Ulsan Mobis

I told Dad that I would put the link to the Mobis roster on here (basketball).

http://www.asia-basket.com/team.asp?Cntry=KOR&Team=1221

I think I am going next week to see them play. I will let you know how it goes. They play well whenever I watch the game on TV so we will see if I jinx them or not being there in person.

I now have two hands

My hand and arm are finally free. Bruised, but free. It's so great to be able to use them. Getting ready in the morning was tough enough when I had two hands (everyone knows I procrastinate).

Countdown to my birthday: 5 days. Yay!!! I hope 24 is a good year.

I must comment on my new found joy of Christmas displays and shopping before my birthday. It must be either two years of practicing for the Christmas performances in the fall at FuHsing has rubbed off on me or the dozens of Christmas trees around Ulsan. Majorly affecting my brain. I have even made a Christmas list, crazy I know. Its incredibly short, maybe 4 or 5 things, but perfect. (Mom I already sent you my list of 2 things. Dad, the list is coming your way this weekend.)

This year I am opting for the less is more, with my real Christmas wish being the Great Wall. I can't wait. I get giddy just thinking about the trip set for next semester. I spent two years in university studying it and now I finally get to go, YES!!!

Side note: The reason why I am super positive is because of the drugs they gave me at the hospital for the pain. They make me happy and cause me to see double. Good times.

New Ipod

I have the blue one.

My ipod nano broke this weekend randomly (mom I am sending it to your house so apple can pick it up from there). It just stopped working. I took it to the Apple store here, but they were stumped so I got a new one (and paid less money compared to American prices). The reason for my hasty purchase: I need a music player or I won't exercise.

First Hospital Trip

A story update will come soon. I'm still in the sling and cast so I can only type one-handed. I am going to the doctor tomorrow for a check-up.

30 second TV Star

This past weekend was uneventful.

I found a great stationary store right near my house. I walked in and realized it was just like Senseio and called Steph. She answered and I said "It's just like Senseio". She replied with "Julia, that is the craziest voice, it's like Gollum." I was amazing. It had everything from notebooks to hammers to folders to trashcans. The only thing I didn't find was white out. I just can't seem to find it anywhere.

I had to judge a speech contest on Saturday morning so I needed to get to bed at a decent hour on Friday which did not happen (so excited about my stationary store run). I was told to be at the school at 10am, so of course I got there at 10:05 thinking I was so late, but no. The true time was 10:30am and I was the first to arrive. I spent the time alone trying to figure out if the co-teachers had wised up and realized my tendency to be late and told me an earlier time or they were just confused about the initial time. As other foreign teachers arrived I found out they were just confused. Every teacher was given a different time.

I was expecting an actual speech contest, but what I got was a dialogue contest. If they could talk to me for 3 minutes on topic then they got a good score. If not, then they got a bad score. Seems easy right? Not when the topic is "On the airplane". There is only so much a flight attendant can get you. My favorite one was when a girl responded to my need for a hotel room with a balconey (all students told me that I could not have a balconey) facing the ocean. She told me that the hotel wasn't near the ocean. I then said I would like to face the lake or river. Whatever water you got. She told me to sleep with the ducks. haha. The only other dialogue that stuck out in my mind was from a boy student. The dialogue was about my birthday party. He had to tell me his plans for the party. It got a little uncomfortable for me and I changed topic.

The only other thing about the contest that warrants mentioning is the fact that it was colder inside the classroom then outside. I think they might have had the air conditioning on. I had to put my jacket and scarf back on while I was judging.

CoCo, but not the one in Seoul.
The best part of Saturday happened when Steph called me and said she found CoCo. ITs a Japanese Curry House that we adored and were addicted to in Taipei. We heard that it was somewhere in Seoul, but had no luck finding it. So I screamed when she told me she had spotted it while shopping. Yes, I was walking in the street where several Korean people stopped and gave me weird looks. I then did a happy dance and told her I would be heading there soon, like a day trip, lol. Our birthday weekend will be spent eating there continiously. Good times ahead.

I then arrived home and went to bed until the next day. I was supposed to go out Saturday night, but I instead slept of the cold I had last week. I now feel much better. Sunday I went to one of my happy places here in Ulsan: E-mart. E-mart
Its like Walmart only Korean. I bought some color pencils and a fork. You can get your hair cut, glasses, nails done, things tailored, and buy just about anything you want. The party supplies area was fabulous. I can't wait to decorate my house and Steph's house (haha, you can't stop me).

As I reported last week, KBS came to my Korean class to tape a special on foreign teachers and class sizes (not ours, but the students). They followed Natalie, my table partner in Korean class, around all day at school and then to Korean class. Because I sit next to her, you get to see the back of my head, my arm, and the side of my head in class. I taped it with my camera, but the camera could see lines on my TV that I couldn't, so if you are wondering how I watch TV with all that static, I don't. It's not visible to my eye, just the camera's.

Good times.

"Sports" Day and Heading Out

Pictures and videos coming soon.

Tuesday marked my first sports day in Korea, only it wasn't with my students but with other foreign teachers in Ulsan. I didn't want to go, I even asked out of it. My co-teacher's answer was that I had to go (I think if my principal wasn't at the opening ceremony then maybe I could have got out of it).
My co-teacher (still don't know her name, must come up with a nickname) told me the day before that I had to wear sporty attire. I quickly realized that I didn't bring any sports pants with me (Mom can you put some of them in the first box you send) so I wore wide leg pants, lol. They gave us all shirts with "I Love Ulsan" on it, pink for the girls and orange for the boys.
We started at the Office of Education with the Mayor and other important people gave speeches that they did translate for us, a first. They gave us all roses, but my fell between the seats and I left it there. (Secretly, I didn't want it). After a bit, the opening ceremony for the Foreigner Sports Day ended and they put us on buses to go to an elementary school for the festivites.
The lunch was fab because it was bimibab (pronounced be-bim-bab). Afterwards we had free time to explore the school. I headed out to the courtyard with others to play with the elementary students. At first I only saw kids playing soccer, but when I turned to head into the school I spotted in the far corner kids playing baseball. They just had a small corner to play, but I still wanted to see what they were up to. I headed over there and they invited me to play and gave me a piece of chocolate, haha.
After the break, we got called into the gym where we were split into six teams, mine was ginseng (pronounced in-sum). All the teams did traditional Korean sports (although some weren't so traditional like the limbo). Even though we had a great cheer, which had some controversy since we were given lower points because the male judge didn't like men and only wanted to see sexy women (we had 80% guys on the team), and we were second after the sports competition, we still got last place. Horrible. The prize was a small pink cartoon blanket, lol.
The best part of the day besides playing baseball with 6th graders was the performances given by the students of the school. They did a traditional Korean fan dance, martial arts, and a traditional drum performace. All were excellent and I was able to get pictures with the students afterwards.
I didn't get home until after 5:30pm and as you know Tuesday and Thursday is Korean class from 6-8pm. I quickly changed, ate an egg, and ran out of the house. When I arrived I thought I would be the last one there, but I was the first one. My teachers came in and asked where was everyone and I told them they would probably be late because of the sports day (I didn't know that most people decided to skip). They then told me that KBS news station from Seoul was there to tape our class, haha.
Sidenote: Why does this always happen to me? I am just glad that I took the time to put decent clothing on and my hair and makeup looked good.
In the end we had to combine our class with the other one so it looked good on T.V. The teachers in the other class may be good looking, but they go way to fast and talk even faster. We just pretended to understand, lol. My friend from class, Natalie, was the star of the news special. They had been following her around all day so she was miked when she sat next to me. This didn't stop our commentary which is colorful since she is from England and I'm from Crisfield, lol. KBS stayed for about 40 minutes and then left.
When they were gone, the head of the Korean program came in and asked if we wanted to eat dinner instead of having class. We all said yes and they took us to this famous bimibab place (yes, I know I ate it for lunch) that has been open for over 80 years. It was wonderful. We ate, drank, and sang Korean pop songs. Our Korean teachers were surprised at that last part, but they laughed just the same.
Skip to Thursday. I got an email from Blondes' cousin who lives here, Jill. She and her boyfriend were going to a new bar and wanted me to join. I headed there after Korean class (I can't miss a single lesson because I am horrible at speaking). The bar is only open on Thursdays and is quite small, but cozy. I met some really nice people there and ended up leave at closing time. Yes, I am exhasted writing this blog right now, but worth it.
This Saturday, I have to judge a city-wide speech contest and give one myself. Yuck. I hope these kids are better than FuHsing's contestants. At least I get paid. That's a major plus since I have to get up early.

Yes We Can

While I know that several people reading this blog will not like what I am about to say I still must say it. Go Obama! I am quite happy that he won and loved his speech. Obama's speech made me proud to be an American. Living abroad is made harder when the people in your host country doesn't like your president. Everyone has an opinion (Shannon and Susie: Do you remember the taxi drivers in Limerick?). You don't know how many times people come up to me here and want to talk politics with me.

I was so touched by his speech that I found it on YouTube and if anyone wants to watch it again, go ahead.

Rainism and Nobody

Everyone, I have two new songs for you fresh from Korea.

The first one is by girl group I watched on M-Net (MTV) the first weekend I was here along with SHINee, FT Island, and DBSK. They are called the Wonder Girls and their song is "Nobody, But You" Most of you know that usually I have no time for girl groups, but their song is so catchy. Can you believe that they are still in high school?!



My second song belongs to Rain. Rain is a touchy subject for me because he is, in my opinion, a freak. I love Full House (he acted in it), but he creeps me out whenever I have to watch him. He is one of the most famous singers in Asia and I am sure that girls fall at his feet, but he gives me the willies. Anyway, a sneak peak of the video was leaked in October and I sent it to Steph so we could make fun of the English lyrics (you will see). Now I have to sing it everyday. The irony.

Address

Here is my address just in time for birthday cards to be put in the mail :).

Daihyun Middle School
Julia Sterling
1330-2 Daldong
Namgu
Ulsan, South Korea

Also I thought I would put up some pictures for my school.



One of my fab teachers of Class D, best Korean class in the land.

Drinking Weekend

More pictures to come.

This past weekend was of course Halloween weekend. Time to dress up, party, and look at drunk people act crazy in the streets while Korean people stood by watched with interest.
I headed to Seoul to party it up with Steph on Friday. This year’s costume was A Thief in the Night. Steph was a gothic bride. Me as a thief in the night. I think I was watching TV when Steph took the picture.Goth Bride with veil StephGoth Bride Steph

A sidenote: The MRT in Seoul is so confusing. I went the wrong way each time. Luckily, I didn’t get on the wrong the train, but their platforms are on different sides and you have to go out of the MRT and then go back in. It sucks.
I finally made it to Steph’s house where we put our costumes on (at least somewhat). People really stare at you when you are wearing costumes on the MRT so I kept my mask in my purse and Steph kept her veil in her purse.
We started out in Itaewon (pronounced E-tay-won, I think) where all the foreigner clubs are. All the foreigners and some Korean people were dressed up. Favorite costumes of the night were kimchi, a guy dressed as an old woman, a Swat team, and someone is a white fat suit (I had no idea what he was). The U.S. military base is there so we saw lots of MPs about. At first I thought it was a group in costume, but I took a look at their guns and they were real. We decided that being around them and drunk people was not a good idea so we headed into the UN club. For the people from Taiwan reading this: it’s like Vibe. Dirrty, Nasty, shoes sticking to the floor. Lots of people drinking and trying to dance. We got hit on right when we walked in by a Korean guy in a rainbow striped blazer. He spoke English so fast that I couldn’t even understand him. While talking to him, one of Usher’s old songs came on and I exclaimed, “This is my song!” (Steph will tell you that I say that about every song.) I pulled Steph to the dancing floor leaving behind Mr. Konglish (a mix of English and Korean). The music wasn’t bad. I did the Tootsie Roll dance (flashback to the 8th grade) and listened to random old school rap. Then the MPs came in and Steph and I walked out. No need to be in a nasty club with gun toting MPs.
Steph and I hightailed it out of there and caught a cab to Hongdae where all the university students go to party. We were only walking for five minutes until we saw a brightly lit bar. It had the Chinese character for Good in its name, but in English it went by Ho Bar.
The Ho Bar

I thought why not? It had three floors and was extremely nice inside. I thought it was going to be dingy, that’s why I picked it, but no. The bartenders were dressed up, but none of the patrons were in costumes.
The issue of the night was who was going to talk to the bartender to get a table. I suddenly couldn’t do it and Steph didn’t want to either so we stood for a good two minutes in the middle of the floor debating who had to go talk to the bartender while the bartender looked on, haha. Steph finally walked up there and got us a table (thanks Steph, just couldn’t do it myself) and our waiter appeared.
This is where things got interesting. He scared the living crap out of me. I couldn’t look at him. He was an angel I think, but his hair was so crazy that I just couldn’t deal. It was extremely short on one side and long on the other, plus he had crazy makeup to match. Steph did the ordering so we got a fruit plate (yes, they do fruit with alcohol here, but that is a whole other blog), a Sex on the Beach for me and a Rum and Coke for Steph. When the waiter came back Steph ended up with a Lemon/alcohol concoction. Let me just tell you that Sex on the Beach and watermelon do not mix. We later order sausages and fries which were very tasty. We spent most of our time watching Korean music videos and listening to hip hop songs.
At about 5 am, we packed it up and headed to the MRT. What is so interesting about this city is its so big that people will sleep in the MRT station until the trains start again the next morning. We walked into the station and there was a band camped out taking a nap, two people laying the floor sleeping, and a whole bunch of people just hanging around. It was wild. Steph and I got on the train with the most diverse group of people. Some were drunk, some were passed out (their friends carried them on), others were like us and waiting for the MRT to open, some were still drinking, etc. The best part was when we were changing trains. As we were waiting, a gorgeous Korean guy stood behind us. He wore the most wonderful black and white belted tattersall coat. He was well dressed from head to toe and still looked wonderful at 5:30 am. I disliked him right away, lol. I noticed immediately that he could understand Steph and I. His ears perked up, this face tilted towards us, his posture shifted. All signs that he was listening. I ignored these facts and just kept on talking. Here comes the best part. The train that we didn’t want arrived first (as usual) and a swarm of elderly people got off. But they didn’t just get off; they ran off and then ran up the stairs. When I say ran, I mean they ran. I was so shocked that I turned to Steph and asked, “What the hell is going on?” That is when tattersall guy leaned forward and said, “They are transferring.” I gave him a look that said, “duh.” (By the way, it wasn’t a “rude duh”, but a “you didn’t answer the question duh”) then looked back at Steph and asked her why they were running, but she could only say how happy she was that we weren’t on the stairs at that time. We would have been seriously injured, or at least I would have knowing my track record for injuries in Asia.
The rest of the way was uneventful. Tattersall guy stood near us on the train, but I lost interest because his belt was twisted and completely ruined his “I still gorgeous at 5:30 in the morning” look.
We finally got home and in bed around 7am. I passed out from exhaustion before Steph got out of the shower. We woke up around 1pm the same day and ate some breakfast (bread and a banana for me, rice for Steph) and headed out to get our hair done and to do some much needed shopping.
Steph has a hair salon right outside her house. It looked nice from the outside and was clean on the inside. They washed our hair and cut Steph’s and styled mine. The best part of it was when they blow dried our hair. Two girls did it at the same time. It was fast and awesome. The girl styling my hair aged me about five years, but I didn’t say anything. I felt bad that she had to do my hair since it is so unruly. In the MRT I was able to fix it and all was forgiven.
Steph on the MRT on our way shopping

We were headed to Marks and Spencer, but never made it. It ended up not being where we though it was, but we did find an Accessorize where I bought new earring, gloves, and a purse to die for. Seriously, I love this purse. (Mom: the feeling was like when I saw the Coach butter colored purse.) I saw it and made a beeline for it. It’s a medium colored tan leather that’s just big enough for my things, but small enough that I don’t bump into people with it. Simply wonderful. On the way back to the MRT, we stopped in another shopping center and I bought a deep purple scarf and a teal/navy scarf. Quite gorgeous. Steph and I had to hurry since we were meeting her Korean friend at 8. Of course we were late (I am always late), but it wasn’t really my fault this time. A strand of hair decided it want to stick out parallel to my shoulder. Steph stood and watched me (laughing I will add) as I tried my hardest to make it stay down. After ten minutes I gave up and we left (we were only 30 minutes late by this time). I decided on the MRT that I wanted Korean BBQ for dinner, but that is nothing new. Steph has a couple of Korean BBQ places outside her building and I just love the smell. Steph agreed and told me that she was happy I picked the food because her Korean friend was seriously bad at making food decisions. (He compares to Jocelyn, Lindsay and I trying to make food decisions and that is bad.) As we starting walking we told Ireland Boy (his real name is Kyle, but who uses real names) to choose the restaurant. IB is just as bad at picking restaurants as picking a food genre. After a while we stopped walking and I looked at him and asked what does his stomach feel like? He didn’t know how to answer that question so Steph and I started a paper, rock, scissors game to decide. She was curry (we had started to debate the prospect of curry by that time) and I was Korean BBQ. As we were debating on which restaurant to go to, Steph turns to me and said that maybe if we were going to seriously drink we would need more bread in our bellies. (We forgot to eat after breakfast so we were very hungry.) So we changed our food genre again and picked Mr. Pizza. Neither Steph nor I had been there, but I was very excited. I just love their commercials with the singing crab and the girl from My Little Bride. We got rice battered chicken tenders to start (they were weird) and a Mexican pizza that wasn’t half bad. Steph decided that she wanted to go to the hof (like a pub, there was a toddler in there running around in the one we were located) that had a picture of the Taj Mahal on the door, but it looked a bit shady.
IB then took us to a traditional hof across the street and it was great. It was crowded and noisy. I loved it. We had rice wine (grain alcohol basically), three bottles of soju, and some kind of plum wine. They also gave us this crunchy snack that tasted like nothing at all, but was incredibly addictive. We also ate a pancake like thing and a sausage and vegetable dish. Koreans love to eat and drink at the same time. Good times. I even spotted a guy wearing a Baltimore Orioles baseball camp. The doorknob broke about halfway through the night so Steph ended up becoming a doorman for a bit until they fixed it.
Around 3 am or so, things got interesting. A fight broke out in the hof. This fight though was in slow motion. The guys were so drunk that they couldn’t do anything but roll off the table into the floor and fall onto a bench. Lots of pulling shirts and breaking their eyeglasses. I was able to go to the bathroom and come back while they were fighting, it took that long. Their friend just stood there and fixed the tables when they knocked them over. The police finally came and they got escorted out. By then they were friends again (only guys) and left peacefully.
We left a little after 5 am, but didn’t know if we should take the MRT or walk. As we were deciding several Koreans started to talk to us. It was the “Hello, how are you?” dialogue, but it was still funny. We even stopped a fight from happening on the street. These two guys in a group starting arguing and pushing and of course we stopped to watch, lol. One of their friends saw us and shouted “Hello” and everyone turned around and said “Hello”. They forgot about their fight (again only guys) and walked away singing.
I learned something that night. In Ulsan, I walk by this Loreal for Men ad almost everyday and I know the Korean man on it, but I can’t remember where I know him from. It has been driving me crazy ever since. I saw the ad after we left the hof and asked IB and he told me it was the guy from My Little Bride (one of my favorite Korean movies). The relief I felt was awesome. I hate the feeling of knowing something, but not knowing something.
Anyway, we ended up taking the MRT back and were in bed before 7am. We got up again and shopped, but shopped for too long. I almost missed my flight and it was the last flight out for the night. I did get awesome turtle necks though at Marks.
Today Steph told me that we should make each weekend a theme weekend. This was a drunken weekend, last time was an exploring haunts weekend, and next time will be birthday weekend. That should be fun.