Short and Sweet

Well, it's Chuseok, and you all know what that means... 'kay, most of you probably have no clue what that means, which is just fine. It's kind of like the Korean Thanksgiving over here right now, or will be starting tomorrow. We get every day but Monday off this week, so Shannon and I are heading over to Japan to see what how much of the country we can cram in during a 5 day trip.

It's almost starting to feel like "home" here in Korea, and every day that passes leaves me a little more accustomed to the things that were once so strange and bizarre. I'm getting used to eating the bones (and sometimes head) when served fish at lunch, I almost miss it when Koreans don't come running up to me to say "hi" when I pass them on the street, and wearing garbage bags on my feet is something that just has to be done now and then. Oh yeah, I should write about the garbage bags here quickly.

The elementary schools in town have a big city-wide English competition, which most of the Canadian teachers will coach the students in. We had no student going, but I was told I'd be going anyway. So, the day of it comes, I'm driven to this other school, however there's nothing that resembles a competition here at all. After 5 or 6 tries to figure it out, I finally learn from the Korean teacher with me it's a "seminar" (nothing at all to do with the compeition). So, for the next 4 hours (4 hours!!!) I listen on how to be a better teacher. All in Korean. There was a 50 minute English class workshop, but it was 75% Korean, and the discussion afterward was all Korean as well.

Oh right, the bags.

Since this was at a neighbouring school, no one brough slippers with them, and you can't wear your outdoor shoes in the school. What to do... why not garbage bags tied to your feet? I thought it was the silliest thing you could have done, yet here are all these Koreans in suits and ties etc. with garbage bags on their feet. It was like visiting hour at the Howard Hughes residence.

I heard it's snowed at least once in Calgary lately, which I bring up only because I slept on a beach last Saturday. Korea has some really nice beaches around, and we went to this one that looked like a picture from a Californian tourism magazine. Except it was completely desserted. There was about 2 dozen people on the beach, and a baptism congregation. The town? Well, I saw more stray dogs than people, and our attempt to find a hotel room was rather ridiculous. We found at least eight hotels, however none had any staff at all to help us. We finally managed to find our way into one, but the onwner, or possibly a random guy who found some keys, was so drunk and showed us the nastiest smelling room imaginable that we decided to skip that idea and sleep by the water.

I tell you, Koreans will do things when it's time to do it, but soon as the time's past, not at all. When the beach season ends, no one even thinks of going. Every local we mentioned to that we were going to the beach asked us why and said, "too cold, beach season over."

Anyway, gotta run now. I'm 20 minutes from my holidays, and I should probably say goodbye to my teachers and principal. It was suggested I buy them presents (?) but I think I'll settle for just giving them a handshake.