문정웅 무에타이 체육관

 Wait, what??? Why is the title in Korean? Did you just randomly decide to type in Korean because your keyboard at work is in Korean? What does this mean??

No I am not fluent in Korean, although I am taking Korean classes and improving steadily (although at a very slow pace). However these words represent a key component to my life here in Korea!

Soooo.....have you guessed it yet? What if I show you this picture...

Hmmmm...working at a furniture store?  Good guess!

Still no? Well that is the walk to the place that I go to every day.

Ok, what about this...(Its almost the same words as the title of this blog post!)

Hint: Look at the picture.

Alright now it makes sense! This is the name of my Muay Thai gym! Moon Tiger Muay Thai.

From the doorway, mitts, thai pads and jump ropes on the opposite wall.

Around 5 months ago now, I tagged along with a friend of a friend to her Muay Thai gym. She told me that I could participate in one intro lesson and then I would have to decide if I wanted to join the gym or not. Right then and there. Pressure was on!

Junior, the No man.

At first they had me at the beginning mirror. Then I slowly worked my way through with many "No"s, compliments by Junior, the younger of the two instructors. The older instructor- Who we three foreigners affectionately call SAM, short for teacher/uncle- is very kind and likes the laugh. Often at me as I do strange things or pull weird faces because I have no idea whats happening. Every class is structured along the same line, so this is what I do on my average evening after work!

1) Stretch (practice counting in Korean)

2) Jump rope sets (3 of 3 minutes each)

3) Some kind of group or partner activity, such as monkey in the middle, frog jumps over everyone else in the gym, sprints, burpees, or anything to get the blood pumping.  Unless its Thursday, then we generally skip to number 4.

4) Shadow boxing at the mirrors. We just practice the most recent combinations we learned or warm up. It's pretty lax and depending on what we're learning we can use the punching bags in the back, or use it as an excuse to chat and get water.

It's nice to have a fan.

5) Combination work- we either work on a specific combination or punch/kick. Everyone of all levels is in in one class (as the gym has one room), so SAM just tell certain people to do certain things. It all works out well, and everyone is very good about demonstrating a move if I don't understand exactly. Usually SAM will come up and explain at length in Korean with movements. I just nod along and look serious so he feels that I understood, and then I promptly turn around to a foreigner and say, "ok, so he said I should do this...right?" He laughs every time.

6) Practice rounds! Time to get with a partner and punch it out! A fun learning adventure, I have learned how to say, "good" and "more power," my Korean now is very use oriented. I still get my lefts and rights confused, but that happens in English too, so I ignore that minor fail (except when I forget that I'm left handed and start my jabs with my left hand...oops).

Hard training!!! SAM on the far left.

7) Final strength training (For Thursdays ONLY). Depending on who runs it, it can be brutal. Thursday's are usually the toughest days. At the very least it will be 50 squats, 40 sit ups and 30 push ups, repeated four times.
 At most it can be....handstands? Intense rounds of burpees, jumps, rolls and punches? Push ups on a fellow class member's sweaty back? Tabata rounds? Sprint sets combined with fast punches at the bag?  Hard to remember all of them, but those are the highlights. At the end of stamina traning,as we call it, this is what we look/feel like.

Charity, another American, exhausted after SAM puts us through our paces. 

On a field trip to watch a match in Ulsan, our guy won!
From LtoR: SAM, Charity, Me, Rizza, Captain (not his real name)

I got new mitts, and they're pretty!

What's fun about this gym is that it is small and made up of mostly Koreans with us three foreigners thrown in for variety. The students are all different ages, ranging from 10-60. We stand out, of course, but all the regulars know who we are and don't mind our spontaneous mid-workout dance sessions (Really, dancing and Muay Thai have a lot in common, SAM

Pretty boy and Rizza, trying to out-do each other...again

doesn't really agree, ah well). Everyone is very friendly and helpful and we are all comfortable with the language gap. Some are better at English then others, and it makes for some very interesting conversations that take place in a mix of English, Korean and pantomimes.  It's a fun way to release any tension from the day and get a good workout! Even though the class structure is generally the same, the people, instructor and workouts change, so it makes it interesting and fun to go to!

Some people say I gym too much, but I think its dedication. It's also really fun to just laugh when someone gives you instructions in Korean, you both pause, and then say in the respective languages, "Well that didn't work at all!" And try to communicate all over again.

The gym has become more than just a place to workout; its become a safe zone to relax and experience Korean culture without feeling self-conscious about being foreign. Often-times its hard for foreigners to get to know Koreans on a more than superficial level and its been great to break that barrier with so many Koreans at the gym. I know that whenever I trudge up the four flights of stairs, listening to the timer and the sounds of thuds and sometimes yells, I know that its going to be fun and interesting time. We tend to give our friends at the gym English names, and generally speaking, they hate the names. But, its funny and otherwise we don't remember their real name (Incredibly insulting, I know), but they are good natured about it. Here are some examples of our friends, out at a BBQ restaurant to celebrate my birthday not too long ago, yummmm.

New additions to the gym group, Chip and Dale (two friends, Dale always makes faces)

Charity and Sanghee (or Jessica, she's the only one who gets to keep her Korean name for the most part)

Pretty boy- for some reason he really loves vegetables!

Sanghee, Ahgi (which means "Baby" in Korean), and Chic. 

This is my gym in a nutshell! It's been a really big part of my first 6 months in Busan and I hope that it continues to be.

No Cheating!! My first Open Class.

One of the very first things my coteacher Mihye solemley told me when I first arrived was that we would have an open class once a semester. I wasn't entirely sure what that was in the beginning, but I figured it would be one of those things that I would find out about in time.

An open class, as I discovered over time, is a special class where the principle, vice principle and parents are invited to observe the classroom. This might seem like a fairly routine drill, but here it is a very stressful and important day. Teacher's are expected to prepare a near perfect lesson and execute with precision. The principle and/ or vice principle may observe for only a few minutes, the full class or not even at all. You may have many parents, a few or none at all. It all depends on the school. The teacher is then evaluated on their performance and depending on how well or poorly the principle deems their performance, the teacher will receive a grade. So to sum it up, its like a final exam for teachers.

I was told right away that our open class would be April 10th (a Thursday, 3rd period), and that the homeroom teachers (non-specialty teachers such as us English, music and art teachers) would have their open class earlier. I didn't think on it too much, as Mihye told me that this first one would be more about her performance than mine, and the next semester will be more about my performance.

Then I saw what happened at the school when the homeroom teachers had their open classes. The halls were silent and there was a distinct tension in the air as the parking lot filled with parents cars and teachers were dressed in their finest. That was when it dawned on me that maybe I should take the open class a bit more seriously.

6-2 weeks before the open class:  Mihye and I bounced some ideas around and planned our lesson far earlier than any other lesson. i presented her with some ideas, she took them, modified and then typed up a formal lesson plan for the class. For those curious, the subject was, "Whose umbrella is it?" working on possessive pronouns with the most rowdy class of fifth graders (naturally).

1 week before the open class: In the week preceeding the class we did a talk through and tried to work out any kinks that could come up (such as the students being confused that we decided to switch roles for certain parts of the lesson and specific phrases and body language used to introduce the activities). Our open class period was set for the 3rd period of the morning, so we would have two chances beforehand to practice the lesson and troubleshoot any weird things that came up. All the specialty teachers were set to have open class at the same time (Why, I don't know, it would have sense to have them at different times so that the principle could feasibly watch all of them, but far be it for me to attempt to understand the logic in the system) so the principle would come around for just a few minutes each class.

Week of open class: Every day those of us preparing for the open classes would ask the others how they're doing. It felt like the run up to a concert, where everyone could be seen practicing and fine tuning every element of their routine. Finally the day before we did one more talk through/calm down and reminded each other to wear nice clothes and we were ready to go!

Night before open class: For those who have ever lived with me (or worked/studied/existed with me) know that I love to bake things for special occasions. This was no exception so when I discovered that my Korean class was cancelled, I rushed to the store and got supplies to make fudgey brownies for all the specialty teachers. It's always nice to have a pick me up and now my apartment smells like dark chocolate, so I'm not complaning.

Day of open class: the walk to school behind the horde of high schoolers was the same.

However, as soon as I walked into the building and onto the English floor, I could feel it. The tension! All of us were dressed in our finest (interesting to note that we all wore black and white, or in Mihye's case, all black), and somberest outfits, ready to meet the parents and principle.

The English ladies!

The first two classes went alright, but with a few bumps. We ended up running out of time in the first class and the students showed their true colors of being cheaters in the lost and found game.
So the third class, our open class, we felt ready. The parents filed into the back (all three of them) and we stood around watching the students meander in. For some reason a group of girl students decided this was the day to ask me about my ear piercings. Technically speaking I'm not supposed to wear them at school, but as no one has directly told me to take them out, I keep them in. So I sighed and pointed out my piercings for them while they giggled and I just hoped that the mothers in the back couldn't speak a word of English and were potentially impressed that their daughters were speaking English with the teacher.


Brownies, ready to be eaten!  Well, kinda

Then class began. Unfortunately for us the students were not on their very best behavior, but at least it wasn't their worst. Mihye did the introduction this time and then we did a short little role play for them to guess what they were going to study that day. After some minor interruptions by the vice principle and principle opening and closing the doors too many times (they only stayed in the room for about 1 minute before leaving again), the class ran smoothly. The students did end up cheating on the game at the end, big surprise, but the reviews from the parents were glowing. They said our classroom looked fun and that the students were engaged in active learning. Yay!
After that we were so relaxed that we just waltzed through the last lesson and I almost forgot to go to my other classroom for my extra class.
All in all, the open class build up lead me to feel very let down by the lack of actual stress and pressure the day of. All and all, open classes are nothing to be feared, for any potential Korean public school teachers. It's just another teaching day after all! The only thing that was extra special were the brownies that we ate too much of at lunch, yum!

Oh and after school ended some of us teachers went out for dinner and drinks, it was a nice way to end a weirdly non-stressful stressful day!

My fellow English teacher is on left in the front, the others are specialty teachers.



Quick, take a million pictures with the cherry blossoms!

Even before the cherry trees were in bloom, everyone was talking about them. When they would bloom, if the local festivals would be timed right for the blooming, if it will rain and ruin all the flowers and potential selfie shots etc. Springtime here is marked by an obsession with getting as many selfies with the cherry blossoms as possible. If the cherry trees were a celebrity, they would be on the Beyonce level A list status.

To be fair, the trees are beautiful to look at and are everywhere. So when they do bloom, it is worth it to go to one of the many sites with lots of trees or to one of the many festivals celebrating spring and the arrival of the shy natural celebrity, the cherry blossoms.

The hill at Jinhae that you could walk up and get a nice view.

It was a beautiful sunny day, full of trees and lots of Korean couples, matching head to toe (in many cases) and holding selfie aparatuses for their phones in order to take the best selfie couple shot with the trees. We wandered around sampling food and taking a million pictures and walking until we couldn't walk anymore.

Map of the festival site with all of the major photo highlights. Everything was within walking distance.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures of my day trip to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival!

All of us waiting in the excessively long line to get on the bus to Jinhae.

Lunch break! Roasted pig, so good!

Entrance to the love bridge walkway, can you see the crowds?

Walking along the love bridge

One of the bridges that span the stream

Mandatory selfie with Sarah, my apartment mate!

 



Ice cream cones! Yes they look strange...

Chocolate and vanilla ice cream! Cone tasted like cereal, interesting combo.

Cool umbrellas!

Yes, it's necessary to have cotton candy larger then your head

strollin along the stream.

Cherry blossoms! As if you haven't seen enough yet.



We sat and massaged our feet while watching a tradition fan dance

 

Before I wrap up this post, it is necessary to talk about Couple Tees. It is quite the trend in Korea for couples to show their togetherness by wearing the same clothes. Some do it more than others, but it is there nontheless. Not all couples do it, but those that do are very proud of themselves. I decided to take pictures of the best ones, so here are a few (Obviously none of the couples posed for these pictures, so these are moderately creepy, but I'm sure they would've posed had I had the time to ask!).

 

Examining their latest selfie shots with the cotton candy.

Walking along, notice the different pants, but same shirt.

Is she wearing a belt? Sweater, short, pants combo complete.

Ahh the end of a glorious, cherry blossom filled day. I think I have had enough cherry blossoms for the year.

The Unexpected Day of Exploration and Bargaining

The Korean school year is dotted with many holidays, just like schools in the US. There are national as well as local holidays. The strangest holiday to me is the school specific holiday...the school's birthday! Yes, that is a holiday. To commemorate when a school was founded, the entire school gets a day off. Some schools, if the traditional birthday date falls on a weekend or national holiday, will move the birthday to allow for more days off. There are rules here, and then there are rules.

My school's birthday has already come and gone. It was a Thursday and so I decided to use the day to do some of my own exploring!

I decided to go on a shopping trip in the Nampo-dong area of Busan. This is where the Busan International Film Festival is held annually in the fall and is also the site of the fish market (which I discussed in my post from the orphanage). This area is also known for its excellent street food and shopping!

Typically I use the subway as my means of transportation, but a friend of mine told me of a bus that would get me there faster, so I decided to give it a try. The buses here come every 3-10 minutes (depending on if they are city or village buses) and typically go along routes that the subway doesn't go. I take the 40 bus line every day to school, but if I am running late I can take the subway and walk (or run) a little extra. Most foreigners chose not to ride the buses typically because they either don't know where they go (a valid fear) or are scared of dying in a bus accident.




Subway doors broken open, never fear, there is a guard two feet away to tell you not to jump!

Now before you say, "Are you afraid of dying every day??? Get off the bus and take the subway!!" I want to let you  know several things. 1) I have never been in a bus accident here 2) I have never seen a bus accident here 3) In the rules of the road that define Korean driving by their practical nonexistence, the bus always wins any street battle. This means that if a car and a bus are headed for the same spot in the road (happens all the time) the bus will always win and go ahead while the car tries, fails, falls back, and honks loudly. So, I am not really afraid of dying on the bus, but now I feel like I can surf better because it is always a balancing act trying to hang onto the rail and not fall into the person next to you every time the bus jerks to a stop or start.

But back to the real story. I took a new bus and subsequently missed my stop. Understandable as a foreigner and so had to switch to the subway to go back and make it to my final destination. I began my day by exploring the underground shopping mall in Nampo-dong. This is an extension of the subway line and is a bunch of stores that seem to go on forever. I learned that you can buy anything from school supplies, to hiking gear, formal dresses, shoes, lingerie, food and watches in that shopping center. There is also an excellent water fountain where you can sit and people watch. But be warned! Generally it is full of older people who will most likely glare at you if you attempt to sit on the edge of the fountain with them.

Afterwards, I took a break and sat by this beautiful water fountain in the upscale Lotte Department store.

Beautiful water fountain.

Then I decided enough was enough, and I needed to go out to the open air markets and buy myself a pair of tennis shoes and a wallet.

I wandered up and down the as yet uncrowded small side streets (it was still early for the post work crowd to come out). The streets were lined with covered displays of the inside stores and down the middle was a line of "restaurants" I wish I had taken a picture, but they are small sit down places that mostly older women own. You can sit there and order very traditional Korean food and have a sit in the middle of the shopping area. Very convenient and a project for when my Korean improves to full on sentences.

My first purchase-a wallet- went smoothly. I pointed, he told me the price (conveniently written in English) and I went on my merry way.
The second purchase was a bit more complicated. I walked into the store and saw a display of shoes. Now, Korean feet are much smaller, and so the sizes tend to be too small (and they don't have as large of an array of sizes, chances are if you have larger feet they will attempt to wedge your foot into a shoe the size of your big toe).
I greeted the shopkeeper and wandered around looking for a suitable pair of basic walking/exercise shoes. I picked a pair (pink and grey, anyone who has seen me exercise is not surprised), and asked to try them on. She sat me down and looked around for my size, which took a while (she of course had to tell me I have big feet. By Korean standards, yes of course, but really, size 8 is not too large I think). Once she did she pretty much put them on for me and had me walk around while she oohd and ahhhd (killer saleswoman over here). I then asked how much and she told me 30,000 (=$30). I thought, no way!! I had seen a pair exactly like this for 10,000 (=$10) back in the underground shopping center. I thought, well, time to bow out gracefully and get that other pair now that I know what size fits (245 in Korean is roughly size 8, in case anyone reading this needs to know). I said no and thank you and stared to bow out of the store when she stopped me and said, 25,000??
Again the same process happened. I said no and began to leave smiling, then she dropped it again, 20,000??? (=$20).
Sigh. Even though I knew it was double what I would've paid in the underground store, I decided to just go ahead and get them. In the end, $20 for shoes isn't bad and I really didn't want to make her upset as she was starting to get irritated with me for practically stealing them from her. That is how I accidentally bargained for the first time in Korea.

yumm bubble tea

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, got myself a Hutuk dessert at the street food area and a bubble tea. Delicious! Then it was back home to relax for the evening. The unexpected holiday ended up being a wonderful day of solo exploration and success.

In case you forgot, this is hutuk, even better then donuts in deep fried deliciousness.

Entering SmartLand

As some of you may know, I did not have the first world luxury of a phone for the first month of living here. This is because once you arrive you have to register yourself as a legal foreign resident and one of the snags is that the wait time to receive your critical Alien Registration Card (or ARC) takes about a month. This time may vary, depending on when you arrive in country, but the beginning of March is problematic because it is the start of the academic school year (similar to September in the States).

The one immigration office in Busan that services all foreign residents in the area had to process about 100+ new EPIK public school teachers, all new foreign exchange students, other foreign teachers, workers and renewals of ARC cards of less recent residents. So the fact that it took a month get a card was not a shock to me and I was prepared for it. However, that did not make it any less comfortable. Getting together with friends entailed frantic Facebook messages, agreed upon times and the mutual agreement that if anyone didn't make it there within a 10-30minute window, were going to be left behind. I'm sure all of those reading this who lived the majority of their lives without cellphones (I'm ignoring the smartphone generation who are probably horrified that I lived without a smartphone for 5 minutes let alone over a month) are probably laughing. It's fair, I would be too. In fact, it's what made the first month that much more entertaining.

Oftentimes in the morning I would awkwardly stand by the Paris Baguette (a popular bakery chain) and steal their wifi to send myself pictures from my now mostly useless iphone (although it is a nice ipod now). There is no wifi in my apartment (I will be getting myself a router with my next paycheck) so I felt pretty grounded, but oddly liberated from all aspects of social media.

Well, being that I was fairly off the grid for a month, the need for a fancy smart phone grew stronger as pay day and ARC card date approached. It all happened so fast, but I finally entered SmartLand!!

Random snacks that kept appearing the longer we sat there. Oh and my phone!

Another foreign friend and I headed to a store with a newly made Korean friend. We spent almost two hours in the store with three friendly store clerks, trying to figure out how to set up accounts for us. We just sat there and obediently handed our ids, bankbooks and deposit money to them and ate random snacks as they all figured out the details of our smartphone fates. In the end we both decided on the Samsung Galaxy S4, which has just been surpassed by the S5 which is already out in the States.

Now I finally feel like I can fit in with the locals! Well as much as possible anyways. People openly carry their giant phones in their hands while walking on the streets, on the bus, subway, grocery store, anywhere. Pretty much if you have a hand, you have your phone in it. Even the ancient Ajjumas (the old women who look so small and frail that they could blow over at any moment but who will elbow you into submission in the fight to get on the subway) will whip out their smartphone with more deftness than my younger cousins back home.

The thing around his neck that looks like a camera? Phone. Old lady? On her phone. Old man? On his phone.  

Here it is not rude to sit at a table and text, cruise the web, watch tv shows or play candy crush. Ok that game is played too much here, really. These phones are pretty much pocket sized computers, they seem to be much better quality than the ones that are available in the US (or maybe it's just the fact that EVERYONE has a recently produced smartphone). My phone battery does not last long, but I am making up for lost time and social media-ying to my hearts content. I can also text/call anyone from the US for free using KakaoTalk, so feel free to send me a message and I will add you as a contact! You can download it on your ipad, iphone or any other smartphone.

Now it is official, I am living in SmartLand.

Go ahead, pick any giant phone you want.

Seokbulsa Temple in pictures

A picture is a worth a thousand words, and I have probably written about that much so far. I think you deserve a break from , and I took enough pictures of this first hike for everyone to get the idea of what it was like. But, just in case, I'll add some details here and there along the way. 



Welcome to Geumgang Park! If ever there was an amusement park for the outdoors (aka a giant park), this would be it. 

Traditional houses and artifacts, oh and Tom and George, who are above such tourist traps.



No park is complete without a rabbit enclosure!

Found the cable car ride that takes you up the mountain, so the hike was shortened considerably. 

Found a viewpoint! Be sure to note the way the Koreans enjoy the view...with beer and a nap on the rocks. 



We enjoyed the view by staring at it... 

...and by taking pictures of ourselves looking at it, how artsy. 

We hiked across the mountain and found a wall, so we climbed it and then documented dutifully. This is Jenna and I posin' for a girls only picture. 

Our stomachs got the better of us, on to lunch! The mountain was dotted with small restaurants, so we picked one, pointed at the menu and this is what we got. Oh I would've taken a picture before we ate, but I was to hungry, so imagine what it really looked like (hint: barbecue chicken). 

There were also a bunch of these small tennis courts, which the Koreans used as kick volleyball. There's Zach trying to play, it didn't work out too well.  

Of course when you are hiking, you need to take breaks, feel free to use the outdoor exercise equipment.



How are you supposed to use these again?

Jenna having a blast on the... walking machine? No idea really.

Water break! Let's climb this random rock. Jenna, Tom, George and Zach (left to right). 

Great, now how do we get down?

Ah here is the Temple!

Beautiful view of the mountains (yes, here they are called mountains, what we in Washington call foothills). But think Mt. Cy status of steepness combined with Mt. Rainier paved trails and traffic.

Look how far we've come!

Group picture, taken by a bicyclist, so impressed that he made it up the mountain!

Second group picture, our photogrpaher wanted one of us at the temple entrance, definitely felt shorter in this one.

Beautiful outer temple.

Look at those reliefs carved int he rock!

View from the upper temple, the previous rock reliefs are to the left.

Taking a break at the top to admire the view and the silence.

View between the rocks

On the way down, after a friendly chat and a snakc of roasted chestnuts with older (and slightly tipsy) Koreans, we found a soccer court! Time to play soccer!

The hiking trail turned into a village road which then turned into a major highway and we found our way back to the subway station. All and all not the most strenuous of hikes, but a nice day of meandering through the mountains. I've heard that in general the hikes in Korea are very difficult, so be on the look out for more posts on future hikes to find out the verdict.