Too many cans

For someone who is very fond of food, living aboard a sailboat is a little tough. Particularly when the sailboat has no refrigeration, only one burner and one pot. How exactly is one supposed to make food when there are no fresh vegetables, no fresh meat, no dairy products of any kind, and limited water and propane? Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of food…

The first meal I ever made aboard the boat was incredibly stressful. All I had were cans and dried grains! What do you do with cans and dried grains??? Back at home, the only things I ever made that involved cans had beans in them, or tomato sauce. But now? What was I to do? I wanted to wow my new crewmates, I wanted to make something tasty and nutritious. I have never made a more stressful batch of couscous.

In time, I’ve learned to cope and am now fairly certain that anyone on the boat will tell you I am the best cook. Not that I have much competition for that role. On any given crossing, we will probably eat plain pasta three days out of five, it is certainly Boyscout’s favorite dish to make, and is by far the easiest option. I have resisted making pasta so far and have done my best to get creative with rice, potatoes, beans and couscous. My goal with most meals is to force in as many vitamins as possible; I have zero interest in getting scurvy and I’m pretty sure plain pasta does not contain every nutrient I need to survive.

However, getting too creative can be a bad thing, especially for the boys. The first meal that I ever couldn’t eat was Adub’s pasta/canned tuna/meat sauce special. Another was pasta that got forgotten for an hour in hot water while we were anchoring. Brazen’s lentil/noodle/rice soup was a rather difficult experience but, the worst by far was an abysmal creation of Boyscout’s. It involved rice, minestrone soup, stale peanuts and (here’s the kicker), beetroot. The final concoction turned out pink and when I bit in, the texture of too soft peanuts, slimy noodles (from the minestrone soup), chunky beets and semi-crunchy rice was almost enough to make me gag. I remained very hungry until the following evening.

Even when the food is decent, eating it for breakfast is always a struggle. The goal to make enough for the following day so we can easily eat without needing to use our precious propane again, but day old food sitting in a pot is never attractive. And if it doesn’t get finished, we’re supposed to work it into dinner that night. Waste not, right?

If the food limitations don’t make things difficult enough, the moving kitchen always serves as a source of entertainment. A cooking experience generally starts with bracing yourself around the galley as you collect your ingredients from their hiding places, then stuffing round objects into seat cushions if there’s a danger of rolling. You cut up whatever you might need to cut while braced between the counter and the table and, if it’s calm enough, open the cans you will need ahead of time. If it’s not calm enough, definitely wait, an upended can that has been opened is the last thing you want, and is likely to happen if the waters are rough. Generally the boat will be tilted over the side, so make sure that nothing will spill if you put it down. The oven/stovetop is free swinging, so make sure not to get smacked by it as you stagger by.

Once you’ve prepared everything, it’s time for the gas. To avoid propane leaking into the bilge and causing our boat to explode, we store the propane in a separate container under the seat of the person at the wheel. So when you want to get the fire going, you yell up to the person at the wheel “propane on!” and then wait two minutes as they get up, open the box and turn the knob. Then its up to you to get the flint and steel sparker to work in the first few seconds of the gas being on before Boyscout starts worrying that you’re going to blow up the boat.

Assuming you do get the fire going and don’t get the sparker yanked away from you by your skittish captain, the rest is easy. Everything goes into the same pot, and then you close it and walk away. Sometimes, depending on the cook, things go in at different times, but that’s about it. Despite your best efforts, everything will have an undertone of tin from the cans, but what can you do? Yesterday, at a Thanksgiving feast that we gate-crashed (with legitimate invitations but no payment), Brazen commented on how exciting it was that everything on the plate tasted different. We laughed because it was true.

Yar mateys! There be pirates in these waters!

As most of you probably know, I have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with pirates. Maybe you’ve realized this because I’ve dressed as a pirate for Halloween almost every year since I was 18. Or perhaps you’ve figured it out because my facebook’s language function is set to pirate and if you use facebook on my computer, it will redirect you to “Ye Olde Facebook” and ask for your secret code instead of a login. Or maybe you’ve noticed the remarkable number of “yars” and “arrrgs” in my daily speech. Or there’s a chance that you’re a ninja and you’ve sensed a strange, inexplicable rivalry from me.

Regardless, I like pirates.

So you might imagine my secret glee when, back in September when we first entered Indonesia, Boyscout sat us all down for a serious discussion of what we should do if we were boarded by pirates. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not wantto get boarded, but the idea amuses me greatly. I know just as well as you do that modern day pirates do not run around with eye patches and cutlasses, but even so… pirates!

Since entering Southeast Asian waters, we’ve been rather careful. We watch approaching fishing boats with trepidation and keep pirate watches on throughout the night in unfamiliar ports. So far, we’ve been extremely well received and have not had any trouble, so the idea of pirates still tickles me with glee. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d be any match for the pirates if they did decide to board our boat, but the idea is to be awake so if someone approaches, we can all leap on deck and look fierce. I fear if we ever do get attacked, we will be too sleepy to do anything useful, but so far, so good.

If that hasn’t given me enough pirate fun, our recent wanderings through Malaysia and Singapore have been even more pirate-centric. As it turns out, the Straits of Malacca, which is the body of water that runs between Malaysia and Indonesia, is a historical pirate paradise. I can’t believe someone hasn’t capitalized on this yet. There definitely needs to be a Pirates of the Straits of Malacca. Hmm. Well, that’s a bit too wordy. Maybe Pirates of Malacca. Or Pirates of Malaysia. Or Pirates of Malaya (as the peninsular region used to be known back in ye olde days). The reason this used to be a massively pirated area is because it’s really the only reasonable shipping channel in the area. Going around Sumatra takes way too long and so this becomes a bit of a bottleneck for boats going between the East and the West. Thus, the historic ports of Melaka and Singapore are absolute treasure troves of pirate history.

About two weeks ago, I traveled over to Melaka and, when I wasn’t feasting on chicken rice balls and visiting Buddhist temples, I jumped into the historical attractions wholeheartedly. In a haze of pirate inspired excitement, I ran around the historic sections of Melaka, standing atop battlements that used to fend off pirates during the Portuguese and Dutch colonial eras and pretending to fire canons at marauding vessels. It was so much fun. I even went on a search for a “Pirate Park”, but the map made it sound much more exciting than it actually was. The day-long search was concluded with the finding of an anticlimactic tiny theme park with a pirate ship ride, but on the way (and the following day) I found buildings painted with pirate themed murals, a huge model tall ship, the ruins of a Dutch church on a hill and, at the base, an old fort used by the Portuguese for fending off said pirates. Adub, who was my travel companion in Melaka, dealt with quite a few “yars!” and “avast me scurvy curs!” and even threw in a few of his own “yarbedadars”. I may actually have jumped up and down in glee atop the battlements where model canons pointed at the innocent river cruisers.

However, I do take this seriously when it comes to modern day pirates. One night on our crossing to Singapore, we were forced by the strong current to anchor for the night off a tiny island known as Bintan. This island, once the refuge of the ousted Malay Sultan during the colonial eras, has long been a pirate hotbed. As we pulled in and dropped anchor, Boyscout casually mentioned that the last pirate activity had been 8 days previously. 8 days. I blinked, hoping he was joking, but he was not. He then wondered aloud if we should set a pirate watch. Kitten and I demanded that we do so. Even though we were not a well stocked cargo ship, I saw no reason to give the locals any ideas and did my best to look extraordinarily menacing during my two hour anchor watch.

So, though I haven’t seen any pirates, I’ve still gotten in quite a bit of pirate fun. I suppose if they actually did board us, I would stop entertaining images of being tied in group to the mast (we’d never fit, our mast is far too small), or being made to walk the plank (we’d need a plank, I suppose), but for now, I will continue with my harmless fantasies. I’ve also heard the pirates in this area are rather friendly. Since I’m getting off before we sail by Somalia, I expect all will be well. But if they do board us, don’t be surprised if the next thing you hear is that I’ve joined up. And then ye scurvy curs best beware for ye olde Kirin is a mean sea dog. Once I be sailing the seven seas then there will ne’er be a moment’s rest until all the booty and grog in the world be mine!

Yarbedadar indeed. Drink up me hearties, yo ho!

Proper Hygiene

As I sat here staring idly at my dirt caked ankles and wondered what next to write about, inspiration came to me. I’m sure you all want to hear about how we do (or don’t) keep ourselves clean on the boat! Well, reader beware, you’re in for a scare (as one of my least favorite childhood authors was fond of writing on his hundreds of horror hack novels). If you have an easily triggered gag reflex (looking meaningfully at a former roommate) or simply don’t fell like being grossed out, this post may not be for you.

In the midst of the ocean with no land as far as the eye can see, it is perhaps a bit ironic that our most precious commodity is water. Yet there it is. Our fresh water tank is reserved for drinking and cooking. For every other water related activity, such as flushing the toilet or washing dishes, salt water is pumped in from the sea. Though this practice leaves us with a slightly fishy smelling bathroom and salty dishes, we learn to live with it. I mean, we’re on a boat, after all.

But what does this mean as far as washing is concerned? How do we shower, do laundry or wash our hands? Well… by and large, we don’t.

The last time I really did laundry was in Korea. Hang on- digest that for a moment. Scary, huh? Well, I did manage to do a semblance of laundry in Bali. Kitten and I snuck into the marina showers with detergent, a big bucket and backpacks full of raunchy smelling clothes. Terrified that the staff would catch us, and short on time anyway, we scrubbed our clothes as best we could, dumping out bucketfuls of black, yes, BLACK, water, and then rushed back to the boat to hang it all out to dry. Never before have I so appreciated the invention of the washing machine. There are still dirt stains on half of the clothes I “cleaned”.

Other than that, my only other way of cleaning clothes, towels and sheets is by hanging them on the rails during rainstorms. This does, surprisingly, do a good job of taking out smells, which most of the time is all I can really ask for. On the boat we keep down our laundry needs by changing clothing as rarely as possible. The fresh shirt I put on today replaced one I’d been wearing for the last four days, and this one will probably last me that long too.

As far as showers are concerned, rainstorms and sea baths are the way to go. We do have two pump sprayers on board, but splitting four gallons between five people means that they are mostly used for rinsing off after sea baths. Sea baths entail pulling on a bathing suit, jumping off the boat (not while it is moving- that would cause great alarm), clambering back on, rubbing shampoo into your hair as best you can (salt water doesn’t lather all that well) and jumping back into the sea. If you’re looking for a pressure wash, you climb up the ratlines (which is perhaps a rather generous term for the three thin lines going up our shrouds to a height of maybe 15 to 20 feet above the water line) and take a showy dive into the ocean.

Rain showers, when we can get them, are actually quite a luxury. Regardless of how well you rinse off with the sprayer, sea baths always leave you with white flecks of salt adorning your limbs. Rain when we are anchored is actually quite a boon. As soon as the first drops hit the deck, the smelliest laundry is hauled out and pinned to the rails, the pump sprayers are set up in the best places for catching rain, and the dirty dishes are strewn out on every available surface. Then it’s bathing suits, shampoo and soap again, with the wind driven rain giving you a rather high pressure but unfortunately low water density shower.

The rest of the time, we roll about in our own filth. We sweat like pigs in the equatorial heat, get covered in salt from the sea spray, handle dirt encrusted lines, get coated in diesel when we refill our engine and pick up filth in a myriad of other ways.

The stench is a force to be reckoned with and after a crossing we are truly a sight to behold. When even the homeless citizens of a third world country look askance at the state of our clothing we feel, more than ever, like real sailors.

Of course I'm going to do one about Orangutans...

After surviving the heat, boredom and dangerous wildlife on our painfully hot and dull crossing from Bali, it was time for a new adventure. It was time for orangutans. Unlike our previous attempt to see impressive mega fauna (you remember Komodo, yes?) we actually succeeded in finding our quarry this time. So, of course, a tribute and story is due.

We anchored our boat near the town of Kumai which is in the region of Borneo known as Kalimantan (Borneo is owned by three different countries- Kalimantan is the Indonesian part). It’s a common destination for orangutan seekers, since this is where primate research stations, “protected” forestlands and guides can be found. And you cannot go see the orangutans without a guide because the guides are necessary as protectors as well as pathfinders. So upon arriving, we went to find ourselves a tour and a guide. We did briefly think about going with our boatboy, Addi, but when he asked us if we enjoyed crystal meth, we decided to find someone a little bit more reliable.

The man we met and booked our tour with was called Jenny. Jenny loved orangutans. Loved them. You could tell just by looking at him because he played with them the only way orangutans know how to play- rough. Jenny had scabs up and down his arms and scars all across his back. You’d think that getting bitten by an animal with a jaw strong enough to husk a coconut would be traumatizing, but not for Jenny. He showed us album after album of his favorite orangutans brushing their teeth, washing towels, putting on shirts and paddling canoes. It was like hanging out with a proud and slightly too obsessed father, only his children were massive, powerful and unpredictable. And furry.

Unfortunately, Jenny was busy the following day and did not guide us on our tour. Our guide had a much healthier respect for the orangutans' overwhelming strength, so we did not get to see a human vs. ape wrestling match, but perhaps that was for the best. What we did get to see was some pretty awesome primates doing their primatey thing.

Our speedboats picked us up at 7 AM and zoomed us up the river through breathtaking jungle scenery. It was so green, it strained the eyes and the rich smell of dirt was almost strong enough to taste. We were about to get up close and personal. On our track to the first feeding station we clambered over twisted roots and through black jungle waters that smelled of decay. While we waited for the orangutans at the feeding site, huge butterflies roosted on our feet and fingers.

Then we actually saw them. They swung through the trees, these larger-than-man creatures, flashes of orange-brown against the green, hooting loudly in reply to the calls the rangers were making. And oh, how gorgeous they were. At that first station we only saw one male and a female with her baby, but we were smitten. The male stared at us, his huge cheek flaps quivering as he munched on bananas and oranges mere feet from our snapping cameras and awestruck gestures. The female largely ignored us and taught her baby how to climb and move from tree to tree.

But really, Camp Leaky, the research station and our second stop, was what it really was all about. There we met Siswi, the resident lazy orangutan who would abuse welfare if she were human. She demanded toll with an outstretched hand as we tried to pass her on the bridge, but later we got to lay down inches from here. Then Siswi petted us and fixated on Kitten’s elbow for awhile.

The feeding at Camp Leaky was incredible. Mother orangutans swung in with their young clinging to their backs and stomachs. By the end of the feeding, we’d seen perhaps 20 different individuals, though sometimes we lost track of them as they climbed overhead, or disappeared up a tree only to appear behind an unsuspecting tourist. One tried to poop on Adub (he dodged). Another stole a water bottle from an elderly British lady, then opened the bottle and drank all the water.

They were beautiful creatures. Thick fur, strongly muscled bodies shaped so much like a human’s and most of all, the eyes. Deep, soulful eyes that looked back at you with such intensity. You could see them thinking behind those eyes, judging the world with an understanding that was, well, sentient.

Only one word: incredible. What a world we live in.

Cramped Quarters

Life on a boat has much charm. I could wax poetic about being rocked to sleep by gentle waves, popping my head out of a hatch first thing in the morning and being treated to a whole new view, gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, visits by dolphins… and so forth. But this post is not about that, for that would be idyllic and too sappy for anything but my private journal to stomach. No, this post is about the opposite side of the coin, the drawbacks of living on a 40 foot boat with four other people. This post is to complain. (And perhaps I may incidentally provide a view into daily life on the boat.)

An overview of the layout of the boat. We have five main areas- the deck, the V-berth, the head, the engine compartment, and the galley (bear with me on nautical terms, ye landlubbers, I’ll explain everything and keep them to a minimum).

-The Deck: Easy enough, the deck is the top part of the boat. There’s a seating area near the back where the wheel is, we call it the cockpit. Most time on deck is spent changing sails, on watch at the wheel, or entertaining ourselves while not on watch. Normally we amuse ourselves by reading and such in the cockpit, but occasionally we grow tired of this and resort to staring off into space from further forward locations. Best place by far to be on the boat when the seas get stormy- since below turns into a bucking madhouse filled with the crashing of unsecured items, and above has ample places to vomit over the sides.

-V-Berth: Forwardmost below decks area. Houses all of the sails not in use, all of the tools, and our brawny buckos Adub and Brazen. This six foot high space is about six feet deep and starts out with plenty of space between the two bunks that line either side of it. However, many of you have probably noticed that boats come to a point at the front. This is also true below decks and means that the boys’ bunks join into one communal (connubial?) bunk by the time you have reached the V of the aptly named V-berth. Loath to cuddle, especially when the sail driven tilt of the boat sends them rolling to one side, Brazen and Adub have erected cloths to keep them chastely separated into their own (tiny) spaces.

-The Head: I have no idea why bathrooms on boats are called this, unless it is because they are always so small that you are constantly hitting said body part on various items when all you wish to do is relieve yourself. Our head consists of a space smaller than the average port-o-pottie (oh what luxury it would be to have the space of a port-o-pottie!). This contains a defunct sink, various stuffed cabinets, a tub of Purell, a large 2 gallon canister with a nozzle (our shower) which rests in our defunct sink, and a toilet.

The toilet requires special care. It is filled with sea water and whenever one has finished doing their business, they must push the foot pedal to open the inlet, pump the handle to run water through the bowl and into the waiting storage tank, and brace themselves as best they can to avoid the extremely unfortunate circumstances that falling into the head might entail. Once you have pumped enough- 30, 40, 50 times- then you release the foot pedal and pump until all the water is gone. Then you pull the little silver button next to the toilet. This activates something I fondly call the Grinderator (a much better name than its rather pedantic moniker- “Macerator”).The Grinderator munches up everything you’ve just pumped out of the bowl and spits it out into the sea for the fish to eat. Yum yum. Then you Purell as is appropriate and either toss your used toilet paper out of the window and into the water below (if wind allows), or hop up on deck, smile at the person at the wheel, and throw it into the water from wherever the wind will allow you to do so.

-The Engine Compartment: This part of the boat, as you may have guessed, houses the engine. It is also home to Kitten and Boyscout who are each nestled into their own little cocoon-like bunk on either wall with the rather large bulk of the engine between them. The engine itself is housed within a box on top of which is our “chart table”. Perhaps this might better be known as our “excessive amounts of stuff that needs to be put away table”. I have yet to see a chart grace its surface, nor, actually, have I seen said surface. I venture into this room (which resides in the back part of below decks) only when it is unavoidable, and usually then I am on a mission to locate something that has disappeared into the mountain of stuff.

-The Galley: Unless you have not been paying attention (or you already know this because I have spoiled the punch line for you in a recent email), you may be wondering “Where does Kirin sleep?” You especially may be wondering this if you know something about boats and know that “Galley” refers to the portion of the boat used for cooking. Yes, my esteemed comrades, it’s true. I sleep in the kitchen.

This compartment, which is really the major part of below decks, is often referred to as the living room. It is in the center, where the step ladder descends from the deck, and consists of a small table, a cushioned bench that wraps around this table on three sides, a sink, a free-swinging oven and stovetop, a bit of countertop and more food storage space than one might believe possible. And where does Kirin sleep? Why, on the bench that wraps around the table, of course! It’s a bit like sleeping on the couch, but also like sleeping on the bench seating in a restaurant. An unfortunately narrow bench that is meant for upright bottoms, rather than entire reclining bodies. And it’s also like sleeping on the pantry door, since much of the food is tucked away into the bench. I have learned not to sleep when others are cooking.

As I live in public space and above most of the food, this means that all bed items must be tucked away as small as possible when not in use. I am discovering a newfound respect for the Japanese. I am sure there is some advantage to this pseudobunk (as I tend to call it), but I haven’t figured it out yet. Sufficient storage space? No. Privacy? Well, no one sleeps in the same room as me… but often my sleeping space is shared with the waking. Let’s go with no. Softer? No. Bigger? Definitely a no. Hmm. I think maybe cooler, since I cuddle with a wooden table, rather than a hot engine or another too close human. Okay. Cooler. I can work with that.

So that’s it, our cramped quarters aboard the boat. It’s not a lot, but it’s what we got, and it does. Every now and then, I do reminisce about my old loft apartment in Korea, with its big living room, extra bedroom/closet, and oodles of storage space all for me, but then I remind myself that tomorrow I’m going to see orangutans, and then I feel much better.

Look Before You Leap

We are four days into our crossing from Bali to Borneo. The wind free crossing has been two things- brutally hot and crushingly boring. We became so overwhelmed with both today that we stopped the boat and took a swim break. We’d done this yesterday and it had somewhat revived us. Little did we know, this break would give us more than our fair share of excitement.

As soon as he cut the engine, Boyscout leapt from the boat and into the sea, dispensing with the shark lookout formalities from yesterday. Kitten followed shortly thereafter and then I too followed suit, jumping in a rather haphazard vault over the rail, for it was too hot on the deck to take the time to climb over. Brazen (our newest crewmember that we picked up in Bali) and Adub held back, either too brain boggled by the heat to change into their bathing suits, or unwilling to coat their bodies in salt.

The emergence of the boat video camera convinced them, or our cries of relief, for who can resist both a home video cameo and a chance to reduce his body temperature below 100 degrees? The boys went below to don their bathing suits and join us in the sea.

As I said before, we had dispensed with the formalities of a shark watch. Moments after Kitten, Adub, Boyscout and I had all jumped back in, two things simultaneously happened. One: Brazen flushed the toilet, which pumps out to the sea… unfortunately right next to where Adub and Boyscout were treading water. This caused the two of them to flail, yelping, away from the stream it released into the water around us. Two: I turned around and spotted, about five feet away, two rather large sea snakes gliding towards me. Yells of “Oh God, Brazen, no!” quickly changed to “Snake! Snake!” as I sounded the alarm and the rest joined in. Boyscout and Adub were already on their way up the swim ladder and I clambered up as well, desperate for Adub to move out of my way as the snake came within about a foot of my scrambling form. Kitten, seeing the congestion on the ladder, took a more logical route and swam around to the stern to escape, then evacuated the water via the rudder. Gasping and laughing once we all flopped onto the deck, we watched the snakes until someone shouted “Shark!” Sure enough, a grey and white form glided beneath us.

New excitement broke out and we rushed to open a can of tuna for our new friend. As he tentatively munched, in true stupid young people form, we challenged each other to jump in. We peered at his rather small form a few feet below the surface, but couldn’t get a good look at him. Eventually, Brazen worked up the courage to put on a mask and pop his head into the water to take a closer look. Our shark had no dorsal fin, which probably made him a fish, but box shaped jellyfish floated close to Brazen’s head. It was, perhaps, not our wisest choice of swimming location, but it made for a good story, an excellent home video, and at least (if you ignore the bit where we swam through human waste) we all got sort of clean.

Balilicious

For years it has been a regular joke within JAAM (my group of close high school friends for those of you who didn’t know me before I was 18) that we would go to Bali. When we were coming up with places to go for our graduation trip, Bali was obviously on the list, but we never actually expected we would get there (except maybe Snarky, who has a tendency to end up in Asian countries almost at the drop of a hat). So, a little more than a year later, it struck me as an odd (but not unfortunate!) twist of fate that I would actually end up in Bali. Bali is a place like Timbuktu, or the moon. Yeah, they exist, but who actually gets to go there? It’s the opposite side of the planet!

Well, I can cheerfully report back that Bali is, like totally, rad. It’s got your perfect beaches, your tropical cabanas, palm trees, surf shops, dive shops, exotic fruit smoothies, more restaurant than you could shake a stick at, awesome Hindu temples, and an ungodly number of souvenir stalls. If you like bargaining, this is a place to go. The shopkeepers will lure you into their shops using any method they can (this includes grabbing you by the arm and dragging you in) and then will assault you with every piece of merchandise they possess. As soon as you pay attention to a particular item, they will pounce on you and at that point, only the bravest and penniless will be able to escape without purchasing anything. Be strong! Ignore their pleas for their children, their luck, and try not to buy anything unless you actually want it, or the price is too good to pass up.

Bali was very different from the rest of Indonesia. On the other islands we visited, the locals were unused to tourists, and our passing always created a stir. Children would run excitedly up to us yelling “Hello Mister!” (regardless of our gender) while the more sedate adults would simply smile, wave and say hello. We learned the different phrases for good morning (selamat pagi), good midday (selamat siang), good afternoon (selamat saray), and good night (selamat malam); whenever we used these, we’d get much bigger smiles and the same greeting. Men on motorbikes constantly asked “Where are you going?” regardless of whether or not they planned on offering us a ride. We wore conservative clothing, evaded stray dogs, roosters and trash in the streets, and mingled with the locals.

As we sailed up to Bali, it was immediately apparent that this island was not like the others. Oversized speedboats strewn with bikini-clad tourists zoomed by us and huge tour boats with bars on every floor blasted Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas (club music, for my less nightclub oriented readers). I hadn’t shown my shoulders or knees on land since Australia, and alcohol was banned on half the islands we’d visited. Yet here was an island, in the midst of conservative, mostly Muslim Indonesia, where young westerners strolled the streets in bathing suits and tanks tops with beer logos, and every other doorway housed a five dollar massage parlor. This was not at all the Indonesia I’d come to know. This was a place that intentionally mixed western luxury with exoticism to create its own little universe. It was a true tropical getaway.

I put in my fair share of time in the clubs, particularly the five story extravaganza with fire dancers and fashion shows, and I put in more than my fair share of time in the shops (poor bank account) but for me, the truly memorable parts of Bali were part of its unique culture. The beautiful temples, the daily offerings in every doorway, the strange cremation ceremony we stumbled upon and the mysticism of the locals were the true treasures of Bali.

So if you ever get a hankering to go to a tropical paradise on the other side of the world and need a travel buddy, give me a holler. I’d love to go back.

Monkeys, Color Changing Lakes and Other Cool Stuff Too

So, the internet. It’s a wonderful thing. And blogs, you know, kind of need it. And remote islands in Indonesia? They don’t have it. So yeah. That’s why (assuming we ever get internet), I will be posting a bunch of blogs at once. For now, I write them in my journal to be posted in more urbanized regions (fingers crossed for Bali).

Our last stop was the island of Flores. Sound familiar? Well, maybe. It’s the first place we’ve been to that I’d heard of and if you read the National Geographic article about pygmy humans, you might recognize the name too.

On Flores, anchored near a town called Maumere, we had a fun six days. We shopped in an outdoor market where squatting ladies sold fruits and veggies, fishermen displayed their latest catches with grins and sharp knives, and chickens were kept under tables to be sold live and squawking. From there we found that the chickens would be tied upside down to motorbike handlebars and rushed to their dooms. We feasted with the locals and learned how to peel the meat off the spine of a whole grilled fish. We watched them eat the eyeballs too, but we chose not to partake of this delicacy.

The best part of our time in Maumere, as far as I was concerned, was our trip up the volcanic mountain Kelimutu to see the fabled “color changing lakes”. Everyone we spoke to insisted that we go up early to see the sunrise, so we scheduled a private van to pick us up at (oh god) 3:30 AM. It had been rainy and cloudy the few days leading up to our adventure, and our local friends promised to pray for good weather for us.

Unbelievable as it may seem, I managed to awaken before 3 AM and wasn’t even the last one ready to go. We drove the dingy to shore and then it was off we went on our three hour drive. Up we drove through windy mountain roads, going slowly to avoid wandering goats and cattle, as well as oncoming motorbikes and buses.

Now, I said that we left at 3:30 and the drive was 3 hours long. This would lead one to assume that the sunrise was around 6:30. Imagine our surprise when, with almost an hour to go, the sky began to lighten. By 6 o’clock, we could no longer ignore it, the sun was well above the horizon. Sunrise (I have since checked on an early watch shift) occurs around 5:45 around these parts. So sunrise at the top of the mountain- fail.

As it turned out, this was just as well. The volcano was wreathed in clouds. When we reached the trailhead near the top of the mountain, it was so foggy that the trees dripped down on us. For the first time in weeks (or has it been months?), I shivered.

And so it was up to the color changing lakes with us. I was somewhat dismayed to discover that we could not expect a rave party light show from these lakes. Rather, the lakes changed colors unexpectedly from season to season. Psh! What was so exciting about that? You leave a swimming pool untreated long enough and it will do that too.

Nevertheless, we pressed on. We witnessed a bird with an incredibly loud warble that resembled Nintendo shooting noises, and this raised our spirits as we shot imaginary lasers at each other in time with the chirps. But alas, when we reached the lakes, our hearts sank again. The craters were filled with impenetrable fog. Unless these supposed lakes were white right now, we were totally unable to see them. We hiked from crater to crater and peered hopefully down… nothing. We tossed rocks in, hoping to at least hear a splash… nothing. We searched the monkey feeding grounds, hoping for some form of entertainment, and though we sacrificed a cucumber in hopes of enticing them… nothing.

Disheartened, we took pictures of the posters so we could pretend we had seen something. As we prepared to depart, we climbed one last time to the first crater, to peer again over the “safety fanch” (a spelling error we found hilarious). Mournfully we tossed pebbles into the mist and then, as if some volcano god was pleased with our mineral sacrifices, the fog began to lift.

There were, indeed, lakes! One was red, the other, a brilliant turquoise with yellowish scum. The third was still mostly shrouded, but appeared black. And as we gazed, hooted with glee, and delightedly snapped pictures, distant screeches that could only be monkeys came drifting across the valley below. Lo and behold, at the monkey feeding grounds, there were monkeys. Kitten shared her apple with one while the rest of us perched on a bamboo structure, filming and photographing.

Utterly pleased with ourselves, and rather exhausted, we returned to our driver, and, 3 hours later, the boat. Kelimutu color changing lakes- totally worth it.

Here Be Dragons?

No cruising trip in Indonesia is complete without a trip to the largely uninhabited, hot, dry and inhospitable island of Komodo. So on our crossing from Flores to Bali, we stopped briefly on Komodo island for some dragon hunting.

As we sailed up to the island, Kitten and I debated the habits of Komodo dragons. She searched the hills, anticipating large herds to be loping gracefully across the grassy hillsides. I scanned the cliffs and rocky areas, expecting to find cave dwelling, grumpy, fire breathing specimens. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you which one of us was correct. As it turns out, Komodo dragons are considerably more elusive than we gave them credit for, and though we searched high and low (nervously), they evaded us.

When we arrived, Adub and I made an initial foray onto the island. Komodo in the late afternoon felt eerie. The beach we landed on was fenced in by mangroves and we were already feeling wary of crocodiles which purportedly live in the same places as Komodo Dragons. Cautiously, we made our way through the low trees, ducking through narrow vines that hung from some branches and avoiding swampy looking ground. Beyond the mangroves was a large dry mudflat scattered with driftwood, abandoned sandals and the odd sun-bleached bone. A few nearby trees were blackened by fire. It truly felt like dragon territory.

We went carefully. Our cruising guide informed us that Komodo Dragons could grow up to 3 meters, weigh 150 kilograms and run 30 km per hour (I now understand why they are not simply called Komodo lizards). If that wasn’t daunting enough, we also knew that dragon bite was extremely dangerous. Komodo Dragons have paralyzing bacteria in their mouths, so once they bite you they can take their time eating you. As we walked, we stopped often, and peered around for potentially hungry reptiles.

Our fears were unfounded; there were no dragons nearby. We saw two wild boars but otherwise returned unimpressed. The next morning we searched again. Kitten came with us this time, and in the blazing sunlight the island felt less menacing. Even so, we were careful to look everywhere and stay on high ground as we combed the savannah-like hills. Again, no luck. We returned to the boat drenched in sweat (there is a reason these islands are homes to giant lizards- so incredibly hot and dry), unbitten, and unsatisfied. It was time to move on.

And so, no dragons. I think I will look for them at Bali Zoo. This is sad, but the moral of the story is… um… wild animals are wild? I should not expect them to come at my beck and call. I suppose this is why zoos were invented.

On the topic of dragons: What is the difference between a Komodo Dragon and a dinosaur? Komodo Dragons don’t breathe fire, nor do they fly. Why aren’t they Komodo Dinosaurs? Do Komodo Dragons like treasure? Do they kidnap innocent young maidens?

On a similar note- isn’t a Pterodactyl a fireless dragon?

Anchor Away!

Well, it’s two weeks into my new life as a professional sailor and I believe I have discovered the true meaning of being a cruising sailor. No, it’s not about the beauty of the sea, or harnessing the wind to fly across the water. Nor is it about traveling the world and seeing new things and places. No, the true meaning of being a sailor is learning how to be completely lazy, with only brief periods of intense activity. That’s right my friends, I have left my gainful employment as an educator of midget Koreans to be a layabout on a boat. It’s excellent.

While we do spend an awful lot of time sitting around and sleeping, we do occasionally have some excitement. Here are some highlights from the last few weeks:

A new mammal species has been discovered in Australia. It is the elusive Drop Bear- a cousin of the better known Koala. While Koalas are cute, cuddly Eucalyptus connoisseurs, Drop Bears are vicious carnivores that fall on you from above and devour your flesh. While there is some controversy about the actual existence of the Drop Bear, we remain certain that this ferocious predator exists. We are also on the lookout for the Kraken, which we hear resides in these waters this time of year.

Meet the crew. We have our fearless leader, Boyscout, who is the owner of the boat and knows everything about the boat. He is self assured and reliable. His status as an Eaglescout is part of the reason my mother is able to deal with me being on the boat.
Next we have Kitten, the other girl on the boat who adores animals and makes sure we know the words for kitten and puppy in any language we may encounter. She has never sailed before joining the crew, but is a senior member at this point, and more capable than she gives herself credit for. She is Boyscout’s girlfriend.
Last we have Adub, a founding father of the organization who is friendly and generally a nice dude. As Boyscout and Kitten are a couple, Adub and I generally find ourselves hanging out somewhere else to give them space.

Tides are crazy in Australia. The tides rose and fell 28 feet at our mooring in Darwin, Australia, which meant that we periodically got trapped on land or on the boat (moorings are buoys that you can tie your boat to). One night this meant that, when we returned too late, our dingy was more or less sitting in mud. Kitten and I laughed our heads off as Boyscout and Adub attempted to row through the murk. They failed. Another night, Kitten was on the boat and tried to pick me and Boyscout up on the dock. She ran the dingy aground three times and we hitched a ride with a crazy, salty old Australian sea dog, who cursed and cackled at the disappearing water and almost fell in since the boat was about five feet below the dock. Though we had considered swimming back to the boat, we chose to try our luck with the Australian, since man eating saltwater crocodiles are very prevalent in Darwin.

Our first stop in Indonesia. The island of Kisar is a lovely little place. The locals almost never see visitors and so get very excited by new people. The invited us to dine on delicious rice and fish with them, gave Kitten a baby to hold, invited us to hide in their homes from the rain, and offered to take us on rides on their motorbikes. They all wanted to take and be in pictures with us and, since they all had camera phones, we posed an awful lot. The locals also rescued us from the coral head that our anchor chain got wrapped around. After 15 hours of fighting the trapped chain from the boat, Boyscout and I dove to look during low tide. While we could barely reach the chain before scrambling back to the surface, desperate for air, an incredible Indonesian diving boy and 15 of his closest friends came to our aid. Wearing only homemade goggles (for comparison, we had masks, snorkels and fins), our savior dived down and untied the three times wrapped around chain. He only went down twice and was down there for almost a minute at a time, muscling the chain off the coral. It was amazing.

Alright, well, back to sailing. Our next stop is unknown. Even if I knew, I probably wouldn’t be able to pronounce it.

Avast me good mateys and good winds in yer landlubber’ ports till I write ye again!

Goodbye Korea

As I write this, I am sitting on an airplane that is taking me away from Korea. My destination: the Southeast Asian seas. It’s a bittersweet journey, because saying goodbye is always hard, but I can’t pretend that Korea wasn’t really the place for me. Though it may not have been all that I had hoped, and certainly was never in my plans, I believe my six months in Korea were time well spent.

I’ll definitely miss the people I met. I have friends from all over the world now- an open invitation to crash anytime in Ireland, places to stay all over England, friends scattered throughout Canada, the US and Australia. I’ve learned about many more cultures than Korea’s, met people who have been more places than I can think of. There’s some friends who biked from China to Ireland (they did have to take a boat for the last bit), sweeping across the entire Eurasian continent. A bunch of my friends have worked as volunteers in South America. Another friend visited Russia on a whim for a week. Bodacious Brit is going to be a bridesmaid next summer in South Africa. It really is quite a head-trip. And, even taking no notice of their exciting lives, I have just made some simply amazing friends. I will miss them terribly.

I will miss Korea too. I’ll miss my favorite foods, my hangouts, the nightlife, the history, the random nudity, and the craziness of living and working in a considerably different country. I’ll miss poking fun at ajumas and ajoshis and having stilted conversations with Koreans who laugh at me but appreciate my attempts to learn their language. I took a taxi ride a few days ago and was able to tell the taxi driver that I didn’t live in my nearest shopping center. I usually use the name of the center to get me home from Seoul, and it always confuses the drivers when I ask them to go somewhere else when we get there. He laughed for a solid minute when I said “Save Zone che apartu animnida”- Save Zone is not my apartment.

I’ve loved visiting the palaces and museums, participating in the festivals, seeing the traditional and not so traditional performances, and doing a not insignificant amount of souvenir shopping. Korea has a rich history and is a fascinating country.

I’ll even miss my kids… I think. Well, not the hellions.

Annyeong hi kesseyo Korea. It’s been real.

When Ajoshis ATTACK- News at 11

Today I was reminded that the subway is sometimes a rather alarming place.

Generally I like Seoul Metro- it's clean, reliable and cheap. You can get pretty much from anywhere in the Seoul Metropolitan area to anywhere else; all of Seoul seems to have an underground level with shopping and rushing trains. The map is a bit overwhelming, nine different lines spiderweb out into the suburbs while the downtown of Seoul is a veritable warren of crisscrossing subway lines, making the map resemble a rat's nest more than anything else. Sometimes the rides can be uncomfortable, particularly on the late night trains out of the city when people have to be physically shoved into the cars and no one needs handrails because the train is so fully packed that the bodies of your fellow riders hold you up.

Yesterday's ride started out fine. I was off to visit Kylara's family down in Seouther Seoul, which is quite a trek, so I hopped on the train bright and early with a packed brunch in my bag. There I was, leaning against a rail and munching my peanut butter and jelly when a somewhat elderly man approached me. In Korea, these are known as Ajoshis. He asked me something in Korean and I apologized and explained that I didn't know Korean that well. Ignoring my words and perhaps latching onto the fact that I had replied in Korean, he began to question me- still in Korean. For a few minutes I was able to work out a few of his questions enough to be able to answer to his satisfaction, but then he pointed at his watch and said something I couldn't even begin to understand. I apologized again and he repeated it, a bit louder. I shook my head, curiously said the word for wristwatch (shikhae), shrugged my shoulders and turned away, uncertain whether or not this man was crazy.

I tried to ignore him, a hard task as he was about two feet away and staring irritably at me. Munching my sandwich, I pretended to be enjoying the view of train track junkyards and distant apartments buildings. Maybe he would just go away... No such luck. He watched me for a few seconds before starting in on me in Korean again, saying goodness knows what. At this point, the other riders were beginning to notice the commotion. The Ajoshi repeated his stupid watch question again- what was he asking?- maybe how long I had been in his country? why I wasn't wearing a watch? if i wanted to buy his watch? I shook my head, now feeling a little annoyed myself and distinctly feigning interest in the advertisements posted on the walls of the subway.

My neighbor came to my rescue... or so we thought. She said sorry to me in English and then patiently explained something to the Ajoshi. Probably everything I'd already told him- that I didn't speak Korean and couldn't answer his question. This only served to further enrage said Ajoshi. He began yelling at my hapless neighbor, who replied politely with a smile on her face. They take respect your elders very seriously here and I was tempted start yelling at him in English to leave the poor girl alone, since she was just taking it. He started pointing and screeching, now drawing the attention of the entire car of riders, who stared at the three of us with mingled amusement, alarm and pity. I tried to make myself invisible, and when that failed, I simply shrugged and grinned awkwardly at the staring onlookers.

The Ajoshi stormed away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Some of the other riders were giggling at this point, and I giggled a bit myself. It was ridiculous, and I was sure it was quite a show for everyone who could understand Korean. A foreigner girl staring blankly at an old man who was raging at her in a language she couldn't understand but everyone else could, while another random Korean girl politely told the man to shove it.

My relief came far too early. The Ajoshi was back, pointing at one of us and then the other, yelling in our faces in a manner that suggested we had taken this particular subway ride simply to plot against him. He reached down and picked up my bag (it was at my feet), which I nervously wrested from his grasp. The seemed to be the tipping point. A younger Korean guy came to our rescue by pushing the Ajoshi away and cornering him. Our rescuer and his friend threated the offending Ajoshi in low tones until the old man apologized to my neighbor. He did not apologize to me- rather, he continued to glare until we reached the next stop, where he disembarked and threw a dirty look over his shoulder. Seconds later, a security guard arrived (rather belated, in my humble opinion) and followed him off of the subway.

Ah well. These things happen. I just wish I knew what he was so mad about. I'll never know.

Sushi vs. Kimchee, A Comparison of Neighbor Countries

A few weeks ago, Pippi and I visited Japan while I was on my one week summer vacation. It was a blast. We went to the southernmost island, called Kyushu, and traveled all over the northern half. Our route: from Fukuoka to Nagasaki to Kumumoto and then onto a tiny onsen town called Yufuin. Every kind of Japanese food we could think of we ate, and for entertainment we visited museums, tall ships, castles and volcanoes (to name a few). We traveled by train, bus, ferry, trolley, bike and foot and got by on four Japanese words: Konichiwa (hello), Arigato Gozimas (thank you very much), Ohio Gozimas (good day to you) and Hai (yes). It was a most excellent adventure, but rather than boring you all with the excruciating details (for instance- our 2 hour walk to a hotel when we got off the bus at the wrong stop), I will save that for stories I tell at home and will instead regale you with amusing comparisons of Korea (at least the Seoul area I am used to) and Japan (Kyushu specific- I cannot comment on Tokyo).

Warning to the reader- this post is rated PG-13 due to some more mature topics. If you might be offended by these, please skip Love Motels.

Number One: Food

Well duh, you might be thinking. Korean people eat barbeque and kimchee, Japanese people eat sushi and tempura (among other things). But what I found fascinating as I wandered around Japan and sampled everything I could think of is that there is almost no spicy food in Japan. While in Korea I can only find food that is spicy and or sweet, the vast majority of Japanese food strongly tastes of sesame seed oil, ginger or soy sauce. A Korean ramyeon will make my eyes tear up and my nose run, but its Japanese cousin, the better known ramen, hasn’t even a hint of spice, unless you count the optional ginger sprinkled on top. Wasabi has a bite, yes, but it can’t even begin to compete in spiciness with the ubiquitous red pepper of Japan’s western neighbor.

Number Two: Expense

I’ve heard it before and I will repeat it for anyone who will listen. Japan is EXPENSIVE. Korea isn’t particularly cheap or anything but there are places to stay for 10 dollars a night and plenty of nice meals for under 5 dollars. Not so with Japan. And the yen is doing disgustingly well, particularly compared to the won. Japanese trips will bite you in the pocketbook.

Number Three: Love Motels

An interesting phenomenon exists in Korea. Children are expected to live with their parents until they are married and living alone is very frowned upon. This poses a problem for young Korean couples who feel a little frisky in the dating stage, particularly ones that are in their 20s. Rather than hiding in bushes like their teenage counterparts in the US (Korea, with its incredibly dense population, does have a dearth of sneaking away spots, so it would be hard for them to find any bushes anyway), a highly successful business of providing rooms has sprung up on practically every city street in Korea. The love motel is as common in Korea as Starbucks is in America, you cannot get very far without seeing a bright neon sign announcing the motel and garage entrances with the top half obscured by cords (to keep people from being able to see the drivers of the cars that go into the motels). They are frequented by amorous young couples, Korean men with their prostitutes, traveling foreigners and cheating couples. Love motels range from classy to creepy and are a wonderfully cheap option for a pair of travelers with no toothbrushes (for some reason every love motel provides a toothbrush to each of its guests). Even if you do have a toothbrush, love motels are highly convenient. My school put me up in one for my first four nights in Korea.

In Japan, I was curious to see if the love motel had found a similar niche in the landscape and society. I did find love motels, but it was quite a different experience. Japanese love motels are incredibly sketchy. They involve separate entrances and exits and rather than a front desk, they instead have a display of the available rooms, each with a picture that shows the theme of the room. If it’s lit up, it’s available. If not, well… don’t go in. I don’t expect they provide toothbrushes either. Pippi and I definitely decided that love motels in Japan were not friendly places for the low budget traveler, so I never will know exactly how they worked, but I don’t regret skipping the love motel and staying at a business hotel instead.

Number Four: Smell

No offense Korea, but you smell. You do. Face it. Rotting bags of kimchee on the street outside of restaurants lend a distinct odor to Korea that in the summer is simply too overwhelming to be ignored. And even though most Koreans don’t have terrible b.o. and thus deodorant is a scarce commodity, when you’re crammed onto the subway up to your eyeballs in people, the few that do need deodorant become painfully obvious.

Japan, on the other hand, seems to have a countrywide case of hygienic OCD. There is no smell, which is quite a relief, but in return you get a bidet unit on every private and nearly every public toilet, as well as silly little river sound makers to mask the noises of your toilet usage. For a few days after I returned from Japan, the bathroom sounded exceptionally quiet and I almost missed the gurgling brook accompaniment.

Number Five: English speaking ability

In Korea I have been somewhat spoiled. English is taught at public school now; most Koreans know a bit of English and can understand some of my most basic requests. Their accents are atrocious and they rarely can comprehend mine, which often leads to me being forced to speak Konglish (adding an uh or ee noise on the end of any word that ends with a hard consonant), but at least nearly everyone can say hello, English teacher, and where are you from (the vast majority of my conversations with random Koreans include those three phrases).
In Japan, very few people speak English. The average person on the street will not recognize anything more than Hello, and one is quickly reduced to elaborate and inaccurate sign language with hotel staff, waiters and bus drivers. Pippi and I went into one restaurant in Yufuin where the menu had no pictures, and since neither of us could read kanji and the waiter could speak absolutely no English, we were left looking quizzically around while the waiter shuffled his feet awkwardly in the kitchen. We were saved from starvation when our only fellow diner received her meal of tempura, which we pointed at frantically and held up two fingers, begging in English and repeating the word "tempura" like a mantra.

Fortunately, most major train stations have incredibly helpful information staff who assure you they can only speak a little English and then answer your complicated questions with clear accents and an excellent grasp of grammar. There appears to be no in between. So definitely learn the word for bathroom if you plan on going to Japan some time soon.


Obviously there was more- from differing fashion and hairstyles to completely different geography (the mini mountains of Korea are much different than the sharp volcanic peaks on the Japanese islands). There were different looking temples and castles, and all the Hyundais and Kias of Korea got traded for Hondas and Toyotas in Japan (that drove on the wrong side of the road). There were similarities too- the convenience stores had the same names and foods, many of the same brands existed in both countries and everyone had an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty (including Pippi). It was fun, and fascinating. And now I have two more stamps in my passport to show that I am quite the world traveler indeed.

Announcements!

Announcements, announcements, announcements! A horrible way to die, a horrible way to die, a horrible death to be talked to death, a horrible way to die!

Sorry, couldn't help it, too many years of girl scout camp have bred an inability to hear the word announcements without spontaneously bursting into song.

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been away for so long. Sarah (furthermore known as Pippi) was visiting and I was entertaining and being entertained. Also, I was in Japan for a week. So, I've been busy. I have not forgotten about the blog, I promise!

However, I am not going to put out A Day in the Life- Part 2 just yet. It takes me awhile to write these posts, it's late tonight, and I have two very important pieces of information to disseminate.

Number 1:

Fan Death is real. I know for a fact. I slept with my fan on, next to my bed, in a closed room for four nights and the fan died.

...

Ba dum ba!


Number 2: (the more important piece of news)

I am leaving Korea at the end of August. This probably doesn't come as a surprise to most of you, but I thought I'd make an official announcement on the blog. I am off to go sailing through Southeast Asia. I will be on a 40 foot yawl (type of sailboat) as part of a crew of 4. It will be completely awesome. We will be stopping in many different ports and visiting a bunch of countries.

So yes. You've all got about 3 more weeks of funny Korean tidbits and then it's off to Australia with me!

A Day in the Life of Kirin Teacher: Part 1

Part 1- Kindergarten

Recently I realized that while I often post about cultural differences, fun events and amusing experiences so you all have a good grasp of how I entertain myself, I talk very little about what I actually do the vast majority of my waking hours. Thus, most of you have no real concept of what I do as my actual job. Well, wonder no longer. Allow me to introduce “A day in the life” in 2 parts- kindergarten and elementary. (I don’t think I can actually do both in one blog post- that’s too much free time at once being spent thinking about work.)

Today we’re doing kindergarten. My day starts every morning at 9:40 when I arrive ten minutes late to work. I’m sure this will come as no surprise that I am always late, but since class doesn’t start until 9:45, all I miss out on is “prep time” aka coffee time with Desert Boy and Indifferent (my other male coworker who does not care about anything except occasionally bickering with me purely for the sake of bickering- yesterday he argued with me when I said that the South African flag was colorful and last week he would not believe me that the summer solstice changed days from year to year). The Bodacious Brit does not arrive until later, so she also misses out on coffee hour, though I’m sure the boys enjoy their y-chromosome time and don’t want us there anyway.

So I rush into work, grab my basket and books and scuttle over to class. My first batch of children is the hellions. They arrive in various states: acting like dinosaurs and airplanes, dripping snot, hitting each other… you get the idea. There are actually now four of them, and they are a very different class from the babbling monsters I had back in March.

We start out our morning routine with “How are you feeling?” Answers vary from the expected (angry, sad, happy, sleepy) to the compound (happysad, angrysleepy, happyangrysad) to the absurd (turtle, dinosaur) to Korean gibberish. Once I’ve managed to drag a reasonable answer out of each and drawn a corresponding face on the board next to their name, we say what the weather is. This normally results in warfare, since there is only one weather sheet onto which the Velcro cloud, sun and rain are stuck, so regardless of how much I rotate and make sure that everyone has a turn, the others will always try to steal it from him.

Eventually the sheet gets onto the board, usually upside down. This instantaneously results in all four children swarming me, wrapping themselves around my legs and chanting “upside down, upside down”. This phenomenon is due to a desperate measure I took in one of my first weeks here, where I got fed up with the boys not understanding the concept of upside down and actually picked one up by the ankles so he got the point. Being 3 years old, he loved it and all the others wanted a turn too. So every day, except when my back simply won’t take it anymore, I find myself swinging the boys around by their ankles while they giggle and shout in mingled Korean and English.

Then it’s time for days of the week. I take down the flashcards from the wall (our walls are made of fabric so we can stick velcroed flashcards to them) and before I have even begun to arrange them on the table, all seven have been stolen. This used to annoy me, but really, the longer I drag this whole routine out, the less time I have to spend trying to find things to keep them happy, since they can really only focus on bookwork for about 10 to 15 minutes at best (sometimes, only 5) and I have 40 minutes a class period to keep them entertained. Eventually I manage to get all seven flashcards on the table, we sing the days of the week song and one lucky child is chosen to put the day on the board. It usually ends up upside down again.

Bookwork itself is unexciting, though I’m sure the whole thing would seem ridiculous to anyone else. I chant things for them to repeat, try to get them to answer questions, and struggle to keep them on their page numbers while they chatter away in Korean, pull faces, and constantly attempt to escape their chairs.

Then comes the dreaded snack time. I hate, loathe and detest snack time. I spend all of snack time cleaning up after spills if we have something liquid, scolding the boys for stealing from each other, keeping them from stuffing so much in their mouths that they can’t breathe and attempting to get them to eat, rather than throw, their food. I still expect to have to perform the Heimlich someday soon, particularly with the new boy who cannot chew and swallow food to save his life. I swear, he’s like a damn chipmunk, wandering around with food stashed in his cheek pockets for later consumption.

With snack completed, we move on to gym time, where I rest for a few minutes and watch them play on the little jungle gym in our school. Once I am mostly recovered we play “sleeping” where I pretend to sleep until they say “cockayo!” (Korean for cockadoodledoo) and then I lunge around trying to tickle them while yelling “Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of a Korean…etc”. Desert Boy caught me doing this the other day and laughed himself silly, however, no one else has a class of 3 year olds, so everyone just lets me do whatever it takes to keep the hooligans entertained.

Then it’s another class with the hellions, which we finish up with song time. The boys beg for “check um chilies” (aka “Shake your Sillies”), a song in which they go running around the room screaming while I protect the CD player. If I’m feeling brave, I convince them to join me in “BINGO” or “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as well.

An hour and a half has passed at this point, and I feel ready to die. Fortunately, I have my break and then lunch. Lunch is generally a strange concoction of bland Korean foods (we are at a kindergarten after all) and a soup that normally smells to Desert Boy like a golf course. Indifferent, Bodacious Brit, Desert Boy and I eat at our desks, hiding from the children, while the Korean teachers entertain them. During that time, Indifferent is sure to remind us that he only has one break every day, I will mostly likely punch Desert Boy for something offensive that he has said and Bodacious Brit usually says something completely inappropriate for work.

Then it’s onto kindergarten round two. My second class consists of ten four year olds who are considerably more civilized and thus, much cuter than the hellions. Our routines are much more reasonable and I get to feel like a teacher, rather than a performing monkey. We chant, we sing, they color, I direct and everything moves more or less according to plan. The children tattle on each other for speaking Korean every few seconds, pretend to get hurt to get out of class and generally act like children do. It’s refreshing. Though I do have to avoid the psycho killer child who is too busy plotting all of our murders to listen to anything I tell him, gives everyone the death glare, and draws pictures with teeth and fangs even if I have asked them to draw food or playground equipment. I also frequently find myself acting out strange things at the request of the students “Kirin teacher shark! Kirin teacher monster! Kirin teacher flower!”

Then 2:15 rolls around and kindergarten is done. The kiddies are sent on their way and I retreat to my desk to wait for the next onslaught.

Up next: elementary!

We will to victory! Korea Fighting.

Korea is bound and determined to change me into a football (oops! soccer) fan.

After watching my brother and sister play soccer for upward of 12 years, you’d think I’d have gained some sort of attachment to the sport. However, I have proven entirely immune to the draw of soccer and have avoided most games and certainly never gone out of my way to watch any kind of soccer match. If I am going to a game it is probably because I am being dragged there, and if someone is trying to get me to watch it on TV, it’s simply a lost cause.

Until now.

As I’m sure all of you are aware, the World Cup has been going on for the last two weeks or so and, out of the blue, I have become a hard core soccer fan. I dress in my team’s colors, know all the chants and dance moves, scream when we score and generally make an obnoxious prick out of myself wherever I am watching the game.

The catch- I am supporting Korea. Well, I was, though we lost last night, so I imagine I will revert back to my normal, sports oblivious self very soon.

I still don’t actually care much for the game. I mean, it looks pretty fun to play, and I’m sure it’s great to watch if you’re into that kind of thing, but I’m really just in it for the mob mentality. Because when Korea gets patriotic, they get PATRIOTIC. They don’t do national pride halfheartedly here. This means that on game day, about 75% of the country is wearing red shirts that say things like “Korean victory- Begin to 2010”, “We will to victory”, “The shouts of the reds, United Korea” or my personal favorite “Korea fighting”. Every single one of my elementary students wrote about Korea’s first game in their journals, and I expect this week that they will write devastatingly depressing entries about the loss to Uruguay that sent us out of the running. Park Jisung (Korea’s star player) is a national hero and all of the boys I teach are eager to become him. My Korean coworkers have taken to chanting the national chant to their kindergarteners to instill them with the appropriate Korean pride. The chant, by the way, goes something like this:

Dae Han Minguk! [clapclap, clapclap, clap] (repeat as many times as interest remains)(Dae Han Minguk means Republic of Korea)

If one chants this on a game day to any passing Korean, they have about a 95% chance of getting a reply in kind. If one simply shouts it out on the street that chance will increase to 100%.

And so, for the first game against Greece, I found myself decked out in a “Shouts of the Reds” shirt and a “Begin to 2010” bandana, hiding from the rain and watching the game in a Korean BBQ restaurant. That meal was interspersed with restaurant-wide Dae Han Minguk chants, a few national pride songs and a lot of shouting at the screen. Later that night, I found myself in a pub half filled with Americans and half filled with Brits to watch the England-US game, but I found that less exciting than constantly cheering in Korean. (though still entertaining; Americans are bloody obnoxious and the Brits are excessively calm)

My next game was the most exciting, though also the most depressing to watch. I schlepped myself over to Hongik University on a weeknight to watch Argentina destroy South Korea. So I found myself surrounded by thousands of Korean university students wearing red devil shirts, blinking red devil horns and Korean flags. We clapped, we chanted, we sang, we jumped, we danced and I lost my voice and couldn’t talk at work the next day.

And I’ve just watched my final game, hanging out in the rain outside a convenience store on an island. I mean, that shows dedication, doesn’t it? I could have been in my nice little beach hut, but instead I came out to cheer for my team.

Apparently it took coming to another country for me to realize how much the rest of the world likes soccer, but oh, they do. We definitely just don’t get it in America and I recommend hanging out in a foreign country during the next World Cup. They know how to watch their soccer.

So, we may not have to victoried this year, but begin to 2014, we will to victory. Dae Han Minguk!

step aside, Klondike

One of my favorite things about my job these days are the field trips that we take with kindergarten. Field trips generally mean longer lunch breaks, no kindergarten classes, goof off time with the kids, some level of chaos, and an amusing destination to remind me that there is a world outside of my hagwon on weekdays.

Sometimes field trips are fun and work out well, sometimes they are a bit of a mess, and sometimes they are a little bit on the... odd side. I thought that things were pretty weird when we took the kids to the transportation museum where we talked about all the various ways they could get hit by a car and watched a Korean equivalent to Red Asphalt (fyi, if you weren't forced to go through that traumatizing movie in a driver's ed class, it's an intensely bloody movie about car accidents). I mean, I enjoyed our safety video with the little magical fairy man showing the children in the movie how they could have horribly died ten times in the course of their normal day, but really, I think this could have been a bit much for 3, 4, and 5 year olds. I have to admit, I was really entertained by the miniature intersections they had set up where the tour guides for the museum showed our kids how to raise their hands when they crossed the street and had us practice about 15 times.

But, by and large, things are normally pretty good. So when I heard that we were going to the "Fun, fun science museum", I was amused by the name, but not unduly concerned. That changed fairly quickly when we got to the place.

Now, I'd been expecting a building dedicated to teaching kids about science. Which isn't that weird... I've been to plenty of children's science museums back home, and they're all pretty legit. Most of our field trips thus far had been to real places, I had no reason to suspect otherwise. So when we pulled up to jankety three story building in a somewhat sketchy part of town, I figured that the bus driver had just gotten lost again (they rely way too heavily on their GPS units and will actually ignore you if you try to point out that there is a detour or roadblock, or that the entrance to where you are going is just off to the left even though the GPS says to go straight). Unfortunately, our bus driver was spot on.

Welcome to the Fun Fun Science Museum, which is on the second and third floor of this building, up a narrow flight of stairs. If you want to go to the third floor, you'll need to ask the nice lady with the keys to open it for you. But why would you want to go up there anyway? There's lots to do downstairs- like look at the beer can fountain, examine the tongue shaped bottle opener, listen to the head of the Maestro tell you your future from his magical box or put on the gorilla head mask.

Perhaps needless to say, I was creeped out. As were the other three foreign teachers. It was sort of like some really bizarre knick knack collector had taken the contents of his garage and stuffed them onto shelves in a room. We hung back as our kids seated themselves for a show (we were the only group at the Fun Fun Science Museum), and began discussing where we should be expecting to find the dead babies. The suit of armor was a major contender.

When the Korean equivalent of the mad professor (our show host) pulled out a huge canister of liquid nitrogen, I began to wonder what it said in my contract about my responsibilities if the children were hurt on a field trip. I mean, I love playing with liquid nitrogen as much as the next nerdy science person, but I'm pretty sure that three is an early age to be exposing children to dangerous substances.

Things seemed to be going okay though. The nutty professor was freezing balloons and feeding the children frozen crackers to make them breathe steam. Assuming that the crackers weren't poisoned (to add to the dead baby collection)(I really hope they weren't, since I was dragged up as an amusing foreigner to eat a cracker too), this seemed pretty benign.

I began to calm down. The kids were having a good time, any dead bodies that may have been there were either fresh enough or well preserved enough for us not to smell decay, and I was even growing used to hearing the Maestro's creepy predictions about my dire end with Disneyland's Haunted Mansion-esk music playing in the background.

And then the mad professor went for the fish.

We should have seen it coming. I mean, you've got two fish hanging out on your demonstration table (in a fish tank) and a canister of liquid nitrogen. What better ideas do you have?

Yes. Yes, he did. He froze the fish.

As it turns out, there is no language barrier for horrified gasps.

And if that wasn't bad enough, he then dropped the fish popsicle on the table accidentally. My coworkers and I almost all had simultaneous heart attacks. The kids were looking severely shocked and even the Korean teachers were looking a little uncomfortable with this rather inhumane treatment of a frozen fish. So, with apologetic looks, he dropped the fish back into the fish tank where it made like a zombie and came back to life.

We were still shocked. So was the fish. It swam in spastic little circles for the remaining 20 minutes of the show, though that may also have had something to do with the active Tesla coil next to its tank. I later examined it closely for dents, or chipped bits, but it seemed to have remained mostly intact.

So it is true, that you can freeze a fish with liquid nitrogen and then bring it back to life. But I don't recommend it, unless you feel like severely traumatizing someone. Then, I definitely recommend it. I'm not sure I will ever be able to look at a goldfish the same way again.

Just plain bizarre

Well, I've been here three months now and the weather has finally changed. The winter that would never end has given way to balmy nights, hot days, humid air, and blazing hot mornings in my apartment (the windows face east, which means that I cannot keep my apartment below 88 degrees in the morning). At my yoga studio (I did end up joining one that was better, cheaper and did not involve stomach molestation), they no longer need to heat the room for hot yoga. Restaurants have moved seating outdoors and my stingy director has even given in to turning on the air conditioner in the school so that the children will not die of heat stroke.

In keeping with my environmental nut-case ways, I have avoided turning on my AC yet (this might help with the whole 88 degrees thing, but I am a stubborn mule when I want to be). Instead, I have employed the use of a trusty fan. Or at least, so I thought...

Turns out in Korea, fans are not so trusty.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the modern world is the strange urban legend that having a fan on in a closed room will kill a sleeping person. This phenomenon is known as Fan Death. I'm not exactly sure where this idea came from, as it only exists in South Korea, but Korean reporters have regularly claim that a number of people have died in the summer due to fan related causes.

Now, I haven't really tested this one out on many Korean adults yet, but many of the students at the school have assured my coworkers and I that Fan Death is a real thing. We will apparently die because the moving fan blades will cut up the air so small that we will not be able to breathe it...

Most fans sold in Korea come with timers so you can set them to turn off before they kill you in your sleep.

So now I'm tempted to ride on bus number 4 (the Korean superstitious number- my school does not have a bus number 4 even though there are 4 buses. We skip from 3 to 5.) on Friday the 13th as a black cat crosses my path. When I get home I will open an umbrella indoors. Then I will shatter a mirror as I walk under a ladder to get to my bed where I will sleep with a fan on.

I can disrespect superstitions multi-culturally!

(Much love to all my superstitious readers.)

A Scoop of a Different Flavor

Up until yesterday, I thought that Korea had pretty normal ice cream. The country is a bit obsessed with Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors (there are about 3 within about a 5 minute walking distance from my work), and most of the ice cream I’d seen was pretty standard. Now, I may have thought this a wee bit unusual- when Korea tries to do non-Korean food, they tend to Koreanify it (which generally means making it excessively sweet and/or spicy), but I just figured that the appeal of ice cream was universal. It took a visit from Britt (now Snarky) and her boyfriend to show me just how wrong I was.

Snarky and Boyfriend have been visiting me for about a week now and I’ve learned that I am perhaps not meant to be a tour guide. I managed to completely fail at public transportation the night I picked them up from the airport… which meant that we got dumped off on a deserted, misty beach in the middle of the night by the bus that was supposedly taking us home. I’ve taken them on a beach themed island trip that was spent almost entirely in a chilly drizzle. I failed to adequately explain aspects of the subway system which lead to them getting sent off into the mountains when they were trying to come home from Seoul- again in the middle of the night. But! I think they’re having a good time.

As it turns out, Snarky’s boyfriend’s favorite pastime in a foreign country is to try every type of snack he can find. While this has led to an unimaginable number of wrappers suddenly appearing all over my apartment, it has also led to some very entertaining food discoveries. Such as yesterday’s Haebong ice cream experience.

Now what sounds better than a waffle cone with ice cream? How about a waffle (just skip the cone aspect) with two scoops of ice cream, fruit flavored sauce and whipped cream? Sounds pretty good, right? Perhaps a little decadent, but they’re on vacation and I’m on… er… special Kirin time (well, I don’t always get visitors, so I figure I’ve got some leeway, right?). So we decided to give it a try. Plus, the décor of the restaurant was quite a bold statement- bright, bright, BRIGHT pinks, blues and yellows screaming all over the chairs and tables, with a mascot of a funny little wannabe gangster punk looking drugged out on two scoops of ice cream.

Unfortunately, as we discovered at the counter, none of the ice cream flavors were in English. Instead, they all had absurd looking pictures of the flavors that they represented. Snarky, her Boyfriend, and I were fascinated by the black ice cream with the picture of what looked like powdered coal with a smiley face. With elaborate sign language we managed to obtain a sample of this mysterious flavor.

OMG. Our first idea was “Seaweed????? WTF??” and then we realized it was sesame. Yes. Sesame flavored ice cream. And I don’t just mean a hint of sesame. As Snarky put it, it was like they took a bowl of ground sesame seeds, added milk and sugar and froze it.

That was rather ghastly. As was the cheese flavored ice cream. The cactus flavor was… interesting, and the coffee flavor was stronger than a real cup of coffee. When Haebong makes ice cream, they don’t mess around. They take flavors to a whole new extreme. And in case you were wondering, green tea and waffle are not a good combination.

Big Brother is watching

Usually when people start hearing disembodied voices, they begin to become a little concerned. While this may have been true of me in the past, it is no longer. As long as said disembodied voices are in Korean, I assume that all is well. I simply roll over in my bed and mutter irritably "I'm going to write a blog about you" before going back to sleep.

Or maybe I'm being warned about something terribly important and I will never know until it is too late because I have failed to master the Korean language in two and a half months.

...

When I first heard disembodied voices in Korean in my apartment, making something that sounded like an important announcement, I thought that I was going mad. Then I decided it must be a noise from the street. But no. Desert Boy (who lives in the same apartment complex) called me moments afterward to ask if I too had heard the voice.

Feeling more than slightly alarmed at proving the disembodied voice to be real (Desert Boy was not just playing an elaborate prank on me), I set out on a search for the source of the voice. This was a very short quest, as I looked at my ceiling and discovered a speaker built in next to the light.

I have no idea why these announcements happen, what they are about and why there is a speaker in my apartment that allows someone to randomly broadcast into my private living space. I am disturbed. And, particularly on this Saturday morning around 9AM, rather annoyed. And perhaps a little amused as well.

Now I can only hope that there are no cameras...

Yoga Quest

So, with two months under my belt and the vocabulary of a one year old with a bad accent I recently decided that it was time to venture forth and go where no one has dared go before. Yoga class.

Now, with all things in Korea, this is easier said than done. I first got the idea from a Korean coworker who was doing something called "hot yoga" in a nearby gym. While this sounded like utter madness to me at first (hot yoga takes place in a sauna at about 88 degrees), as the days remained cold, I decided to give it a shot. It seemed pretty easy to find- she said that the gym was right across the street. However, if you think this is easy, you are perhaps unaware or forgetting (as I did) that Korea exists essentially in vertical space, not horizontal. So across the street left me with three corners to choose from, each with a ten or more story building packed with at least ten retail options per floor.

After about a week, I managed to locate the place, but then shied away after the $300 for 3 months price tag was revealed. The quest continued. Now, with the hot yoga idea lodged in my brain, I resorted to taking pictures of hot yoga advertisements and pulling tabs off flyers. These attempts led me to all Korean websites (again, not terribly helpful) and got me phone numbers with confused Koreans on the other end of the line, not understanding a word of English that I desperately babbled at them. Psh. Story of my life.

I did eventually manage to navigate my way around one of the Korean websites and was able to (sort of) figure out the address of one of these yoga places. This is actually one of the lovely things about being able to read Korean- it's a really easy alphabet to learn and then there are all sorts of words that are actually English ones written in Korean. Thus, reading the address led me to discover that there was a yoga studio in the Mega Plus Building near my workplace. The Korean literally read Mega Plusu Building.

Again, disappointment! I found my way in, but the price tag was even higher ($400 for 3 months). I don't even know if I like yoga, let alone in a sauna! I was feeling pretty sure yoga studios could be cheaper than this, so I continued on, somewhat disheartened.

Then a few days later, wonder of wonders, I found a studio in the same building that I work in, only a floor above. A dream come true! I wandered in and was immediately offered jasmine tea. Then the woman there proceeded to very earnestly explain to me in Korean what they did at the studio. She was aware of my lack of language skills, so many of her explanations were accompanied by sign language and acting. It was like a very elaborate game of charades, but even if I said the right answer, neither of us knew. After about 30 minutes and a drum performance by the other woman in the studio, they called another woman who worked there that spoke fluent English. We set an appointment for the next day.

I went in feeling very hopeful. The atmosphere was peaceful, the women were nice and it was so close! What could be wrong with it?

Well... I've always been one to respect mysticism from a distance, but as soon as the woman started talking about my fire energy and my water energy and how I had blockages in my heart, head and intestines that needed to be cleared, I began to have misgivings. According to her, people are supposed to have water in their head, and fire in their intestines, but most people (obviously including myself, otherwise, why would I need the studio?) had their fire energy in their head and their water energy in their intestines. She was very disappointed to hear that I did not have a stomachache or a headache, let alone severe migraines or gastrointestinal problems.

Then it got kinda weird. She asked if I had time for her to clear the blockages and when I said that I was free for another 30 minutes, she led me into a small room with a mat. There she proceeded to test my flexibility and my balance. She seemed also disappointed by the fact that I could stand on one foot for ten seconds, but was pleased when I fell over while trying to balance with my eyes closed. This was because I lacked internal focus (duh). (btw, you should try balancing on one foot with your eyes closed- it's very hard). Apparently my heart had blockages, because when she pressed hard on my sternum, it hurt. And then she proceeded to massage my intestines for 10 minutes.

There's really no way I can explain that.

Obviously, I also had blockages there, because when she shoved her palm into my gut, it was painful. But she assured me that after she used her healing energy, my stomach's fire energy would be restored.

I do not recommend having your intestines massaged. It is simultaneously painful, ticklish and awkward. After 10 minutes, my stomach certainly was feeling much warmer, which was proof of my spiritual recalibration.

And then at the end, the price tag again. I could have all this (which included three weekly one hour sessions with drumming, dancing, singing and some yoga), for... $300 for 3 months. WTF mate??? Oh yes, and I also was told that there were three different plans I could buy. A three month membership would allow me to pour out the mud that was in my body, a six month plan would then wash away the remains of the mud and a year plan would allow me to fill my body with clean water.

...

I have still not joined a yoga studio, though there is yet another that I am planning on checking out. Wish me luck...

The Adventures of Monkey Teacher

Recently I've been getting a lot of strange comments. This has led me to realize that I have much more in common with monkeys than I previously though. Like this one from my language partner- I'm sitting there, writing out the Korean letters for the phrase "I am an English Teacher" (Nanun Yongu Sonsangnim Imnida) and he reaches out a finger and pets my arm. I give him a WTF look and am like "What are you doing???" to which he responds "You have hair."

No shit Sherlock?

Now, I understand that many Asians have very little body hair. This was something my roommate teased me about a lot in college and I have simply come to accept my fate of having to shave my legs far more often then my Asian friends. But really? "You have hair"? Come on now, language partner. Also, no petting. Or else you will get language partner dumped.

However, that was not the only hair comment I got recently. Maybe I have been wearing shorter sleeves more these days? But the day after this went down with LP (language partner), I'm going around the room in one of my elementary classes, checking spelling homework when one of the kids reaches out a hand and pets my arm too. Again I give the WTF look and again I am told that I have hair. Is this LP's younger brother??? Did I spontaneously turn into a monkey overnight and not notice? Now all the kids are coming up to pet me and I'm feeling a little alarmed at the prospect of being manhandled by eight third graders. So I start calling them naked mole rats. This didn't really register for them, but I did feel better. I also used my ultimate power as a teacher to punish them for calling me a monkey. I took away their stars. Such power I have. My coworkers and I (particularly the British one who has requested the name of Bodacious Brit- I was going to go with bloodthirsty, but bodacious it is) are all in favor of harsher punishments. Soon I will take students into the corner where the camera cannot see and then I will beat them with my monkey fists.

I suppose this brings me to the adventure that I had yesterday. Feeling emboldened by my new status as a monkey, I took on a bold challenge after a terrible thing happened during the hellion class. As stated previously, I do not trust the hellions to not destroy everything in sight, so this means that I never put my basket of magical teacher stuff in their reach. (basket is not actually that exciting, but it does carry my CDs, flashcards, pens and books) So instead I put the basket up on the shelves, which are at about shoulder height for me. Unfortunately, these cabinets back up to the windows and there is a four foot deep and six inch wide gap between the backs of the cabinets and the shelves. You probably can see where this is going... but anyway, my basket tipped over and all of my pens went spilling out and fell into the abyss. I was crushed. They may just have been pens, but they were MY pens. But! I had just been informed that I was a monkey. Thus a daring plan was hatched.

This of course led to me being stuck halfway down the back of cabinet a few hours later. Yet I did recover my red pen using a particularly long scissors as a grabbing device. I had even thought ahead enough to tie the scissors to my arm so that I wouldn't lose them into the abyss too.

My coworkers thought I was just as crazy as you probably all now think I am. But I have my red pen back and have used my monkey powers for good. So the world is a better place.

Dinosaur, dinosaur

I think it's high time for an update on the hellions...

The hellions have actually been calming down somewhat in the past few weeks. We've moved from Korean gibberish mixed with baby talk to Korean gibberish mixed with baby talk mixed with various key English words and phrases. They have learned to understand basic commands and questions and this has led me to realize that they are really quite cheeky little bastards. Pretty much any time they are tired of the lesson, one of them will suddenly start chanting "Close your books, close your books" and then they all sing the clean up song and whisk things away when I'm not looking.

I have actually grown much fonder of them and this is perhaps mostly due to the fact that they're really excited about walking places since I started a new walking regime. Teachers are supposed to have the students line up with their hands on their hips and then chant "walking, walking" while walking in a straight line to the bathroom or water dispenser. However, I have grown very tired of this, so now the hellions and I do themed walking. The absolute favorite is dinosaur walk where we all hunker down, pull out our claws and stalk from room to room, growling fiercely as we go. It's amazing. Instead of walking, I can now hunch over and prowl while muttering "rawr, rawr" with three little Korean dinosaur boys following my every move.

I'm also really excited about the current unit that the hellions are on in their dialog book (as opposed to phonics). We are learning about pets and this now allows me to cut off the bookwork and just have the children act out being the animals. Last Friday, I got tired of pointing to animals and having the kids repeat "This is a dog, This is a dog" and I simply got down on all fours and had them crawl around, barking and howling (btw, in Korea dogs say mong, mong, not woof, woof) and chanting "Dog, dog, dog" (refraining from any food comments here). We will do this now every time they learn about animals, which will happen when we get to farm and zoo animals later on in the book. It's pretty hilarious.

Time to go- I'm seeing said children in less than eight house and I've got to get some sleep. One of these days I'll stop falling asleep with my fingers poised over the keyboard. Cheers!