe I should have bought some crazy ones but I wanted some that looked nice too. I just bought from one place so I was limited with the selection they had. Bottom line, if you are in Korea and wear glasses- go buy some! The most expensive pair were the black ones and they were $55!

Froggy Humidifier!

This is the cutest humidifier I've ever seen. I found this at a Baskin Robbins of all places. I have to admit, the competition for cutest humidifier wasn't very steep since most humidifiers are not cute at all.

Free Fish Cakes

So I am going to attempt to finish documenting our last weeks in Seoul before taking off on our next adventure. First up- the tiny cheap diner that we frequented had a customer appreciation day of sorts. I happened upon it by accident and the ajummas that work there spotted me and grabbed me. One of them had the male owner take a picture of us together and then she pushed the crowd aside so that I could get my hands on some free fish cakes on a stick. It was a bit odd and there was a massive crowd. I love how people have absolutely no shame when it comes to taking multiple free samples. They will park themselves and their kids right front and center and pop 25 free samples in their mouth. They do it at the grocery store too- they will eat all of the samples even if there is a line of people behind them. Funny for a culture where, otherwise, they always seem to share food. Anyway, here's a couple pictures of the chaos. I hope that the picture they took of me ends up on the picture wall. They made the best dolsot bibimbap there!

Greetings from Canada!

Hello Readers (if there are any left)!

I'm writing a short post to say that we made it safe and sound to Canada! We both suffered the most intense jet lag (it took me a week to sleep semi normally) but we're doing better and really enjoying our time with my family and some of our friends. I have things to update about our final time in Korea and hopefully I will get a chance to do that later this week. I'm almost at 500 posts so that is exciting! I am still thinking about what to do with this blog. I think I would like to continue blogging but I am considering starting a new blog for my life after Korea. Stay tuned for that. Until then I am counting down to our travels through Southeast Asia. We have a flight booked to Bangkok for January 20th and we will return to Canada and try to become grown ups on May 21st. Happy Belated New Year to everyone! I hope everyone is happy and healthy!

Love, Amber

(P.S. It's my birthday on Thursday!!!)

We Leave Tomorrow

It's just past 8 am and I can't sleep any longer. There is so much to do before we go and I am shocked that our flight to Canada is tomorrow. I still have so much to blog about but that will probably have to wait until we're in Canada. I feel like there is electricity running through my veins in lieu of blood. Yesterday we headed to Bundang to drop off some stuff for Dana and Curtis and today we have to tie up all our loose ends before heading to work for our final shift. It's completely surreal. I've been thinking a lot about what will become of this blog after we leave the Land of the Morning Calm and I think I might start a new blog but we'll see. I like blogging but will my life be interesting enough to document without tiny Korean children, Konglish and random free stuff? We will have to see. But now I need to jump in the shower and finish packing and then get to the bank to transfer all my money to Canada. Please wish us happy thoughts for safe travels and no delays/disasters tomorrow! Love to everyone reading this!

Lotte World

On Tuesday we went to Lotte World. It's strange that we haven't been there more (we went once last year and once this year) because we literally live less than 10 minutes away from it. I had thought about getting a year pass but never got around to it. We chose to go on Tuesday because it was a bit warmer and I was feeling better (I've been sick for about a week now). We also thought it would be less crowded since it was a weekday. This turned out to be false since most kids are on winter vacation so it doesn't matter what day of the week it is. Oh well.

The best ride was also the first ride we went on- the Gyro drop. I'd been on it before but forgot how scary it is. I actually screamed a genuine scream and had to close my eyes for part of it. That thing is high up! I could almost see our apartment from the top of it! We wanted to go on it again but we figured it would be open until the park closed (11 pm) but as it turned out it was only open until 8 pm so we missed out. How disappointing!

As anticipated, the lines were long so I was glad that I brought my Nintendo DS to help pass the time. Matt and I took turns using it and we also sang along with the Christmas music they had playing everywhere.

Highlights included:

• Matt "playing" the ball game when there were no employees around.
• Looking at the Mexican restaurant that sold mostly pork cutlets.
• Glaring at annoying teenagers (mostly boys) that kept trying to cut lines.
• Laughing when one of these boys tried to cut line and instead smashed his head on the ceiling.
• Reading funny graffiti and signs.
• Seeing tiny kindergarten children and having one of them yell "Hi Teacher!" at us (we don't know these kids).
• Lots of rides.
• The crazy Christmas parade with the Korean dressed up as a Mountie and the fake soap sud snow falling on us.
• Riding the carousel and feeling like a kid again, especially when they put the safety strap around my waist.
• Ending the night by riding on the hot air balloon around the park with a family that spoke English.

If you want to see all of the pictures you can look over here. It was a great day and we were definitely exhausted when we got home and paid for it the next day when we were so sick we couldn't get out of bed. It was worth it though and possibly the best thing we did on our winter vacation this year.

Merry Christmas!

We're having a really low key day. We've both caught a death cold which has basically rendered us unable to leave the apartment for the last 2 days. Here's a picture we took on Tuesday when we were feeling better (compared to the weekend). We paid dearly for that epic Lotte World odyssey though since Wednesday was spent entirely in bed. Don't fret- technically the timing is good since we have the time off to sleep and try to heal before our flight next week. I can't imagine trying to work like this. Anyway, I hope that everyone else is having a fantastic Christmas! We love you all! I know that the lack of Christmas will totally be made up by a kick ass New Years Eve and then fabulous family time until we embark on our 4 month travel adventure.

Can You Read It?

My lovely Min Jung stopped by yesterday for lunch (brave woman since we are both really sick- I hope she didn't catch our death cold) and she brought me the most excellent present ever. This is something I have been coveting for a very long time. It might not look like much to my average reader but it's actually a name necklace. My name in Korean! I love it so much! It's so perfect and I am just giddy about having it. Thank you Min Jung, you are an angel!

Funny, funny...

Here's the Christmas card I was tempted to get everyone. It's paired with possibly the rudest socks I've ever seen. Yep, that red part actually sticks out of the sock. (><) And why does the panda have an apple on it's butt? What kind of crazy panda fetish socks are these?!? No! I am not happy, panda!

Snow!

We aren't having a White Christmas in Seoul but we did get snow on Monday night. It's all melted now but it was lovely to look at for awhile. I hear that the weather is really crazy across Canada and the Northern USA so I hope that things smarten up before we fly out on December 30th. My idea of an awesome New Years Eve isn't being stuck in the Seattle airport praying for my connecting flight to Edmonton.

An Evening in Insadong

After we sold our precious books for peanuts we decided to go to Insadong to complete another task on my "must do before I leave Korea" list. You see, I've always admired han bok and there is no way that I am going to buy one so the next best thing is to rent one and take pictures. You can do this at the Tourist Information Centre in Insadong for the bargain price of 3,000 won/person.

Unfortunately the selection is slim and the jacket that actually went with my skirt didn't fit me properly. I didn't want to change the skirt though so imgaine that my jacket is equally as stunning and gold, not pink. There was only one male han bok so it's lucky that Matt is average size. What do you think? Are we Korean royalty or what? Or does it look like I'm wearing a giant, silky mumu?

We spent some more time walking through Insadong and enjoying the sites. There is always something unusual or interesting to see in this neighbourhood. Look at this picture. Look closely. There's a trumpet, some swords and... hmmm... what else is hanging for sale at this booth? Hehehe.

Then we went to various stores to look at the lamps that we love but can't buy. Maybe one day when we have a lot more money. These lamps are made COMPLETELY from paper. Mulberry paper, I think. Of course the electrical stuff isn't made of paper but the base and light covers are. Despite being made of paper they are surprisingly flexible and sturdy. We could have bought a small one and brought it back to Canada but Matt and I both agree that the ones we really love are large and would be incredibly expensive and hard to transport. So one day when Matt is a successful lawyer I will be returning to Seoul to pick up our dream lamps.

The nice thing about Insadong is they are used to a lot of tourists so they gladly let me take a million pictures of all their products. Actually, at one point a saleswoman came over and I thought I was going to get in trouble but then she offered to take our picture by the lamps!

A Sad Task

We had to whittle down our book collection before we go back to Canada. Later I'm going to try to figure out how many books I read this year (yeah, I probably should have kept track better... oh well). I can say with confidence that it was a lot more than last year so that means I met one of my goals for this year.

Keep in mind, this is just the stack we decided to get rid of (although that was really tough since I enjoyed a number of these books a lot but it's just not realistic to bring them to Canada) and it doesn't include the stack that we've already sent to Canada in a box or the stack that we still have in our closet. Yikes!

We went to What the Book to try and get something for them which turned out to be not much at all. This store is amazing for finding books but since they are the ONLY used English book store (that I know of) in Korea they pretty much can screw you big time when buying books. Pretty depressing and there was probably a better way to go about it (say giving the books away but most of my friends have read these books since many were book club choices) but we are getting close to the wire and needed to unload them.

I ended up using store credit to pick up two books that I have wanted to read for some time: Flowers for Algernon and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I just finished reading The Tesseract (it was fabulous, thanks to Eddie for giving it to us) and have started Flowers for Algernon. What can I say, it's winter vacation and we are both pretty sick. I've got the worst cold I've had all year so even though it's vacation and Christmas I have spent the majority of my time lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. My goal is to get better before we fly to Canada. I already am making a list of the books I want to read next year. I am totally looking forward to living in a country where every soft cover novel doesn't cost $20 and where libraries exist.

That last post made me think of this...

This is completely non sequitur but whenever I hear the word 'jjigae' (pronounced jee-gay) I always get this song stuck in my head. Just replace the word business with jjigae. This actually works for almost any 2 syllable word but I am partial to using jjigae. Man I love the Flight of the Conchords.

Gimchi Jjigae with Mi Eun

After work last Friday I had a dinner date with my lovely friend Mi Eun. Originally Kyung Hwa was going to come too but unfortunately her mom was really ill so she had to cancel. It was a bit cold outside but that didn't deter us from walking to Sincheon area. Mi Eun knew a famous gimchi jjigae restaurant and so we decided to go there.

I have to admit, I probably would never have gone to this place on my own. It didn't look like much- was really small with plastic covering the outside. Once we sat down I was a little surprised when one of the workers came up and told me in perfect English, "It's a bit spicy, is that okay?". I assured her that it was and then noticed that eyes seemed to be on me. We soon got a huge steaming pot of jjigae that also had pork in it. It was really delicious, but pretty spicy. Maybe the spiciest jjigae I've had, actually. It's good that I had this meal now and not 2 years ago since I wouldn't have been able to cut it then. I was fine though and didn't mind the pleasant burn on my lips.

We had a fantastic meal and great conversation. Mi Eun is really cool and sweet and I hope to stay in touch with her. She gave me a gorgeous diary/day planner and it's got artwork on it that I've admired the whole time I've been in Korea. I wouldn't have bought it myself so it really was the perfect gift. I love the characters that this artist draws. How did she know? See, I told you she is cool and sweet.

Partway through the meal I realized that a lot of the other people in the restaurant were paying attention to me. Specifically a girl sitting to my right. I was pretty sure that she spoke English and was itching to talk to me. I was the only foreigner in the restaurant and from the feel of things I could tell that not a lot of foreigners eat there. Sure enough, when it suddenly started to rain the girl beside me took the opportunity to lament about the strange weather with us. I knew she spoke English. Apparently a few people in there did since before I knew it there was an umbrella being handed to me and then one scrounged up for Mi Eun too. It's moments like these that make me never want to leave Korea. When I'm back in Canada no one is going to care if it's raining and I left my umbrella at home. Mi Eun said she was happy to be with me because otherwise they wouldn't have given her an umbrella. Heh. So with that we left and I walked home untouched by the rain, smiling and singing Christmas carols.

My Last Mandu Party

Garrett Teacher was uber kind and surprised me with a going away mandu party at work. There was so much food! It was really delicious and all the kids were jealous. I don't think we managed to finish it even with half a dozen people helping us eat. I'm really going to miss mandu, oh, and Garrett Teacher too! ^^

An excerpt....

Sometimes teaching English can be hilarious- like when you come across passages like this. I'm not sure why this was chosen or who thought it was appropriate but I think it's funny. I always giggle when the student reading character B realizes that they have to claim this person is their uncle. Then I cringe because then they have to say they need to diet.