Because I believe life is for the living. I believe in taking risks and biting off more than you can chew.

So, tonight, our two friends, Jay and Erica, took us out to eat dinner with some Korean friends they know. I never actually got their names, and just called them Oppa (older brother) and Onni (older sister). Oppa and Onni own a meat restaurant with (I'm told) delicious sam gyeop sal (grilled pork) and even better san gogi (raw meat). Expecting we would be going to their restaurant, I braced myself for the raw meat and went along for the ride. Turns out, however, that their restaurant happens to be closed on Sunday, so we went to another friends (Oppa2 and Onni2's) restaurant....a seafood restaurant. Uh oh.

They asked us what we wanted (kind of, none of them speak english, and none of us speak korean). We said definitely yes to the sam gyeop sal, but were unsure of the others, one of them being san nakji which we soon found out was raw (wriggling) octopus. I felt no need to try this, and munched on my delicious pork, but Jake will tell you he legitimately enjoyed the octopus...sure.

After eating my share of food, I put my chopsticks down to signal "I'm full," but these Koreans would have nothing of it. Onni decides to hand me the worlds largest bite of sam gyeop sal. I should mention, the sam gyeop sal is pork meat wrapped in a lettuce leaf with bean paste, onions, garlic, or any topping of your choosing. The one rule that comes along with it is that you eat it in one bite. And the food filled lettuce leaf I had handed to me was about the size of my own fist (and I was never one of those kids that could fit their fist in their mouth).

I looked at her incredulously, and Oppa says "One bite!" I look around to Jake, Erica and Jay, hoping for some support, but am told that this is a rite of passage in the Koreans mind. I eat this all (in one bite) or am banished to waygookin status forever! To make matters worse, Onni was kind enough to put an entire hot pepper into it for me...great.

Well, without much detail, I managed to eat the damn thing (looking like a hamster with too many cheerios in its cheeks I'm sure), but oh boy was my mouth on fire for the next 10 minutes. After suffering through this, I took a swig of my beer (which magically refilled itself constantly, thanks Oppa), and set my chopsticks and dipping sauce far from me, to signal yet again, I'm finished.

Well, not 2 minutes later is a new dish brought out. It's covered in red spicy sauce, has some vegetables, and what appears to be octopus tentacles minus the suckers. None of us can figure out what it is before Onna wraps some up in a leaf and shoves it (ever so nicely) at my mouth. Now remember, you CAN NOT refuse a Koreans offerings. It's just not kosher. So again, with great trepidation, I take what she's offering, eat it, and think, hey this actually isn't so bad. Yeah, I have to chew for about 10 minutes before I can actually get it down, but overall, things could be worse. I ask her "Igo, moyayo?" (What is this) and she simply replies ggom jang eo. Ah, of course, ggom jan eo! How could I not know!

We made her write it down so we could research when we got home what it was exactly that we ate, and here dear read, is what I found:

The Hagfish: Their unusual feeding habits and slime-producing capabilities have led members of the scientific and popular media to dub the hagfish as the most "disgusting" of all sea creatures.[2][3][4] Although hagfish are sometimes called "slime eels," they are not eels at all.[5]

And there you have it, tonight, I ate slime fish, scientifically known as the most "disgusting" of all sea creatures.

With three kinds of heat, you can cook a turkey in 22 minutes.

I'm back! And for purely selfish reasons. If I do not have a blog post up by the end of Wednesday, Bonita will subtract one item from my desperately needed Thanksgiving package. So here goes.

In the U.S. on November 11th, we celebrate Veteran's Day. A very noble and important holiday. In Korea, however, due to 11/11's uncanny resemblance to anything stick like, we celebrate the wondrous Pepero Day, or 빼빼로 Day, for you Hangul readers out there. Don't get me wrong, Veteran's Day is great, and I take nothing away from it. However, we seriously need to start celebrating Pepero Day as well.

So what is this Pepero day, you ask. Only the single greatest day of a teacher's life. At the beginning of class, every student is happy. "Why are you happy?" I say, with the inevitable response "Because! It's Pepero Day!!" Any day where you draw a smile face next to every Korean child's name on the board, you know it's going to be a pretty good day.

But it doesn't stop here. Oh no. Once all the formalities are through, small adorable (and happy) Korean children descend upon you with boxes and bags of Pepero. Bags filled with original, peanut coated, or (my favorite) what I like to call inside-out pepero. Some peperos are almost a foot long! I know, I know...crazy. "DevonTeacher! Pepero! For you!" the kids call. "Me?!" I say as I feign surprise. Of course me, I am teacher, and this is Pepero Day.

Once the gifting frenzy is over, the kids take their seats with their pepero, and me with mine. And one kid, meekly raises his hand. "Teacher...we eat...pepero....now? Please?" The whole class waits with baited breath. What will the ominpotent DevonTeacher say? How could she let us sit here with all this pepero and not let us eat it?

"Of course!" I say in my most jolly Santa-like voice. "Pepero for everybody!" I sit back in my chair enjoying the kids loud celebration, happy that I know they will actually behave today. Of course, until the sugar rush kicks in and all chaos ensues.

So? What is the wonderful pepero that deserves it's own day every year. Well, see for yourself:



Admittedly, these are incredibly fancy pepero, but you get the basic idea. A stick like cookie dipped in chocolate. (Hence why Pepero day is 11/11) My favorite's include (what I just found out was called) Nude Pepero with the chocoloate in the center, and original pepero which is just the basic cookie dipped in the basic chocolate. Both of which, you can see below.

Original Pepero

"Nude" Pepero

My kids were quite shocked and horrified to hear that we didn't have pepero in the States, and one class made me promise to send some home, so family, share the pepero love! (you know, when you get it.)

Hi, I'm Tracy Jordan. I'm black NBC. Very proud, like peacocks. Right, Janet?

So, I know in my last post (from, oh, about 2 months ago) I promised to tell the rest of the story about my parents visit. And clearly, this has not happened. I apologize. It will. Now that my open class (read: Korean parents come and watch me and judge my ability to teach their children)is over, I will hopefully have more time to do everything I want to do. This includes, but is not limited to: learning Korean, learning French, hiking our mountain every morning, doing yoga, reading, and of course, writing this blog.

But I have come back from my, let's call it a hiatus, to tell you about one of my favorite aspects of living in Korea. The Korean commercial. It is a strange and wonderful thing, as my mom would say about the whole of Korea itself. With most (well, all) commercials here, we have no idea what the people are saying. What we do know, however, is that whatever song is on is damn catchy and wants to make you dance like a fool, and what you are seeing is almost certainly adorable to the point of insanity. While reading my friend Caroline's blog (she actually writes hers) I came across the youtube video for me absolute favorite commercial. The dancing girl in the yellow dress. What are they advertising? Your guess is as good as mine. Unless you happen to speak Korean, than it's almost certainly better. Well, without further ado:



Wonderful, isn't it? I should mention, half the foreigners here HATE this commercial. There is clearly something terribly wrong with their pure joy receptors.

Hopefully over the next few weeks I'll be able to post more of the commercials I've come to love (there's one with a radish who we think is named Yoshi that I quite like)as well as the rest of my parents adventures here in Korea, and the rest of mine.

'Cause I don't believe in one-way streets. Not between people, and not while I'm driving.

Earlier this month, my parents came to visit (yay!) And while they spent about 17 hours travelling to get to Incheon airport, Jake and I couldn’t manage to get there until 2 hours after their plane landed. Really, it’s not our fault though. We were at the bus station four hours early, and still couldn’t manage to get a bus on time. Thanks Korea.

Once we found them, we headed over to the Avis (or Hertz?) to get our rental car. I should mention here, that anytime someone found out we would be renting a car, Korean or foreign, they would look at me in astonishment, and say something along the lines of “are you sure that’s a good idea?” And I knew, of course it’s not, but if there is one person who would have no problem fitting in with the Korean driving style, it’s my dad. Going through red lights whenever you please, just like the professionals, u-turns at every intersection, weaving through different lanes. For most people, this would be like driving in hell. For my dad, this was more like driving heaven. And of course, the car rental agency had just run out of English language GPSs. Oh well, let the adventure begin.


We hopped in our fancy black Kia, a map or three in hand and tried to make our way to Seoul. I say tried, because well, we got a little lost. We ended up in Goyang, some odd little city north of Seoul because we thought the speed limit signs were actually signs for route numbers. Needless to say, this was not helpful. It was a nice little detour though, because I got to see the Osh Kosh B’Gosh store, my favorite designer label as a child.



When we finally reached Seoul, we then had the challenge of find our hotel. We knew the neighborhood, or really, the neighborhood next to the one we actually wanted, and we knew it was by some universities and maybe kinda close to the Olympic stadium, and around the corner from a post office. Seriously, this is what we had to go on. Once we finally got to an area we felt the hotel was certainly in, we started driving around looking for it while Jake attempted to decode the ridiculous map the hotel website gave us. After a few unsuccessful attempts, and a trip across a bridge and back, we finally pulled over to take a look at any and every map we had. At that moment, my dad spots the hotel directly across the street from where we were parked. We must have driven by this spot 3 times, and never saw it.
What’s stranger yet, is that when Bonita and I went in to check in, and make sure it was the right place, the man at the front desk told us (we think) that the hotel lobby was on the 15th floor. Really? Apparently the bottom half of the building was apartments, and the top was the hotel. Strange, but at this point, we were just thrilled to have somewhere to sleep. The views were nice, the bed was hard, the room was cute if small.



We went back downstairs to collect the guys, tell them we had made it, and show them where the parking garage is. Which by the way, was the cleanest parking garage on earth. I really should have taken a picture.

Later that night, we went out for Bonita and Daddio’s first Korean meal, and the “learned” to use chopsticks. But that story is for the next post!

My Muffin Top is All That, Whole Grain Low Fat

I tried my first Korean blueberry muffin today. It was mostly muffin, with a couple of the tiniest blueberries I have ever seen. But that's not the real news.

I had a bagel with cream cheese today! I did not realize how much I had missed bagels with cream cheese until I saw them sitting there at Kenya coffee. This morning was perfect, sitting there with my bagel and an iced cappuccino (with sugar!) It was just like being in America. You know, kinda.

And in case you don't know the awesomness the title of this post is referring to, here you go. Your welcome.

Did you know that in the morning, they have food, TV, almost everything. It's pretty good.

Starting work at 2 o'clock has made sleeping in as long as we want, exceptionally easy. We always say we'll get up early, go hiking on our backyard mountain, maybe, or make it to the fruit market (literally 3 blocks away). We even talked about grabbing some coffee one morning before work, a relatively simple and quick task, and we couldn't even manage to pull that one off. It's just so easy to hit the sleep button when you know you don't have to be at work for hours. There was one morning when we hit the snooze button for over two hours. Every eight minutes that damn thing went off, one of us would get out of bed, just to do it all again in eight more minutes. For over 2 hours. Terrible decision. Although, extremely satisfying.

One morning however, we managed to get up, out the door, and down to school by 8:50 in the morning. I know, an ungodly hour, but we had our reasons. We met up with a few of the other teachers to head down to Haenam (a beach town) for the weekend. It was definitely one of the best decisions we had made. After a taxi ride to the bus station, a bus ride to another bus station, and finally one last bus ride, we were in paradise.

Haenam is a very small town that happens to sit on one of the more gorgeous beaches I've been on. We quickly dropped our stuff off at the minbok (a hotel sort of thing, except there's no bed, just a comforter and a sheet on the floor for you) and spent the next 9 hours lounging on the beach, drinking OB Blue, playing cards games and doing crossword puzzles. It really doesn't get better than that. Jake and a few of the guys played frisbee in the water, which was entirely too cold for me. I just waited until the tide went out, so I could easily go out 100 feet and not hit water any deeper than about 5 inches.

We were pretty much the only ones on the beach, but not the only ones at the beach. There were quite a few Korean families having picnics in the trees just behind the beach. Koreans do not like being in the sun or getting a tan. With the sun as my natural enemy, I do tend to agree more with the Koreans on this one (sun on skin = bad news), but not even I could resist laying in the sand with the sun on my face (no worries Bonita, I had my spf 50). I managed to make it out of the weekend with only sunburnt feet.

When we got hungry, we'd make a quick trip to the convenience store for some ramen, crackers, and bugles. I know, quite nutritious, but we had very few options. That night, one of our friends found what amounted to being a private beach where we built a roaring campfire with the dried bamboo we found and lit some fireworks. About one month too early, or it would have been the perfect 4th of July celebration.

The next day we lounged some more, played a few more games, and then, while being sufficiently sick of ramen, ventured down the beach to find a restaurant. We were very happy to find exactly what we were looking for on our first try, and a little disappointed in ourselves we hadn't found the place yesterday. We ordered some bulgogi for the table, and with it came the most side dishes I have seen yet in Korea. Everywhere you go you will get at least a few side dishes, but there was about twice as much food in the side dishes as there was in the main dish. It included kimchi (of course), clams, eggplant, about 3 dishes of different greens, radish, mini anchovies, potatoes, quail eggs, the list goes on. Needless to say we were quite full after that, and extremely satisfied.

Once we got back to the beach, a sand castle contest had started with three very impressive contestents. We had a ziggurat, a round "summer house," and a quite formidable "administrative building." The administrative building ended up winning unanimously due to its very clean architecture. That, and it easily withstood the fire works that were shot into it. An impressive feat for sand. At about dusk, we caught the last bus out of Haenam, and so ended our first trip outside Gwangju (and so far our only one, although next weekend...Mud Festival!).

With that, I will leave you with this picture of Jake frolicing in the ocean.

Quick. Call Dr. Spaceman

On Wednesday, while talking to a friend, I mentioned that while most of the teachers at the school were getting quite sick, I was feeling pretty great. Naturally, I woke up yesterday morning with a serious sore throat. And by this morning, I was convinced my annual strep throat had decided to arrive. We had to be at school early today (9am! can you believe the things they put us through?) to greet the mothers coming to watch kindergarten classes. We finished that around 10, so I decided to venture out to the doctor before my classes started at two. Jocelyn referred me to her doctor, who speaks English quite well, but whose office is all the way on the other side of town. Monica, one of the Korean teachers, offered to call and make an appointment for me, and with 10 minutes of asking for a reference, I was in a cab by myself (read: Jake didn't feel like coming with me), directions in Korean written out for me, and on my way to a part of town I've never been.

The cab ride lasts about 20 minutes (and costs about 6 bucks, which here is quite expensive.) The driver stops at a red light at an intersection that has about 16 roads all coming together, and tries to point me in the right direction. The problem, however, is that he points in three different directions. He grabs my Korean directions, points to the first word, and then points down a road back and to the left. Then points to the second word, and points straight ahead, and then randomly just points to another building to my right. All the mean while saying things in Korean as I just stare at him. Once the light turns green, he starts to go and then slams on his breaks. Turns around, and points again to the building on the right, again all while speaking in Korean, and holding up five fingers. So I point to the building, hold up five fingers, and he nods. Ok, that building. Fifth floor. Sure.

At this point I take it that he wants me to get out, but I can't see a sign for the clinic I need. Wary of holding up traffic, I pay the nice man, and head to the unmarked building. Inside is, most likely, a very helpful sign explaining what is on each floor. Naturally, it's entirely in Korean. Alright, to be expected. Nervously, I enter the elevator knowing full well I could be heading up to just about anything on the fifth floor. Luckily, the stars had aligned. As I got out of the elevator, the only door I saw said Peace and Mind Body Clinic (or something like that). From here, things went smoothly. The receptionist spoke enough English to keep me from making a fool of myself. I filled out about half a sheet of information, and was in with the doctor in about 5 minutes. So far, health care in Korea rocks. He asks me a few questions, checks out my throat and I'm back in the lobby getting my prescriptions printed by the receptionist in no time. Then, comes the scary part. She's printing the receipt. I have absolutely no idea how much this is going to cost me. All I know, is it's a very nice office in a VERY nice part of town, with an English speaking doctor, who saw me in 5 minutes. Finally, I see the total.

What?! That can't be right. 11,900 won?? But that's less than 10 bucks! Ok, now I know Korean health care rocks. But then I see the prescription list. FOUR prescriptions. Ah, I think to myself, that's where they get ya. Four prescription drugs for who knows how much money. And how convenient, the pharmacy is right down the stairs. Now I see through their little scheme. So I head down to the pharmacy to get my antibiotic, anti inflammatory, something to make the first two not bother my stomach, and a fourth pill just for the hell of it (only 3 of them were explained to me by the doctor). But when the nice ladies come back with my prescriptions, they coat only 9,800 won. Less than 9 bucks. I couldn't be happier. And each does is separated out into these neat little plastic pouches, so every 8 hours I just open one little pouch and everything I need is right there. (I wanted to have pictures, but with my camera cord sill in PA, and the whole I-don't-really-feel-like-looking-for-Jake's feeling, well, you get the point).

Two small but really awesome side notes to the whole "My First Trip to the Doctor":
1. Korean medicine works way fast. After taking my pills, my throat feels better within about 20 minutes, and stays better til just about the time for the next dose.
2. My taxi driver on the way back, looked exactly like Kim Jong Il, but with shorter hair. He even had the sun glasses and everything. And, he hummed/sang most of the ride home. I must say, he can carry a tune.