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By Marty, December 28, 2011 10:35 pm

Another Christmas in Korea – certainly not the worst Christmas I’ve ever had.  I really wanted to come home but a lack of vacation, high airline prices and it jsut wasn’t gonna happen.  I made the best of it and MyeongHee and I went to Dee’s house for a Christmas pot-luck feast.

I’ve probably babbled on in the past about some of the benefits of living overseas. Forgive me if you’ve heard this before, but one of the cool things about being here is all the other teacher’s I’ve met from other parts of the globe.  Native English speakers are in high demand in Korea and they come from the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and probably a few other places I can’t remember. Anyway, this Christmas since it was a pot-luck dinner I got some grub that is traditional Christmas fare in other lands.  Nick is from England and made yorkshire pudding. I’d heard the name before, and I would have thought of it as like any other pudding we eat in America. Not so. It’s really a biscuit – a light and fluffy biscuit – that is then ladled over with gravy until it’s “sogified.”  That was awesome.  Arielle, another Brit, made Christmas figgy pudding. No figs, but various dried fruit. It was almost like a fruit cake, but wetter, more alcoholic and way richer. Especially after it was drenched in brandy and lit on fire.  Kimberly brought Scottish stuffing. It was good, but I like Mom’s stuffing better.   Dee made lots of roast chicken, gravy and potatoes and I brought bbq sausage for a little Texas flare.  Everyone brought a bottle of wine and we spent the day eating (all day, literally) and drinking.

It wasn’t a fabulous Christmas being away from home, but it was made a whole lot better with the good friends I have here. Despite being 10,000 miles from our various homes, we  made a family holiday a lot of fun for us.

Once home, I tried to call everyone, but apparently so did everyone else. I use Skype, a computer based program that let’s you call for just pennies a minute over computer networks.  I tried several times Sunday night and early Monday (late Sunday morning back home) and I couldn’t get through. Luckily, Jessica figured things out and called me on her mom’s home phone (no calling card – must’ve been expensive) so I got to talk to my girls.

So now that the big holiday is passed, I learned that I do get some vacation after all. I’m taking vacation on January 20th, which is just before Lunar New Year, another big Korean holiday. I’ll add those holidays into my vacation and get a whopping two weeks to come home.  I’ll arrive home on Saturday the 21st of January and won’t have to go back until Sunday morning on the 5th.   Not as good as last year’s six weeks home, but two weeks paid is a good deal.  Flights are much cheaper then, too.

Not much else to report, so I’ll sign off.

See you in Dallas in January!

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By Marty, December 23, 2011 7:56 pm

I just got approval to take a nice vacation around the time of Lunar New Year.  That’s a big holiday here in Korea. Normally it’s 3 days, but it falls on a Monday, so we’ll only get that Monday and Tuesday off. I got the OK to take the Friday before off, the remainder of the holiday week and the entire following week off. That from January 21st and returning to work on February 7th.  That’s a nice 17 days off from work.  That enough for a trip back home…

Now, to get a flight…details on that later.

In the meantime,  It’s Friday, December 23rd.  Almost Christmas.  Here’s to hoping everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a very special new year.

One of my students snapped this picture of me on Friday, the 23rd. Last day of classes before the big non-holiday. Since Christmas is on Sunday, there is no holiday. They’ll have classes again on Monday as well. We had parties in all my classes today. The kids all had snacks and drinks and made Christmas cards for their parents.  Hard to believe I got paid for coloring pictures writing a few sample greetings on the board – for a whopping four hours. Then I had to come home and take a nap. It’s a tough life.

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By Marty, December 12, 2011 10:56 am

Not much going on here….which is why I haven’t written lately.  It’s work-home-sleep-repeat for days on end.  These days, I’m not even working very much. I bring home a full salary – as much as any other teacher working full time, but I work only 19 hours a week.  Lots of time to read books, do some programming, write an article or two for my Ulsan website and generally slack off. I’d work more, but it’s difficult to find part time teaching gigs to fill the gaps in my existing schedule. Mostly, it’s 1pm-5pm with a couple of early morning business classes and a couple of evening private lessons.

We haven’t done much else as I’m trying to put back some money for my eventual return to the states. Previous years, we were able to save some decent coin. But this year has been harder. DongHyun started university in the spring and so we’re paying for that, while I’m still paying for Teri’s student loans and some back taxes I owed.  But we’re not making as much these days, either. MyeongHee’s hair shop hasn’t been near as busy – a new high rise apartment opened up next to her shop in 2009 and this year a new hair salon opened on the retail floor of the apartment building. She’s still making a profit, but we lived off her cash-only business and we socked my salary in to the back. I’m having to take my salary and pay a bit more for living and less in the bank these days.   She’d like to move her shop to a better location, but that takes both money and time. And with the plan to head back to the US in 2013 with her following in 2014 moving her shop just wouldn’t make sense. So, we live within our means and save what we can and plan for brighter days later.

In the meanwhile, I’ve lost a lot of weight. I’m close to 210lbs – down from nearly 240 earlier this year. The size 40 jeans I was wearing don’t fit and even the smallest size I own – size 36 – are a little big. Not sure why I’m losing weight as I haven’t been riding the bicycle since summer.   Still not a skinny boy, but I look a lot less fat than I did in the spring when I was in the U.S.

On Saturday, we had a total lunar eclipse here in Asia. In America it was not visible but we had clear skies and a great view as the Earth’s shadow passed over the moon and left it a very reddish tint.  It was directly overhead, so we had to watch from outside in the cold. We drank schnapps  and ate sweet potatoes  to keep us warm. I took a lot of pictures, but my camera just isn’t good enough to take really breathtaking shots. I did get this one that came out pretty decent, just towards the last 20-25% of the eclipse before it went all red. After that, my camera wouldn’t focus on the dim, red moon.

No plans for Christmas other than to stay warm. Both Christmas and New Years fall on a Sunday, which means that we won’t get any extra days off here.  But I hope everyone back home has a grand time over the holidays.

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By Marty, July 24, 2011 9:53 pm

Summer is 2/3rds over and we haven’t been out much. Of course, it hasn’t been much of a summer so far. We’ve only had the air-conditioning on one weekend this summer. Today wasn’t much different. It was actually cloudy and overcast with occassional very light sprinkles. We decided we’d brace the weather and head out to our favorite river picnic area in the mountains.

This is near Seoknamsa, a temple for nuns way up in the mountains. We’ve had a decent amount of rain this summer so the river was still flowing well.

Both the dogs followed me around the stream, mostly on the rocks. SaTang really doesn’t like water so she’d go way around to cross over a 2 foot jump. Sparky is a little more brave, and although she doesn’t like the water much either she was having fun jumping from rock to rock and didn’t care to go around.

The water was actually pretty cold. Not Rocky-mountain snow-melt cold, but cold enough that neither of us wanted to get more than our feet wet. Consequently, when the dogs did get wet, they shivered and shook and MyeongHee wanted to dry them off.

Sparky gets a toweling off while SaTang watches all the other people in the river

All three of my girls pose for a picture

While we were there, we spent some time wandering around the hills and letting the dogs run in the forest. With a little steam worked off, we sat down for a Korean picnic: grilled pork with garlic and red bean paste wrapped in lettuce leaves.  Yum.  Washed it down with a few beers and then settled back to relax against the rocks. MyeongHee had heard about “Angry Birds” a mobile phone game that has become very popular and she spent an hour or so wearing out the battery in my phone.

It was a pretty lazy day, actually, which is just what the Dr. ordered.  July has been really busy with 11 hour days for me. I just picked up another class for August, so that will be almost as busy – the first week is vacation at one of my three jobs, so I’ll only have a split day starting at 10 and finishing at 8:30pm with the entire afternoon off.

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By Marty, June 6, 2011 10:44 am

This weekend was both a holiday weekend and birthday weekend. Two friends, Andy and Ryan had birthdays on Saturday so a large group of us decided to take a short trip to GyeongJu and play in the go-karts.

GyeongJu is only about 40km north of here, but not everyone has personal transportation. We decided to take the train, which was outrageously cheap at only $2.50 per person. And being on the southern coast, when it’s time to go back home the roads are always clogged with traffic doing the same. The train was a nice change of pace.

Once in GyeongJu we started walking from the train station to the go-kart track. Bad advice, as it was several kilometers away. We walked maybe a mile or so without seeing any taxis or buses that could take us. Luckily two friends who decided to ride their motorcycles to GyeongJu met us along the way and ferried us, two-by-two, to the track.

Once at the track, I had to put the hard sell on MyeongHee to actually ride the karts. She was receptive when we talked at home, but at the track she wanted to just watch. No problem – I sold her on the idea and she rode.

As you’re reading you may be thinking that go-karts are fun, but come on – how passe’. How old fashioned. Even the times we’d gone to Malibu Grand Prix in Dallas to play they are fun, but pretty tame. I assure you, however, that this was not the case in Korea. These things were fast. Moreover, the track employees, used to dealing with the timid Koreans, were not sure how to handle us foreigners. That whole notion of not wanting someone to “lose face” played right into our hands, er steering wheels. Koreans don’t like to fuss at someone unless it’s a personal affront, so merely breaking rules it is a rarity to  have them call someone out and publicly embarrass them for blatant rule breaking. It was the Wild West, baby. Bumping, slamming, pushing were all, if not legal, tolerated. We had a blast!

I took several pictures of our friends – there were 15 of us total – but quite a few of my honey.  You can see the whole lot of them on my facebook photo album. My good friend Fin Madden took several more and are on his album. His photos show several mash-ups and crashes into the tire walls that MyeongHee didn’t capture.  Just a few of the shots are below. Click the pic for a closeup.

Facebook scrunches pictures down too much and this one is a classic mashup. Click the pic for detailed view. I passed Dee Madden on a tight turn and she could not negotiate the turn in the space I left her. She slammed into the tire wall on the far left. I am on the far right speeding away and laughing

After we came back to Ulsan, we had dinner at a restaurant with a large open-air patio. The weather was perfect: warm but on the shady east side of the building with a slight breeze.  Sometimes I’m still amazed at how cheap things can be here: a full meal of grilled pork, soup, rice, numerous side dishes and several bottles of beer cost only about $11 per person. The equivalent meal in Dallas would be 3-4x that amount.

Sometimes frustrating, sometimes exciting, sometimes I’m homesick and sometimes I’m surrounded by good friends. But Korea is rarely dull.

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By Marty, February 2, 2011 9:37 am

My contract is up next month at the private school I now work at and I’ve already got a ticket home. But it’s still a maybe in my mind. Although I had applied for a couple of university positions, nothing had come of my applications until mid January. That’s when friends of mine, who already worked at these colleges, submitted my application again with their personal recommendations. Of course, it’s always been that way – it’s better to network than simply throw resumes to the wind.

Anyway, two colleges here in town, one a nursing college and the other a national technical university, decided they’d better get busy and hire a native English speaker for their spring semester which starts in March. I interviewed at the nursing college last week and then at the teach uni this week. Both times I knew my competition – other friends here in town. That makes it nice because if I don’t get the job I’ll still have a friend there for next year when they need another teacher. The nursing college has already decided and they didn’t choose me. No worries, the winning applicant was Alan, a guy who used to live in Watertown, SD and partied at The Prop, the old watering hole by the lake near Lizzie’s former home.  I’m happy for him. On the plus side, he has a private school of his own he’ll have to hire a teacher for. Maybe I can be his boy there when I come back.

The tech university is a much bigger school and they’re hiring a couple of teachers. They wanted writing instructors, and with the novel I’ve written and continuing writing on my other website, Ulsanonline.com, I figured I’ve got a good chance. My competition is Dee, another good friend who has written for the same website and for the local newspaper we both wrote for a few years back. Dee is also a rock climbing partner and we’ve spent many a Saturday together clinging to rock faces. She’s got a leg up on me on this job as she’s midway through her Masters degree in journalism. She’s also younger and prettier, which is something the Koreans tend to value more in their native English speakers than they do quality or ability, of which she has plenty of also. Regardless, this would be a nice job if I get it, but I’m not holding my breath. If I get, I’ll stay through May and come home. If not, I’ll come home in March.  I hope to know definitively within the next week or two.  I have to admit, though, that even though I’d like the job, I’m more than ready for a break and am homesick. Part of me wants to be passed over  for the job so I can simply go home for a while. The other part of says that rejection still hurts and I want the job, more so than the nursing college job I was already rejected for.

This week, February 2nd through the 4th, is Lunar New Year. It’s one of the two biggest of Korean holidays and the country nearly shuts down while people travel in packs to their hometowns to celebrate. We’ll be going to Pohang and I’ll be sitting on the floor again for a couple of days.  Next week, beginning on the 7th, people will be back and work and thinking hard about who they’re going to hire. I should probably know something that week.

Until then, ta ta for now… and Happy New Year

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By Marty, January 4, 2011 10:54 pm

Since just after Christmas we’ve had a house full of people. ChangHyun, MyeongHee’s nephew has been here since the 26th. He’s 11 or 12 and a pretty good kid. He doesn’t cause any trouble, just mostly watches TV and plays on the Wii or on one of the computers. Last year when he came we sent him to the English school for an hour a day. This year, however, I’m doing all the teaching here at home. So, I go teach at Samsung three mornings a week, teach at the school 5 days a week and now I teach him 7 days a week. I’m running out of days.

A few days after ChangHyun came, my mother-in-law came and she’s been here since. She’s no trouble, either. She spends her days cooking and cleaning our home, although not so much cleaning as she’s done in previous visits. Whether that’s because she’s getting old or she knows we’re moving soon and doesn’t want to spend time on someone else’s place I’m not sure.  This time I can actually put my coffee cup down for a few minutes without her picking it up and washing it. Last time I had to almost carry it around with me for fear she’d wash it before I was even done drinking.

This past weekend, we had both MyeongHee’s brothers here at the house. Her younger brother came Saturday with his wife and baby. Her older brother and his wife (ChangHyun’s parents) came on Sunday along with their daughter. Our place just isn’t that big, but Koreans don’t worry too much about not having beds – they’re used to sleeping on the floor. We just spread out the thick blankets and piled up people like cord wood.

We’re still planning on moving soon. Hopefully we’ll be out by the end of the month. We put our money down and now just waiting for the current occupants to move so we can clean and then move in.  I’m getting excited not to be on the edge of town and be more central. We’re far enough on the edge now that any open space (what little there is) is all farm land. Next door is a house sized open lot that the owner grows his veggies and even a chicken. Late in December the chicken got past the skimpy fence and walked into our school. I was out walking the dogs just before work and when they saw the chicken in the entrance that really raised a ruckus. The dogs got all worked up and chicken wasn’t taking any shit from anyone. Freaked a couple of the younger 1st grade students out. I ended up picking up the chicken and throwing it back  over the fence. I doubt I’ll have chickens to contend with in our new apartment.

A few pictures

This is GaEun, wearing her cousin DongHyun’s glasses (no prescription – he just likes the style) and playing with MyeongHee’s cell phone. She can figure out, even at the tender age of 18 month, how to make a video phone call, find the games and generally dork around with most any phone. I downloaded a finger painting application for my smartphone and let her play with that. She’s pretty cute and a lot of fun to watch. Her dad has got a routine where he tells her to stand at attention and then salute. I tried to catch that on video, but once the camera come out its all smiles and ‘cheese’ with no more salutes. Pretty dang cute.

She likes me. She’ll sit on my lap so she can play with my computer. I’m sporting my winter beard again, too. She’s not too fond of that.

Here’s a little medieval medicine I was having done. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder and I’ve found that the quickest way to get it fixed is to go to the acupuncturist in town. For a mere $5 I can get a whole workup of needles, electro-needles that make the muscles tense and relax, hot pad, water-jet massage table and this, the drawing of blood. The idea is to use a suction cup to suck out the bad blood (after having first pricked the skin) from around a painful area.  Not sure how much this contributes to the fix, but the rest of it I actually enjoy, especially the water-jet massage. 

A picture of my honey with the Santa hat on.

Anywho, hope everyone else is doing fine. I’m looking forward to coming  home this year for a bit. Still planning on March, but I’ve also applied for a couple of university jobs that might mean a short delay if I get lucky enough to land one.  12 hours per week of teaching plus 2 months vacation  vs the 35 hours a week and 10 days of vacation I get now would make a short delay in getting home worth it. We’ll see.

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By Marty, December 26, 2010 8:27 pm

Not a single gift was exchanged. And we were happy about it. We’re not poor or cheap, just didn’t feel the need to buy presents for ourselves this year. Instead, we’re saving our cash for the planned move and the things we’ll need there. As a foreign native-English teacher, I am afforded a furnished apartment. But as just a family, which we will be in the new place, it’s just an apartment. I’ll need a desk, a washing machine, and various other pieces of furniture that is part of the apartment we live in now.

It’s been cold this weekend over Christmas. The weather men predicted snow, but they are frequently- and were again – wrong. Just cold. We stayed inside and watched movies and read books.

This week, MyeongHee’s nephew is going to stay with us. He’s 11 and a good kid. I’ll taking him riding on bicycles this week and wear his little butt out. I’ll probably also tutor him in English. His family doesn’t send him to an English school these days so he’ll get the free version since I’m off work.  I’ll probably challenge him by telling him that his cousin, GaEun learns English quickly so he should too. So what that she’s in the language acquisition phase of babyhood – he’ll get his motivation somehow.

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By Marty, November 1, 2010 12:03 pm

Although I prepared a costume I never even wore it except to pose for this picture.

Another suicide bomber

MyeongHee and I had gone out with some friends on Friday night to celebrate a birthday. We ate, drank and danced until the wee hours. On Saturday, I went to another friend’s wedding the park while MyeongHee worked at the hairshop. By the time I picked her up at 8pm, she wasn’t feeling well and my plans for another night of eating, drinking and dancing throughout the many Halloween parties was put on ice. We ended up just going home and relaxing on the sofa watching a movie.

We’re old and boring. But we like it.

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By Marty, September 21, 2010 4:58 pm

This week is Chuseok in Korea. In other parts of Asia, its the mid-Autumn harvest festival. Either way, the story is the same: families leave their homes and head out, en masse, for family gatherings. Usually this takes places at the parents’ or grandparents’ home.  We’ll be doing that ourselves shortly, but MyeongHee is getting those last minte hair perms, cuts and styles done and making a few bucks in the process. We’ll hit the road this evening after the last customer goes home.

This past weekend, however, the city put on a “Hangawi”  (harvest moon) festival for the foreigners here in Ulsan. They set aside a part of Ulsan Grand Park and had demonstrations of pottery making, tea ceremonies, straw craft, and had traditional music and dancing.

For the Foreigners, but we were still the minority in attendance

This was on Sunday, a day I usually reserve to spend with my sweet wife, But since she was busy doing perms for pre-Chuseok customers I thought I’d come down to the park and see what the fuss was all about. I have to toot my own horn here a little: City Hall has taken notice of our website, UlsanOnline.com and have begun to regularly ask us to post news and information for them. Being the only English website in town that isn’t someone’s personal blog, we’ve become somewhat famous. I know most of the organizers at the festival and volunteer organizations.  I spent most of the afternoon shaking hands with those I knew, which was considerable.  Still, being a festival “for foreigners” I was surprised that the speakers spoke most everything in Korean.  Only Jazzie, the woman on the left of the stage spoke English but that was few and far between.

I love the short description of the tea and candy

Among the booths, I sampled the candy, the rice cakes and tea and watched the women make straw thingys (I really don’t know what they made).  Other demonstrations were the traditional games such as the see-saw. I watched my friend Bill (in the blue t-shirt) take a turn on the see-saw. It looked like more work than play, so I was content to watch and take pictures.

Bill, right, takes a turnon the see-saw

Where ever I went in the park, I was swarmed by children who wanted to pet my dog. I took only SaTang – MyeongHee had taken Sparky to the hairship – and she dutifully let teh kids pet her without licking them or jumping on them. Koreans in general seem to have gotten less freaked about dogs than they used to be. We used to have kids run away and shriek when we walked in the park but these days its more dog-friendly.

SaTang takes a few kids on

AnAjumma shows the kids how to make straw things

The following  are some of the better still shots I took of the various drummers and dancers.  At least one of the women is the samewomen I took photos of two years ago in a Gyeongju festival. I suppose she must be a pro in one of the local dance troupes. I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader to find the photo and woman from 2008.  Click on the shots to get a full size view of these people in their brightly colored costumes.

And, since I didn’t carry my video camera and just my Olympus digital, I had to suffice any lice action with just the smart phone. Not a bad little phone, but no real features such as zooming.  Still, I hope it gives you a small impression of what the dances were like in person.

And with that, I’m off for the real Chuseok holiday at my mother mother-in-law’s house. Another fun-filled few days sitting, eating and sleeping on the floor. I can’t wait.