Christmas in Korea - Dec-25-2009

Random Korean Trivia

- Family titles exist, but there are certain ways of calling certain relatives. (A number)-chon is literally your (1st/2nd/3rd)-link in the family tree. Siblings would be 1-chon, parents would be 2-chon, uncles would be 3-chon and first cousins would be 4-chon. You get the idea.
Il - I - Sam- Sah - Oh - Yuk - Chil - Pal - Goo - Ship = 1-10 in Korean and then chon (link)

Hodogwajah - Literally walnut snack, it's a bitesize sweet bread with red bean paste inside and a walnut bit on top.

It's a green, foggy Christmas day in Korea. Fine by me, I'd rather not get my feet soaking wet as snow tends to become slush really quickly over here. Today my cousin and his family from Seoul came to stay over at our place. Koreans don't really celebrate Christmas by giving gifts to each other or singing carols, but we go about our day a bit better.

My cousin rings the doorbell and my first hope is that I have surpassed him in height after like 20 years of trying. In the end he's still taller than me (his wife is taller than me too D=). Damnit... despite me growing 1.5cm this past month I'm a full 6cm shorter... oh well lol, I still need to get to 181cm to beat him (sad face). My cousin is a general manager of a computer company and he runs his own team of programmers.

I haven't seen him for about 7 years (he came to Canada for one year to study English). I got to meet his wife and of course his daughter. Her name is Jeong I-Seul (정이슬) She's about 17 months old and like her parents she's quite tall for a child her age. She doesn't speak yet but she's able to say words well enough so that we can figure out what she's saying.

I-seul is just adorable, even though it's my first time meeting her we bonded instantly. She likes food and is constantly feeding me. She unwraps hodogwajah and peels oranges and she just keeps feeding me. She also likes to hug.. I mean hug a lot. She likes the attention I give her and she's always hugging or leaning on me. (To 다운 noona, you're missing out a lot over here).

She doesn't respond as well to her grandparents (my aunt and uncle) and her little-grandparents (my parents). I tell her that my dad is balding gramps and my uncle is wrinkly gramps which she surprinsgly laughed at (so I guess she got those jokes?) She's a very smart girl, eats on her own mostly and knows most of what we're saying to her.

I was playing some Super Turbo with a this Korean guy on GGPO and she walked into my room and just sat on my stick when the match was over. I got her off and logged off so she could play with it. Damnit I wish I got a picture of that. When she fiddled with it she actually looked like she was playing.

My uncle also gave me a fitness challenge. I am to run 120km carrying 50kg on my back and do it all in 24 hours. I'll be doing this sometime in the summer, so can someone join me? =D

Anyway, I wish you all a Merry Christmas!~
Since I won't be drinking, please drink my share for me. =)
Until next year!

New Comp, New Goals, New Pissoff - Dec-15-2009

Random Korean Cultural Trivia

Ahjuhsshi (아저씨) - a title people call men who are in their mid 30s to late 50s or so.. the English equivalent is mister I guess

I got my own comp finally. Up until two days ago I've been using my uncle's computer and now I finally have my own here. It should be good to go for SC2 (on avg-low standard) but hey it'll work out. The only problem I have with it is that it's all in Korean. Since I'm not exactly fluent I have a lot of trouble getting things to work on it. This is Windows 7 by the way, so it is completely different from XP. I managed to get GGPO up and running so I'll get my Street Fighter practice with the arcade stick through Super Turbo and 3rd Strike. So far most of what I expect to work runs pretty well and so far this is the most powerful system I've ever owned.

OS - Windows 7
Processor - Dual Core 2.8 ghz
Hard Drive - 320 gb
RAM - 2 gb
Video Card - 512 mb GeForce

I might need a bit more ram but other than that I should be good to go. I tried downloading and installing a cracked copy of Street Fighter 4 on it, but it turns out that Windows 7 isn't compatible with it (at least the Korean version). I guess I'll have to wait 'til I get my PS3 to get some real practice in. I feel my skills have left me already, plus I'm trying to migrate over from the DPad to the arcade stick. (DON'T GET TOO FAR AHEAD GODFREY, WE'RE RIVALS AFTER ALL D=) Maybe later I'll try running Starcraft Brood War.

I'm going to be visiting my aunt's school and I'm going to be observing english classes so I can get a nice demonstration of how things are run by experienced people and also get all my questions and inquiries answered. Apparently a Canadian girl is there teaching English so I'll have someone who is in a similar case to me and will have more things to relate too. Apparently the students' parents all know that I'm gonna be visiting and requested that I befriend their children and use only English. Normally I wouldn't mind this, but these are grade-school kids, they expect me hang out with kids...? Fuck-no, if they want me to waste time with their kids they're gonna have to pay me for it. (This school is full of kids who come from well-off families so it shouldn't be an issue for them right? I mean do they really expect me to do it for free? -_-)

I've been here for nearly 3 weeks and already I'm starting to miss some things at home. Mainly I miss you guys and all the hang out days. I'm also starting to miss food over there. Don't get me wrong, the food is insanely good here, but the menu in Korea that's not Korean food seems to be limited. The only other thing I've seen was pizza... that's it. Congee Time.... I'm craving that shit right now as I type this. Surprisingly there's no Chinese restaurant in this damn city. (I haven't been to the Central downtown area of my city yet so when I get there maybe things will change).

Going to the gym 6 days a week is tough, I always feel so much weaker than everyone else. In Canada, I can do most of the stack on most of the machines, but over here I'm lucky if I can even lift half of the damn stack. Even the guys who don't look particularly strong are way stronger than me (damn soldiers). In fact there was this chin up contest between five big guys the other day. (Chin ups as in no swinging, dropping your arms down completely) The winner did about 79 or 82... The girls who go there are just... wow. They're really committed to keeping their very nice bodies very nice.

Goals... ah yes, I designed my own exercise program to help me slim down again. Weight training alternates between days (every day) but I'm not gonna bother mentioning it, but believe me it's a damn lot. So this is the stuff I do 6 days a week.

Pushups - as many as I can (usually last up to 300 pushups, 400 if I'm not lazy)
(Pushups aren't done on chest days and the day after)
Full Situps - 200... I heard all Korean male celebs do over 600 a day to get their mandatory abs so I decided to add about 10 every week, so in about 40 weeks I should hit that mark unless my abs just explode from stress.
Stretching - I can't do the splits anymore and that pisses me off. So I spend about 2 minutes per stretching exercise.

I also went to the Korean Consulate today to submit my work contract. My dad was driving and there were no spaces in the parking lot. We finally notice someone exiting so we move in to back park. Then this punk ass bitch ahjuhsshi front park snipes the spot. My dad slams the breaks and yells all kinds of curse words. When that assclown got out of his car, he looks over at us does a little bow and smiles. At first I thought that was an insult like "yea took your spot bitches", but over here it's like a "sorry for doing that" gesture. So I started unbuckling to teach that motherfucker a lesson. I don't care if it's an ahjuhsshi or not, a dickhole is a fucking dickhole. My dad stopped me however and said not to pick fights with anyone in Korea, especially since I don't know their connections and if the cops catch me it's a heavy fine for a punch. Promising not to beat him I just got out of the car and sized him down and I'd probably crush his face in one blow if I tried. When we got in the building to find our way to the office we needed to go to, we saw him again waiting for an elevator again giving us the same bow and faggot ass smile. I just gave him a cold stare that clearly implied "you do that shit again and I'm gonna punch the fuck out of your face".

We went back kinda pissed off, so my dad decided to park by a food stand. We got hot/spicy rice cake (떡볶기) as a snack. This surprisingly made me feel a lot better and it was well worth the price (about 3 bucks).

Going to the Gym - Dec-08-2009

I joined a gym that's across the street from my house today. It's located on the 2nd floor of an office building and it's called Olympia Health Club. I'll start working in February 2010, so I got a temporary 2-month membership for 90 000 won ($90). The price did shock me quite a bit, since places in Canada like Goodlife Fitness or Extreme Fitness won't charge more than $35 for a standard membership. I guess it's because everyone in Korea is physically fit. In the west, obesity rate is dangerously high, so the government takes steps to encourage people to exercise for their health. Over here it's not necessary at all, so it's probably more of a want than a need.

The gym owner (관장님)/general manager was a professional bodybuilder and fitness coach back in the 90's. The instant you walk through the front doors you're greeted by a giant framed picture of him posing in his speedo in a competition o_O.

To say the least, this is a humble gym. It isn't anything large and fancy like the Extreme Fitness on Yonge and 7, but it's a pretty small gym with all the right equipment for exercise. One major adjustment I'll have to make is the equipment and the system. In Korea they use kilograms instead of pounds, so that'll take me a bit to get used to. The weight on a lot of the machines is just ridiculous. For example, the chest press machine goes well over 320 lbs, whereas in Canada the highest I've seen was 290 lbs.

I also mentioned some unique machines that I've never seen before at any gym in Canada. To name one, there's a machine that trains your hips and lower back. Basically you sit on this chair and do 180 degree hip rotations from side to side by using your waist and your hands on a handlebar in front of you. There's also a groin squeezer. I forgot the real name so I'm just gonna call it that. Basically you're in the splits and you have to close your thighs together while resisting the weight you set it on.

I told the boss that I did training for years before I came here, so he decided to put me through one round of his circuit training. Having survived it, I think I shouldn't have said anything at all. If you're familiar with the Fit Fix they do at Goodlife, imagine that but a lot more machines at a much higher weight for a longer time duration.

Start
Cardio Warmup
- 1 minute of speed walking + 9 minutes of running (70% of a sprint)

Weight Training (roughly 45 seconds each, 20 slow reps, middle-heavy weight)
- Shoulder press
- Chest flys (yes it's flys not flies)
- Chest press
- Lat pulldown
- Bicep curl on the machine
- Tricep extension on the machine
- Upside down squats
- Laydown hamstring curls
- Calf press (basically going on your tiptoes while pressing against weight)
- Torso twist
- Groin squeezing

Cardio Training (on my own)
Next to me was a woman in her early 30's (I think). Since we started on the machines at the same time, I made small talk with her. Turns out that she's the head aerobics instructor a few floors above and that she's at the gym on her day off. (That's insane, this is someone who is REALLY dedicated to keeping her body fit). I told her about my own background and she wanted to see if I could keep up with her. The challenge was 40 minutes on the treadmill, 5 minutes walking, 30 minutes running and 5 minutes walking. We had to follow the same speed and same elevation (she would give the cue when to change what). Though I managed to come out alive, I was feeling dead. I never liked running to begin with (especially on a treadmill) and I'm not anywhere close to the level I was 3 years ago. She said she was impressed but I needed a lot of work to do before I could beat her. As you probably guessed, she didn't look that tired and said that was basic for her.

Cooldown Stretching and Abs (on my own)

This took me about 2 hours to complete. While in most other cases I would like these exercises, today the boss made me hate every single one of them. Besides martial arts, this has to be the most painful training session I have ever done in my life (and that's saying a lot). On observation of other members of the gym, I have to say that the adults and seniors here are in much better health and fitness than their western counterparts. Even as I climbed all those mountains, they were able to make it to the top and down without feeling anything.

I guess I'll be going there everyday starting tomorrow or the day after. Of course I won't be training at the insanity of today's, but still hard enough. I only have 2 months left to go before I start teaching, so hopefully I can get back in better shape in time.

I'm also gonna buy a laptop later today or sometime tomorrow. =D
Anyway, peace out everyone.

Downtown, Countrysides and Mountain Climbing - Dec-4-2009

Korean Cultural Trivia

Ondol - Koreans invented the heating and cooling system for building floors in the early Goguryeo kingdom (37BC-669AD). Basically under the wooden floors, there would be stones beneath them with soil and sand covering them, seperating the rocks and the floor (most commonly where people sleep). The rocks would then be heated through fire to keep warm during winter and be left unheated during the summer. Today, modern ondol is done by electricity with a control panel in each room to adjust the floor temperature.

Yangban - The noble class of Korean society in the olden days. Often remembered as wealthy snobs who had the money to do whatever they want. They mostly cared nothing for the middle and lower class people, usually looking down on them for not being on the same level as them and their peers.

I met up with my friend Eliza so she could show me around downtown. Here I saw a bit more of the modern side of the city even though it wasn't the main downtown area. The sites were actually pretty cool and looked like something you'd see out of those Asian advertising magazines. The roadside strip plazas mainly consisted of clothing stores, restaurants, karaokes and pc rooms. They all looked pretty fancy and from what I saw they offered some pretty good merchandise at a very good price. We also went to Lotte Mart, think of it as a better Walmart. It's really cool that instead of escalators, they use these bands that they use at the airport to walk the hallways, but it's elevated. If you have a cart, the wheels of the cart are magnetized to the track and you can let go of it to give yourself a rest.

I think I already mentioned that bus tickets cost 1000 won (a dollar) vs the 3+ dollars that I had to pay over there. I also took a cab back home from her house and it cost me 2700 won ($2.50). I also must mention that the public transportation here are just flat out ridiculous. Speed seems to be their number one priority, so the driver's waste no time getting people from one stop to the next. Hell buses here cut off more people than cars do in Canada. The cab drivers are just insane, they go through tiny ass alleyways doing like 70km per hour with cars parked on b0th sides. It seems like they won't even care about some drunk idiot jumping out to the middle of the street. Much better than the cab drivers here don't you think?

About a day after I went to the countryside to do a bit of touring. The plan was to visit my mom's hometown city Ham-pyung-goon(함평군) which is located right outside of Mokpo city (think of it as a county). We also visited her childhood home and coincidentally bumped into her oldest brother who was on his way to work on his motorbike. She showed me her family farm and I also got to meet her cousins and the lifestyle that she had back in the 60's. There was also a giant stone monument which was dedicated to my grandfather. Apparently he was a wealthy and generous man who did a lot of good deeds for the people. For doing that, the local community had it made in his honour and it was pretty cool to see it. Some of it was in Chinese letters so I got my parents to read it to me.

While in the area we took the time to visit the area's most famous restaurants. Arriving at the place, there was no giant building like any typical restaurant. Instead it was around 5 mini-buildings in the shape of homes. These small buildings were designed in the fashion of the old Joseon dynasty (1397-1910) of Korea. The dining area was like a giant bedroom with every guest taking their shoes off at the entrance and walking in to about 8 tables nicely organized. The floor was also fitted with the ondol system and all the food was served in stone pots all made over a fire (now that's old school).

Unlike Chinese cuisine, Korean cuisine commonly has soup mixed with rice into this porridge meal. It's probably because Chinese soup isn't nearly as flavour and spice filled as Korean soup.  The place was apparently legendary in status for their gook-bap (lit. soup-rice) meals. And holy shit it was the best soup-rice I have ever eaten. There are many types to choose from, I got pig intestines (gop-chang). It might sound nasty, but once you eat it, you'll realize what a delicacy it is. Feeding me and my parents cost about 28 000 won (28 dollars, remember there's no such thing as leaving tip in Korea =D), pretty expensive by Korean standards but very cheap by Western standards.

We also visited my family burial grounds, starting with my paternal side. They were located on mountain bases on the countrysides. We literally had to go through someone else's backyard just to climb up there. When we got there, we cut an apple and a yam, along with a shot of soju and laid it in front of each mound we paid our respects too. We had to do the Korean bow twice by saying "______ I have returned to visit you" then stand back up. During this we have to think in our heads of what we would say to them had they actually been alive. It might be a bit sacriligious, but I just thought "hey.. I don't remember your faces... but nice to see you". After that, we walk around the mounds, pouring the leftover alcohol as we circle it (one bottle per mound). After we did great grandparents, gramps, uncle and aunt, we went to the maternal side.

My mom's side was pretty fancy for a burial mound. Stones with personal art circling the mound, dedication monument statues everywhere. Apparently if you come from a noble class (yangban) family, it was very affordable to do this. Because they were Christian and were not drinkers, we did the same rituals skipping the alcohol related parts. We then left for home.

 

Today we climbed Yudal mountain (Mokpo's ™ mountain). My parents were feeling exercisy so they told me that were going to walk there, scale the mountain and walk back home. The walk to the mountain was pretty short, about 15-20 minutes or so. While it isn't the tallest mountain, it's a hell of a climb to get up to. A famous monument that I saw along the way was this giant stone perched on the side facing towards the sea. About 500 years ago, Admiral Yi Sun-Shin used it to scare of the Japanese invaders by making the rock seem like a place where the main ground forces were waiting to repel the invaders. This forced the Japanese to turn around and attack from the Eastern coasts instead, where the main navy was waiting for them. Near it was an old statue of the admiral made of bronze (I think) and an epitaph made in his honour.

The climb itself wasn't that bad, but it felt like an eternity. The stairs (old and new) were extremely small and very steep at some points. The old stairs were steps that were carved into the mountainous rocks that are there and you could see that it's starting to wear down. Instead of just going up there were many side routes you could take that would lead you all over the mountain. So we decided to explore all of them and I must say, the views were out of this world. We spent about a good 3 hours on the mountain and it had a lot of small padogas where the yangban nobles would do their recreational activities (usually singing folk songs, playing games, eating food and of course drinking.) We got down and walked to a local restaurant in the street markets. There we sat at a restaurant and ate stuffed pig intestines (fucking awesome), pig head meat (fucking awesome), juhn (Korean pancakes) and drank about a litre of Korean rice wine (yes, the original sake). 13 000 won by the way, whereas in Canada it would be like 30 000 won.

All in all it was a pretty enjoyable half a week, I haven't done this much walking or mountain climbing since the last time I've been here. So thanks for reading and I'll see you guys next time.

Arrival in Korea - Nov-28-2009

Random Korean Trivia

1 - 1000 won (Korean currency) is roughly a Canadian dollar
2 - Korea is 14 hours ahead of Canada

The ride was 13 hours on the plane alone, along with 5 more hours of going through customs, baggage checking, baggage pickup and walking through the airport. To avoid suffering jetlag, I had a contest with my dad to see who can stay awake the longest and simply put I just creamed him. As the plane sped up and took off from Canadian soil, it started to hit me that: wow, I'm really gone for a few years aren't I? Thankfully Facebook will make sure that I'm somewhat up to date on you guys. =S

The food was ass served on plastic = sandwiches, bananas, wine/coffee/tea and juice for snacks and refreshments. The two meals they gave us were ham omelette and bibimbap (bad ones). Some of the stewardesses were damn hot and they gave exceptional service. I spent all my time watching movies on the personal screen everyone has attached to the seat of the person in front of them. I finally got to see Transformers 2, Ice Age 3, Up and Back to the Future. The stupid bitch in front of me kept changing her seat posture while I was watching my movies. It especially got annoying during the fast paced parts of the movie and I was getting a little irritated. Thankfully I was watching Up (which turned out to be a shitty movie contrary to what I've been told) so I wasn't bothered that much. Despite that the most irritating part was the descending part of the trip, my ears were killing me.

We landed and Incheon International Airport around 3:15AM and managed to collect our roughly 100KGs of bags. The plan was to go take the 5:30AM one-way coach bus to my hometown of Mokpo. We had about an hour and half to kill so I walked around the airport and found what was apparently the '7/11' of Korea called MINI-STOP. I took a look inside and holy crap it's the best convenience store I've ever seen. I bought a lunchbox for 2000 won (2 bucks) and it was so damn good. The plastic box had bulgogi meat, kimchi, spicy squid, pickled radish and rice all in decent portions. In Canada that shit would've cost me over 10 bucks or 10 000 won. >_>

It's also interesting to note that there's no visible tax in Korea. Aside from the taxes we pay being much less than Canada's, it's all included into the base price. So that 2000 won lunch I bought was probably 1600-1700 won. I also love how the prices always end in zeros. If you don't know what I mean, go watch www.youtube.com/watch?v=FffTJk-gFKc and you'll see. Pennies are bullshit.

For some reason unexplained we ended up waiting til 6:30AM and headed over to the bus stop (with 100KGs mind you). Just when we got there, we saw the bus leave the stop and move on. Unlike Canada where sometimes the bus driver will sympathize with you and stop, Korean buses run on a tight schedule and are always moving fast. Thanks to that dickface, we waited until 8AM for the next one. We ended up just taking the bus to Seoul then transferring from there to go to Mokpo (roughly 5 hours on the road). For some reason we ended up transferring a few more times and had a resting point at Muan (a town outside of the main city).

Well finally after like 6 hours we arrived at the bus terminal where my uncle was waiting to pick us up. When we got home, we said hello to my aunt and had a huge ass lunch at their place. Afterwards we headed out to get our cellphones registered. Mine is a white LG LH5000 and it's a pretty slick phone. I gotta say, Koreans own the world in the cellphone industry, almost everyone here has a really nice phone with them. I'm also learning to text in Korean and it takes a bit of practice. Consanants on the left and vowels on the right, the star button to double letter and the pound button to change between letters.

In the evening we visited my grandmother at the care center she's staying in. She's had Alzheimers for a while and I already prepared myself for the fact that she wouldn't remember me. It wasn't until I saw her in person that I realized how bad it was. All my life I had the memories of her being healthy and fairly active, it was her who took care of me as a baby so it has a more lasting impression. To see her like this really killed me and we were all in tears over her condition. She seemed very sad herself that she can't remember her own relatives. I'm going to be visiting her on a weekly basis to spend some time with her. Hopefully her memory will somewhat improve, but it doesn't seem likely at this point. But I do hope that even if it's a small improvement, it would mean the world to me.

My uncle/aunt train themselves at 4:30AM and are forcing me to go along with them. (Seriously? 4:30AM training at this stadium?) There's also a gym located conveniently in front of our condos so I'll be going there regularly to carve myself back in shape... after our 4:30AM workout of course.. >_>

As for my martial arts plan, it turns out Kyokushin only exists in Seoul and Busan. There's a place called the K-1 Fighting Gym, where aspiring fighters go to train. I've also been told that it's the favoured training ground for the Mokpo gangsters who are apparently well known in Korea for their savage fighting skills and criminal activities. o_O Oh well, I guess training will have to wait until I move to another city later on.

For those of you who are wondering, yea it's true, the guys are fairly tall (or at least taller than me) and a lot of the girls I've seen so far are above average in looks and are all well dressed. I guess it's true, Koreans are one of the most metro sexual races around. I also decided to test my pick-up game for fun with a hot girl working at the store where I got my phone. Knowing fluent English really does get your stats up and I'm sure it sounds much better than the wannabe sexy English guys over here try to use.