Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I would have written nearer to the day, but it's taken me this long to de-bloat from the Thanksgiving buffet I attended. I did some research, in a desperate attempt to have some kind of feast last Thursday, and came up with two options: the $88 4-course bacchanalia at The Grand Hyatt, or the $30 buffet at a local bar named Gecko's. Despite my natural inclinations to grandeur, the pocketbook won out this time. I'm glad it did, though, because I suspect that the 4-course Grand Hyatt meal would not have offered such an abundance of food to shove in one's face, as is only appropriate on Thanksgiving.
As it was, I went to dinner at Gecko's with Daniel and John, and we had a great time. The place was fairly hopping with Americans when we got there, so I'm glad we went early. Barely pausing to throw our coats on our chairs, we rushed to the buffet line. It was a Thanksgiving miracle. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, 3 different kinds of gravy at least, roast beef, stuffed pork, teriyaki chicken, rigatoni in a creamy sauce with vegetables, salad, several different breads, and a decent dessert selection. I had only two complaints: the mashed potatoes were more like mashed potato soup, and there was no pumpkin pie. However, everything was delicious, and I was barely able to eat dessert as it was. So, no harm, no foul.
We each took heaping plates of food back to our table and dug in with enthusiasm. I couldn't believe how great it was after being here with crap food for so long. I ate faster than I ever have before! I believe I even consumed giblets, but no matter! My only regret was not having room for more. After we were finished, we could hardly walk out of the restaurant under our own power. I nearly had to be rolled to the taxi. It was wonderful...
Of course, there has been other stuff going on around here, not just gi-normous feasts. My friend Emma, from England, left to go back home. I'm really going to miss her! (But, we did plan to meet if I end up teaching in Turkey.) :-) She had a going-away party out at a latin dance club called Bahia. It was the cutest little place!
It looked like we were partying in somebody's basement. It was one small room, with mirrors on one wall, a bar on another, and the other walls had barstools or couches. In the middle was the dance floor, which was occupied by several Korean couples when we first came in. They were *amazing* dancers! I think they do dance lessons at this place, and these people seemed like they all knew each other, so maybe that's how. At any rate, I could have just watched them dance all night. In fact, they were pretty intimidating, so none of the 15 or so of us even dared to get out on the floor at first. However, once a round or two of drinks were downed, that changed. Emma and Ryan have taken lessons themselves, so they went first. After that, you couldn't hold us back. It ended up that all the Koreans left and we had the place entirely to ourselves for the rest of the night. There are lots of pictures from that night, so I'll only post a few of the best and a movie clip or two.
Do you remember me talking about my friend Kane, from New Zealand (the one who sings really well and looks like Justin Timberlake)? Well, he was in a contest out at a local Canadian bar, for the best acoustical singer. He has so far been in one heat, and he won it. My last day on the job (December 8th) is the finale. So, we'll all be going to cheer for him.
Work has been kind of crazy lately. After I turned in my notice, I expected to be punished by being given the crappiest classes. Well, the first schedule I got was for 24 periods of "Grocery Store" class in one week. This was RIDICULOUS. We were very busy, so it wasn't the amount of classes in dispute, but rather having 24 of the same one! Working at this job, one feels enough like a robot without having to do 7 of the exact same class in one day. It's frankly unacceptable when we've all taught 15 or 16 different classes since we've been here and can therefore be rotated through any of them. We had a big clash on this subject in our weekly meeting (or shall I say, *I* had a clash with one of the head teachers). Turns out a lot of people got scheduled that way (it wasn't just me being punished). We were all pissed. Scheduling like that is just sheer laziness, in my opinion.
Anyway, the following week (last week) was totally slow. I taught only 11 classes total!! So, it was a really nice break after 24 Grocery Store classes. :-) Unfortunately, this week and next (my last) are chock-full of classes. Thankfully, our boss took our complaints to heart (slightly), and so I have Grocery Store and Nature class this week, instead of just the one. Plus Nature class is strictly a sitting-on-your-ass Powerpoint presentation class, which makes a nice change from Grocery.
I do have some very encouraging news to share. I have been busy applying for teaching jobs in Turkey, and have now gotten some emails requesting phone interviews! In fact, I have an interview this evening with the best school I applied to. I'm so nervous!! I don't have specific interview times scheduled yet with the other schools, though. I'm kind of waiting to see how it goes with my interview tonight. God, how I hate interviewing. So, please wish me luck!!
OK, my break time here is almost over. Time to teach Grocery to a bunch of no-English-whatsoever kindergarten kids that are in for the day. Boy, I can hardly wait!
Talk to you soon! (And see you soon, too!)
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Damn Hard Work
I am almost too exhausted to be typing this travelogue! This week I was asked if I would be a teacher for the "Special Intensive Program", this new thing YBM is doing to make more money for themselves. The program has three sections: conversation, reading comprehension, and creative writing. There are three levels of students: low, intermediate, and high. And it is a big commitment for the teachers, because it's 6 classes a day, while the regular teachers will likely have maybe 4 or fewer classes a day. But, I was told that I could pick the subject and level of students, so I said yes to high level creative writing. Unfortunately, when it came down to it, all teachers had to teach all levels. And the low level kids are REALLY LOW. Team 1, the lowest, can barely write their own names. I was assigned to teams 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, and 15 (the next to highest).
I was terrified for the first day of teaching, because I knew that team 2 was going to be a real challenge (our special classes didn't start until Tuesday, so I had already heard from teachers on Monday about what a nightmare some of the low teams were). I could hardly sleep the night before; I just kept dreaming of how horrible it would be. The theme for the day's writing lesson was description. I was supposed to open the class by having a student come up and everyone has to describe them. Then, they had to look at these densely drawn pictures of different "worlds" (think "Where is Waldo"-type drawings), and describe them in terms of people, animals, plants, and things.
Fortunately, it didn't go nearly as badly as I thought it would. Team 2 was able to understand the basics of description, like color and size, etc... So, the day was not as scary as I had imagined. Wednesday was Poetry day, which could have been a horror, but surprisingly was not. I managed to get them all to write a simple poem. Here is the poem I wrote along with them:
I have a cat.
He wears a hat.
He likes to cook
And read a book.
His tongue is cherry.
His nose is very
Pink.
After I wrote that poem with one of my morning classes, I read it to all of my subsequent classes as an example. Every time I read it, I would laugh at the end, and they would look at me like I was eating my own boogers. No one appreciates real art anymore... :-(
Anyway, today is "Write Your Own Harry Potter Story" day, and it's proving to be a real bitch. As much as the kids here are obsessed with Harry Potter, they seem to care less about writing a new story about him. I'm on break right now, and I'm not looking forward to next period, when I'll have to cajole team 10 into giving a damn. But, my last two classes of the day are high level kids, and it should be fun with them.
Tomorrow is "Writing from Memory" day, and I have a bad feeling about it. I mean, the high level kids will do whatever you tell them to, but these low level kids need something else entirely. I know they're planning on doing a program similar to this once a month starting after Christmas, so they're going to be coming up with adaptations for super-low kids. I think that's a good idea! Far less stressful for the teachers...
Anyway, I suppose I should announce that I have actually decided to call it a day at Seoul English Village. I turned in my resignation yesterday, and I'm feeling really good about it. I have just decided that Korea, in general, is not the place I really want to be. I am tired of "fat" comments from students (which I haven't *really* gone into here, but believe me, it's humiliating and never-fucking-ending because we get new kids every week) and the open-mouthed (literally) stares from grown adults as I walk around town. Also, I'm concerned about my health. I've never been evaluated here to my satisfaction in regards to my stomach issues. This is enough of a serious problem for me that it makes me very nervous to sit here twiddling my thumbs about it.
So, I will be flying home on December 11th, with a swing through San Francisco to see Stephan for a week, and then into Des Moines on the 15th. I'll be home for the holidays, time enough to be evaluated by some *real* doctors and submit my Italian citizenship paperwork, and then be back out into the world hopefully by the end of February at the very latest. I've decided that my next adventure will be in Turkey, which is as close to Europe as an American English teacher can get right now. I'm really excited about going there, since Europe is where I've always wanted to be.
Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone! Take care and I'll talk to you soon!
I was terrified for the first day of teaching, because I knew that team 2 was going to be a real challenge (our special classes didn't start until Tuesday, so I had already heard from teachers on Monday about what a nightmare some of the low teams were). I could hardly sleep the night before; I just kept dreaming of how horrible it would be. The theme for the day's writing lesson was description. I was supposed to open the class by having a student come up and everyone has to describe them. Then, they had to look at these densely drawn pictures of different "worlds" (think "Where is Waldo"-type drawings), and describe them in terms of people, animals, plants, and things.
Fortunately, it didn't go nearly as badly as I thought it would. Team 2 was able to understand the basics of description, like color and size, etc... So, the day was not as scary as I had imagined. Wednesday was Poetry day, which could have been a horror, but surprisingly was not. I managed to get them all to write a simple poem. Here is the poem I wrote along with them:
I have a cat.
He wears a hat.
He likes to cook
And read a book.
His tongue is cherry.
His nose is very
Pink.
After I wrote that poem with one of my morning classes, I read it to all of my subsequent classes as an example. Every time I read it, I would laugh at the end, and they would look at me like I was eating my own boogers. No one appreciates real art anymore... :-(
Anyway, today is "Write Your Own Harry Potter Story" day, and it's proving to be a real bitch. As much as the kids here are obsessed with Harry Potter, they seem to care less about writing a new story about him. I'm on break right now, and I'm not looking forward to next period, when I'll have to cajole team 10 into giving a damn. But, my last two classes of the day are high level kids, and it should be fun with them.
Tomorrow is "Writing from Memory" day, and I have a bad feeling about it. I mean, the high level kids will do whatever you tell them to, but these low level kids need something else entirely. I know they're planning on doing a program similar to this once a month starting after Christmas, so they're going to be coming up with adaptations for super-low kids. I think that's a good idea! Far less stressful for the teachers...
Anyway, I suppose I should announce that I have actually decided to call it a day at Seoul English Village. I turned in my resignation yesterday, and I'm feeling really good about it. I have just decided that Korea, in general, is not the place I really want to be. I am tired of "fat" comments from students (which I haven't *really* gone into here, but believe me, it's humiliating and never-fucking-ending because we get new kids every week) and the open-mouthed (literally) stares from grown adults as I walk around town. Also, I'm concerned about my health. I've never been evaluated here to my satisfaction in regards to my stomach issues. This is enough of a serious problem for me that it makes me very nervous to sit here twiddling my thumbs about it.
So, I will be flying home on December 11th, with a swing through San Francisco to see Stephan for a week, and then into Des Moines on the 15th. I'll be home for the holidays, time enough to be evaluated by some *real* doctors and submit my Italian citizenship paperwork, and then be back out into the world hopefully by the end of February at the very latest. I've decided that my next adventure will be in Turkey, which is as close to Europe as an American English teacher can get right now. I'm really excited about going there, since Europe is where I've always wanted to be.
Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone! Take care and I'll talk to you soon!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Fall is in the air
Fall is finally showing its face today.
"It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life."--P. D. James
Isn't that quote just too true? Fall is my favorite season, and yet it really is mostly miserable. Cold and wet, the ever-encroaching darkness of winter. But when I think of fall, I remember the good times: changing into my marching band uniform behind a bus, choking on diesel exhaust and making jokes about dickies; crisp evenings at football games, not caring much who was winning, just enjoying clarinet conversation; going to the apple orchard, the pumpkin patch, and with freezing fingers picking out a perfect pumpkin that somehow went lopsided by the time we got it home; raking leaves as a youth, and jumping into the piles, right before coming inside for mom's homemade hot chocolate.
The foreign teachers here have been positively itching for fall to start. Up until today, we've been enjoying temperatures in the low 70s, walking around with no coats until all hours. For the first time, I had to wear a coat to and from work today, and I was wishing I had a scarf on the way home! The leaves are slowly starting to change, mostly to red and orange. We are sitting at the base of a tree-covered mountain, so I'm hoping that one day I'll walk out of my room to find the mountain fiery with fall colors.
We have a new set of kids today, about 400 of them. This is almost twice as many as we've had in the weeks of last month. We've all gotten spoiled, enjoying days where we only teach 2 classes. This week is a wakeup call to the fact that we're actually supposed to be working here! It's depressing. :-(
Of course, this melancholy might not be affecting those teachers who are teaching "Basketball", "Ultimate Frisbee", or "HackeySack". Yes, I said hackeysack. The vocab list for the "class" actually includes the word "dude". I don't know whether to applaud the realism, or cry a small tear...
I found a further dose of realism today in reviewing the lesson plan for "Medical Center" that was put together by our head teacher, Braden. (He's from California, and about my age.) In talking about how to get the kids to discuss symptoms, he recommended walking over to a kid and pretending to vomit on them, and to elicit the word "diarrhea", to walk around the corner into the pharmacy and make "violent pooping noises". I just have to say, every lesson plan here--without exception--would be improved by a recommendation to make "violent pooping noises" at some point during class. We could just blame it on the kimchi... :-)
"It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life."--P. D. James
Isn't that quote just too true? Fall is my favorite season, and yet it really is mostly miserable. Cold and wet, the ever-encroaching darkness of winter. But when I think of fall, I remember the good times: changing into my marching band uniform behind a bus, choking on diesel exhaust and making jokes about dickies; crisp evenings at football games, not caring much who was winning, just enjoying clarinet conversation; going to the apple orchard, the pumpkin patch, and with freezing fingers picking out a perfect pumpkin that somehow went lopsided by the time we got it home; raking leaves as a youth, and jumping into the piles, right before coming inside for mom's homemade hot chocolate.
The foreign teachers here have been positively itching for fall to start. Up until today, we've been enjoying temperatures in the low 70s, walking around with no coats until all hours. For the first time, I had to wear a coat to and from work today, and I was wishing I had a scarf on the way home! The leaves are slowly starting to change, mostly to red and orange. We are sitting at the base of a tree-covered mountain, so I'm hoping that one day I'll walk out of my room to find the mountain fiery with fall colors.
We have a new set of kids today, about 400 of them. This is almost twice as many as we've had in the weeks of last month. We've all gotten spoiled, enjoying days where we only teach 2 classes. This week is a wakeup call to the fact that we're actually supposed to be working here! It's depressing. :-(
Of course, this melancholy might not be affecting those teachers who are teaching "Basketball", "Ultimate Frisbee", or "HackeySack". Yes, I said hackeysack. The vocab list for the "class" actually includes the word "dude". I don't know whether to applaud the realism, or cry a small tear...
I found a further dose of realism today in reviewing the lesson plan for "Medical Center" that was put together by our head teacher, Braden. (He's from California, and about my age.) In talking about how to get the kids to discuss symptoms, he recommended walking over to a kid and pretending to vomit on them, and to elicit the word "diarrhea", to walk around the corner into the pharmacy and make "violent pooping noises". I just have to say, every lesson plan here--without exception--would be improved by a recommendation to make "violent pooping noises" at some point during class. We could just blame it on the kimchi... :-)
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Puttin' on the Ritz
From October 1st through the 7th, I enjoyed a lovely week of vacation; it was in celebration of Korean Thanksgiving, known as Chuseok. Some of the teachers had the money to travel a bit around Asia during the week, but I was not in such a fortunate position. So, I made my own plans!
My first goal for the week was to go to CostCo in search of cheese, meat, and other hard-to-find ingredients. One wouldn't think that it would ever be hard to find cheese and meat, considering that they constitute half the lineup of the average American supermarket, but here it's a real trial. Actually, it's not hard to find meat, per se, it's just hard to find beef at a reasonable price. If you'll recall, I once spent $7 on a ¼ pound of ground beef at the Carrefour. However, since CostCo specializes in bulk buying, you can get a much better deal there, specifically 2 pounds for $14. I know this still sounds unacceptably expensive, but if you look at in terms of the previous beef purchase I made, it's an absolute bargain.
Cheese is another matter entirely, because it really is impossible to find cheese you'd actually want to eat at a regular grocery store. The CostCo sells large blocks of cheese, even Tillamook brand from Oregon, a personal favorite of mine. So, I made a big list of all the recipes I wanted to cook during the week, and a correspondingly enormous list of ingredients to shop for.
Sadly, I was thwarted in all attempts to purchase anything resembling Mexican ingredients like chipotles and tortillas. Italian ingredients fared slightly better, with me actually lucking into some real salami! And I was able to get staple items like chicken stock and NutriGrain bars as well, so it wasn't all bad. I then went to the Carrefour later to finish stocking up on things like fruits and vegetables.
I was able to make Lemon Chicken and Rice Soup, which was so delicious! And a new meatloaf recipe (the one from Tyler's Ultimate on the Food Network), also yummy. I made tacos from the Old El Paso taco kit I got (only thing Mexican in the whole place). And I also made Creamy Rice Casserole, which was so filling I had leftovers for days! I didn't get to make half the things I wanted, still, it was so great to spend my vacation doing some real cooking for once. I really miss it. (I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I bought a $100 toaster oven that works almost as good as a real oven. It drastically improved my quality of life!)
The second thing I did on vacation was to take the Seoul City Bus Tour. This is a great option for anyone visiting Seoul, as it's cheap ($10) and takes you to all of the most important monuments, palaces, and neighborhoods of the city. It's really too too much to do in one day. There are 27 stops (some just being hotels) on the route, and we went to 3 of them before we were just too exhausted to continue. The nice thing is that the buses run all day, so you can get off at a stop that interests you, and every half hour a bus stops back so you can get on and continue to sightsee. We went to a palace, a type of living history museum of life in old Korea, and the Seoul Tower. It was a warm day, and we had an enormous lunch, so this may have contributed to our lethargy, but oh well!
The palace grounds were calm and elegant. There was an incredibly peaceful feeling there that made one just want to sit for hours in the shade, enjoying the breeze and some conversation. The living history museum was a bit more dull, but because of the holiday they were having some performances and demonstrations. There's a great clip on here of a guy whacking a big mound of rice into submission. Eventually the rice is turned into sticky sweet candy. We ended our day at Seoul Tower, with fantastic views of the city. It was impossible to believe that I live out in that madness.
The best part of my vacation, BY FAR, was the two evenings I spent at the Seoul Ritz-Carlton with my friend Emma. (She was going to travel to Japan with Ryan, but ended up not being able to. So, I invited her to come to the Ritz, and by splitting the costs, we were able to stay two nights instead of one!)
I've stayed at a Ritz before, but Emma never had, so it was quite an experience for her! Starting with the bellboy who took our luggage from the cab and disappeared with it ("Will he know where our room is?") to the bellboy who carried our luggage down to street level for us so that we could catch a regular cab instead of the ones waiting up at the Ritz for twice the price. I'd like to think that Emma is now spoiled for any regular hotel she visits in the future, as inevitably happens once one has stayed at the Ritz.
The hotel was just beautiful, starting with the floor-to-ceiling marble lobby. We were guests on the Club Level, so once we came in we were immediately escorted to the Club Lounge, where a private concierge checked us in while an attendant made us some tea. The Club Level is great for so many reasons! You enjoy "5 complimentary food and beverage presentations" throughout the day (believe me, we arranged all of our plans around them), although you can really go in at any time because there is only a half hour between presentations, plus you can get drinks whenever you'd like. They serve: breakfast, mid-morning snacks, afternoon tea, hors d'oeuvres and cocktails before dinner, and chocolates and cordials before bed.
My favorite part was ordering tea. It's hard to get real English tea here in Seoul, but they had it. Plus, their tea service is very pretty, with simple porcelain tea pots and cups, but cream and sugar in solid silver holders on a silver tray. Exceedingly elegant. I would have loved to have been able to steal a set, but I am not that brazen. I did manage, however, to make off with 4 small plates, a knife, and a spoon. How I missed a fork, I don't quite know.
The food isn't bad, either. It's all in small portions, but you can have as much as you want. For the first time, I tried caviar. Let's just say I won't be snorking it up on a mother-of-pearl spoon any time soon, but it wasn't all bad. Mostly just salty. They also had goat cheese, among others, and the most delicious little pastries.
The staff in the Club Lounge really makes it, though. They will do anything (within reason) for you, and treat you like an old friend. Saturday morning I woke up with a very sore throat, so when I came in for breakfast, I asked for tea and mentioned my throat in passing. Later that day when I came in for afternoon tea, the attendant asked how my throat was feeling. How nice!
Our room was great, simple yet elegant, with a nice view of the city and Seoul Tower. We stayed in the room most of the time, enjoying the cable television (we only have 2 watchable channels here at school). We got to know the room service staff quite well, even though it cost us an arm and a leg. I spent a total of about $75 on room service, for only two meals! One meal was a sandwich with fries($19) and hot chocolate ($10 for two cups worth). The hot chocolate was straight out of my youth, exactly like my mom used to make, so I considered it worth the investment. The second meal was a different sandwich and Caesar salad ($16). I know a $16 salad seems excessive, but when they wheel it in on the lovely little trolley and set it up like a table...you just feel like Pretty Woman and you could care less about the price.
We ate dinner at the hotel's Italian restaurant, The Garden, one time. It was a really gorgeous night, so we ate outside. It had great ambiance, and food. Umbrellas, dashing waiters, quiet conversation. The only thing missing was twinkling white lights up in the trees! There was a middle aged white woman sitting alone, and I wanted to ask her to join us, but I didn't have the nerve. We ended up seeing her in the elevator and it turned out that she's the director of a local English school. We could have had some great conversation with her, so I really regretted being such a chooch.
Our two days naturally flew by, and too soon we were on our way back to school. But, as if to round out our magical Ritz weekend, the security guard at school actually let our cab drive through the gates and up into the grounds so that we wouldn't have to walk so far with our heavy bags. That was the first time that has ever happened, so I attribute it to Ritz Magic.
Speaking of weird, magical things...on this past Saturday night, I went out to dinner with some friends. We started out looking for this Thai place called Buddha's Belly, but we just could not find it. So, we ended up waiting to get into an Italian restaurant nearby that was run by an actual Italian-American (this is quite rare here). While we were waiting on a bench outside, we started talking to this Korean guy (mid-30s) who was hanging around by himself. Turns out he likes to practice his English on foreigners. He kind of pissed me off because the first thing he said to me was a comment on how fat I am (I keep wishing I knew the Korean for "No shit, Sherlock."). Eventually, he started talking about other things, and it came up about how we were waiting to get into this Italian restaurant. Well, out of nowhere, the guy starts singing in Italian! O sole mio!! I couldn't believe that I was sitting on a bench in Korea, listening to some guy sing "O sole mio" and "Santa Lucia" in fairly decent Italian. Very bizarre. And of course, I couldn't get the songs out of my head the rest of the night! The food was great, though, and definitely worth the wait, even though we were seated next to some obnoxious prick from the New Jersey area who thought the whole restaurant wanted to hear about his oh-so-important business deals. Sorry, keep those impressive tales for your bored-looking Korean girlfriend.
Anyway, that's the full update! I hope all is well back home. Try not to worry about the North Korea thing. The South Koreans aren't worried at all, I promise!
My first goal for the week was to go to CostCo in search of cheese, meat, and other hard-to-find ingredients. One wouldn't think that it would ever be hard to find cheese and meat, considering that they constitute half the lineup of the average American supermarket, but here it's a real trial. Actually, it's not hard to find meat, per se, it's just hard to find beef at a reasonable price. If you'll recall, I once spent $7 on a ¼ pound of ground beef at the Carrefour. However, since CostCo specializes in bulk buying, you can get a much better deal there, specifically 2 pounds for $14. I know this still sounds unacceptably expensive, but if you look at in terms of the previous beef purchase I made, it's an absolute bargain.
Cheese is another matter entirely, because it really is impossible to find cheese you'd actually want to eat at a regular grocery store. The CostCo sells large blocks of cheese, even Tillamook brand from Oregon, a personal favorite of mine. So, I made a big list of all the recipes I wanted to cook during the week, and a correspondingly enormous list of ingredients to shop for.
Sadly, I was thwarted in all attempts to purchase anything resembling Mexican ingredients like chipotles and tortillas. Italian ingredients fared slightly better, with me actually lucking into some real salami! And I was able to get staple items like chicken stock and NutriGrain bars as well, so it wasn't all bad. I then went to the Carrefour later to finish stocking up on things like fruits and vegetables.
I was able to make Lemon Chicken and Rice Soup, which was so delicious! And a new meatloaf recipe (the one from Tyler's Ultimate on the Food Network), also yummy. I made tacos from the Old El Paso taco kit I got (only thing Mexican in the whole place). And I also made Creamy Rice Casserole, which was so filling I had leftovers for days! I didn't get to make half the things I wanted, still, it was so great to spend my vacation doing some real cooking for once. I really miss it. (I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I bought a $100 toaster oven that works almost as good as a real oven. It drastically improved my quality of life!)
The second thing I did on vacation was to take the Seoul City Bus Tour. This is a great option for anyone visiting Seoul, as it's cheap ($10) and takes you to all of the most important monuments, palaces, and neighborhoods of the city. It's really too too much to do in one day. There are 27 stops (some just being hotels) on the route, and we went to 3 of them before we were just too exhausted to continue. The nice thing is that the buses run all day, so you can get off at a stop that interests you, and every half hour a bus stops back so you can get on and continue to sightsee. We went to a palace, a type of living history museum of life in old Korea, and the Seoul Tower. It was a warm day, and we had an enormous lunch, so this may have contributed to our lethargy, but oh well!
The palace grounds were calm and elegant. There was an incredibly peaceful feeling there that made one just want to sit for hours in the shade, enjoying the breeze and some conversation. The living history museum was a bit more dull, but because of the holiday they were having some performances and demonstrations. There's a great clip on here of a guy whacking a big mound of rice into submission. Eventually the rice is turned into sticky sweet candy. We ended our day at Seoul Tower, with fantastic views of the city. It was impossible to believe that I live out in that madness.
The best part of my vacation, BY FAR, was the two evenings I spent at the Seoul Ritz-Carlton with my friend Emma. (She was going to travel to Japan with Ryan, but ended up not being able to. So, I invited her to come to the Ritz, and by splitting the costs, we were able to stay two nights instead of one!)
I've stayed at a Ritz before, but Emma never had, so it was quite an experience for her! Starting with the bellboy who took our luggage from the cab and disappeared with it ("Will he know where our room is?") to the bellboy who carried our luggage down to street level for us so that we could catch a regular cab instead of the ones waiting up at the Ritz for twice the price. I'd like to think that Emma is now spoiled for any regular hotel she visits in the future, as inevitably happens once one has stayed at the Ritz.
The hotel was just beautiful, starting with the floor-to-ceiling marble lobby. We were guests on the Club Level, so once we came in we were immediately escorted to the Club Lounge, where a private concierge checked us in while an attendant made us some tea. The Club Level is great for so many reasons! You enjoy "5 complimentary food and beverage presentations" throughout the day (believe me, we arranged all of our plans around them), although you can really go in at any time because there is only a half hour between presentations, plus you can get drinks whenever you'd like. They serve: breakfast, mid-morning snacks, afternoon tea, hors d'oeuvres and cocktails before dinner, and chocolates and cordials before bed.
My favorite part was ordering tea. It's hard to get real English tea here in Seoul, but they had it. Plus, their tea service is very pretty, with simple porcelain tea pots and cups, but cream and sugar in solid silver holders on a silver tray. Exceedingly elegant. I would have loved to have been able to steal a set, but I am not that brazen. I did manage, however, to make off with 4 small plates, a knife, and a spoon. How I missed a fork, I don't quite know.
The food isn't bad, either. It's all in small portions, but you can have as much as you want. For the first time, I tried caviar. Let's just say I won't be snorking it up on a mother-of-pearl spoon any time soon, but it wasn't all bad. Mostly just salty. They also had goat cheese, among others, and the most delicious little pastries.
The staff in the Club Lounge really makes it, though. They will do anything (within reason) for you, and treat you like an old friend. Saturday morning I woke up with a very sore throat, so when I came in for breakfast, I asked for tea and mentioned my throat in passing. Later that day when I came in for afternoon tea, the attendant asked how my throat was feeling. How nice!
Our room was great, simple yet elegant, with a nice view of the city and Seoul Tower. We stayed in the room most of the time, enjoying the cable television (we only have 2 watchable channels here at school). We got to know the room service staff quite well, even though it cost us an arm and a leg. I spent a total of about $75 on room service, for only two meals! One meal was a sandwich with fries($19) and hot chocolate ($10 for two cups worth). The hot chocolate was straight out of my youth, exactly like my mom used to make, so I considered it worth the investment. The second meal was a different sandwich and Caesar salad ($16). I know a $16 salad seems excessive, but when they wheel it in on the lovely little trolley and set it up like a table...you just feel like Pretty Woman and you could care less about the price.
We ate dinner at the hotel's Italian restaurant, The Garden, one time. It was a really gorgeous night, so we ate outside. It had great ambiance, and food. Umbrellas, dashing waiters, quiet conversation. The only thing missing was twinkling white lights up in the trees! There was a middle aged white woman sitting alone, and I wanted to ask her to join us, but I didn't have the nerve. We ended up seeing her in the elevator and it turned out that she's the director of a local English school. We could have had some great conversation with her, so I really regretted being such a chooch.
Our two days naturally flew by, and too soon we were on our way back to school. But, as if to round out our magical Ritz weekend, the security guard at school actually let our cab drive through the gates and up into the grounds so that we wouldn't have to walk so far with our heavy bags. That was the first time that has ever happened, so I attribute it to Ritz Magic.
Speaking of weird, magical things...on this past Saturday night, I went out to dinner with some friends. We started out looking for this Thai place called Buddha's Belly, but we just could not find it. So, we ended up waiting to get into an Italian restaurant nearby that was run by an actual Italian-American (this is quite rare here). While we were waiting on a bench outside, we started talking to this Korean guy (mid-30s) who was hanging around by himself. Turns out he likes to practice his English on foreigners. He kind of pissed me off because the first thing he said to me was a comment on how fat I am (I keep wishing I knew the Korean for "No shit, Sherlock."). Eventually, he started talking about other things, and it came up about how we were waiting to get into this Italian restaurant. Well, out of nowhere, the guy starts singing in Italian! O sole mio!! I couldn't believe that I was sitting on a bench in Korea, listening to some guy sing "O sole mio" and "Santa Lucia" in fairly decent Italian. Very bizarre. And of course, I couldn't get the songs out of my head the rest of the night! The food was great, though, and definitely worth the wait, even though we were seated next to some obnoxious prick from the New Jersey area who thought the whole restaurant wanted to hear about his oh-so-important business deals. Sorry, keep those impressive tales for your bored-looking Korean girlfriend.
Anyway, that's the full update! I hope all is well back home. Try not to worry about the North Korea thing. The South Koreans aren't worried at all, I promise!
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