Museum of Korean War Stuff and Junk

So as this title implies, I made it to The War Memorial of Korea, in Seoul. Truthfully, I didn't take a lot out of it, so that explains why I called it "Museum of Korean War Stuff''.

As for the junk, I figured I would stray off topic and talk about how much my job has improved just this week. So I got a new student in one of my regular classes, and her parents put her in some additional private classes. Luckily, my boss put me on for teaching her, which meant that he would have to relieve me of a few other classes. Somehow he did about the best thing possible. One of her classes is scheduled during my most hated class, which is with middle school kids, so I don't teach that anymore. YES. I was also given Friday mornings off. NO FRIDAY MORNING. And all I have extra is one on one lessons with a student who actually wants to learn. Wow.

Anyway, heres the war museum stuff. Like I said, I didn't really learn a lot from it, so it's mostly just a bunch of pictures. I went two weekends ago now with my friend Daniel who was actually in the military and served in the first Gulf War. By far the best part of the trip to Seoul that weekend was that we ate at both a Mexican and a Thai food restaurant. To me, those are the two best food countries in the world. We also ate at restaurants that did a super good job. Mexican was at 'South of the Border' at a mall, and the Thai was at Thai Orchid in Itaewon. Let me just say that Thai Orchid makes a coconut soup that might as well have come from Thailand. Wow.

So here's the museum anyway. The first thing we saw when approaching was this statue of two guys. Is it just me or does it look like two people making out? It's actually called 'The Statue of Brothers,' so thats a little bit insensitive to two brothers who were separated in North and South Korea. But come on, they are totally making out.

The outside of the museum I found a little bit more interesting than the inside. They had this ridiculous collection of war machinery, I think mostly from the Korea conflict (the one from MASH). They had just so many tanks, airplanes, cannons, and really everything. This is a fountain made from a mine.

This is an artsy shot of the 'Korean War Monument.'

Here's the front facade of the museum. It's surrounded by flags and then a giant set of steps leading to the door. I was also impressed by the giant green cantilevered overhang over the doorway. I forgot some stuff inside of a locker on the way out, and then made it to about the point where I took this picture before I realized it. There were about five minutes until the place closed, so I sprinted all the way up the steps to try to make it in time. I tried the doors and the first two I tried were locked. They had luckily left just one open, and I made it in time.

Here's some of the airplanes they have outside the museum, with Seoul Tower in the background.

Inside they had some impressive murals, this one with some Korean soldiers storming out of a helicopter. I call it "who farted inside the chopper?"

This is a replica of 'Fatman' himself. 'Littleboy was right next to it but it wasn't impressive enough to make it on the website.

So this was a seemingly random face cutout thing, and on a whim had Daniel take my picture in it. It turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of myself ever. I kind of feel like I should have been in the military because of this shot.

The historic section had this neat armor from the various dynasties throughout Korea's history.

Here's the sun setting on the Museum, ahhhh, what a day.

So overall it was a nice visit and definitely worth the three bucks. I was a little bit disappointed because there's barely even a mention of the U.S. and their involvement in the Korea conflict. There's giant section where they have a life-size model of somebody from each country that came to fight in the Korea conflict, and the U.S. didn't get any special treatment. Oh Well.

More Paintings, Again

So it's been somewhat sparse here at Brad's Korean Adventures, huh? Sorry about that. I guess one of the main reasons for that is that not as many new things happen, so I don't have as much to write about. I do have a few posts to put up this week, and I'm going to try to do about 10 a month still (that's one every three days).

Things are going pretty well though, otherwise. I think I've gotten good enough at teaching now that I can walk into a class with no previous thought and pull enough out of my arse to kill 45 minutes. Wait, I'm not really sure if that makes me a good teacher or not. With my most dreaded class, this one called GS1 which is all 13 year olds, I have gotten to the point where if they don't participate in class, I just torture them. I try to come up with fun activities for them, e.g. general conversation or filling in lyrics to Beatle's songs, but they still just sit there with an apathetic look, resting their head's on their hands. That's why this week I said "OK, if no one will participate then I have a worksheet," and continued to pull out a terribly boring grammar worksheet I found on the internet. Take that, apathetic middle schoolers.

I did complete a painting, which is the reason for this post. It's another one where I just made a whole bunch of tiny triangles (there's one where I did this in Kelsey's apartment) and then I decided to try to do shading and make it look like an object.

Here are all of the tiny triangles. I'm not sure why I like to do this because it takes me about two days.

I proceeded to color in the shape of a hand which is from a photograph of my hand. I did this with a combination of five colors, a yellow, two oranges, and red, and a purplish red.

I didn't know what to do for the background, so I started with this outline around the hand which gets bigger and switches colors between purple and blue. I showed this picture to my friend Daniel on my camera and he was like "oh no, that ruins it. You have to do something out of focus like in a real photograph."

I then painted a black over it, but washed out with some water. Then I put some blue color, and then a little bit lighter blue color. I think it actually looks a little bit like rain or something, and that it actually looks really good. I'm totally happy with the way this turned out. It's on a canvas this time, one that I bought from a local store for only $4. I think it was an OK price for a 12x16 inch canvas.

I decided to throw in a bonus for this post. Here is the last painting I made before I came to Korea. It's a hand holding a guitar, obviously. I put this in because it's a little similar to the other hand one. It's painted on a grid of this kind of sail boat shaped pattern, and then it's my hand holding a C-chord. It might be my favorite painting I've done.

One Week Reflections

Well, one week in. It's been a long week, though in a good way. This post is a summary on my experiences so far in Seosan, Korea.

It is easy to say that Korea is culturally different from the USA. One of my most noticeable changes is how the accepted greeting is the bow. I really like this part, where in either the hello or goodbye, each party is expected to bend forward at the waist for the bow. At first I did a somewhat lazy head nod, but since I have gotten more comfortable with it. Another thing I like is how each place (except for stores, etc.) will have a lowered area where the shoes are expected to be placed at entry. For places such as my school, a pair of sandals is awaiting me.

My doorway.

Another huge difference between here and the states is cultural norms on the street. For one, people are generally not friendly to anybody on the street. It is not in a disrespectful way, it is just somewhat impolite to make eye contact with passersby. With me as a 6'4" white man, I of course am very noticeable. This means the people on the street really, really want to stare at me. If I look around, I can generally catch many people trying to stare at me out of the corner of their eye while facing directly ahead. It's amusing.

I do enjoy the city I am living in. With a population of about 140,000 (via wikipedia) Seosan is considered somewhat small for Korea. Within this populate, I gather that there are about 40 or 50 foreigners in the city from places such as the USA, Canada, UK, New Zealand, and Australia. Many of these people are somewhat close knit, which I like, and I have made a bunch of friends. Generally, every time I venture out of my apartment I will run into someone.

There are also the foreigner hangouts. One place, Holly's Coffee is very close to my apartment. This place is OK, though the coffee is very overpriced. There are also some bars which the foreigners frequent, one is called 'Bike Bar.' From what I hear, foreigners are there almost every night. Another hangout similar to this is 'R&B Club,' which I also went to last Friday night. I met some nice people from New Zealand and UK there, as well as some nice Korean girls. My first night out at the bars on Friday, I ended up staying out until about 5! Bars here will stay open pretty much as late as they still have customers.

One last thing I like very much about Seosan is transportation. By far, the easiest way to get is around is via taxi. There are a few key spots which the cab drivers know in English, such as 'Bikee Bar' (Bike Bar), 'Dunkeen Donutsoo' (Dunkin Donuts), and the 'Bus Termeener' (Bus Terminal). I luckily live a block or two away from the bus terminal so I just say that when I want to get home. By cab, one can get anywhere for about $2 American.

Thoughts on Teaching:

The reason I am here in Korea is for this teaching job, after all, so I plan to get very good at it and improve this as a life skill. Teachers are in demand everywhere in the world, obviously.

At first I wasn't sure at all what to expect. My first day, I was allowed to sit in on three classes which the other foreign teacher, Chea (from Minnesota), taught. After this, I was expected to teach my first class that same day. Really pretty crazy. Luckily, this class was one which only had six students who were are advanced and very well behaved, and all I had to do was cover a few pages from the book.

The ages I teach range from kindergarten to late middle school. My mornings are filled with four kindergarten classes where I generally show videos and have them repeat sentences. Then, afternoon are the middle school kids, which is a whole different game. These classes are half and half, one half being about 6 kids, well behaved, and good listeners. The other half is much closer to hell with ten students. Not really hell, but I think it's easy to get what I mean. One of these classes is nine middle school boys who are all so loud, attention spans so short, and generally don't like to listen much. My first day with them was rough, but I am getting better to relating to them (and yelling). I also have two conversation classes with older kids. These are fun, but I didn't know the class was coming up each time so I had to fly by the seat of my pants. All I could really come up with was asking them what they want to be when they grow up, and then to talk about food (after that I killed a lot of time with games).

When the kids are good and there is extra time, I like to play Pictionary. The way I conduct this is I first draw a picture on the board, which the kids have to guess. Whoever guesses first gets to write the word on the board and then think of something to draw on their own. I feel that this is a good way to work on vocabulary and creativity, and for me I really like to doodle on the board so that works out.

My school administrator, Jay, is an extremely nice guy. My first day there he picked my up from the bus terminal, showed me where my apartment and the grocery store were, and then showed me around the school. He is very easy going and more than easy to get a long with. The school also provides a free lunch to me everyday which I usually spend with him. The other foreign teacher, Chae, was so helpful to me my first few days and also was nice enough to show me around the town on my first night there.

Overall, I enjoy teaching these Korean kids very much. Korean kids are ridiculously cute (sorry, American kids). My kindergarteners are all very affectional and like to give me hugs and high fives, while the older kids enjoy games and asking me questions and such. It turns out teaching is super exhausting, as I'm sure every teacher knows. I am really happy when class gets out everyday as I am sick of talking and yelling and watching kids. This really is no match for how overall rewarding I find this teaching experience, though. I am excited to see how the rest of this year turns out.

Some presents the students made me: