Ji-Ae and Anthony's New Apartment

During the warmer months, a lot of the teaching community here will flock to the beach areas on weekends. When winter approaches, this slows down and night traffic turns back toward the inner city regions such as the Kyungsung, PNU and Seomyeon areas. These days I rarely go out during the week, but like to spend the weekends out somewhere.

Here's the Gwangan bridge at night, which is always lit up until past midnight. It actually has two levels on it for traffic flowing in opposite directions. Anthony just moved into an apartment near here, so we'll return to this area of the city shortly.

Here are some creative English teachers forming a human structure on the beach. They tried to get a person on the third level but appeared to be lacking the gymnastical expertise. If there is such a term. The bar we were drinking at is approximately 50 metres from this site.

A little while ago, I went with Heather's family to a temple out of town. Most temples in Korea are very similar, but this one is a little different.

This statue guards the entrance with his groove. The idea of statues like this is that they are supposed to intimidate bad spirits away from the temple. I wish I had a stomach like that.

Amongst the greenery were other stone carvings which were quite nice. On tops of mountains and things here, you can find a lot of piles of rocks that have been placed by people. I recently found out that such rock-piles are called cairns - in English, and dolmudogi in Korean. There's a city in Australia called Cairns.

I wonder if they have any cairns there.

One of the famous stone pagodas. The top spire is typical of buddhist imagery and has even been incorporated into the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. Spires symbolise the aspirations of man to reach higher states.

I saw a documentary on Discovery channel, you see.

Here's Heather and her father snapping some photos. Heather's father is pretty nice and tries to talk to me from time to time. I used to understand around 5% of what he says, but now I understand around 15%. When he smiles and asks a questions, I smile and say yes.

Under the hands of the statue was a wasp, oblivious to our clamouring and busy building a nest. I guess we're not the only ones just trying to get by in the world.

Rubbing the belly of happy stone buddhas is supposed to bring good luck. Sometimes I rub my own tummy these days because it's gotten a lot bigger than I remember. I've put on around 5 kilos since coming to Korea.

And it's also good luck if you pour water over this buddha. I don't believe in any of that stuff, but I still poured water over him. Because you know... well, you never know.

Ji-Ae is Heather's four year old niece who can generally be found running around and being adorable. She used to avoid me when I first met her, but now she talks to me a lot. In Korean, of course. We can actually have moderately long conversations with each other.

She says that I talk funny.

"Lee-shee samcheon, don isseo!"

"Cousin Lee, I have money!"

She's very active and is always trying to get people to play games with her. In this photo, she was trying to get the camera from me.

Here we are in the car. Ji-ye took this photo of us with her outstretched hand. Pretty good for a four year old, eh?

But this was her first attempt. I taught her the importance of keeping a certain distance from the camera. Maybe one day she'll be a great photographer.

And here are her subsequent photos of Heather and me on the same car trip. Every time I make a face like this, Ji-Ae giggles. So I often find myself doing them a lot.

After that we went to a nice restaurant in the area called Mulle-Banga, which means 'Water Wheel'.

The place was pretty packed and specialised in samgyetang and agujjim (ginseng chicken and fish stew). The food was excellent and the fish was fresh from the river.

Unfortunately I didn't get to take any photos of the food, because Ji-Ae took a liking to my camera. After taking a lot of photos, she somehow discovered the time-delay function with flash. She would sit the camera on the table, press the button and wait for the excitement of being blinded. So after around a hundred of these photos, the camera battery went dead. Apart from the food though, there wasn't much else to take photos of that day.

On the right of this photo is Amy, who works for Geoje April (one of our schools in the centre of the city). This scene was from her recent house warming party. Amy's boyfriend, Ian, was actually a reader of this blog prior to this gathering, which was the first time we met. It's nice to know that there are people out there who read it.

Our apartment is a popular drop-in centre for teachers in the area. That's because we're fairly centrally located and have ready access to beer. Sometimes we play poker and eat chicken, other times we sit and talk about games like Dota.

Which happens to be a very cool game.

Anthony was living with us for a few weeks while his new place was getting lined up. He recently moved in and the wait was worth it. His apartment is right next to the water at Gwangali beach, one of the most popular locations in the city.

Heather's old high school friend helped him move. He doesn't speak any English but has helped us before with his very handy mini-truck. It's good to know Koreans in Korea.


Anthony was pretty excited on the day that he moved in. Here's a video of him and us on the first day.

Here's Heather and Anthony discussing the pressing issues of the world. We had a mini house-warming party that night, which consisted of OB Beer (which they don't sell in Seomyeon for some reason) and onion chips.

And this is the view out of Anthony's window, showing Gwangali bridge. It's more impressive during the day. We'll return here for some day-time shots in the next blog post.

Anthony is very enthusiastic about things in general and likes to exercise constantly. His apartment is right on the beach, allowing him to run around on the sand in the morning and do Anthony-type things. He bought a surfboard here a while ago and it broke, so he bought a new one on the same day. "This one is unbreakable!" he told me when he showed me. Why didn't he just buy an unbreakable one to begin with?

Only Anthony would know.

See you next time!

Food, Drinks and Mr Segway

I was talking to Polish Damien in Australia today and he told me that on my blog "It pretty much looks like all I do is eat, party and travel." I think that's the first ever blog critique I've had from a Polish guy. Muchly appreciated. It's his 27th birthday today and I'm sure he'll be celebrating in style with the guys back home. Happy Birthday Damien!

In this photo is an U-dong hotpot with stuffed pockets of aerated soybean and various other goodies. On the right is some sundried chilli cashew chicken. We chose to enjoy this particular meal with some apple and kiwi soju cocktails.

Some time ago, a group of adoptees came down to Busan for a quick tour and we met up after work for some drinks. I'm pretty much the only GOA'L affiliated adoptee down here, so I feel like an ambassador of sorts.


Here's a new drinking game that Eric taught us that night. Two lines of people are on either side of the tables. Each person in turn (one after the other) has to drink the beer from their own paper cup and then put it on the edge of the table. The next person can only start drinking once the previous person has flipped the cup so that it lands properly on the table. The first line to finish wins.

We played this game a few times.

I led the group to the U2 bar in Haeundae, somewhere I hadn't been in a while. U2 is fairly nice and they serve free popcorn. The owner speaks a fair bit of English and likes to drink tequila shots.

One of the European adoptees decided it would be a good idea if we all took our shoes off and danced. Mine are the brown ones in the centre.

Then Eric thought it would be a good idea if we all went for a swim at the beach at 2am. I wasn't particularly in the mood for it, but was eventually persuaded. Catching the taxi back home with wet pants in the wee hours of the morning was an interesting experience.

I also lost my old cell phone at some point that night.

Meet Lee's new and improved cell phone. It has a DMB connection, which means I can watch free television broadcasts on a few different channels. On the screen in this photo there's a Beijing Olympics replay of Park Tae-Hwan winning the 400m.

Soon after the other adoptees left, Marie Fleur, another French adoptee from Seoul came down for a visit. I didn't have much time to show her around because of work commitments. We had a walk around Gwangan and visited this live seafood shop. That's her on the right, with her sister and sister's husband. Live seafood still impresses me to some degree and it's funny to see how the little Korean kids can just pick up an octopus like it's a toy.

Heather and I are going fairly well these days. My only regular teaching duties during the week are on Friday nights, when I head to her branch to teach an upper level reading class. That means I also get to join in their Friday night hwe-shiks (after-work dinners).

Here are the admin staff of the Hwamyeong branch. Heather received a promotion yesterday to the title of wonjang, which is the branch manager. We've both come a long way since our humble beginnings at the old Busanjin branch in 2006.

Near our house there's a small unstaffed amusement outlet. In this photo, you can see two versions of the ubiquitous punching machines here. You put in a coin and get to see how hard you can punch. You also find out how easy it is to sprain your wrist by trying to impress your friends.

Here's Anthony, one of our new additions, in the batting cages. These were entirely coin-operated as well. You just pick up the bat and a machine will launch baseballs at you.

Have you seen the new Star Wars release? It's an animation based on Attack of the Clones. I've always been a big fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, but unfortunately showing an enthusiasm for such things here results in one being labelled a nerd. Jef's definition of a nerd is when someone owns a twelve-sided die (singular: dice). But I don't own one of those.

Yet.

Heather and I found a new favourite restaurant. It's called Van Gogh's Terrace and it's in the Haeundae area near the APEC building. They specialise in particularly good Italian food and French champagne. It's right next to the water and you can see the Gwangan bridge at night. We go down here sometimes for a treat and are developing a worrying affinity for Moet & Chandon.


Most days on the way to work, Mr Segway (as I like to call him) crosses the main road at the same time as me. He's usually crossing at exactly the same time each day. This is the only Segway I've seen in Korea. He seems to like it when people look at him and ask him questions about his device while he's waiting for the lights.

These days I work in the office at our company's headquarters in Dongnae. That's my seat right there in the middle. Next to me is Brandon Na, the human resources director and in this photo he's interviewing someone via Skype. My work duties include interviewing new teachers from overseas, guiding them in and general HR related troubleshooting. I also look after the April English program to some degree.

Here's the CEO's office. We only moved in here a couple of month's ago.

And here's our dear Kelly Park, who left the company last week for greener pastures. She's been working for us since the beginning and would often be found running around to the different branches or the immigration department. She was really good at fixing problems and watering plants. A few weeks before she left, she found a snail on her lettuce and brought it into the office in a plastic cup. Then the cleaning lady threw it away because she thought it was rubbish. Oh well.

The snail had eggs though, which we kept in a different cup. Hopefully they'll hatch sometime soon.

That's all for this time. See you!

10th GOAL Anniversary in Seoul

GOA'L is a non-government organisation based in Seoul that helps Korean adoptees who return to Korea. They'll help you out with everything from general living advice to finding you a job.

I've been involved with the organisation since arriving in 2006, but living in Busan has meant that I haven't attended as many of their events. I decided to go up to Seoul for their 10th anniversary celebration. As always, the KTX ride up was enjoyable. I'm still impressed with how green the Korean countryside is all year round.

The venue was the Olympic Parktel, which was financed by Koreans who were living in Japan at the time of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

Next to the hotel is Olympic Park, which was set aside by the government. There are a few large stadiums inside and a lot of walking trails. I can remember being in Australia during the Olympics in Seoul, and at the time I didn't really understand the milestone it represented for the country. Busan City is bidding for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

I wonder if I'll still be in Korea then?

The rooms were cosy enough. One gripe I have though, is that they didn't replace my little mini-bottles of shampoo in the bathroom as I used them. I wrote that on their feedback form, so let's hope that they've learned the error of their ways.

This is a view of Olympic Park from my hotel window. Korea doesn't really have any botanic gardens, so this is probably the next best thing.

The opening ceremony was in the grand ballroom. Every year there are new faces in the community.

There were adoptees from all over the world including countries like Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the USA, Australia and the Netherlands. They're just the ones I can think of from the top of my head. I'm camouflaged in the middle there somewhere.

The wonderful food, which has become a staple of such gatherings. It's always a buffet with lots of different options. I've started getting into the habit of stopping short of becoming extremely full. This is partly because I heard a documentary on NPR, saying that if you overeat at buffets to save money, you're actually costing yourself extra in the long run. That's because you don't digest any of the food efficiently enough, and the medical costs associated with overeating will aggregate over time.

The other reason I stopped overeating is because then I have more room for beer.

Some old friends and some newer ones. In the last picture on the left is Eric, who some of you may remember from the old days in Koroot. Eric and I have quite different backgrounds but we get along well. I like his combination of not caring and being nice at the same time.

This is Kevin Shea, an adoptee who is a rising star in stand-up comedy in the US. He was in a Mcdonald's TV advertisement here and has worked alongside actors from MadTV. Kevin gave us a 30 minute stand-up show, but unfortunately the subtleties of some of his jokes were not well-understood by the rather culturally diverse audience he had.

Another part of the entertainment that night was this girl, who is an American adoptee and celebrity B-girl. She travels with a Korean B-boy team and performs internationally.

The events for the weekend included a photographic exhibition by adoptee artists and various workshops.

Tammy Chu, an American adoptee, is in the process of making a documentary about a reunion of mother and son. We saw a preview of it and had a question and answer session. It's looking very professional at the moment, and will be showing at next year's Pusan International Film Festival.

Dae-won Wenger is the Secretary General of GOA'L and a prominent figure in the adoptee community. He speaks around 5 different languages and has all the hallmarks of someone who could oversee such an organisation. The first hallmark being patience. In these photos he was trying to explain the location of the next venue to Eric, who is sometimes a little slower than your average audience, especially after lots of free wine.

The next venue was Club Air, which we booked out for the first part of the night.

Around this time last year I was in exactly the same spot and took a very similar set of photos for the blog. How's that for nostalgia?

Suddenly a few of the boys had their shirts pulled off. This was part of an amazing idea that was thought up by a particular French adoptee, who we'll refer to by the code name of 'Erix'. Erix soon had my shirt off too, which would have been a humbling experience if I hadn't had so many drinks.

And I also had a photo taken with Kevin Shea. Now if Kevin gets really famous, I have proof that we met. Or maybe if I get really famous, the reverse will be true.

Ha.

This is Nick Leschly, a poker playing adoptee whose birthday it was. Nick organises fundraising events for GOA'L and says friendly things when he's tipsy.

Here's a video of Robyn Shultz attempting to complete a challenge. The challenge is to eat six crackers in sixty seconds and then whistle. Apparently it's a lot more difficult than it sounds.

Here's the aftermath of the whistle. Morgan was actually sitting on the chair at the time.

While I was in Seoul, I had also arranged to visit my new professor at Seoul National University. This was my first time to the campus, which was a lot larger than I had thought.

Here's the front of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, where I'll be doing my PhD. The venue is nice enough, but it was the professor who impressed me most. He has a very well rounded personality and is the kind of person you want as a supervisor. My PhD will be in agricultural biotechnology and for my project I'll be working on a specific rice pathogen.

This is the 'Sha' gate, which is the iconic entrance to Seoul National University. I'll be starting a new chapter of my life here in the first week of January 2009 and have mixed feelings about it all. Busan is a great city and I love my current job, but I also have unfinished business in the biotech field and this is an opportunity I shouldn't really ignore. I'm pretty lucky to have been given the luxury of choice between two fulfilling career paths.

Anyway, that's all for me this time. See you soon!

In Loving Memory...

Heather's twin sister, Emily (정화경), passed away in hospital at 5:20am on Tuesday the 13th of August due to complications with a respiratory infection. She had only been sick for a few days and it was a shock to everyone who knew her.

This photo is from one of the many enjoyable weekends we spent together. Emily is on the right. She was only 28 years of age and will be greatly missed.

Life is precious.

This blog will continue after a short break.