Happy New Year

It is finally 2009! In Korea I am supposed to turn one year older (25), but I refuse. I only just turned 24, so I think I will keep my Western age for the time being. Stephanie and I rang in the new year in a hof and did the countdown with all the patrons. It was quite funny because after it hit zero no one cheered for a good four seconds or so. A bit of a delayed reaction.

After we left that hof, we ended up in a western style bar with rap music booming in the background. There was actually western people there so it wasn't as fun. Steph and I just watched the TV because it had my favorite Korean show on. It's like Jackass only not as dirty. Of course we had to hit the norebang in true Asian fashion where hits such as Under the Sea by the Little Mermaid and Dancing Queen by Abba were belted out for all to hear.

We finally ended at Titanic, a hof where you can write on the walls (at least that is what we did, don't tell) and eat sausages and colored balls of fluff. We drank more soju (its delicious) and played 3.6.9. You go round robin and you can't say any number with 3, 6 or 9 in it. Our high was 57, lol. Our night ended at 5:00am and we hit the sheets a little after that.

Now its time for Outback (we didnt make it last night, too busy napping and becoming beautiful) and some eye shopping also know to Westerners at window shopping.

I hope everyone had a great New Years.

Basketball

You can check out the official Ulsan Mobis Phoebus basketball site. It's not in English, but it's fun to click around. Their intro video is them all introducing themselves and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. You won't understand until the two Western players come on, but it still fun to watch.

Click on Phoebus TV on the top right to watch game highlights. I was at the November 19th game, but I am not in the video.

Click on Players to see the players' stats. When the page loads it will show you pictures of the coaches. Just click on the Korean on the left and it will take you to the players' pages.

Interesting and Weird Things I See in Korea

I will open my blog with Rain. As any foreigner knows, Rain can be a puzzle for us. He is odd, weird, and unsettling at times to watch. He is also so famous here and in other countries in Asia that fans weep at the sight of him. I was listening to his album this morning at work (what can I say, I like his music) and I encountered the song "Fresh Woman". I wondered what he meant by that so I typed in fresh woman, rain to see what I could find. The video below is what came up first.

Yes, he is wearing an afro and adidas tracksuit. Yes, he sticks his comb in his afro. Yes, he did say Hammer Time.

Did I ever find out what fresh woman was? No, but I am more disturbed by Rain now and I am thinking that he wants it that way.



Stay tuned for the birthday flour and kicking pictures. Girls are so bad.

Some Christmas Lights

Christmas may not be a big holiday here, but Koreans love to decorate. Take Lotte Department Store. It is decorated inside and outside. Here are some pictures of the outside.

Signs

One thing I enjoy doing is walking around Ulsan. It is a great way to explore the city and see the sites. My favorite part though is the unusual things that I get to see and experience. A singing man on a bicycle, several people wearing hanboks walking down the street (click here to find out more about hanboks, they are awesome), or my favorite of all: advertisements. I took a couple of pictures of these signs.




His promotional sign for his Christmas concert. Korean male pop stars like to bare their chests a lot.

A close up of the singer. Yes, he has antlers on his head.

Lee Seung Chul's video minus the antlers. Since he is a Korean ballad singer, he says things like "I love you" a lot so I thought there was no need to find a video with English subtitles, haha.


My new favorite Korean rapper. I think he is called Jeanx, but I can't be too sure.

His video for One Shot.



I also want to include SHINee's Love Like Oxygen. I know that this is a remake of an English song. If anyone remembers the English song please let me know the title. It is driving me crazy. Also if you want to see another remake click here and watch Big Bang do Maroon 5's This Love.

Updating my Photo Album

I know that I haven't updated anything, but today I have some time to do that. Just click on "Julia's South Korea Pictures" on the right and you can see what I have been up to.





I had to add this picture. It's a coffee machine in our office. Since I don't drink coffee I haven't touched it, but I thought it was cute.

It's right next to my seat. I am happy that I like the smell even though I can't stand the taste.

Bacteria of the Eyelid

Since Sunday my right eye has been hurting, but it wasn't until today that I woke up to my eyelid swollen. For the past couple of days it felt like there was something on the inside of my eyelid scratching my eye so today I finally went to the eye doctor.

He told me I have bacteria of the eyelid and that I have to take pills and put major amounts of eye drops in for the next three to four days.

I have been researching my condition and I have found that I possibly have Blepharitis. If you click here you can read all about it.

I am guessing that makeup got in my eye and that is what caused it. I am very lucky that it did not cause pink eye (knock on wood) and that my swollen eye has gone down a bit.

Forgetting Thanksgiving

I got several emails (one really confusing) asking me about celebrating Thanksgiving and to wish me well. If I hadn’t gotten them I would have forgotten all about the holiday. My birthday was the day before and anyone who knows me knows that that day is the center of November for me.
I can’t really remember celebrating Thanksgiving in Taiwan outside of school. Does anyone remember the one last year? Sitting for an hour while a man preached in Chinese and the co-teachers were made to sit against the wall like they were naughty children? You know you do. Or the year before that where we ate questionable turkey at lunch and my hair was insane? You also know you do.
This year I didn’t see a need to even mention the holiday to my co-teachers or wish people Happy Thanksgiving unless I knew they were American. Thursday is considered “Hell Day” here so I was focused on getting through it, packing for my birthday weekend in Seoul with Steph, and going to Korean class (my favorite part of Thursday).
When I got to Korean class they told us that we were going to end an hour early because they thought we wanted to celebrate. Most of us told her no, that we wanted to learn, but she said that the teachers had already decided so we were out of luck.
Natalie and I decided to meet up with some other foreign teachers at TGI Fridays who were celebrating Thanksgiving since we were being made by our Korean teachers to celebrate the holiday. Natalie is from England so I told her that the first Thanksgiving only had Indians and British people so technically she could celebrate it. I had only been to TGI Fridays once here in South Korea and noticed that the menu here is quite different from the menu in America and Taiwan. Very steak heavy. Natalie is a vegetarian and I don’t really eat meat anymore or Western food. I decided to eat a chicken burger and Natalie had a baked potato (It is possible that the first Thanksgiving could have had those food options.) I was so ill after that dinner that I don’t think I will ever go back there. I did have a good time though. All the girls were really nice and I got to learn about other people’s school situation.
So that is how I spent Thanksgiving: teaching middle school, packing, going to class, eating Western food and getting ill. Overall a good day.