The Christmas time blues

Instead of sleeping in and doing whatever their little hearts desire, kids here go to hagwons over winter break.  This means I get to make more money, yeee!  Since our hagwon is on the small side, we held an open house everyday this past week for the parents looking for places for their kids.  The thing most parents were concerned with was that all of the teachers looked too young to be experienced in teaching.  It's certainly insulting from the teacher's standpoint but you can't really blame them, no matter how idiotic their way of thinking is.  Korean students are known to have the highest proficiency test scores in the world but what's that good for?  It just shows they can study.  The biggest problem with teaching these kids is that they don't know how to think for themselves or think critically.  They expect you to just hand them an assignment so they can do the work and then ask for more.  When I told the parents that I teach in a more American, relax and laid back style, they looked concerned lol.  How do you expect kids to develop intellectually by force feeding them material?  Some parents responded well and thought it was a good idea but for the most part, they wanted a strict, force feeding teaching method.  I just told them what they wanted to hear but in Mr. Kim's class, you're going to have some fun ^_^  I'm teaching debate, something I don't know that much about, but it shouldn't be too hard.  Plus, the teachers that I have co-teaching and helping are really cool so it should be fun for the kids.
    I met all the teachers that work at the hagwon for the first time this week and I loved all of them.  About half of them have stayed or studied overseas so communicating in English is no problem, I just mix Korean and English.  Everyone has been really fun to talk to and we all mesh really well.  Finally, I have some people to hang out with lol.  It's a cool feeling to be part of a developing business too, you feel like you're contributing a lot to the growth of the institution.  The director has been taking care of us so well, buying us meals on days where we work for a while and just being like a father figure.  It makes for a comfortable working environment.  We're like a little hagwon family :)
     It's Christmas time here but I don't have any plans :(  I miss all my Craigs back at home but Skype helps ease the sting of loneliness haha.  I'm sure it'll be a lot better next year.  Thus far, I can picture myself living here in Seoul if I had a good job and what not but I don't think I could survive without my friends.  If only we had a teleportation machine invented already, that would really be daebak (awesome).  Things have been going well so far, two more months of freedom until I leave for basic training.  I heard it was damn cold in February from one of the teachers (he did government service like I did after training).  Guess I gotta suck it up, huh?  I'm a little sad too that I have to do my service right after I met all these wonderful people.  I'll still teach there, just at night or on weekends but still, it's a damn shame, damn shame, Mr. Kim.  Not much more to say.  Hope everyone's healthy and staying safe.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Years, we'll be together soon :)  Love and miss y'all.
~JK

Quick update

    Just a short two months away until I ship off to basic training.  It'll probably be the closest thing I get to being an actual soldier but I'll take it.  After 4 weeks of that I start my government job at the Han River Business Administration or something (really don't know what it actually translates to from Korean).  Teaching is solid, I quit the third job to enjoy free days during the week.  My student at the hagwon is preparing to leave for Canada in a couple of weeks so I won't be seeing him until he comes back for summer vacation.  I'm about to teach one of my uncle's kids guitar, which will be fun.  What else...I've been going strong for the 2 months that I've been here but I still miss the states from time to time, though not as much these days.  My mom's coming in on March 4th, yeeeee.
     Today I went and bought some Christmas cards to send back home.  If you don't get one, just know I sent one in spirit form because I love everyone, also I probably don't have your address >.<  After that, I intentionally took a subway line and got myself lost in the city so I could walk around and blast some tunes.  It's pretty damn cold these days and I love it, but there hasn't been any snow yet.  I'm now sitting inside a quaint cafe writing this.  Sorry but the cards will probably arrive a day or two after Christmas, that's what I get for procrastinating.  I'd send gifts too but then I'd probably go broke from the shipping costs ^_^ , I'll just wait until it's birthday time.  Also, I found out that I might not be able to use my vacation days from the government job to visit the states or go outside of the country for that matter, so I'll just see you folks in 2 years.  Can't wait for summer since WinCraig is coming to visit and possibly Ross and his friend.  I'll probably be living in my own place by then so it'll be nice.  If you can visit me, you definitely should.  It's crazy fun here, good food and drinks, and lots of sights to see.  If you like backpacking, there's a ton of mountains to go hike too.  Well that's about it, until we meet again my chingoos (friends), love and miss y'all.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

~JK

First night out in Seoul

     Twas a fun night folks.  My friend Jeff, who I've known since 3rd grade, came up to Seoul from Busan for the weekend.  We went out to Hongdae, which is basically just street after street full of street vendors selling clothes, food, and bars.  We sat down for some coffee before we went out to eat.  One thing about Koreans you need to know is that they love to eat and drink while doing it.  We went to a Korean barbecue place and had ourselves some derricious pork accompanied by a couple bottles of soju and 20 oz beers.  The grate we grilled on had a groove in it that went all the way around on the outer edge which is used to put this egg, scallion, and kimchi mixture in.  It's called Gae-ran Jjim, yummy.  After becoming sufficiently tipsy and full, we headed to our next stop.  It was a really dark cafe/bar, really similar to Hugo's.  The ambience was great, only lit by candles.  We ordered a bottle of rose scented/flavored soju and I ordered myself an IPA.  The soju was out of this world, tasted like nothing I've ever had, magnifique!

IPA, this one's for you Ross!

What you know about that rose soju, hater?

  By this time, we were plenty intoxicated, but in true Korean fashion we soldiered on to our next destination to imbibe.  By the way, pretty much all the places we went to had food for you to order so you could eat while drinking.  We walked into an old cabin looking tavern.  Ordered a couple bottles of traditional Korean rice wine called Makkoli along with an order of seafood pancakes.

Makkoli out of tin bowls and seafood pancakes!

  My favorite part of the night was talking with Jeff in Korean since we both kind of suck at it...well him more than me, but you know what I mean.  Surprisingly Jeff's Korean isn't as bad as I thought it would be, it was quite entertaining.  By this point I'm feeling REALLY good, but we stopped at another place.  This place had privacy curtains for each booth where customers sat.  We ordered a pitcher of strawberry soju with a bowl of fruit as our anju (food you eat while drinking, kind of like bar nuts, but better :)).

Pitcher of soju

Big ass bowl of fruit and ice water

Doneskis.

     While drinking we longed for the company of some ladies, so we were prompted to shout "Agassi!" (means something like hey girl) in hopes of attracting some girls to join us.  Didn't work lol.  Drunken jackassery, but I was enjoying myself so I didn't care. Along the way we met a couple of Norwegian chicks and Jeff tried to get them to join us.  They declined but said we should go to the club they were headed to.  I didn't care, I kinda just wanted to drink, ya know?   Seeing that Jeff and I are both Asian, we have an intrinsic love for karaoke.  So what kind of night would it be if we didn't stop by a noraebang (karaoke room, in Korea, you and your guests get your own private room.  Baller status, I know ;) )?  In all of our drunken glory and shamelessness, Jeff and I proceeded to belt out some of our Korean favorites.  To end the night we got some street food.  Fried food dipped in spicy red rice cake sauce and odeng (fish cakes and broth).  We parted ways as I got into a cab for a 20 minute ride home.  By far the most fun night I've had since I've been in Korea but there's no way I could do it all the time.  Maybe if it was less intense and I had more friends in the city to do it with.  Anyway, it's nice to have  a friend from back home here in the same country to meet up like this.  Thank you, Jeff, for my first hangover in a couple of months!  Below is just a shot of what the streets in the part of Hongdae we were in looked like and some other randoms.  Nothing too exciting besides that.  I'm really missing Christmas in Arkansas and I wish I could fly back just for the holidays but as you already know, I can't :(  Have fun for me guys, wish I could be there.  Until next time my Fayettevillains, love and miss y'all.

          ~JK

                                                    

                                                          Crowded streets of Hongdae.

Eating street food with noona.

Dinner with my student.  Spicy chicken with melted cheese and gaeran jjim.  He threw up after we ate because it was too spicy lol.

Downtown Gangnam in Seoul.