Thing Koreans Say to me (Part 4)

These are all actual conversations I have been apart of in Korea and they are usually much longer but these would be the best parts of them. Enjoy!

KOREAN: "hello kitty" in America!

ME: They sure do

KOREAN: My foreigner friend said Obama no like "hello kitty"

ME: I am sure he likes "hello kitty"

KOREAN: HAHAHA, Not "hello kitty", "demo kitsy"

ME: Oh, "DEMOCRACY"!

ME: (teaching locations, puts a banana under a table) Where is the banana?

STUDENT: It's in the Philippines

KOREAN: You lost weight so fast!

ME: No

KOREAN: 20 kilos (45 pounds) in 1 day!

ME: I just got a hair cut

KOREAN: Harry Potter weight spell!

ME: (sitting in Taco Bell)

AMERICAN: I came here to really experience the culture, you know, total immersion (stuffs a burrito in his mouth)

STUDENT:(runs up to me) ding dong (pokes my stomach) open the door (unzips my coat) no one home (punches me in my gut)

ME:(wind knocked out, gasping for air)

ME: do you like my haircut?

STUDENT: teacher ugly, Teacher king

ME: I am king?

STUDENT: King kong!

ME: (on a field trip) why no lunch?

STUDENT: I eat your feet

ME: no

STUDENT: (bites my ankle, yes he freaking bit me)

STUDENT: Korea North bad bad

ME: What about South Korea?

STUDENT: South Korea nice nice nice

ME: Why?

STUDENT: Has food, has Kpop

KOREAN: You look like Leonardo DiCaprio from inception

ME: Really?

AMERICAN: Yeah if you took his faced and smashed it with Jack Black's

STUDENTS: Teacher Gulliver, teacher Gulliver!

STUDENT: teacher my best friend! Teacher is best!

ME: you are still in trouble

STUDENT: freedom me freedom!

ME: No

STUDENT: Obama help!

ME: (Sitting on the bus)

KOREAN: (Who I have never met, smelling like vodka and speaking only Korean) You are an A**Hole!

STUDENT: (In reference to my injured finger and to the tune of Mary had a little lamb) Trevan teacher has meat hand, has meat hand, has meat hand,Trevan teacher has meat hand

KOREAN DR: We have to give you 4-5 stitches

ME: Okay no problem

DR: (as he starts) Oh and we have no anesthetic left, so this will hurt


HOT DOCTOR:(coming into the middle of my class) Excuse me I need to look at teeth ME: (Show her mine) DR: The children's Mr. Trebun!

Blogging at 200 miles an Hour From My iPhone!

Well this should be interesting. As the title states I am blogging on my iPhone! I promise that this entire blog was written and uploaded from my phone. Not only that but it was done while traveling over 200 miles an hour on Korea's own KTX bullet train.

The reason for my iPhone blog is simple; I was dead set on writing something while I traveled cross-country but my laptop battery was dead set on dying. Sitting in utter silence, in the first class cabin, all by my lonesome, I spoke allowed in frustration "like I am going to blog on my phone!" To my surprise someone answered back "just do it, it's not like you have much else to occupy your time". I was even more surprised when the person answering turned a out to be me. So here I am writing an honest blog with my thumbs.

"So why is he on the KTX?" some of you may be thinking "what does he mean 'cross-country?'" Well friend I am glad you asked. You see a few blogs ago I mentioned that a friend of mine from yesteryear came up from his humble teaching assignment in South South Korea to visit yours truly. So naturally I had to reciprocate and allow him to put me up for a few days. So here is where you find me; iPhone blogging my way to the seascape that is Mokpo, South Korean. What adventures await me? What treasures are there to be had? Most likely a fish smell and salt water but I am crossing my fingers. Mokpo will be quite a change from my usual fast paced city life if my friend is to be believed. According to him and some lazy googling, Mokpo is a rural fishing village with a modest population and demographic. Still I am eager to see yet another part of the world.

Outside my KTX Window

Today I was lucky enough to be released from captivity (school) early for good behavior (I asked), so that I may get an early start on the journey south. It is a about 4 hours by bus and being the impatient/ luxurious individual that I am, I opted to take the KTX and shorten the journey to 2 hours. When I got there the next train only had first-class seating left so I was forced to upgrade, for a staggering 7 dollars more. I really did not care because my taxi ride from school had been gratis. Which one would expect when one's taxi driver scrapes the guard-railing on your side while he dozes off!  So I was thankful for life and feeling like I deserved a little comfort.

Gosh typing on the iPhone is much easier than I thought it would be, except the stupid auto-correct keeps slowing me down. At one point it had me saying that I was traveling 200 miles an hour on a "lesbian train". I wonder what that would look like? Speeding through Asia sitting in between Jodi Foster and Ellen Degeneres while Rosie O'Donell served me coffee? Could be fun, but not as fun as I know Mokpo is going to be. Curse you auto-correct! Every time I type 'Mokpo' I get 'bimbo'. I hope this isn't a sign of what my trip holds for me.

Thing Koreans Say to me (Part 3)

Part three in my wildly successful and nationally syndicated blog about my day-to-day discussions with people in Korea! These are all actual conversations I have been apart of in Korea and they are usually much longer but these would be the best parts of them. Enjoy!

DRUNK KOREAN: Are we friends?

ME: Sure

KOREAN: We will always fly so time is forever

ME: Yup

ME: (Showing pic of Obama) Who is this?

STUDENTS: OBAMA!

ME: What is his job?

STUDENT: Obama is gangsters brothers!

ME: …

ME: This is the letter "A"

STUDENT: We are not stupid

STUDENT: Teacher must die!

ME: What?

STUDENT: Die!

DRUNK KOREAN: You Jack Black?

ME: Ha yeah ok

DRUNK KOREAN: (yelling at friend in Korean) this is Jack Black!

DRUNK KOREAN: (A man at least 50 years old says to me) 

Hey come here baby!

KOREAN: Get one tonight?

ME: One what?

KOREAN: Get a big one

ME: Big what?

KOREAN: You no understand? But you speak english!

ME: Repeat, she sold seashells by the sea shore

STUDENT: Sushi sushi sushi Buddha sushi horse

ME: (had a heart attack from laughing)

ME: Did you like the music video (referring to "Friday" by Rebecca Black)

STUDENT: African old girl so young, why?

ME: Good morning

STUDENT 1: Die day!

ME: Today is die day?

STUDENT: I die he die teacher die!

STUDENT 2: Teacher want die?

ME: (on the phone talking about paying my cell phone bill)

I would just go there but they don't have any English service

KOREAN: (a stranger who was eavesdropping)

My church have the English time, come to my church!

(gets a pen out and writes directions)

KOREAN STUDENT: Monkey is kiss! Monkey is kiss!

INDEPENDANCE HALL

Here is a brief blog about the amazing place I went this weekend – basically I have some nifty pictures and want to show them off.

This the called "The Grand Hall of the Nation" and grand it is. The largest tile roof in Asia

This weekend my friend, the original Kyle Miyauchi, came up to visit me and see what a paradise I am surrounded by. Kyle came to korea about six weeks ago and teaches in Mokpo which is about 4 hours south on the west coast of Korea. Being a lover of all things historical, as is Kyle, at least he should be as a history major, I decided to revisit Independence Hall. Independence Hall is the national museum for independence and it is located right here in Cheonan. 

Part of the 1000 Korean flags the surround the compound

The museum is phenomenal and I would compare it to the level of sophistication and technology that you see at the Smithsonian, except this museum is dedicated to one purpose: telling the story of how Korea came to be Korea from about 2000 B.C. To 1950 A.D. It moves through the first four thousand years rather quickly, only one building of seven being wholly devoted to it, but the last hundred or so years take the last six. Like I said earlier, one of the great things about this particular culture experience is much of it is in Korean and English so you can actually get some info out of the displays. 

Blood-stained flag from the March 1st uprising against Japan.

This Museum is a bit gruesome as it contains numerous models that reenact the horrifying instances of torture and war that Korean's suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the occupation periods. Even so I find this place to be a wonderful blend of state-of-the-art technology, period artifacts, and models. The seven buldings and many outposts surrounding this enormous compound tell in extreme detail -and in English! - the complicated and turbulent history surrounding Korea.

Korean "turtle" ship, used in ancient times as a type of battle ship

Letter from Buddha to Jesus