It's raining, it's pouring!

It's 5:00pm, sun won't set till 7:30. This is SOME STORM!!! Luckily, it began about 30 seconds before I got home!!

Election Campaigning

It's election time here in Korea! Provincial elections will take place on June 4th. Last year was the national election, and for some reason I seem to have missed the hilarious campaigning. I don't know how I missed it! Here you can see a bunch of people standing on the corner of an intersection. They were counting "1, 2, 3" and then would bow deeply at the cars driving by. Meanwhile, behind them was a truck blasting music and whatnot and a picture of the candidate. It was pretty awesome and hilarious. 

I suppose this is for candidate number 5!

I hope these people are well compensated! They were
bowing over and over again!

I'm not sure if this truck had anything to do with elections,
but note how sound laws don't exist. It was parked outside
my apartment just BLASTING through those speakers.

Take me out to the ball game

Last week I had the fun experience of going to my first and second Korean baseball games! On Saturday, I headed to Busan with a group of foreigners to see the Lotte Giants (Busan) vs the Nexen Heroes (Incheon? Not sure). On Thursday, I went to Pohang with some Korean coteachers (and one foreigner coteacher, Dan!) to see the Giants against the Samsung Lions (Daegu). As you can see, instead of being called the Daegu Lions, teams have sponsored names. Pretty strange, I can't imagine cheering the Bell Canadiens, or the Telus Canucks, but I guess one day it might be possible. Regardless, the fans were extremely supportive and it was a super fun atmosphere!!

When I went with my coworkers, Dan and I sat next to a teacher, Dongwan,  who is a huge fan of the Giants. He was nice enough to tell  Dan and I a whole bunch of fun tidbits about the game we would have missed. For example, he told us to expect to see Jiminez (I just had to google how to spell his name because at the game it was only written in Hangeul!) who is a Venezuelan player. Dongwan said "He is very big. And cute. Like a bear." This description proved quite accurate as Jiminez was about four times the size of the other players, with a funny bear-like gait. The fans and team certainly embraced him and he, like all the other players, had his very own chant when he came out! When the fans disagreed with a call or play, they would yell out "MA." Dongwan explained this is a Busan saying, a shortened version of hajima (don't do that). Also when fans would catch foul or homerun balls, the other fans would say "ajura" which meant they had to give the ball to a child. It was a really exciting game with an intently suspenseful ending. It was super fun. Also the Lotte chant was sung to the tune of "Glory glory Hallelujah" and then another chant was to the tune of "Happy Together" by The Turtles. 

When I went with foreigners, it was also fun, but I didn't get the same insider scoop. I would definitely recommend going with a Korean who is a big fan if possible! The one bonus to the Busan trip, however, was witnessing a very odd tradition. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on my blog before, but Korea is horrifyingly lacking in garbage cans. They can't be found ANYWHERE. It's insanely frustrating, especially since the result is that there is trash littered everywhere. So nearing the end of the game in Busan, someone handed out little trash bags to every one (intead of having garbage bins...). Because the bags were orange, the team color of the Giants, people filled them with air and wore them on their heads. No joke. There were even different styles of bag wearing, either blown up as you see on me below, or somehow made into a giant bow. It was rather hilairous. After the game, people put their trash in the bags, and then as we left the stadium there was a place to pile them all on top of each other. 

Everyone was doing it, I swear!

Busan stadium

Pohang stadium. I was sitting behind a very excited
Lions fan.

Tidbits

Here are some pics from my phone from the past little while. Enjoy :)

Have I mentioned my town is beautiful?

Magic.

NO idea what this little guy was!

This gigantic wasp was too scary for me
to put my finger next to it for a size
comparison. Trust me when I say,
it was HUGE.

Very impressive frofile!

I can't express how sweet this girl is. She always makes me
origami and keeps out doing herself. Last week I got that
but flower and a box with a heart on it, all wrapped
in a lovely bag. She told me "Open the box!" And
when I did, there were eight little pink hearts inside!
Later when I saw her and thanked her again, she
gave me handful of MORE little hearts.
SO CUTE.

Beautiful flowers blooming around everywhere.

... ?

Pet the curls!

I often forget I'm in a foreign land, my daily life has become so routine. Being called beautiful constantly and relying on body language has just become the norm. However, sometimes I am reminded that I am definitely a foreigner.

For whatever reason today my middle school girls were especially intrigued by my looks. Here's how our class ended.

"Teacher!! Lens in eye??"

"no.."

"But so BIG!"

"I have normal sized eyeballs.."

"HAIR! PLEASE. CAN I TOUCH?
"YEs!! Please please! Hair touchhhh"

"Um.. o.. kay..."

"OH MY GOD AMAZING PERM PERM PERMMMMM????"

"No perm..Check this out" (I bounce a few curls. What can I say, I'm a ham)

"TEACHER HOW??!?!"

"It just is.. how is your hair straight?"

"Magic straight!!!" (Basically a perm to make hair extra straight. Made me chuckle)

It was pretty funny but also kind of terrifying. Mostly it was the giggly girly girls swarming me, but even the level headed smart girl let her curiosity get the better of her and she pet me, too.

Gamcheon Cultural Village

This weekend was a long weekend because of Buddha's Birthday and Children's Day. I didn't travel anywhere too far as I needed some relaxation time and had a nasty cold. I did travel to my beloved Busan though. Unlike my usual forrays to the beach, however, I checked out a completely different part of Busan called the Gamcheon Cultural Village. Apparently it's a village that came to be when very poor Koreans displaced by the war came to live there. While initially a shantytown, the town somehow became a cultural art village, full of neat art projects and 'traditional Korean life.' So now it's a tourist attraction with a little path you can take to see the sights without disturbing the residents. It was a beautiful day and we had a very lovely time! We used this blog to find directions. 

Sadly this photo is blurry. But it was
just so odd seeing a sink in the middle
of a photo gallery I had to post it.
There was no toilet.

The village had many windey
alleyways to walk up.

This is apparently supposed to be a room
reminiscent of a constellation. Very odd.

Sadly all the views were obstructed by terrifyingly
exposed black wires.

After Gamecheon village, we headed back to Busan Station. Since we all usually spend our time in Haeundae, we'd never explored this area. We headed to "China Town" and were very surprised to find it was actually a China and Russia Town. We saw a ton of Russian stores and families!

We finished our day with some window shopping, where I discovered this store called WIlliamsburg Outdoor life. The store was full of Canadian themed decorations, including bears and red and white patterns. Very amusing. We're so trendy.