Interlude

We just got back from Beijing on Monday and it was a refreshing and fascinating escape from the sanctuary that has become Korea. I feel completely comfortable and at home in this country now, but it certainly is a nice thing to travel elsewhere for a while.

Because it will take me a while to organise the Beijing photos into a coherent narrative, I thought it timely to put up photos for this mini-post. These are from the weekend before we went to China, when we went out in Hwamyeong for dinner and drinks. I don't work for the Hwamyeong branch but Heather does, so sometimes I get to tag along and absorb more than my fair share of their merriment. In this photo are some of the Hwamyeong staff, slightly tipsy after a long dinner and eager to find ii-cha (the Korean word for 'any second establishment to drink at after finishing dinner').

Ii-cha turned out to be a karaoke room. Here food and wine flowed freely and all who were present imbibed dubious quantities while others serenaded dancing co-workers.

That guy with the tambourine is actually a bus driver for the school who became very jovial indeed. He stood up in the middle of dinner and announced to us "I driving Bus Number 2. Berry goot! Sankyou."
We finished up in the wee hours of the morning and I ended up hitting the sack around 5:30am.

That was well planned because the following day I had to get up at 7:30am to get the train to Seoul. At the train station I was feeling a little snoozy, but I still couldn't help noticing the name of this coffee and sandwich shop. I like coffee and I like sandwiches, but coffee in sandwich? What an amazing idea.

We walked into the train station, and with sandwiches on my mind I had to buy one. This thoughtful pearl of wisdom greeted me at the counter of another shop.

I chewed my sandwich a little more thoughtfully after reading that.

The reason we went to Seoul was for leadership training. The company paid for us to go up there and participate in a workshop at the Yeoksam Cultural Centre. We arrived around midday and had a quick lunch before meandering in.

The lecture theatre reminded me a little of my days at university. The presentations weren't too bad, a lot of things were fairly common knowledge but it wasn't a waste of time.
I met up with Ben, who you may possibly remember as my room mate in Seoul from Canada, who I lived with for a while during training. That was a long time ago. He's living in Daejeon now and engaged to a Korean woman.

After dinner we had optional team-building exercises which we were a little apprehensive of, especially when we had to take off our shoes. They actually turned out to be the highlight of the trip (as well as me winning $10 at the casino later that night, hooray).

These were the people running the show, various CDI workers from Seoul who each had a different challenge for us to complete as a team. We, the teams, had come from all across the country even as far as Jeju Island.

Before long we were blindfolded and frantically yelling orders to each other. In this exercise we had to cross an 'acid river' by stepping on tiles that could mysteriously wash away if no one was standing on them. Four out of seven of our team members were blindfolded which increased the difficulty by an order of magnitude. We passed.


This video is from a different challenge called Minefield. The mines consisted of sticky pieces that had to be avoided. The difficulty lay in that one person outside the minefield had to tell two others who were blindfolded how to step across the area. It was also a race, with both teams starting at opposite ends, resulting in an inevitable collision in the middle. The first team to cross the field received 3 points, but there was minus 1 point for every mine stepped on.

Here's the solution to a challenge called Toxic Waste, in which the teams had to dispose the contents of the green bucket into the orange bag while keeping well away from it. The only materials available were some strings and a piece of rubber. Good fun.
I came back to Busan by train the following day and left for Beijing three days later.

The next few posts will be all about Beijing, which is an enormous city of skyscrapers and history. I'll pop them out in succession as time permits.

See you then!

A Cardiology Conference and a Hike in the Mountains

Things are starting to get a little busy as I wrap up for the big move. But the apartment has been noticeably quieter since John departed for Canada. I find myself filling the solitude by watching more Korean TV and blogging more often.

Once you get used to living with someone for a while, it's kinda weird when they're gone all of a sudden. But then you get used to living alone and then the reverse becomes true. Life is all about getting used to stuff.

Recently at headquarters, Ms Jeong asked me to put together a science project for the April English Intensives program. It had to be based around one of Newton's three laws of motion and be able to fit into a 45 minute class. My first idea was for the students to build and explain a Newton's Cradle, using cheap equipment. So we went to the nearby fishing store and bought fishing line and weights. I hooked it up to a cardboard box.
Unfortunately though, the fishing weights weren't heavy enough to induce an elastic collision. When the end one was dropped, it just hit the ones in the middle and sat there. Hmmm.

So we tried with some larger christmas decorations we had. Not quite as good either. The problem lies in the fact that the collisions are absorbed unevenly if the weights are of low quality.

I therefore concluded that to make a decent Newton's Cradle with household materials, one first needs to obtain weights of sufficient mass and density.

We're ordering some.

Anthony's uncle, Thach Nguyen, arrived in Busan last weekend for the annual conference on Cardial Vascularisation at the Lotte Hotel. Dr Nguyen is a leading cardiologist and an editor of two cardiology journals. He's also an honorary professor of medicine from the Capital University of Beijing and Director of Cardiology at St Mary's hospital in Indiana.

He invited us to the conference, although we knew almost nothing about cardiology. On the way to the venue, I was trying to remember the difference between an aorta and a ventricle.

But the main reason we went was for Anthony to see his uncle and also to enjoy a nice free dinner. The talks were on open-heart surgery and some of it was fairly interesting. These days they have infrared fibre optic cameras that they use to search for lesions in your arteries. What will they think of next?

I sat next to a surgeon from Daegu who was pretty interesting. He described heart surgery as being 'very stressful'.

One thing I couldn't help noticing was the affinity that the attendees had for butter. Don't they know that the stuff clogs your arteries?

I guess even cardiologists have to live it up, once in a while.

We were even invited back the following day. Here's Anthony on the cellphone talking to the new Busanjin teachers, Jenny and Brian, while enjoying the view from level 42 of the Lotte Hotel. We were waiting for Anthony's uncle to arrive, but later found out that we were in the wrong room.

For lunch we had a Bento box, which are actually called dosirak in Korea. It was quite nice. I feel like making a quip about the saying "there's no such thing as a free lunch."

But I shall refrain.

Dr Nguyen also gave me a copy of his book: the Practical Handbook of Advanced Interventional Cardiology. It has some interesting chapter titles like Exotic Complex Interventions for the Urban Weekend Warrior.
Luckily I still remember how to do CPR from my Boy Scout days, because there's no mention of it in here.

There's Anthony's uncle, sitting on the panel while listening to the various speeches. There were doctors from Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Japan and the US. The most interesting case study won a US$1000 cheque. From time to time, Anthony's uncle would ask the speakers a question that they couldn't answer, and then tell them the answer. When you're able to do that to leading medical surgeons, you know you're good.

Then we were invited to dinner. Fortunately, English being the language of international communication, we were able to understand all of the small talk.

We ate at Madang House and had Korean beef of particularly good quality. If you aren't paying, you can get an estimate of price in Korean restaurants by the amount of 'service' (the Konglish word for freebies) that the restaurant adds to your table, with no extra charge. Our service came as waves of premium Korean wine, roasted fish and soup.

Here we are at the table. That's Anthony's uncle sitting up, right behind him. The collective experience at the table of thousands of hours of surgical experience was rather humbling.

They were also pretty good at cutting up the barbecue meat.

These are two Busan based surgeons, making soju-bombs for everyone.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.

I've always been a fan of geek humour and in-jokes. Listening intently at the table, we heard a couple of interesting stories. Here's one:

During open heart surgery, the patient will often be awake and able to talk with the doctor. One particular Korean doctor was talking to a Chinese patient in Japanese, which was their only common language. They got along quite well and talked throughout the operation. At the end of the successful surgery, the doctor went out to celebrate while the patient recovered in hospital. However the doctor got so drunk that he was eventually picked up in an ambulance and admitted to the emergency room of the hospital where he worked at. In the morning when he woke up, the first thing he heard in fluent Japanese was "Hey doctor, what are you doing back here?"

The man standing up is Professor Kim, an experienced hospital director who gave us an interesting speech.

Now that I think about it, if I could choose a completely new career path, cardiology would be in the top 10.

The first is still a jet pilot.

The following day, Anthony's uncle went back to Indiana, and I went hiking with Heather and her father. It's been pretty chilly in Korea these days and while waiting at the bus stop I bought these $1 gloves from an ajumma. The writing on it says "Fighting, Korea."
A fairly ingrained Konglish mnemonic here is that the word 'fighting' in English means 'you can do it' or 'come on.' So at sports events and things, you'll hear the crowd yelling "Fighting!", which is supposed to be a supportive cheer, just like 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!' is in Australia. However, there is no letter 'F' in the Korean language, so instead of saying 'fighting' these gloves say 'hwighting', which is supposedly the next best thing.

How did I take this photo with both of my hands in it?

Good question.

We went to hike up Mandeok Mountain, which is behind Heather's house.

I think it has another name, but I'll just call it that.

It was a good 2 hour hike, but toward the top it was getting quite steep. Hikers have installed ropes to aid passage around the large rocks, but it's still pretty scary considering the amount of older people who use them.

Here's what some of the edges look like. I don't think anyone's ever fallen down, but Korean hikers do like to have alcoholic picnics at the tops of mountains here.

It was an interesting climb. I hadn't done this sort of activity since the commando course back at Woodhouse. Hopefully when I go to Seoul, I'll be able to get back into shape again.

6am morning runs around the Seoul campus? We'll see.

A favourite pastime of older Koreans is to hike up a mountain with a friend on the weekend, find a nice little spot and have lunch.

Seems pleasant enough.

Flying overhead every once in a while was this helicopter, warning people about mountain fires via a megaphone. It also played some music.

Here are some picnicking Koreans on various perches at the summit of Mandeok Mountain.

Is 'picnicking' even a word?

Heather's father wisely packed some fruit and hot water. He was also carrying an AM radio with a speaker, so we were able to listen to some classic Korean songs as we hiked.

I enjoyed a hot coffee while enjoying the view. I'm more of a night person, but it was nice to get out in the daytime for a change.

We spent some time enjoying the scenery and then headed home, which was conveniently located at the bottom of the other side of the mountain. Those vertical rocks were once horizontal layers of bedrock. It's funny what a few million years can do.

Have a good Christmas everyone!

See you next time.

Odds and Ends

We just arrived back from Jeju Island yesterday (Sunday) and had a good time there. I'll upload those photos and share them with you when I have some spare time. This post is a little shorter and covers the week before we left.
Unfortunately for that particular weekend I left my camera at the hagwon, which was a little silly of me. So half of these photos were taken by friends and associates who I've tracked down on Facebook.

Jordan and Michelle have always had a nice rooftop on their apartment building, so for Tyler's birthday they decided to hold a rooftop barbecue party. It was a nice spring afternoon with a light breeze and plenty of sunshine. Photo: Nicole Kalisz

Here's the view looking west. Saha is the furthest suburb on this side of the city but a good public transport system puts everything within reach. Our school branch is just off the photo to the left. Photo: Nicole Kalisz

Jordan and Michelle have always been great hosts, holding quite a few dinners for everyone in the past. We took a portable barbecue upstairs and Jordan grilled chicken skewers and hamburger patties, while the rest of us looked on. Jordan drank light beer while he was cooking, which has long been part of an unwritten code for those who take on the burden of cooking at barbecues. My respect to those who do. Photo: Theresa Nicolai

We started at 3pm in the afternoon which was nice for a change. But that meant we were a little tipsy by sundown. Evidently we were a little jovial for this particular photo and it appears that I had finished eating by this time. Photo: Niko Davis

The very next day at 9:30 am, we went on a charity run for breast cancer research. CDI South put together a small team to represent. Here we are at Millak station, although the reason we met at this particular location still eludes me. Note the pretty flowers and brick wall in the background. Photo: Jareb Steines

I don't exercise these days due to time restraints, but I used to jog fairly regularly. I ran in the 10km and pushed myself. In the end I got a time of 1 hour and 1 minute. But for the next two days I had difficulty walking and transferring from a standing position to a sitting position. Now I feel okay though. Photo: Maya Son

Our Korean school had a special cooking lesson on Thursday last week. We're nearing the end of the term and it's been good, but I'm looking forward to getting some more free time in my schedule. We went to a cooking school out in Dongnae.

Back in the day I used to be a restaurant cook for a lot of my high school and university years. I've been a bit out of practice in Korea but the cooking instincts still remain. One of the first things I want to do when I get back to Australia is to walk back into my old kitchen and feel the weight of a decent wok in my hand again. I used to work 6 nights a week in that kitchen, saving up the money to come to Korea.

Good times.

We were split into smaller groups and divided the tasks up accordingly. On the left is Anna, a Chinese student from our other level 3 class, and on the right is Ge-Ge, who is the only Mongolian student in the school. She's also the only Mongolian I've ever met.

It seems that digital cameras became a standard inventory item for everyone sometime ago. This girl was cycling through six cameras to take photos while her friends were cooking. I remember the days when I used to wind on my disposable cameras and get photos back from the developer that were a little less pleasing than I expected.

This was the end product of our toils, chapchae, which is a noodle dish made with beef, vegetables and clear mung bean noodles. Koreans will often eat this dish during festive times. It tasted pretty good for a group effort. We also made seafood pancakes.

Here we are enjoying our concoctions. It was actually a lot more fun than I expected.


This is a video I made of my classmates reading the dialogue that they wrote for class. Our teacher is recording them with an MP3 player. The entire class is taught in Korean but I can manage fairly well these days. Learning Korean remains one of the most difficult things I've ever encountered. It will be an ongoing process.

And here are some of my students. These boys are naughty at times but generally in good spirits. The one closest to the photo recently requested that his English name be changed to 'Farrand'. I granted his request, but it was interesting, because it coincidentally happens to be my surname. When I asked him how he thought up that name he told me that it's a secret.

Anyway, I'll be posting up the trip from Jeju when I have time.

Stay tuned!