To put things in perspective.

According to Wikipedia...

Columbia Missouri:
Area: 60.40 square miles
Population: 99,174 people
Density: 1,592 people per square mile

Suwon, South Korea
Area: 46.8 square miles
Population: 1,086,904 people
Density: 23,246 people per square mile

I love numbers. They just describe things so much better than I could. So things are a bit different here than good ole Columbia Missouri.

thanksgiving

If you know Tom fairly well, you know that one of his favorite food dishes is green bean casserole. Green bean casserole has been the classic side dish that we've always taken to any sort of potluck. So when our school announced we were having a thanksgiving dinner, we knew that we had to bring our favorite casserole dish. The problem was the ingredients.

Over the course of our stay here we've kept our eyes out for the main ingredients of our dish. About a month ago we spotted cream of mushroom soup! Surprisingly, we really struggled to find green beans, but finally a week ago we discovered canned green beans!!! Our last obstacle for our dish was the "Frenches fried onions." There was no way we'd ever find these here so after some brainstorming we decided we'd just have to make our own fried onions.

The pictures above our us making the onion rings to cut up for the casserole. Although our casserole was more primitive than normal, it was a success! It tasted great and was a big hit at our dinner. We had a great thanksgiving at GSIS.

korean sign

Freak Out!

It has been a busy week but here is a taste of the level of freak out that we sometimes see from our students. I think this is partially a joke but I believe there is a large degree of seriousness to it. An e-mail i received tonight (name changed of course):

Hi Mr. Meyer;
This is Soandso Kim and I need HELP.I haven't been getting the last few sections of this chapter, and I really want to get some help.I would stay after school if I can, but I have afterschool classes on my free days :(
And plus, I'm freaking out about the last homework check because the terrifying 'C' has brought my grade down from a high A to a low A-. So I was wondering if there's a way for me to both get some extra credit as well as some assistance in understanding this chapter a bit better. Perhaps a worksheet that I could have to makeup for the my plummeting grade? :( PLEASE help me, because our next unit test is the ONLY way I could recover my grades:(
I knew I would forget telling you about this tomorrow in class, so here I am;) Please please save this poor student from failing!

Thank you,
Soandso Kim

So the point is this: kids here freak out all the time. I chose the the name Kim because about a 20% of the kids here have the last hame Kim. That's no joke. In one class 6 of 17 are Kim.

School History

Well this past Wednesday night the GSIS boys basketball team made school history. They won their first game ever. Last year they went 0-10 as freshmen. This year they began their season with a 56-29 victory. It was pretty exciting to be a part of this little bit of history as an assistant coach. The girls team also won that day by a count of 40-6. Their game was a little less competitive.

We then played our second games of the season on Saturday (boys and girls teams play games on the same day vs. the same opponent to cut down on travel time). The girls and guys both looked pretty sloppy. The girls managed to pull out a 22-16 victory and the boys lost an extremely close game 42-40.

The caliber of play is lower than back home, probably not even at the JV level of a big US high school team. However, it is still pretty entertaining because you just never know what is going to happen. The officiating is horrible. I mean absolutely horrible. I mean worse than I can even put into words horrible. Let me just put it this way... In the girls game Saturday a girl on our team was called for traveling, not an unusual call given the skill level of the players. The problem is that SHE NEVER STOPPED DRIBBLING. I kid you not. I was virtually speechless.

Anyway. That's about it from here. 4 weeks from right now we will be back in KC. Craziness...

the canyon curse

When I went to college, Mary Kate and I became quick friends. For much of freshmen year we did almost everything together. One of the reasons I think we became so close was because we both love to go on adventures. Then through a random series of events our freshmen year we pledged that we would go to see the Grand Canyon together. Right before I got married we decided we must make this dream a reality. So spring break, junior year, we took an awesome trip to see the Canyon.

We flew down to Arizona, rented a goofy bright blue car, and lived out of that car and our tent for 4 days. We did a lot of hiking on our trip and checked out cool sites along the way, but the climax of the trip was suppose to be the Canyon. We finally made it to the Canyon in one piece, paid money to get in, got out of the car...and then we were crushed. The weather was awful! It was rainy and cloudy and so foggy that you couldn't see anything. Literally it was like a giant cloud was sitting in the Canyon. It was disappointing and sad. I am sure that we are some of the only people that have been at the Grand Canyon but couldn't see any of it (see the picture above for evidence).

Well, on our DMZ tour history repeated itself. On the way up to the DMZ it started to rain and get yucky. Although we could still see some of the main attractions, a big part of the tour was getting to stop at observatories and look out onto North Korea. And what did we see? Nothing. Zip. Nada. That canyon curse has returned. Behind me in the picture is North Korea. There are lots of trees, villages, North Korean propaganda to spot...I wouldn't know from seeing it. That's just what we were told was out there.

the DMZ (part 2)

We woke up early and left the Sauna for the DMZ tour. In our original plans we said we'd just get breakfast on the way at a coffee shop. When we woke up and walked out of the Sauna, Korean reality hit us and we totally forgot that Korea is dead asleep until at least 9am. This is quite annoying because the earliest you can go out to get coffee (or really anything) is 9! After we beat ourselves up for being so stupid, we plotted our next step...and that was when an anomaly happened. Out in the far distance I could see the lights on in some sort of shop. Upon closer inspection we realized it was a Tom N' Tom's, one of our new favorite coffee shops. Much to our surprise, T n' T's was open!!! So we started our day out right, with breakfast treats and a latte.

We arrive at the USO for our tour at 7am. They quickly got us onto a bus and informed us it'd take about an hour and a half to get up to the DMZ. Since neither of really slept well at the Sauna we used the drive for much needed naps.

Finally, after much anticipation we arrive at the DMZ. Along the way we have to go through many security check points, we got told to not take any pictures of certain things along the way, and then our first big stop was at conference row. Conference row is where you can really see a line on the ground and on one half there are South Korean soldiers and on the other there are N. Koreans. Straddling the two sides are blue meeting rooms (blue for the UN) where conferences can be held between the North and the South. We got to go in the main conference room and because it straddles the North and South we technically got to stand in North Korea. This is a picture of Tom "in N. Korea" standing by a ROK guard (Republic of Korea=south korea). They wear the shades to be intimidating. They remind me of the sunglasses my dad wore my entire life until he made a big sunglasses change a few years back.

On the tour they also took us to many check points to look out onto North Korea. Unfortunately the weather was really bad and because it was so foggy we couldn't see much (more on this in a future post). But we learned a lot of cool information and seeing conference row made the trip worth it.

Something we couldn't take a picture of was Tunnel 3. The North Koreans made many underground tunnels for infiltration purposes. The ROK's found out about it and they dug tunnels down to blockade the N.Koreans. We got to walk through Tunnel 3, one of the underground tunnels, and see what it was like. The tunnel was only 5 ft tall, so Tom and I were both hunched over for the trek through the tunnel.

Here are some things to note from our trip:

1. the DMZ is a real reminder that Korea is still at war. Although there is an Armistice, there is a serious tone at the DMZ that each side is prepared for war at any moment.

2. there is barbed wire and mine fields everywhere around the DMZ

3. there is an agreement between the north and south that only Military Police are allowed to carry weapons at the DMZ. As a result, every US soldier wears an MP arm badge even though they are not MP's because they all are mostly infantry soldiers.

4. there are ROK special forces near the DMZ that can suit up and arrive at the DMZ in less than 60 seconds.

5. north korea is creepy. this one is just my opinion.

DMZ style (the prelude)

So this weekend Bonnie and I made a trip to the DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone, the boarder between North and South Korea). The journey began on Friday night because we had to report to the military base in Seoul by 7AM so we headed up early. Our plan was to sleep in a sauna. If you read the blog regularly you might remember a post I made a couple of months ago about these places. Another perk of these lovely bath houses is that you can sleep there for free. However, they are not at all like a hotel. The sleeping arrangements consist of a 1/2 inch thick foam mat and a rectangular block of foam "pillow" about the size of a brick. Regardless of the sleeping condition it is cheap; 5 to 10 bucks a person at most.

Like I said our journey began Friday night when we headed up to Seoul. Usually it would have taken us about 1.5 hours to make it to our destination; this night it took 3. So we didn't get to Itaewon (part of Seoul) until 9PM and then we couldn't find the sauna we planned to stay in. We went to a nearby Cold Stone to sooth our frustrations. As we sat in Cold Stone we noticed across the street that there was a building with a sauna logo on it (looks like a little steaming pot). It wasn't the one we were looking for but it would work.

We decided to pay for access to the jin-jil-bong, a coed section of the bath house, with the hope that we could sleep in the same area. They give you special pajamas to wear so they know you paid for it, which is kind of funny because the only people in the room are wearing pink or blue pajamas. Anyway we go soak in our respective bath houses and meet in the middle to go find a place to sleep in the jinjilbong. Well it turned out that the jinjilbong was kind of loud and the the lights were still pretty bright at 10:30 so we decided to sleep separately in our male and female bath house sleeping rooms.

I go to my room which was basically like a loft above the bath house (this made things very warm) with a 4 to 5 foot high ceiling. I find a little foam mat a try to fall asleep. This was a very strange environment to fall asleep in because there were bodies scattered about the loft and you don't know any of them and they are snoring and making all kinds of strange noises; you can hear people rustling around and coming and going too. We'll I'm getting pretty sleepy and I begin to hear someone walking toward my section of the loft. He is getting closer and closer and eventually I can tell that he is standing right next to me. My mind begins to race as to what I should do. Did I take his mat? Am I doing something wrong? So I open my eyes a little to see where this guy is and he is hovering directly over the top of me just staring at me! This was pretty unnerving. I close them and wait. He doesn't move. I finally open my eyes again and just stare at the dude, as if to say "go away." He kind of flinches, shuffles away, grabs a mat, and pulls it up right next to me; less than a foot away. What the crap is going on!?!?!

I try to just ignore the guy and I lay there paralyzed for like 10-20 minutes. Eventually I hear him start snoring so I get up and move to another part of the loft. At this point it is about midnight. Now I can't fall asleep because it is so unbearably hot that I am sweating a ton and sticking to my foam mat. I finally decided about 1:30 to head back down to the jinjilbong and see if it has quieted down. It had and there were little 2 foot tall vertical divides lined up against one wall with mats in between so I laid down there with two foam blocks much cooler and confident that I wouldn't have anyone pulling up next to me. I think I woke up about every 20 to 30 minutes out of discomfort. At some point in the night (I have no idea when) I was startled out of my sleep by a Korean woman shaking me, leaning over my divider, and shaking a foam block at me as if to ask if she could take it. Once again what in the crap is going on!?!?! Yes take the block! Please! Let me sleep!

After all that I managed to get enough sleep to make due. Bonnie had a less harrowing evening but was still unbearably hot while trying to sleep. Wow that post took a while. More on the actual DMZ in the next post.

Pepero Day

So when I got to school today I thought it was just any other day of school. Then I looked at my watch and realized that it was something special. It was 11-11. I thought this was pretty cool. 11th day of the 11th month and all. I mentioned this to some of my students as they walked in before first block and they gave me that, "wow, you are a huge nerd" look. I shrugged it off.

Soon after that though I noticed that many of my students were walking in with boxes of these candies. They are kind of like chocolate covered pretzel sticks. Kind of. I asked them what was up and they told me that it was Pepero Day. It is tradition that on this day girls are supposed to give guys these special treats but it seemed to work both ways from what I saw. I think this is just a holiday that was made of by the Lotte corporation to sell more of their product. The reason it is on 11-11 is because the date resembles the Korean spelling of the snack (see the box at right) or because the sticks look like 1s. We got different stories from our students.

In the end a lot of our students gave us boxes of pepero. It was pretty awesome and a great surprise. The score pictured below is what Bonnie was given by her students. She even scored a pepero rose. Mine was a little bit smaller. I had a couple students go outside the box and give me a KicKer. Which is basically like a 8 inch long single KitKat stick. I was excited about this because I love KitKats

put me in coach

Basketball practice started this week, and Tom and I are both assistant coaches! I am helping with the girls team and tom is the assistant for the boys team. Neither one of us have really coached before, so we're pretty excited for this opportunity.

Sports are not as big of a deal here in Korea at the high school level like they are in the US. In korea, a high school kid's life revolves around school. period. why would you go to basketball practice after school when you could could to a tutor???? (at least, that's the mindset)
Needless to say, the kids don't play at the same caliber as they do in the states.

The boys have never won a game in the history of the school. Now I will point out the school is only in its 3rd year and this year we only go up to 10th grade. So last year it was 7th-9th graders playing older high school kids. Tom is hoping that this year he can be a part of a win, because even one win would be huge!

As for the girls, they lack aggression and skills but I think they have a lot of potential. Last year they did quite well. They got 3rd place in the division and like the boys, the team only had 7th-9th graders in a high school league. There are high hopes for this new season and I'm excited to be a part of it!

the blessings of korea

1. we don't have to clean our place. every other week we have Cora, our cleaning lady, come and clean our apartment.

2. we don't have to iron anything. there is a dry cleaners in the bottom of our apartment building. for a dollar an item they iron whatever you need. considering how much i dislike ironing, how long it takes me, and how bad i am at it...i will definitely pay someone a buck to do it for me.

3. we get our milk delivered to our apartment. 3 days a week we have a fresh quart of fat free milk waiting for us when we wake up.

4. every morning i get an international newspaper (i've never had my own newspaper before!)

5. we mysteriously have cable, although we don't pay for it (i think this will eventually catch up to us)

6. we don't pay utilities. our school covers most of our housing bills.

7. the bills we do have the school coordinates our payments for us from our checking account.

8. we get free lunch every day at school.

9. there is a shuttle that drives us to and from school

10. if we order food for delivery (which hasn't been very often because of the language barrier), they deliver the food in plastic bowls, plates, etc. Then when we're done eating we put the dirty dishes outside our door and they come back and pick them up. now that's service.

11. we don't have to pay for car insurance or gas. the downside to this one is that we don't have a car, but the public transit system is pretty great so it hasn't been too much of an inconvenience to not have our own car.

I don't say this to be boastful...I say all this because we really are humbled and so grateful for the blessings of korea. Teaching overseas is a lot of hard work and at times I start to get in self-pity mode, but then I look through this list (and this is just the superficial stuff) and it makes me realize how much God has blessed us here in Korea. We feel grateful and blessed to be in this place.

fall fun

This weekend we did some local exploration. Suwon has an old castle and fortress that wraps around part of the city. It's actually really cool, so we decided to hop on the dragon trolley (see below) and take a tour of the fortress.


We actually had to kill an hour before we could go on the tour so we found some really cool trails and hang out spots.
After the tour we were able to just walk around and enjoy many of the fortress sights. This is us at one of the fortress posts.

After we saw the fortress sights we noticed that you could practice archery! It was only 2,000 Won (less than 2 bucks) and you we were able to play with bows and arrows. I was a little reluctant to do it because right before we bought our tickets there were like 20 kids doing it and that was basically it. Tom, however, was persistent and we decided to give it a go. During our archery session there were just three of us, Tom, myself and a little kid. I love this picture of Tom next to the little boy. haha...it was also great because our target looked like the mascot for the University of Arkansas! We got to kill some razorbacks! Yes!!!!

This was a very strange magnet (like what you would put on your fridge) that we found at one of the fortress gift shops. I can't believe someone would buy this!!!

Lastly, we met a man from the Netherlands and he took this great fall picture for us.

Overall it was a great fall day! We had a lot of fun and the weather was perfect. This was one of those weekends that made us realize how much we enjoy life in Korea.

changes in our plans

Due to some schedule changes with Delta we will be staying in Columbia one extra day during our break. We will now be flying home on Jan. 6th.

We don't start school until the 12th so we have a lot of wiggle room on when we need to get back. We just wanted to get back to Korea a few days before school because jet lag is no fun to deal with while you're working! 7 weeks and we'll be home.

korean culture week

This past week was Korean Culture week at our school. Basically our school just took some time out of the school day to honor our host country. It was a great time. We had three different assemblies throughout the course of the week. The first assembly consisted of a group of korean kids performing dances and music. The second was a series of performances put on by our faculty and students (more on this later). And the last was a group of adults who also did cultural dances and music stuff. Additionally we had local artists come in and display their artwork and other korean talents.

The assembly put on by our faculty and students was probably the most entertaining. Over the past few weeks tom and i have been taking korean lessons at our school once a week (tom is easily the best in the class...show off). Anyway, our beginner class had to perform during the assembly, so tom and i and about 6 other teachers sang "Arirang" which is a "classic" korean song (like Yankee Doodle Dandy or something like that in America). The song is pretty funny. There were two lovers. The man was going to leave the woman but before he finished passing through the mountain to leave he got a foot disease and had to come back to the woman. Charming.

Another highlight from the assembly was a puppet show put on by a group of students. The puppet show was entitled "Puppy Poo." Yes..like poop. There was a korean author that was a Christian and liked to write books about redemption and weak things used for great purposes through children's stories. So the story our students chose to perform was a story about how there was this dog that pooped. The poop thought that itself was dirty. The ground said it was dirtier than the poop. Then there came this dandelion that said it needed the poop. So the poop ended up fertilizing a beautiful dandelion. The poop found its purpose in giving life to something else. The performance consisted of a large poop cut out on a stick that our students gave a voice too. It was so weird and so funny. Only in Korea.