Saturday, January 27, 2007

Crank the Eddie Money, because "we've got two tickets to paradise"

Greetings

After teaching over 1500 classes in the last seven months, Jo and I have become, as the French say, burned out (word!!).

So we figured that we had two options: We could either run away and join a hippy compound somewhere in Australia (I heard that Melbourne is full of hippies) or we could take a vacation. Jo's never really cared for the smell of patchouli, and I still have that lifelong attachment to my protestant work ethic, so we decided that we would make poor hippies.

In other words, we needed a vacation and we needed one fast. Having done several non-touristy vacations we decided that we needed to spend a week just being tourists, relaxing and doing absolutely nothing at all.

So without further adieu ladies and gentlemen let me introduce you to our destination:


Sweet, sweet Boracay. Located an hour or so below Manila the small island of Boracay is a tropical paradise right in the Philippines. The island is less than ten miles across at any point, and so far it has fought off the majority of American chain stores that you see everywhere else in Asia.

We leave on the 24th of February and don't come back until the 3rd of March.

Neither of us have ever done a vacation where we didn't have to carry a big backpack or sleep in a crappy hostel, or some hotel where the fear of waking up without a kidney was a reality.

This time we're doing it right and plan to live it up.



We're going to do some snorkeling, horseback riding, jet skiing, parasailing, swimming, and maybe get dropped off at a deserted beach for a day. That is if Jo can convince me she won't go all Jack on my ass and turn me into the island's "Piggy" (thanks to M. Fischer for that lovely literary reference).

For the purposes of the blog I asked the staff at Shayne and Jo to create an image of what I will look like when I'm riding a horse on the beaches of Boracay. So here ya go:


Hmmm, they did a really good job capturing my likeness.

Well 27 days to go, and I still have to get into beach shape.

Wish me luck.

Cheers

Shayne

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Quick, Lock the Doors! - Part 2

Greetings

Just like with The Empire Strikes Back or The Godfather Part II, the sequel is here, and it kicks ass.

That's right ladies and gentleman, it's the moment you've all been waiting for: Part Deux of the life changing story of the time my Dad and his girlfriend, Dawn, came to visit us in Ulsan.

Now let's see....where were we? Ah yes...

Our boss Mrs. Ann generously offered to take the four of us on a tour of the nearby city Gyeongju.

We're pretty thankful to have such a nice boss, because without her my Dad and Dawn would have basically just seen Ulsan, and well, there's only so much time you can spend touring oil refineries and car plants.

Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient Silla dynasty and is home to many of Korea's biggest temples, ruins, and oddly enough theme parks.



It's also home to many a stone pagoda as the following picture proves.

Yep, that's one fine looking pagoda.

Here's a shot of Jo and I outside the Bulguksa temple, which was built in 528 AD and was once the most important Buddhist temple in Korea. Now-a-days it's mostly for tourist purposes but there are still a few monks running around.

Unfortunately the temple's treasures are long gone as Korea's been ransacked more times than a 711 in Detroit. Still, it was cool to visit something so old.

Here's our boss and her friend standing in front of one of the main inner temples. It's still active and both Jo and I managed to get inside to be blessed.

I prayed for world peace as that's always a good choice and it felt wrong to make my usual prayer for millions of dollars in unmarked bills in such a holy place.

The temple also has several colourful statues that serve as guards and as entertainment.

This badass is in charge of protecting the place from intruders (hmm, in retrospect I guess he should have probably been fired).

This dude just chills and plays music all day. It was interesting to see that hippies have been around a lot longer than the 1960's.

After exploring the temple, we set off to see the Seokguram Grotto in the Korean mountains.


Our boss and her friend wisely waited in the car as we made the 30-minute trek through the freezing cold to see a statue tucked away in a cave.

It was actually pretty cool but the experience was so miserable that the adventure lost most of its allure. At one point along the way I started to even doubt that there was a statue, and that it was just a joke they played on foreigners stupid enough to get tricked into climbing the mountain in the middle of winter.

But alas, the statue was real, and it was mind-blowingly fantastic. Double alas, they didn't allow photos so you will have to settle for this gem of pops and me on the hillside.



After the mountainside exploration our boss took us to a neighboring folk village. Folk villages are preserved (or in some cases simulated) villages that are designed to let people see how traditional Koreans lived. They even pay farmers and artisans to live in them for added realism.

The one we went to was pretty deserted and for the most part it was kind of broken down. The good part, though, was it was real. This was some rich dude's house back in the 1700's.

This particular building really shined some light on why the Big Bad Wolf was always so damn successful against that poor first little pig.

Seeing this ye-olde outhouse taught me that there is something out there worse than squat toilets. Jo tried to use it but thankfully I stopped her before we embarked on our first international incident.

From the folk village we made our way to a recently created holy ground (it's only ten years old) called the Ten Thousand Buddhas temple.

If you zoom in on this picture you can see that there's a lot more than just ten thousand Buddhas. Each one has a name engraved on it (and you can get one too, for a nominal fee of course) and brings the person good luck and fortune year-round.

Nothing too special here other than if you zoom in you will see that each little Buddha has a hand-made toque. Something of note is that although everything appears to be made of gold, it's all just plastic.

The temple is sort of a Disneyland of Buddhism if you will. It was definitely the most kitschy temple we've visited in Asia so far.

Thankfully alongside the plastic statues they also offered prayer chairs.


I'm thinking of trying to broker a deal with Ikea to sell these fellows back in Canada. Who wouldn't want to sit on the hand of god while they slurp up their meatloaf and potatoes each night?


Dad and I beside one of the few hundred 10 feet tall Buddhas. Try to image the same thing but with 100's of plastic Jesus Christ statues. I'm not sure if it would work. Although they probably have something like that in the States somewhere (likely Florida).



This is inside the temple where people go to pray. I wanted to climb up and see if that statue was plastic too, but common sense and the fear of a few dozen monks chasing me won out. The large crystal balls in the background were pretty neat. I kept expecting to see a gypsy walk over and rub them the whole time we were there.

Of course the true star of the temple is the massive statue that rests on the hillside beside it.

Beautiful isn't it? (And yes, it's not plastic ... or so we think.)

Here's a photo of Buddha with Dawn, or Dawn with Buddha, depending how you look at things.

We spent the majority of the day exploring Gyeongju and area, and it was one of the coolest experiences we've had in Korea.

We were really lucky to have a boss who's not only nice but really supportive and helpful. One of our friends has been waiting for 5 months for their boss to call a repair man for them, and ours not only acted as tour guide when my dad visited, but insisted on paying for everything.

Goodtimes.

Of course, no visit to Korea would be complete with out a visit to your local friendly noreabang.

How we talked my dad into going I'll never know, but we did and it was fantastic.

Here's your loyal scribe belting out a little Jerry Lee Lewis.

But here's the photo that has since become the prized treasure of my collection:


My father warbling out "Hey Jude" while Dawn tries her best to help him. Haha, now there's a sentence that I never thought I would type.

They were here for a week but it felt like only a few hours. It was so great having family around that it really reminded us how much we miss everyone at home. I never dreamt that I would travel around Korea with my Dad.

Dad and Dawn are now in China and we're back to just working and counting the days until our next vacation.

Goodtimes indeed.

Cheers

Shayne

Monday, January 15, 2007

Quick, lock the doors! - Part 1

Greetings

Since moving here we've probably had about five or six people express interest in coming out to visit us. But as the months rolled on, the interest faded (maybe it was the lack of excitement in our blogs, or maybe our friends just suck) and our poor guest room sat empty month after month.

So when my Dad first said that he was going to come and spend some time with us in Korea we didn't hold our breath. But imagine our shock, when not only did he and his partner, Dawn, buy plane tickets, but they actually showed up in Ulsan last week. They were on their way to China (so he could meet her parents - gulp) but managed to fit a week with us into their schedule.

As soon as we picked them up from the train station we headed for a little taste of Koreana: The divinity known as Bulgogi.


You can't see much from this picture, but bulgogi is marinated beef that is cooked with vegetables and served with kimchi and countless other strange red-coloured side dishes. I should note that we really put these two through the wringer while they were here. We somehow talked them into trying the following Korean foods:

  • Silk worm pupae
  • Fish cakes stuffed with red beans
  • Spicy rice cakes covered in seaweed
  • Potato and mustard pizza
  • Rice balls stuffed with god only knows what, by god only knows who
They were definitely good sports and got the most out of their Korean experience as possible. In fact, Dad only retreated to McDonalds once during the whole trip. He said he only went there to see how it compared to back home, but I'm not sure if I believe him.



Here's a photo of Jo, Dad, and Dawn standing in front of a statue that's besides our work. It seems that the man was the first principal of the school and is remembered by a giant fear-imposing statue. Oddly enough, the school just opened a few years ago.

Alright, maybe I made that up. The statue is actually of a war hero who helped push out the Japanese during one of the hundreds of times they invaded.

Dad was pretty interested to see where we worked but unfortunately the trip didn't end well.


Within minutes dad was back to where he spent the majority of his time at school: the corner.

We took Dad and Dawn to that fish market we blogged about a few weeks ago, and not too much had changed since we last visited. However, there was one new addition to the market.

The return of what the foreigners in Korea so cleverly refer to as "sea pe@is#s" (this is a PG rated blog).

If you zoom in on the picture you can see why they earned that great name. Oddly enough, if you pick them up they actually shoot out liquid. I could probably make a lot of good jokes at this point, but I won't (see Mom, you did raise a gentleman).

Being so close to the ocean, the four of us spent a lot of time exploring Ulsan's coastline during their visit. Here's a nice shot on the cliffs by the spot where we shot that typhoon blog in the summer.



Thankfully things were a little calmer when we went back this time.

Hey how did this shot of Robert Redford and Brad Pitt sneak into the blog?

Although we've been here for over six months, Dad and Dawn managed to do something on their first day that we've never been able to do. They woke up early enough to see the sunrise.


It's almost enough to make a man wake up early every day to enjoy the beautiful view. Almost, but not quite. I think I'll keep with my policy of never waking up before noon.




Here's a shot of Dawn in front of a small temple by our place. The signs in the background advertise a Richard Gere seminar that's coming up.

This next shot's of Dad at the same temple standing beside what appears to be a collection of Buddhist action figures.

The whole thing just seems strange to me. I was half expecting to see a Darth Vader figurine tucked in there somewhere.

Having some people to show around forced us to get off our lazy butts, stop watching Star Trek, and go out and try some new things. And try new things we did.

We managed to stumble across a board game room. Board game rooms are a geek's dream come true: A giant room with dozens of tables and hundreds of games to choose from. All for the low price of two dollars per hour.



It was difficult to pick between Monkeys in a Barrel, Monopoly, or Uno. As you can see we settled on playing some Uno, and I'm saddened to report that I was the only one who didn't win. Damn Uno, it's a stupid game anyway.

If you're wondering why I' m holding a giant plastic mallet, it's because that's what you hit the loser with each round. I have no idea why that is, or who thought of it, but what a great rule!!!

We need to use more plastic hammers back home. It could probably solve a lot of our problems.

Here's Dad enjoying his win:


This post is already too long so I' m going to have to split it into two sections. The next post will cover the trip we took to Gyeoung-ju (which is one of the cultural capitals of Korea) and our trip to a norae bang.

Sooooooooooooo?

Will Dad and Dawn ever speak to us after we talked them into eating silk worms?
Will I ever win at Uno?
Will Dad and Dawn come to love our little Ulsan, or will the 200-plus smoke-spewing factories scare them off?

Tune in later this week for the answer to all of these questions and the shocking conclusion to our tale.

Cheers

Shayne




Thursday, January 11, 2007

Coming out of the closet

Greetings

My father and his partner are in Korea for the next week so posting will be pretty sparse until they're gone. That being said it's late at night and everyone's asleep so I thought I would post a short anecdote about our life over here.

Right before we left for Asia my friend Jason gave Jo and I a whole slew (yes, a slew) of DVDs that included (among other things) every season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG). Before receiving the DVDs I had probably only seen ST:TNG handful of times and wouldn't have been able to tell you the difference between a Klingon and a Romulan (haha, I was so naive).

But upon moving here and finding out that the Koreans don't care much for English movies, we were forced to drop our one-movie-a-week addiction that we had back in Canada and take up Star Trek instead.

It's hard for me to admit this but...yes...Korea has turned us into Trekkies. We don't own any costumes (yet) and we haven't been to a convention (yet), but I can tell you who played the Doctor in the second season (Diana Muldaur) or who was the only person to play themselves in the series (Stephen Hawking).

(Our new family)

Since August 1st Joanna and I have watched every single episode of ST:TNG. That's right, all 178 episodes and all seven years' worth.

My rudimentary math skills show me that we've wasted over 178 hours on the show or 7.25 days. Damn, that's a lot of time when you look at it that way. It seems to me that I guess we could have used our time better. We could have...

...spent the seven days trying to cure cancer. Or at the very least we could have spent the seven days trying to find a cure for kimchi breath.

Of course, we also could have...

...built the world's biggest lobster in our backward. Who doesn't love a big lobster?

No really, who?

Come on tell me!

Please, just tell me!

Alright, alright. I can see that you're not gonna crack.

Anyway, we may have spent the last six months watching every single episode of ST:TNG (in order too) but I have no regrets. You know why?

Because of this:


Or as the Koreans say Gu-nyoung (just because).

Because I'm a Trekkie and I'm proud.

God bless Star Trek.

Cheers

Shayne

P.S - This post is dedicated to Jason Harman who made this whole thing possible.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the PC Room air.

The time has come, my friends, to take you on a journey. A journey to a place patronized by 99.99% of the young male Korean population. This is a place found on every street corner in every self-respecting, over-crowded city in Korea: it is the PC Room.

We begin our adventure three minutes from our apartment, across the street from our favourite kimbap haunt. There were actually two to choose from, but this looked by far the nicer option. I mean, look how much money they put into that signage.

Despite the dominance of this PC Room's signs, the actual business was on the third floor - on the "Power Internet Praza!" No, that's not a spelling mistake (on my part) - this place just really means business. And with all the power references and the crazy-cool binary overlays, we were expecting something extra-special.


You can't get much more special than black lighting and gothic thrones. Well actually, as my lungs began to sputter and contract the second I walked through the wall of cigarette smoke, I thought some air ventilation might have been pretty special too.


Now, you'll have to use your imagination a bit, as we had to be a bit sneaky taking pictures of the place (we decided to forgo asking permission...I mean, they might have said "no"). But just multiply the scene above by twenty and you pretty much have the place wrapped up. And it was literally full of young men (most of them chain-smoking) playing World of War Craft. We walked around, too, just to see if anyone was doing something more important, like typing up a business briefing or putting the finishing touches on their thesis, but no one was. They were all pretty much controlling elves or blowing up things. That and developing some serious cancer cells.


Ahh, the snack aisle. What PC Room would be complete without the wall of ramien and other nutrient-free delights? And we tried one of the more unusual, just for a kick...

It's a cheese cookie! We tried it, and it yes, it really is a cheese cookie. Imagine your average cookie with some Kraft cheese powder mixed in. Kraft should really get on this train. Toot toot!

Ramien, not the cheese cookie, is the real staple here though. Through our extensive research interviewing an appropriate cross-section of young Korean males, we've discovered that the youth spend countless hours in these rooms living off cup-o'-ramien. Okay, we only really talked to one guy. But he spends a lot of time in PC Rooms and not much time doing anything else, so we thought he was fairly reliable.

It's sad really. The number of young men that waste their lives in places like this one is staggering. With every slurp of ramien, this place sucks the souls and ambitions of countless young Koreans, who if it weren't for these great lands of electronic escape, might do something with their lives. It reminds me of Thomas Gray's musings in "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", and with my own version of which, I leave you:

Here rests his head upon the PC Room berth,
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Indolence mark'd him for her own.

Until next time,
Jo

Monday, January 01, 2007

Here's to Today, Better Than Yesterday

Greetings

Remember when you were a kid and you would wait all week for your favourite TV show to come on, but instead of finding a new escapade about uncle Phil and little Will you would be greeted by the dastardly clip show. Surely you remember the clip show? A whopping thirty minutes of recycled clips that producers pull out whenever they are too lazy to actually create a new episode. Who doesn't love a good montage?

Anyway, on that note I present to you our version of the clip show: Shayne and Jo's favourite moments of 2006.

Moment #5 : Shayne's Graduation

Now admittedly this has more to do with Shayne than Jo, but we had some extra space and figured why not. Besides after 5 (cough, maybe 6, cough) years, $15,000 in student loans, and hundreds of half-assed assignments, it was a major accomplishment. Or at least that's what Shayne says when he brags about having a degree in Sociology and an almost completed minor in Womens' Studies.

Moment #4 : Sasquatch Festival


(photos are courtesy of www.truthandart.blogspot.com)

For those of you who might not be familiar with it, Sasquatch is a three day music festival in Washington that takes place every summer. It's one of the last great festivals that hasn't gone to hell (Lollapalooza we're looking at you). We only went to one of the three days, but on the day we went the following acts played:
  • Ben Harper
  • The Shins
  • The Tragically Hip
  • Iron and Wine
  • Neko Case
  • The Flaming Lips
  • Sam Roberts
  • Plus about twenty more bands
If the concert had gone as planned it might not have made our list. Although the music was great and we were there with some good friends, it's what happened during the show that made it truly memorable. During Neko Case's set a massive hailstorm hit down and was so bad they actually stopped the show for about thirty minutes. We were wearing shorts and the hail really gave us a beating. Thankfully we found cover under the umbrella of a helpful American who sold us some space for a mere twenty dollars.



Once the hail stopped and the rest of the show continued we found ourselves with the dilemma of being soaking wet and with no where dry to sit. Thankfully for us the Flaming lips felt sorry for the thousands of people in attendance and put on such a good show that we forgot how miserable we were. We did learn a valuable lesson though, and will be bringing garbage bags (which make nifty rain jackets in a pinch) to every concert we attend in the future.

Moment #3 : Visiting Japan


Before this trip the closest we had come to experiencing Japanese culture was eating at Ozekis' in Kelowna. So we were both pretty excited to visit the land of the rising sun and it definitely didn't let us down. From riding the bullet trains up and down the coast to riding rollercoasters at the Tokyo Dome, we definitely jam-packed the seven days that we were there. We probably don't have to say much about the trip as many of you probably remember the short novel we wrote about it back in August. The Japan trip still stands as our longest blog entry and with how longwinded Shayne is, that says a lot.

Of course we would be fools if we didn't include this gem of a picture in the best of 2006 blog:

Ahh yeah. Who can forget her? I imagine that she hasn't forgotten us either. The poor girl probably still has nightmares about the foreigners who chased her for 5 blocks. This picture is the probably the coolest one we've taken since coming to Asia and will one day hold a top position on our mantle.

Moment #2 : Moving to Korea

Until last month this would have been the number one most memorable moment of 2006. How could it not be? We left behind our families and friends and moved ten thousand km away to a strange land full of strange food and even stranger people.

Thankfully for us it was one of the best decisions we have ever made. We have come to really like life in Korea and now think of it as our home away from home.

Moving here was especially life changing for Shayne who somehow managed to stay at home until the ripe old age of 23. Imagine his surprise when he moved into his own place for the first time and realized that magical elves didn't do all of the cleaning and that someone actually had to dust and wash the floors.

Living here has given us the opportunity to experience firsthand a new culture and to appreciate how other people live. It's also given us the opportunity to do this:


Moment #1 : Getting engaged

A year ago we both had a few doubts about spending the rest of our lives together. But if there's one thing that we've learned from living in Korea, it's that if we can survive being together for 18 hours a day in a small apartment with no car to leave in, we can survive anything.

Since most of you have asked us this question at one point or another let us answer it on here so that everyone can see. We still have no plans for the wedding and probably won't for a little while. It's a combination of being lazy, scared, and broke. :)

But we will definitely be waiting until we got back home until we get married.

Well, what else can we say about 2006? It started out pretty crappy but ended up being one of the (if not the) best years of our lives. Here's hoping that all of you had an equally good year and that 2007 finds all of us a little healthier and a little wiser.

Cheers

Shayne and Jo

P.S - For the one or two of you who might care about such things Shayne presents his...

...Best CDs of 2006 list


5) Tragically Hip - World Container
4) Neko Case - Fox confessor brings the flood
3)Chris Cornell- Live in Sweden
2) Todd Snider - The Devil you Know
1) Dixie Chicks - Taking the Long Way