Weekends in Bucheon, Korea

We have always been intrigued by this, and have finally taken part of the festivities; for every Saturday and Sunday that we have been here, the street between Bucheon City Hall and Jung-ang Park (Central Park) has been blocked off to public traffic, and some sort of mini-celebrations take place. We're never sure of the cause for these festivities, but we've always been thankful for them; the streets are easier to cross without cars getting in the way, and a lot of food stands open up right beside our house. What's most interesting about these festivities, though, is that, in the place of grown-up cars, little kid cars flood the streets. Shops that are open only on these weekends open their doors and rent out their minicars. This weekend we finally rented a couple of these cars, and zipped around like it was nobody's business.

The cost of renting these cars isn't all too cheap, though. Ten bucks will get you half an hour. They take down your name and number, you pay them up front, and then they tell you how to ride; you accelerate by pushing the button below your right handbrake (which doesn't brake anything), and you brake by using the left handbrake. Watch out for the little kids, though. They have their own slow-moving cars, and they never check their blind spots before changing lanes/swerving all over the road. As well, you're limited to driving on the streets only, which is a little upsetting, because we wanted to drive through Jung-ang Park as well. By the time they told us this we had already paid, and didn't want to ask for our money back, even though we were disappointed. But still, zipping around in these cars was a whole load of fun. Finally, when your half hour is up and you bring back your car you get a free can of soda. So cool! Unfortunately, Simon got a can of Pocari Sweat, which is another drink we should have put on the "Odd Korean Drinks" post. It's like Gatorade, except saltier, and so it was really, really, gross. Anyhow, we made a video of us on these cars, so click on the picture above to see it, or watch our video on the Streets of Bucheon, Korea here.

But that's not all! We've got more to tell. What doesn't happen every weekend, but just this weekend for some reason, is the full-stage setup in the streets. When we first walked onto the streets there was Karaoke going on, as someone was singing Muse's "Starlight," which is massively popular here (it was sung a few more times during this event). A small crowd gathered in front of the stage to watch the performers. We think this might have been a high-school talent show of some sorts, because everyone on stage was pretty young. The stage wasn't limited to singing, though, because dance-crews were on stage showing their stuff as well. It started early on in the day and went well on into the night. We caught some of it on video, so click on this picture or here for our video on Bucheon's Public Karaoke.

But wait! There's still more! In front of the stage were very many stalls set up. In one of them was a public face-painting. In another, you could get your face on a 10,000 won bill. In a third you could get balloons! Martina loves balloons! When we came up to the balloon stall, some funny things happened. For some reason, the people running the stall were tying as many balloons as they possibly could to plastic lawn chairs. Again, we weren't sure why they were doing this, but by the time we got there five or six chairs had at least 40 balloons on them. What makes this so silly is that the person responsible for tying the balloons would try putting on around 20 balloons at once, instead of one at a time. And so, there were a couple of times that he slipped up, lost his grip, and sent swarms of balloons into the open skies of Bucheon, Korea. When this happened everyone around the stall would hoot and holler. We were more interested in taking pictures of the event, though, and so Martina took a bunch of really pretty shots. Click on the picture of her jumping to see them all, or see our Weekends in Bucheon photoset here.

Korean FAQ

We realize that a lot of what we say in this blog isn't really useful for living or teaching in Bucheon, Korea; we just like to document all of the weird and exciting things that we find along the way. And so, to try to rectify this, we have set up an FAQ section that could potentially answer some of your questions with potentially useful information. This is still a work in progress, and we plan on continually updating the FAQ whenever we learn more stuff about this place. For now, it covers what we feel are the absolute basics and necessities for people who want to move to Korea. We plan on dedicating an entire section of the FAQ to Bucheon itself in the future as well, so stay tuned for that. For now, please feel free to contact us if you have any more questions you'd like for us to answer, and let us apologize in advance if anything we have said is grossly misinformed. We're still new to this place, after all. The FAQ page is linked at the top of this page (and every other page) as well, and linked here as well, so check it out: Applying to and Living in Korea-FAQ

Odd Korean Beverages

There are a few unfortunate people we know who hate Korean food and can't break out of their North American eating habits. It's for people like this that we feel most sorry, because we're finding so many exciting things to eat and drink here in Bucheon, Korea, and it's a shame that they can't be as excited as we are. In fact, we would assume that most people watching this video would be grossed out, just as we were before we tried these drinks out. What we have here is a video of some of the weird drinks that Bucheon has to offer. After all, we can make lots of videos about weird Korean food and strange Korean restaurants, but how often do you see videos about weird Korean drinks?

In this video you'll see a bunch of stuff that you probably haven't seen before; we've got some sweetened Barley Milk, nostalgic Rice Drink, pulpy Aloe juice, and more! Just about everything we drank was really intimidating before we tried them, and required a lot of courage before we took the plunge. Though they're not especially delicious, we can't honestly say that they're disgusting. They're just sweet - very sweet - because it seems that everything in Korea is twice as sweet as it would be in the rest of the world. We definitely won't be drinking these things again. This doesn't go to say, though, that everything Korea has to offer beverage-wise is gross; it's just that we're not particularly fond of the rice or barley or bean flavored stuff. Anyhow, check out the video by clicking Simon's picture, or watch our Korean Drinks video right here.

Cost of Living in Korea

One of the main reasons why we moved to Korea was to pay off our debts. Korea provides a very lucrative opportunity for the both of us as teachers, and - having double income and no kids - the deal seems so much sweeter for us than for others who are coming here alone. We've also been praising how cheap everything is here, how the Korean Buses and Subways do not cost even half of what they cost in Canada, and how Korean taxis are dirt cheap as well. Eating in restaurants is also very cheap, as 10 bucks without tip can easily feed two people.

The same can't be said, however, for Korean Grocery Stores. We recently mailed Simon's father a flyer from Home Plus, and had him compare the prices of similar items from a Canadian grocery store flyer released on the same day. The results that he found were quite surprising:





All Korean prices are roughly calculated as $1=1000 won. Now here's where the disclaimers come in; neither of us are statisticians, so please don't criticize us for the flaws in these charts. Yes, we know that every week a Nintendo Wii is not going to be on the grocery bill, and - yes - we know that we will eat more than just fruit during our stay here in Bucheon. In fact, at times it is cheaper to eat out than it is to buy groceries, carry them home, and then cook with them, and clean, and so forth. The Dok Bok Ki that we prepared a while ago cost more than the Dok Bok Ki on the streets. Prices fluctuate as well. The first week that we got here Watermelons cost $18 while now they are at around $12. Anyhow, all that we can say about these two charts is that, during this specific week, everything cost more in Korea, so it's not all perfect here in Korea, though it still is really quite nice.

Cool Korean Stuff

We always have our camera with us, and shamelessly make movies of just about everything we find interesting. Here's a prime example of this habit of ours: in this video you'll find two different things that Korea makes that are much better than the Canadian versions. The first clip is of Korean coffee trays. Don't you hate Canadian coffee trays and their ugly, dense cardboard, and the tight spaces that you can barely jam your coffee cup into without spilling your coffee everywhere? Those suck. Korea has evolved past that, and have made coffee trays that make sense. The second clip is of single-serving strawberry jam - you know - the kind that you get at breakfast restaurants when you order toast on the side. They're a pain to open and they always leave you sticky. Korea has redesigned the single-serving jam packets, and made them super cool. If you want to know just how, then you should either click on the picture above, or click here for our Cool Korean Stuff movie.

Korean Mailboxes

Too many times have we heard that opening somebody else's mail is a federal offense, or a felony, or something serious, and it could land you in jail, and only very bad, bad people open other people's mail. This is why we were shocked when we saw how the mail system works here in Bucheon (and maybe the rest of Korea, for all we know). Simply put, anyone can take your mail any time they want. Your mail isn't stored in a metal box for which only you and the government have copies of keys. No way. Here, your mail is out in the open, right beside everyone else's mail which is also out in the open. You get a tiny slot half the length of a standard envelope, and the only way you know you have mail is if you see it dangling out of this slot. It makes you wonder why Canadian mail is so securely locked up while Korean mail isn't. Maybe because Korea has realized that nobody really cares about your mail, nor do they have any inclination to open it, or it could be that Korean Culture strictly forbids the opening of someone else's mail, and so they don't fear leaving it out in the open. Most of the mail we get, anyways, is spam mail. The great benefit of these mail slots, though is that if we ever get spam, we can theoretically stuff it into somebody else's mail slot and walk away. Not that we would ever do something like that, though. Anyhow, we made a video to show you what these mailboxes are like here in Bucheon, so click the picture above or watch our Korean Mailbox Video here.

Spudgy's Doggy Depression

Poor Spudgy! As you may know if you've been reading our Spudgy posts, we were taking him to the vet a lot lately (which happens to be out of Bucheon, unfortunately, and takes a big part of our day to get there and back), either to get his full check up or his teeth cleaned. During his full checkup the vet found that Spudgy had a bit of an ear infection, and so he prescribed some antifungal medicine for us to mix into Spudgy's food. That seemed to help out Spudgy's ears a bit, but it had a negative side effect: doggy depression!

We noticed (as many of you noticed, as well) that Spudgy was not very energetic, apart from when we came back home after being out for a long time. He would eat his food as quickly as possible (chewing only when absolutely necessary), and then would flatten himself on the floor and mope until the next meal. When we told the vet about Spudgy's behaviour he blamed the medicine for it, and told us about antifugal medicine's side effects. Now, thankfully, Spudgy is back to being normal. Sure, he's not energetic and peppy, but he's not laying flat on the floor all day, either. He's being curious again, sniffing around the house, and begging for attention.

We made a movie of Spudgy depressed and Spudgy normal. You'll see the big difference between the two. In the first video he's miserable; in the second he's silly. Really, we just wanted to splice these two clips together, because he's just so darn cute in both. Click on the picture above to see the video, or click here instead to see Spudgy's Doggy Depression.

How to Make Dok Bok Ki

One of the things Simon and I really miss about living in Canada is homemade cooking. We love to cook and bake, but it is challenging to do so in Korea as the grocery stores are stocked with unfamiliar ingredients, and also because eating out is so darn cheap. I (Martina) finally snapped and decided to learn some Korean cooking so that I could make my own authentic Korean food, and I went with an easy meal called dok bok ki (duck-boh-key). After a couple bad meals, I finally got it right, so we decided to do what any normal couple would do...make our own cooking show to share the news! For those of you living/moving in/to Bucheon or Korea, we’re hoping you can follow along and make some dok bok ki for yourself. If you're not in Korea and crave some Korean food of your own making, this is the video for you! If any of you want the recipe written out, feel free to contact us. We would recommend a specific recipe we got from a book if that were the case. Instead, I just Googled many different versions of the recipe, and fiddled around with it until I finally it right.

I warn in advance, this video is pretty long at about 8 minutes, and due to a single cameraman and no script, some of the talking sucks. I apologize in advance. Enjoy! To see the video click on the picture above, or watch our Korean Home Cooking video here.

Korean Traffic Directors

This is the kind of stuff we expected to see when we came to Bucheon. We thought that life would be normal here, but there would be little flare-ups of colorful and exuberant Asian culture, and that we would giggle to ourselves about how weird things are around here. It turns out that there isn't as much shock value as we expected, that everything isn't covered in stars and bright colors and anime; the women don't all wear schoolgirl uniforms and giggle incessantly and the men don't wear rocket packs. Life is just about normal here, contrary to what television has taught us. Only every once in a while do we see something silly, and its those moments that we cherish.

Last Saturday had one of those moments. We never mentioned this before, but in Korea (or Bucheon, at least) - in front of every major shopping center - traffic directors guide your car into the parking lot. What's weird about these traffic directors is that they are very well dressed, and that they bow at the cars that pass them by. There are teams of directors at times as well, with a man directing the traffic and bowing and a woman - also unusually well-dressed - in a glass booth and wearing a microphone piece. What she's saying to the now-directed cars we can't say, because we don't understand Korean yet, but we're guessing it has something to do with thanking you for coming to the store, that your service is well appreciated, and other such stuff.

Now, we can imagine that this job would become very boring very fast, and so it's understandable that these traffic directors have to find ways of keeping themselves entertained. One of these ways is by dancing out your directions. We happened to catch this on camera. Mind you that this dancing was at a very busy section, with everyone there to watch. Yet the traffic director feels no shame, and dances like no one is watching. To see the movie, click on the picture above, or just watch our Korean Traffic Directors movie here.

Korean Public Gyms

Here are a few things Korea (or just Bucheon) has a lot of: corn in their meals, new cars, buildings with different stores on different floors, small dogs, energetic old people. Here are a few things Korea does not have a lot of: obedience for traffic laws, bread that isn't very sweet, macaroni and cheese, overweight people. It's this last item on the list that we want to talk about. See, we're a little surprised. Korean Food is packed with carbs. There's rice-aplenty, patisserie shops everywhere, and uncomfortably sweet bread that should fall under the category of cake instead. It doesn't really make sense, then, that Korean people are rarely obese. They're not all ripplingly fit either, mind you, but Koreans tend to be in better shape than Canadians from what we've seen.

So what's their secret, you ask? Korean Public Gyms is our best guess. If you walk through any park you'll find a bunch of exercise equipment, instead of jungle gyms or swingsets. Feel like doing squats? How about some bench presses? Want to run on the elliptical machine? No problem! Korean parks have it all, so you have all the more reason to lose a few pounds. We videotaped these amazing parks, because we're constantly surprised when we find that the machines are constantly in use. It could just be a part of Korean Culture to constantly be active, and to stay in shape, but - whatever it is - it seems to be working. Click the picture above to check it out, or just watch our Korean Fitness Video here.

Korean Video Games

In yesterday's post we mentioned how we luckily stopped at Yongsan Electronics Market, which is eight stories of electronics goodness. We're going there again in a couple of weeks to buy some supergreat and supercheap speakers for our laptops (because listening to music on our default speakers is hardly acceptable). What we forgot to mention was what we found at the top floor of the market. We saw posters for a "Cyber Stadium" on the top floor and thought we'd check it out, and expected to find an arcade. What we found instead was the Korea World Video Games Championship taking place, right then and there, in front of a live studio audience.

This was a much bigger deal than we could fully appreciate. When we walked into the room we were in a full TV-studio, with a packed audience, huge TV-Cameras, monstrously large big screen TVs, and a table with men in suits providing play-by-play commentary (or at least, we think that's what they're saying, since we don't understand Korean. The could be talking about their favorite dinosaurs, for all we know). On either end of the table were glass enclosures, each of them holding a computer, a monitor, and a Korean guy behind them both. These two caged-off men were going head to head in a series of video game competitions. It would start with Starcraft, and go on to play Age of Empires, Counterstrike, and other games that we're not all too familiar with. The cameras would record the whole thing and display on the big screen the competitor's deeply concentrating faces along with what they see on their monitor. The cameras would point at the audience every once in a while, which is how Simon got on the big screen (probably because he was the only foreigner there, and everyone was surprised to see him). He hooted and howled and pumped his fists, which is the only acceptable reaction you can have when you're on the big screen. We made a video of the whole shebang (unfortunately without Simon on the big screen, as he was too busy hooting and howling and pumping his fist to capture it on video). Click on any of the pictures in this post to see the video, or watch the Korean World Video Game Championships here

During summer school, Simon asked every one of his students what they did in their spare time. A solid majority of the boys (around 80-90% for sure) said that they went to "pee-shee-bang" (which is Korean for "PC Room") for at least an hour everyday to play video games. These PC Rooms are everywhere, almost as common if not more common than bars, and so they're a big part of Korean Culture; heck, we've even got a PC Room on the third floor of our apartment. And so, in your classes, make sure you mention either Maple Story, Starcraft, Counterstrike, Dungeon and Fighter, or Sudden Attack, how you're great at those games, and how you could easily beat your students at those games. You'll instantly gain their respect and awe. Don't actually challenge them, though - as Simon once did to his Korean students in Toronto; they'll completely embarrass you.

National Museum of Korea

This past Saturday we went with Sasha to the National Museum of Korea in hopes of soaking up some Korean Culture. We promised her a fun day in Seoul for Saturday, and had lot planned out, including bus tours and street festivals. Unfortunately, it's still Monsoon Season in Bucheon, so our plans were all but thrown out. Simon was exceptionally mopey, and just wanted to stay home and hide from the rain. Fortunately, Martina and Sasha insisted, so we replanned our day and decided it would be best to go to the Museum instead.

We ran into a bit of a snag along the way. We took the subway to Yongsan station and wanted to transfer over to another subway that took us to Icheon station, where the Museum was located. Unfortunately the subway to Icheon was part of a special train that we still don't know how to take, so we were stuck at Yongsan station. Luckily for us (for Simon, especially), Yongsan is home to an eight-floor electronics market bonanza. Simon was lost in it for an hour or so, walking around and looking at electronics that he couldn't buy (re: not yet, at least), while Sasha and Martina had a coffee and did a bit of shopping of their own for bags and such.

We finally decided to take a taxi to the museum instead, which only set us back a couple of bucks anyways, since taxis are so cheap here. We didn't expect much from the museum, especially because of our first museum experience in the Gyeonggi Museum which was a little bit boring. We were pleasantly surprised. The architecture, to begin with, was breathtaking. We were also really happy with the contents of the museum itself, and not just its pretty design. The exhibits of Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese art and life were really interesting, and the Buddhism exhibit was really stunning. As well, we left the museum when the sun was beginning to set, and wandered around the museum's garden, which was also stunning. Altogether, we really enjoyed the museum, and would definitely go there again. We took a lot of pictures of our day as well, so click on any of the pictures in this post to see our gallery, or check out our National Museum of Korea gallery here.

How to Use the Korean Subways

We really like the way Korean public transportation (official name: Korail) works, as you can see in an older post we made on them. It's absolutely brilliant and highly efficient, and it's not like anything we're used to in Canada. To begin with, it's MUCH cheaper here in Korea than in Canada. For example, the subway or bus costs you $2.75 (last time we checked) and offers free transfers between the two. It does not allow you to transfer to the intra-city Go Buses, though, which are ridiculously overpriced themselves (an hour busride from Pickering to Brampton will set you back $8-9). Here in Korea, though, taking the bus to our schools costs us 90 cents. The subways charge by distance, though, while the TTC of Toronto just offers a flat rate, but - still - taking a 45 minutes subway ride from Bucheon to Seoul sets us back $1.30 (not even half of the TTC fare), while taking the 25 minute air-conditioned bus costs you $2.20.

What's even cooler about the public transportation system here in Korea, though, is how you can pay. Buy yourself a refillable card for $10 (or get an old one from a friend, like we did from Mark and Katrina), put on $10-50 or so, and use it until it runs out. The benefits of using these refillable cards is that they are used for many things. You can swipe them to get on either the subways, the local buses, or even the intracity buses. As well, for some special cards - like Martina's T-Money card - you can use them to pay for other things, like vending machines (which we were confused about in our other video on Korean Subways). For the subways and buses, as they charge you by distance, it's really quite smart how they charge your cards: when you swipe your card upon getting on the bus or subway, you are charged the minimum 90 cent fee. When you get off you swipe your card again. The distance is calculated, you are charged the extra amount, and the remaining balance is shown on your card. How awesome is that! Now, if you don't swipe your card on the way out, you will be charged the maximum distance, so always remember to swipe out!

We made a video explaining how the subway works, and - more importantly - how to refill your subway card when it gets low on funds. Luckily we had our friend Sasha with us as well to show you how to use the subway if you don't have one of those cards. You can buy individual tickets at the subway station, or pay cash if you're taking a bus, but it costs you 10 cents extra. Sure, that's not much of a penalty. The real penalty is not using the supercool cards! As well, the biggest problem with buying tickets individually at the station, though, is that - as foreigners - our Korean is more than likely horrible, so the ticket vendors will not understand where you want to go, no matter how accurate you think you are with your pronunciation. In that case, just bring a map with you and point to where you want to go, and save practicing your Korean for another day. Click on this picture to see the video, or watch our video on Korean Subway Fare here. The video was shot at Songnae Station in Bucheon. Other than that, check out the official Korail website if you want to learn more about how the subways around here work.

Korean Menus

Last week we made a post about Korean Food Courts and included a video about them, but we forgot to mention one thing about the food courts; their menus are completely and utterly awesome. Instead of having a laminated paper menu, they have a plastic replica of every single dish they have to offer - kimchi jjigae, sundubu jjigae, tonkatsu, kimbap and ramen, neng myun, etc. By every dish there is a tag indicating the price, the dish’s name, and its order number. This is extremely useful for foreigners here in Bucheon - and Korea altogether - because - if they can’t read or understand Korean - they can at least see what they’re ordering beforehand, and order by showing the cashier the dish number with their fingers. It’s really awesome, and should be implemented everywhere around the world. Click the picture above to see the video, or see what Korean Menus look like here.

Rubber Glove Story

A long time ago we wrote briefly about Martina’s maddening experience with buying rubber gloves. Essentially, Martina wanted rubber gloves for washing the dishes, because her hands dry out too much or some other girly reason along those lines. She bought a pack. They weren’t good. Then she had to buy another pack. No difference at all. Then she had to buy a third pack. What’s wrong with all of the rubber gloves in Korea, you ask? It could be our own fault for not being able to read Korean, or it could be HomePlus' fault for ridiculously selling only one glove at a time (honestly! Who needs only one glove, apart from people with only one hand, of course!). Anyhow, we made a video to explain our silly story, so click on the picture above for the video, or just click here to hear our Rubber Glove Story

Excited Spudgy

We’ve been receiving a few concerned emails and questions about how lazy our dog Spudgy seems. “Does Spudgy do anything?”, “Your dog sleeps all day”, “Why is it that your dog is always in bed when we’re on Skype together?”. Well to prove that Spudgy does have a silly and spunky side, and that not all Korean dogs are lazy lapdogs, we made a video clip. Sure he’s a bit gimpy from having broken hips, but that doesn’t stop him from doing weird and exciting things. The video is in two parts: the first shows him when we let him out of the cage. The second half of the video is a really ridiculous ritual he goes through after he eats. We’re not sure if it’s just a Pekingese dog thing, but it’s really quite hilarious. So click on the picture above to see the video, or see Spudgy Excited here. Oh, and thanks to the band Architecture in Helsinki for the perfect song called “The Owls Go”.

Korean Sushi Conveyor Belts

You might have forgotten about the excitement Martina felt when we first moved to Bucheon, Korea two months ago and she saw a conveyor belt of sushi. We, however, have never forgotten that day. In fact, Martina has been eyeing that sushi belt ever since, but we just never got around to eating at one. Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, we finally took the plunge. We were in Sinchon yesterday to take Spudgy to the vet to get his teeth cleaned. While he was being taken care of we wandered around Sinchon in the unbelievably scorching heat (we burned our feet, fyi). When we finally got hungry we went to the basment of the Hyundai Mall to eat (yes, Hyundai doesn’t just make cars. It makes department stores, too!). We saw the Sushi conveyor belt and knew that today was finally the day we would eat at one. Here’s how they work:

Simply enough, you sit down in front of the conveyor belt while different plates of sushi are whirled round and round. Every sushi plate offers two pieces of sushi. As well, every plate has one of five different patterns around the rim, and each pattern denotes a different price (the black and the gold plate costs 5 bucks, for example, while the blue one will cost 2 bucks). Simply take off a plate, eat the sushi, take off another plate, eat the sushi, and stack your plates. When you’re done a lady will come by and tally up the damage. We made a video explaining all this and more, so click the picture above to see it, or watch our Korean Sushi Belt video here.

How to Go to the Korean Movie Theatres

So we finally saw The Dark Knight here in Korea after waiting for it for so long. It just came out on Wednesday, and we saw it on Friday. It was absolutely awesome. Before we saw the movie, though, we decided to make a movie of our own; this one’s about movie theaters in Korea. After all, you should know how to order a ticket if you’re ever in Bucheon or anywhere else in Korea.

It’s really quite simple, and makes sense. You might be tempted at first to get into line, as is the North American way, but you’ll soon find that people bud in front of you at all times (that’s the Korean way, by the way). For both sides to meet peacefully, lots of busy places in Korea have you take a number, so grab a ticket with a number on it and wait till you’re called. Once you’re called, you’ll have your choice in seating. In Canada, you just buy a ticket and sit wherever you want. Here you have to reserve your seat numbers ahead of time. Pretty cool, eh? Anyhow, click on the picture above for the full video tour, or just watch the video on Korean Movie Theaters right here.

Korean Baskin Robbins

Sometimes when you’re in a foreign country you have to bite the bullet and try weird and strange foods that you’ve never had before. For example, there is this totally Korean ice cream place that we had never heard of called Baskin-Robbins (check out the Korean website). It serves really delicious ice-cream and it is danergously close to our apartment. It was our friend Mark’s birthday on Thursday (we met Mark during the Gepik Workshop and quickly became friends with him), so we decided to buy him one of the ice cream cakes that we have been eyeing for months but could never justify buying. The cake we bought was really cool looking with what we thought were pink marshmallows on top, but were actually ice cream squares. Needless to say the cake was delicious, but the combination of flavours was a bit odd: the top flavour was cherry ice cream, the side was cookies and cream, and the inside was pistachio. Besides the odd flavours, what’s really cool about buying any cake in Korea is all the extra stuff they give you for free. For example, if you purchase a normal cake from a bakery, they always ribbon wrap the box and put in a huge plastic cutting knife. We got even more stuff with our ice cream cake! Click the picture above to see the video, or see Korean Ice Cream Cakes here along with what we got with it!

How to Use Korean Food Courts

One of the first few videos we put up on the site was of Martina’s Food Paradise, in which she saw a conveyor belt of food and was extremely happy for it. Since then we’ve been using the food courts often whenever we need a quick snack. The food courts, though, are managed differently here in Korea than the food courts in Canada. They’re far more confusing at first glance, but make a lot of sense in the long run. In fact, the first time we ever bought food from the food courts we almost accidentally stole someone else’s meal. And so, out of consideration for potential Korean Food Court Diners, we made a video to explain how these food courts work, so that you don’t get confused the way we did. Click the picture above to watch the movie, or just watch the video on Korean Food Courts here.

How to Learn Korean

So, you want to learn to speak and read Korean? Well so do we! After living in Korea for just over two months, we’ve quickly developed the urge to understand the signs (and the menus) around us. We’re not experts yet, but here are some helpful hints we found for learning to read and speak Korean, also known as, Han-gu-go. The first thing we did was buy a really good phrasebook before we left Canada. It’s not one of those books that only has random phrases in it; it’s colour co-ordinated so we can flip to different sections easily. As well, it has a highly useful culinary reader. What really sold me on the lonely planet phrasebook (check out their website here, or just buy the book from Amazon directly) was that they explained the two different ways of saying “goodbye” in Korean, while other Korean phrasebooks we perused did not make or explain the distinctions.

Another thing that we found really useful is this chart right here. Simon’s co-teacher gave it to him and explained it as well, or else it would not have made any sense at all to us. Going up and down the left sides are the korean consonants; going across the top are Korean vowels. It’s like a multiplication table. Essentially, Korean children memorize this table, and learn the Korean alpabet that way. It’s actually quite practical when you look at it. For example, the first row is “ga na da la ma ba sa, a ja cha ka ta pa ha”; another row would be “gu nu du lu mu bu so, u ju chu ku tu pu hu,” so on and so forth. Now, this is sung in the “twinkle twinkle little star” theme the same way our “abdefg” is sung, so it’s easy to memorize. What’s really cool about it is that the first half of the song is regular consonants, while the second half is aspirated consonants. If that doesn’t make sense to you, sing it out with your hand in front of your mouth. You’ll feel next to nothing when you sing “ga na da la ma ba sa,” but you’ll feel a lot more air against your hands when you sing “a ja cha ka ta pa ha.” Cool, eh? As well, the korean alphabet has letters that kinda make sense when you read them. For example, the g-sound and the k-sound are similar, only the k has you breathe out more air. So, in the Korean alphabet, the k is written out just like a g, only with an extra small mark. In the alphabet we see relationships between letters. You don’t see that in the English alphabet.

Simon's Summer School

On Tuesday I - Simon - finished teaching my last day of Summer School. Now I just sit in the office from 8:30-4:30, doing nothing. One of those nothings for me to do is make a compilation clip of a game I used to play with my students in Summer School. They really didn’t want to be there, but had to be there because of forceful parents. So, in between classes, I would try to play a game with them that would make them laugh. The game is called “Flip Flop Kick” (yes, I know it’s not all too creative). Instead of wearing shoes in the school, I wear flip flops, because I take off my shoes from outside as a form of respect, and use the flip-flops that I bought exclusively for use at that school. One of those uses is kicking it as far as I can. Click the picture above to see it in action, or just watch the movie here if you feel like it.

Spudgy's Car Accident

Today we took Spudgy to the vet to get him all fixed up. Last week the vet merely checked him over to see what we had to do for this week. And so, after the plan was set, Spudgy had a busy day set out for him today. He had hip x-rays, blood work, an eye exam (for his bad eye), his ear infection fixed, heartworm medicine, and vaccinations. We couldn’t get his teeth and gingivitis fixed today because it would have been too much to do for one day. We’re coming back next week for that. Then Spudgy should be 100%. We would have got most of this done last week, but we couldn’t. As you saw in the adoption video, Spudgy was shaking a lot because he was so scared. We took him into our home for a week and took good care of him, and made him far more comfortable around us. Today he was far less scared at the vet, though he got very scared near the end after having his eye prodded and his blood taken and his legs stretched out on an x-ray table, to name a few things that scared the poor little guy.

Anyhow, you can see just how comfortable the little guy is with us now in this video. We made a video to show how awesome the subways are here in Korea - way better than what we’re used to in Toronto. As well, we found some pretty awesome vending machines, so you’ll see those in the video as well.

The vet that we go to is a really great vet from what we heard. We’re just happy that he’s fluent in English. He understood us and we understood him, and so he explained everything that we needed to know about Spudgy to us. From the x-rays he took and the eye examination he gave his conclusion is that Spudgy was in a car accident. Spudgy’s hips were broken in a way that does not suggest abuse. And his left eye - his blind eye - was punctured, which rules out all but the cruellest animal abuse. His guess is that Spudgy was in a car accident, and the impact to the left of his hips and the left of his eye came from that accident. Spudgy’s eye is fine now - completely healed over, but scarred over as well, and so he can’t see out of it anymore. Nothing can be done for the eye now apart from giving him antibacterial eye drops twice a day.

As for the hip, if you check out the top of the page, you’ll see that where the arrow points to his broken hip a void, whereas on the other side the bone is solid. The vet said that we don’t have to worry about it; the bone there is not as important as the bone up top, which is all around solid. The rubbing femur head, though, might be a bit of an issue. It might cause him some soreness or pain, so if we see him limping or wincing we might have to give him painkillers for a while, but this would be later on when he’s older. For now, he’s trotting along happily. What we need to do is give him lots of exercise, because his hips are weak after the accident, and we need to build up some muscle around there.

The good news came when Spudgy’s bloodwork was done. If you click on the picture above you'll see the results; bad numbers are in red, good numbers are in blue. And, as you can see, Spudgy’s got blue numbers across the board. As well, Spudgy has enough antibodies against all of the major Korean diseases for dogs, so all that Spudgy needed for vaccination was a couple of minor vaccinations (for rabies and such) and he was good to go. Even though he’s got a bad eye and bad hip he’s a healthy pup, and we’re really happy to hear that.

By the end of the visit Spudgy was pretty strung out, nervous and shaking. We took him on the subway and back home and he collapsed into an exhausted heap. We’ll update again next week once he gets his dental work done.

Our Friend Sasha

From Tuesday evening to Saturday afternoon we had our friend Sasha over. We met Sasha in teacher’s college in Windsor, and now she’s teaching in Korea as well. She just arrived in Korea little over a week ago, and her school went on vacation, so poor Sasha was left by herself in a strange city in a new country. In turn she came to our home to so she could have some company, and company she found! Martina and Sasha went for coffee everyday and chatted (in English, wow!) over cappucinos and Korean scones, while Simon was stuck at work (Martina finished her summer school on Wednesday, so she was free to play). Martina introduced Sasha to some popular Korean music and Sasha found herself smitten by one of the members of the band “Battle” (you’ll remember them from our K-Pop Music Concert post). It’s a really catchy song if you give it a chance, so catchy that Sasha and Martina are planning on kicking it back to high school styles and putting up posters of their fav boy bands on the walls of their rooms. Sorry Simon. After some good old fashion retail therapy and girlish coffeeshop giggling, Sasha headed home. Keep learning those dance moves Sasha, next time you visit I expect a fully choreographed dance off! Click the picture above for Sasha’ video, or see it here if you’re impatient.