Birthday weekend in Cheonan...

On Friday night, we went out to the Red Rooster in Cheonan to celebrate the last embers of my birthday. This pub is very "rustic cafe" for those of you from Stellenbosch...and they serve watery Korean beer in big green bottles. Well after arriving with Cara and Matt, and scaring the Koreans off from a big corner table (sometimes it helps being a foreigner), I wondered if anyone else was going to turn up.

Luckily, I was wrong. Most of my foreigner friends from KNU church put in a showing... cool kids like Betsy, Jackie, Jo, Martie, Tina, Cor, Steph, Kim, Erik, Jason, Byron, Adam and Elisa, Gordon, Alfred and a couple more made the table burst at its seams. I got a good dose of red wine and interesting conversation, and I stayed over at Cara's place. Saturday morning was MacDonald's breakfast with a side order of real Americans, the hairdresser for some non-traumatic highlights... "eye-shopping" at Yawoori, and pasta for lunch with Betsy and Kim. I watched "Stardust" with Cara at the movies and then we went to Jo's place for girl's night with delcious salady-type food and some dancing in Jo's sweltering lounge.

I think I've milked this birthday for all its worth. But it was good while it lasted.

Happy birthday to me..!

So Tuesday, being the 21st of August, 2007 - was the occasion of my 25th birthday (although that makes me 26 by Korean years.)






I wasn't planning anything spectacular, as it was a regular hagwon teaching day, but my kids really rose to the occasion. Although Koreans don't traditionally celebrate birthdays much (Many of them use the Lunar Calender which means that your birthday changes every year! Very confusing...), I got plenty of cards and presents..and no less than three and a half birthday cakes!



So Tim, one of my grade four's set the tone with his chocolate cake with tea icing. (It had cherry tomatoes on it - which is normal for the Korean palate and really bizarre to me...) Later I got a vanilla cream cake from my local Paris Baguette owner (how cool is that?) and in the evening, one of my beginner adult ajumas brought me a chocolate cake. It was great, because it meant that I had a cake for each of my classes (and I got to blow out the candles and be sang for three times!) I also got a mini mousse cake from one of my high schoolers today. Man, I'm glad I didn't buy any cake for my students. If any of you out there are still thinking about birthday presents for me, stay away from anything sweet and creamy.

More SA music...

You've gotta love Johnny Clegg - international music spokesperson during Apartheid and able to blend Zulu and English together so seamlessly in his songs. A good song to practise your gumboot dancing to.

When you miss home...

This song is by Jak De Priester, its called "Sally Williams Naugat." In addition to having lost the love of his life, this song is about all the strange things you miss when you lose your love: like sharing nougat from the Spar, and Sunday breakfasts, Tuesday night cheap movies, fake-leather seats, foamy coffee, sms and DSTV.
Anyone from South Africa (whether they lost love or not!) can totally relate.

Paju English village

So today, instead of the usual grind of class time phonics and reading, we went to Gyeonggi English village on a field trip. The place is modeled on a quaint sort of Koreanised nineteenth century streets of London. Very different from the rest of Korea, that's for sure.



So the kids have to go through "immigration" and answer some English questions, after which we walked with them past the castle gates to the various role-play shops, post offices, banks and city hall. We ate a suitably Western lunch, where the Caucasian-looking waitress addressed us with "vat do you vant...?" which made me realise that not all the employees of the English village come from English-speaking countries!




We watched "A Long Time ago in Africa" theatre show which was fun for the kids and reinforced the vocabulary they have been learning. The English villages in Korea have been criticised for not being authentic villages, but merely simulations, and because they are so expensive to build and maintain and entertain the kids rather than educate them with useful English skills.



However, if the English village helps our kids to picture a world where not everyone speaks Korean and thus inspires them to study English and travel abroad... then it is fulfilling an important function.

Icheon pottery village

Today was Korean Independence Day, (hail, the once-a-month public holiday!) and I boarded the bus with Cara, Stephenie and Suzie bound for Icheon, home of Korean pottery both ancient and modern. (If Adam and Elisa have gone there FIVE times, its got to be good, right?)




Icheon is famous for its traditional Goryeo and Joseon porcelain. We got to the Icheon Pottery village and started wandering around the 300+ pottery shops and exhibitions. Then we got fortuitously recruited by some brave Koreans and followed them to a back room where the pottery was being made. I got to play with a wet wad of clay on the wheel, which I find extremely therapeutic (beat that clay! pretend it is your enemy!) I decided to make a curvaceous vase with some help from my very patient Korean potter-teacher and I think it turned out rather nicely.






After making the vase, I etched a Korean-ish design onto it and added some paints for color. It will now be fired and delivered. Since all the instructions were in Korean, I really have no idea what color it will come out when its finished. (Black flowers and pink leaves weren't exactly what I had in mind?) We had lunch at a delicious traditional Korean restaurant in the village and then did some more pottery window-shopping. I bought a set of three miniature Korean jade-colored vases, which I think are lovely. No use buying any of the really big porcelain pots, unless you want suspiciously heavy carry-on luggage on the plane! (Apparently people have been smuggled out in some of the human-sized kimchi pots...)

D-War (Jeju in the movies)

So on Friday I went to see the Korean-American movie called Dragon Wars, or D-War (디워) for short. It is based on a Korean myth about an Imoogi or giant evil snake that can turn into a dragon if it eats the chosen girl who has a dragon mark on her shoulder. So the Korean myths were fascinating but there was a bit too much high-tech monster fighting scenes for my taste. However, it showcased Korean scenery and had spectacular aerial shots of Jeju island. So it was awesome to see the spots where I had been on vacation in the movies! The giant snake first appears from Jongbang waterfall, which is surrounded by high rocks and pours out directly into the sea. So here are some more of my pictures of it...(unfortunately I didn't see the dragon.)

Initial thoughts on the Harry Potter series.

What a ride it has been for those of us who have "stuck with Harry Potter until the very end"! I feel quite stunned, having just cast aside Deathly Hallows, to see how a children's book a decade ago has grown into something so emotionally powerful and complex.

I think it took a mother like J.K Rowling to write a story that hinges on Lily dying for her son. So Harry Potter is not so much about the power of dark magic, or white magic or as many have claimed - "the devil", as it is about the power of love to sacrifice and to sustain.

The whole series is driven by its convincing characters. I love how Hagrid tries to find the best in everyone ( monsters, dragons and giants included) and how we discover in Book 7 that Albus Dumbledore, far from being a flawless advisor to the hero, has his own dark history and issues. But characters have a habit of getting a life of their own, getting bigger than their authors intended. (Witness the famous example of Athur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.)

As the series draws to a close, the star of the show, is not Harry, who lives happily ever after. It is maligned and misunderstood Severus Snape, who left me spending most of the series wondering "is-he-good? is-he-bad?" and desperately hoping he would be redeemed. Each time Harry appeared popular or confident, Snape was crushingly reminded of Harry's father, James, who bullied Snape at school and who obtained the one thing that Snape cared about: Lily. The most difficult evil to conquer is the evil that resides inside yourself: Snape does this by protecting Harry, by the unrequited love he held for Lily that quenched his malice. His Patronus was a doe, like Lily's. She was his happiest memory and his protector too.

When Snape whispers "Look...at...me..." He sees Lily's gentleness in Harry's identical green eyes. Harry reciprocates this silent acknowledgment when he tells his kid, Albus Severus... "You were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts, one of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew." Harry had more in common with Snape than he ever knew. And perhaps I identify more with the Severus Snape's of the world than the dazzling Harry Potter's of this world.

The Harry Potter series is finished. It was magic, in every sense of the word.

She's pregnant! ;-)

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37 v 4





So when I arrived in the little village of Shingae-ri, to teach at a small private English school, I didn't know a soul on the Asian continent. But luckily these two people, my teaching colleague Natalie and her husband and IT-fundi Dave, were there to show me around, teach me the ropes and be my sanity in the crazy Korean adventure. Hailing from the Mother City in South Africa, the Stevens' couple are some-what unconventional, but entirely God-centered and two of the most awesome people you could ever get to know.

So Natalie and Dave have been trying to get pregnant for four years...and its finally happened, here in Korea! On Friday, the doctor confirmed that Natalie is four weeks pregnant. 29 March 2008 is the expected date. So Natalie is glowing at work (but apparent feeling wretched this weekend...) and Dave is floating so high he needs to be anchored down with a rope. You can see them holding the photos of the bundle of cells that is the beginning of their baby.


So Nats and Dave are leaving my school at the end of the month but I know wherever they go next, God will bless them for being such a shining example to everyone around them - and to me. And I recon its going to be one helluva kid.

Waterfalls and teddy bears

I woke up in my God-sent room and easily found the Hiking Inn in Seogwipo, where the very helpful owner was able to suggest some sights that he thought I would enjoy. So with the sun still scorching up above as ever, I went to the Jeongbang waterfall, an easy walk from my hotel.

I love waterfalls. I love how their sound and majesty drown out all other noise. The Jeongbang waterfall is special because it is one of a handful of waterfalls in Asia which run directly into the sea. It was stunning. After walking in the water and getting thoroughly soaked, I sat on the rocks and read, just taking in the sound of it. In the distance, a greenery-covered island loomed - looking like something out of the Caribbean.

After the waterfall, I caught a bus to Jungmun resort near Seogwipo, an flashy tourist area with five-star hotels that made my mouth hang open. Of course, staying in one of them would have cost the price of my entire vacation, but it was still fascinating to see how the rich and famous (and honeymooners - everywhere honeymooners!) live it up in gold-accented foyers and private gardens and beaches. One of the hotels (Lotte) is designed to look like the Lost City in South Africa, but I recon the original is better.

So in Jungmun I went to the Teddy Bear Museum, as somewhat of a sceptic. I'm just not that into teddy bears. But it was one of the most unique museums I've ever been to. The original teddy bear was created in honor of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, and ever since then, teddies have been quite naturally suited to satire, and in copying famous people. The first exhibition called "History" included scenes from 1908 England, the Titanic, The Beatles, Howard Carter uncovering the Egyptian Tombs and Space Teddies. Many of the bears move and dance around their displays. For children of all ages!

The second floor is called "Art" and has teddy bears recreating scenes from Western art, such as the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, The Kiss and Van Gogh's self portrait. There is also a teddy bear picnic garden and a teddy bear shop, where I bought myself a Jeju teddy bear to take home.

These two photos show the destruction of the Berlin Wall and Disneyland.

I took a long confusing walk/climb down the hill to the Jungmun beach, which they evidently hide from us plebs who don't stay at one of the resort hotels. The scene from the top of the hill was beautiful. The beach itself was warm and fun, if a little crowded with Koreans trying to make friends. "Are you on honeymoon?" "Oh no?" "Why, alone?" The swimming was good though, as I had the deeper water all to myself (the Koreans don't swim but bob up and down in their inflatable tubes as big unbroken waves roll out against the sand).

In this sticky, moggy, gluey humidity, its tough getting out of the water.

As dusk fell I went back to the Hiking Inn. There was another waterfall that the owner recommended, and I was happy to see this in the cool dark of the evening. It is called Cheonjiyeon falls and its the first photo on this post. The whole park is lit up spectacularly at night (but unfortunately my camera couldn't capture any of its night-time magic!) You are supposed to be able to see a face in the falls when it is lit up at night, but this may be another fanciful Korean Rorschach . The park is beautiful too, gentle-running water, dramatic rocks and colored lights which really accent the natural foliage. The water was full of fish of all sizes, visible under the water, even in the dark. The time spent there, just watching people and watching the waterfall run its course, reminded me of Hogsback, far away in South Africa.

After an enchanted night I slept peacefully in my room and spent my last couple of hours in Jeju supporting the Jeju tourist economy with a sudden spending-urge. So aside from the Jeju teddy bear, I bought myself Jeju perfume (which smells like the citrus plants and subtropical flowers grown here) a moonstone bracelet and a Harubang stone frame for a choice Jeju vacation photo. And chocolate! Jeju's unusually flavored chocolate - read: pineapple, tangerine, cactus, green tea, chili - is delicious! So Jeju isn't just a big Korean hype, it's an awesome natural treasure-trove and well worth a visit.