OMG SNOW!

The title of this post is what everyone was saying two nights ago when this happened:



There is about twice as much now as there is in this photo. All the foreigners are going absolutely nuts. The only ones here who have had a real winters are the two Canadians.

I don't get excited because this is what I think of when people say "Winter":



And sometimes this:



The snow certainly jolts me into a certain state of mind. Several days ago, before the onset of the snow, I received uncomfortable looks from my Korean and Western co-teachers when would grab them forcefully by the shoulders and get real close to their faces and whisper intensley:

"Do you smell it!? DO YOU SMELL IT (insert korean or western name)!?!? SNOW IS COMING!"

The snow is fine, but I am now realizing fully that I was born and raised to generate body heat. On average it is about 5-10 degrees F .

I just started to wear my winter coat and still don't use the heat in my apartment. Everyone is seriously getting disturbed. This is a double-edged sword mind you. They like to keep in about 78 degrees in the school and most of the Koreans wear sweaters, some even still wear their coats.
My students are appaled when I tell them : " I just talked to my dad last night and it is -20 degrees in my home town.

Korea will be showing two of the movies I have been pretty excited for, Avatar and The Princess and the Frog.



There is an IMAX screen in my city, which is awesome. However, the subtitles may be an issue. For example, when we went to go see Inglorious Basterds we could understand everything fine....until they were speaking German, Italian or French. There were no english subtitles for those sections, only Korean.

District 9 however, worked out very well, because when the aliens spoke in their insect-bug tongue, english subtitles remained, and the Korean subtitles were moved to the side.

I can only hope to be so lucky with Avatar.





The Princess and the Frog is the first hand drawn theatrical release for Disney since Home on the Range (...that cow movie with Roseane the cow voicing the cow...)

I hope it takes me away! I still remember that every Christmas mom and dad would give Becky and me the yearly Disney movie on VHS.

We are having our staff Holiday party this weekend, so there will most certainly be some fun (and dignified) photos of the event!

New Camera and Two Turkey Days!

"Deep Fried Turkey?!?!"



I love turkey. There was never a horrible fear that I would not be consuming any of it this Thanksgiving. However, when I overheard conversations involving deep fried turkey, my ears immediadely perked up and my heart began to race.

"Can you do that?!!!!!"

"Deep fry a turkey?!!!"

"What does it taste like?!"

"What color is it?!"

"Do you have to buy a special bird?!"

"When can we eat it?!"

All of these questions raced through my churning mind and spewed from my stuttering mouth.

Apparently it's something many people do this time of year. It had just never occured to me, but the notion was very...arrousing.
We were all assigned (or volunteered) certain Items to bring. I volunteered veggies. After several days numerous co-workers agreed that perhaps pizza would be best.



Joe and I enjoyed a little pre-party prior to our arrival. I cooked up several petite steaks for us and we watched some episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

When we arrived just after four (our orignal arrival plan was for 3:30, but Joe and I are lazy. Also, I received a desperate call from the host Kelsey: "Please stop by Lotte we need more OIL!!!") When we arrived in their parking garage, we saw everyone waiting desperately urging the oil to heat up to 170 degrees celsius....it took about another hour and 20 minutes to reach optimal conditions. 160 is pretty much 170...right?



All were pleased at the pizzas that were brought. The pizza along with some rolls and an assortment of wines kept us at bay. The blow of a hour and 30 minute wait was somewhat lessened. I have never seen a more resulute group of people. We all new the grandeur that awaited us!

Some could not brave the cold (or didn't get unhealthy pleasure waiting right by the cooking turkey, smelling every sizzle and pop!)



It was the best turkey I have ever tasted. Even the white meat (I am normally predisposed to dark) was so incredibly juicy and satisfying! There were also two wonderful bowls of creamy mashed potatoes. Stuffing veggies, wontons and fried pork was aslo available.



This was all on Saturday. As you could expect, I had a very full social calendar for the weekend. Sunday was spent with Joe again, but with several teachers from other schools I have met on my travels through this city. We enjoyed many fine meats. The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was on the itinerary as well. They were elated to know that I bring it with me wherever I move (seriously, I do).




We spend the day gorging and lying around wathcing other classics. What a fine day to spend my favorite holiday!

"Comedy"

Well, there really isn't anything funny about this picture. I guess it does make me laught that the leaves just started changing last week and I can still just wear a light jacket or t-shirt!

My current digital camera ( a sturdy old gal the size of a brick ) has a current battery life of about 5 minutes. It's more than ample frame makes it a cumbersome addition to any trip or outing. Tomorrow I will be picking up a new one. I will then be able to start documenting my time here a little more.


So I thought it was time I gave all of you a little taste of Korean pop culture. When I described this show to my students, they told me the name...I forgot it almost instantly.



Apparently, the woman in the bald cap with the side-ponytail is supposed to be Gollum.

We all know that Gollum has a side-ponytail and a brush and a stick for hands. I don't know why her stick hand is holding a cup, or why Gollum is with an evil Raggedy Anne.

This is not even the most disturbing part. This is a SHOW, meaning there are multiple adventures and routines for these misguided representations.

I am a passionate lover of absurdest comedy but some things seem to be a bit too much, and it is not just the language barrier.

It takes a lot to make me do a double-take, so I have to appreciate the truly demented and random stuff!




Here is Hugh Jackman and his Wolverine co-star Daniel Henney.


For your ultimate amusement here are links to some of the biggest K-Pop (Korean Pop) stars.

G-Dragon


Mc Mong's "Indian Boy"



Bubblegum Music is HUGE here!


Here, I have saved the best for last!

A link to my sketch blog!

Since I have not traveled or done anything of note, I will refer you to my sketchblog!
I now have a drafting table. It has been heavenly to start immersing myself in work again.

I WILL get to making a post on my boring domestic happenings this weekend.
Also, a virtual video tour of my apartment will be posted.

Enjoy the Art!

http://petergulsvig.com/sketch-blog

Korean Gym

The day started like any other. I woke up at 9:30 and enjoyed a trip to my Korean gym. My gym is a good gym. The membership was very cheap, about $115 dollars for four months membership. I have to adjust the weights in my head, most are only labeled in kilograms. I usually have to move the pin on the machines all the way down. It makes me fell a lot stronger than I am. The treadmills are designed more for mild body toning than complete max-cal fat burn workout. There is no incline option! Instead I must go by time and speed to get a good workout. It has been like training a Clydesdale to run like an Arabian Stallion (Thanks Anne and David!).

But I am getting ahead of myself. I was hit by a truck today.


That’s right, I was hit by a truck.




Those have who have spoken to me are familiar with my opinion about the approach Koreans have to driving. Some have TV’s on their dashboards that they watch while the drive. Attention while driving, even appears to be a very low priority for some.

I never hesitate to ride in a car here. They are very skilled drivers. Only two car/motor bike accidents have been witnessed since my have arrived. I am just an odd foreign variable in a very sensitive (albeit chaotic) equation of vehicular and pedestrian travel. I come from a different society with different driving rules. A society that drives defensively, a society that doesn’t use traffic lanes to park, a society that slows down and looks both ways, and a society where red really means STOP. Regrettably also a society that texts while driving.

At 11:56 am a truck came pouring out of an ally way while I was biking home. He did not stop for the sidewalk. He did not stop for any cars that may have been coming. Eventually he stopped for me.

In the two seconds prior to collision, the surrounding Koreans (men, women children) did not need a translator to understand the terrible English that poured from my mouth. Some words are universal.

Peter 1, truck 0.

He put on the brakes but not soon enough! My arm took off his mirror, and my left shoulder and torso left its mark on the front of his vehicle (my broad Grecian shoulder and sturdy bike handlebar taking the brunt of the blow). My bike was fine, my body was ok.

I repeat (Mom Dad) I AM OK. I AM OK!!!

The driver was very polite, but terrified (I was told Koreans here are just as sue happy as us Americanos). Aside from extremely mild whiplash and body tightness ( Like a jungle cat, my whole body becomes tense and readies for action during trauma) I feel fine. After all, the mind sometimes takes longer to get over these things!

I felt healthy enough to ride my bike to work and hour and a half later. Of course, I looked a little like a scared rabbit the whole way there!

p.s. Mom, Dad, I’m OK!

Halloween Part 2

I found a party store downtown with the help of a friend, but there wasn't much there. But a block away there was a fabric store! I basked in being able to find plain white cloth. My crusader costume was off to a good start.

This was what I dressed as two years ago, but it had all the features of a successful party costume: freedom of movement, no mask or hat to lose and the costume would allow me to "breath."

The night however, belonged to my buddy Joe:



He managed to find a dress to fit his build...even though the back of his gown was not cooperating:


Getting him ready was a full time job, so we spent some pre-party time over at Anna and Rachel's apartment (which is shockingly spacious).







This is my best kitty friend, Mondu. He loved to scratch at the tassels on my costume, and my bare muscular legs.

Most of the evening was spent at the two foreign establishments. Karaoke was kept everyone rocking.



I think this song was something by "Deep Purple."

Super Fantastic Halloween Amazing Party Time!!

We have a rotation of students which means two days of Halloween! They are having big tests in their day-time schools this week so we celebrated Halloween a week early.
Halloween has not quite cought on here yet. I guess it was almost non-existent and unkown about 20 years ago. My Korean co-teachers think it once this generation grows up it will be bigger with their children.
My elementary students went absolutely psycho for the holiday! I was elated that half of them even dressed up. Costumes are very difficult to find here. The large store E-Mart (Korean Target type store) had a Halloween section that consisted of two double sided shelves. I could have fit all of the Halloween merchandise into the trunk of my Honda Civic. I am not joking...

Most of the who had costumes either wore a witch hat, a "Scream" movie mask (one of the only masks available here) or had a cloak and weapon of some kind.







This student brought his little sister for the party!


I was in a tough spot trying to think of a costume. Back in the States all I needed was 10 dollars and a white sheet with some paint to make pretty much any kind of costume. Here you cannot find a white sheet to save your life. It must be a Korean law that every pillowcase, blanket and sheet must have garish flowers or some type of ADD color scheme.

I took adavntage of the color situation and settled for a pirate ensemble. I found a garish red silk scarf which I wor on my head. You cannot see the image printed into it, but if you were to spread it out it would perplex you. It was covered with Knight helmets and...purses.

I picked up an eye-liner pen as well. It was surpisingly expensive, like 15 bucks. I guess makeup is spendy here but I also had no idea how to say "cheap one" in Korean.

It was the first time I had worn makeup since I was in theatre at Augsburg!


This is Heather, she is one of my Korean co-teachers.
I was happy to see that the other teachers dressed up as well.

Activities

We had a pretty good roster of activities planned for the children. We began the festivities by showing the first five minutes of "A Nightmare Before Christmas."

They went into full sponge mode. Most of them had never seen it.

The first activity was "True or False." The kids all get together in a big mob. The we ask them T/F questions like :

"True or False, Wherewolves ride broomsticks"

or

"True or false, teacher Peter's mother would sneak into his room and steal his Halloween Candy"


The kids then move to the side of the room that is true or false. Sometimes the herd mentality makes 100 percent of them lose at once. It's funny, I try to let them know it's ok to disagree with each other.

After that we played the "Scary Food Feel Game"



"Your touching Zombi eyeballs!!!!!" ( quail eggs)

Then they split up into roughly 6 groups of 8 and were given a large sheet of paper for pumpkin drawing.



Some students took several minutes to plan. The worked together on one big drawing.







Thats right, this pumpking has a pile of poop on his head. And he wasn't the only "poop-pumpkin."


Others were a little more spastic.
I call their works "Colage of Dischord"



The I told a "scary story." We turned the lights off and I used a flashlight under my face. I wrote it and during the writing process the head teacher kept telling me "put more blood in it, more blood!"

It was a fun day. The best part is after each party on the two days of festivities, I still had my pirate stuff on while I tought my middle-school classes.

Take it easy every bod, I will leave you with my favorite Halloween picture again!



This is Brandon, he loves his Axe. He looked like he had just drank six Red Bulls.

Tom Cruise Haircut and Pork Orgy.

om Cruise Haircut -

So, about 1.5 months into my stay, I noticed I was getting a little shaggy. I was begining to worry about getting my hair cut in Korea. They have different...styles and tastes. Besides, when I lived in Anahiem, my barber was an Asian dude (who spoke no english) and his haircuts were terrible. I stepped into a rather posh looking salon, where I was politely greeted and directed to look at a huge stack of fashion snapshots for styles.

Most of the Korean Styles looked like this:


I didn't want to look like David Bowie from "Labyrinthe" so I pressed on.

Finally! I arrived at the foreign movie star section. I have never been so happy to see Tom Cruise!


This wasn't the exact photo mind you. But his concervative scientologist values translate into a fine caucasian haircut. No crazy mowhawk. No massve asymetrical bang over one eye. No uncomfortable asexual side locks running down the cheeckbones. Just a good old fashioned crew cut!

The 25 minute cut cost only 10,000 W. (About $8.50). That included a shampoo!
I was all ready for the annual activity day!

Activity Day --

So I work for a large company called Avalon that owns and operates English language schools all over Korea. Three of those are in Gwangju. We took a whole Saturday to compete in various feats of strength, agility and absurdity. The winning school won a fancy meal out!

I will save you the suspense, my school won!

We loaded ourselves onto two large charter buses (that looked very arabic on the inside). We injoyed som Kim Bob (a sushi restaurant chain) for breakfast. It came in a long tinfoil tube, a cylinder of sushi. Most people who new what they were doing opened the foil right down the middle, like a hot dog bun. Not this guy! I managed to consume mine like a burito or roll of cookie dough!

We went to a city on the coast called Muckpo. It kind of looks like it sounds. Long ago it was one of Korea's busiest port cities, no it hold only a large population and a merchant naval academy.


This picture was taken later in the evening when the tide was in. When we arrived in the morning you could see the slimy concrete stairs (which I immediately slipped on) and a beach of rocks. There were all kinds of little sand crabs running around!


We used the Maritime Academy's sports field for our competeition. We had some large tents to keep the Harsh Korean sun off of us. Odly enough they had set up foil mats (that looked suspiciously like heat blankets) to keept the sand off.



The first even was the balloon poping super adventure. Teams of two would race to see which couple could run down, fill a balloon and pop it between the two of them.
We won!

I am the large caucasian wearing a twins cap embracing the Korean.


It reminded me a lot of this picture:


We then had an abusively large jump rope contest. Beleive it or not I am considered to be one of the "taller" team members. So they used my natural sense of rythm as a rope turner.
Enjoy the Video!


Later we had Tug-Of-War

You cannot see me in this photo. Yours truly is bringing up the rear. I have a good forty pounds on most of the school, so I was the most ideal anchor.



I cannot beleive we lost!

I don't remember what I am smiling about in this picture. Most likely someone is getting hurt.


Before the awards ceremony there was a Majic show.


All I could do was think of GOB from "Arrested Development."

There was also a talent show. We were given remarkably short notice about this, so I just did the Andy Kaufman "Mighty Mouse" lip sync performance.



Ahhh, after the awards was the best. A large plump slow roasted boar on a spit greeted all of us when we came back to the beach.
The only way to describe the feeding frenzy that insued is "pork orgy."



You could have filled a shoebox with all the pork I ate. My system almost shit down completely. A warchest of Korean beer also was provided. It was an excellent way to end the day!

p.s. last weekend I enjoyed a second boar roast downtown! The meat was so fatty I didn't even have to chew.

p.p.s. Sorry this last blog was overdue, but I posted on my sketchblog a couple weeks ago.

http://petergulsvig.com/sketch-blog

I have been doing a sizeable amount of drawing and writing, so check it out and see what I have been doing with most of my time here!

Koreans Love Fried Chicken

On Saturday Joe and I tried our best to go to a "Kia Tigers" game. Baseball teams here are not named after towns or provinces. Just the companies who sponsor them. We waited in a long line for over 2 hours. I guess it normally isn't that busy, but they had been winning a lot of games lately. The line refused to move. We didn't know if the game had sold out or if the booth hadn't opened yet. We even had three Koreans with us, no one knew what was going on. In the states such a large mob would never have been so calm and complacent with waiting for no clear reason. We may not have been able to get our fix of beer and chicken in the stadium, but such pleasures weren't far away!
(I am eating some nice squishy octopi above. The heads are so squishy!!!)





This picture is by a team bus. Just after I took it, a Korean toddler broke from his mother's grasp and plowed right into me! I make friends so easily.










To the displeasure of Joe and me, the Koreans picked a "sit on the floor" restaurant. Our western backs and weak caucasian knees were not accustomed to squatting...

But that's what beer and chicken is for. An interesting thing about Korean chicken. Sometimes you can tell what part of the chicken it is from. Most of the time you can't.

They do make a mean bird though!


All of these signs were taken within a block from each other!
(I especially love the one's where a chicken is serving/ eating chicken!!!)














































Before the chicken we were served the usual squid appetizers. There were still squidbeaks inside.












Here is a small shot of downtown (Sheenay) Gwangju.
There are about 1/2 of the signs and 1/2 of the normal levels of people here. Odd but welcoming to see English signs,
Korean and Konglish (the mix of the two) side by side.


Dunkin Donuts is
everywhere. Most are
modest in size but some
like this are three stories.
When you charge
3,000 W. for coffee (about $2.50) you can
afford to have a tower of sugar and caffeine.















Three hours in the hot sun waiting for tickets plus much chicken makes us very tired by 9:00. Nothing a stop by BK can't fix. It is the only source of PURE American fast food. For beef anyway. The Mcdee's fries and BK fries are the same. Only Burger King keeps their same burger size.


...Thanks King.