This is my very first exhibit. The exhibit is based upon the artifact I had to work with this semester, a 19th century cork press from a pharmacy in Peterborough. What you are seeing is four months of work. I’m quite happy with how it looks. For a first time, it’s good.

I now teach all eleven first grade classes at my high just once a week and now five second grade classes as well. I taught each first grade class twice a week last year and it was a total cluster fuck. I had forty teen boys per class, no working equipment, and no help in class. There were two teachers that were there to help in class but they either “went for lunch” and never came back or just beat the kids. Not much got done. This year is going to be even more of the same. The assistants who will probably never show up to class are the two Japanese teachers who of course don’t speak any English. Not much is going to get done during these next three months either.

The equipment is also completely broken as per usual. A small part of me was super hopeful that it would be working so I could do more stimulating topics and lessons with students. None of the computers or tvs worked in any of the classes last year, limiting what I could do. I tried doing lessons for the students but it’s nearly impossible to keep forty students per class interested in anything you’re trying to teach without giving them something to look at to keep their interest in you. Last year was a year of word searches and crosswords and I hated every second of it. It’s looking like these next ninety days will be more of the same. I feel awful doing things like this but what choice do I have given the circumstances I work within?

I came to this school last June, feeling confident that I could do a great job at a new a school in a new city for me. How wrong I was. It’s been a pretty disappointing year teaching wise but it will all be over in just over ninety days. I just need to keep reminding myself that.

An older Burmese man was waiting at the doors, yellow piece of paper in hand with my name it, was waiting at the door for me. This man is Mr. Win Tin, taxi driver and friends of  V and T. He is a sweet man who enjoys driving foreigners. This is so because he always wanted to be a tour guide but never had the opportunity to. For him, driving foreigners and showing them sights of Burma/Myanmar is the next best thing for him. He took my luggage and put it in the trunk of his car. His car being a very used mid-eighties Toyota Corolla.

Vehicles in Myanmar range from old to new to should be crushed and junked. Many of the cars I believe were cast offs from Japan. There were many ancient Mazdas and Toyotas on the road that in any other country would have been turned into fridges long ago. The black fumes these cars, trucks, and buses put off were sickening to say the least. The buses were imported from Japan, Korea, and China and were all in very rough condition. Buses go to Myanmar to die.

Driving through Yangon at night showed me that the country was a hodge podge mixture of old and new buildings. I saw new apartments and other office buildings under construction and many houses and buildings beside them that should have been torn down long ago. Mr. Win Tin took me by the famous Shwedagon Pagoda on the way to see V and T. While the streets may have been dimly lit, the Pagoda was shining brightly for all passers by to see.

The drive lasted for ten more minutes before I reached V and T’s place of work. T was outside and quickly caught up. V was done work shortly later and we went for some amazing Nepalese food at the place they called the Cockroach Cafe. My friends took someone here to eat and while eating, a cockroach fell onto their arm.

Restaurants aren’t the cleanest in Myanmar. Seeing rats and mice in the establish are a common sight. But the food is amazing and I did not get sick at all. Yay for me.

We finished our meal and went to drop off my bags at V and T’s place. Mr. Win Tin went to his home for the night while V and T and I caught up over some beer and some cheroots. Myanmar beer is simply called Myanmar Beer and is pretty good. I’d compare it to some of the cheaper Canadian beers such as Lucky Lager in terms of taste. Cheap too. We continued to drink until two in the morning when we decided to call it a night.

Day two would include visiting a large market, exchanging money, eating amazing food, and wandering around Yangon.

On one hand, I’m getting tired of teaching and am wanting to move onto something more rewarding in life. I also really enjoy the lifestyle I have here and my friends here too. The food is great and the cost of living isn’t terrible either. There are many pros and cons to both staying or going.

My final winter camp begins January 11 and runs until the 29th. I’m then off to (hopefully) Malaysia and Myanmar for a 10 day vacation. The spring semester then begins March 2 and I do my teaching thing till June 3. Bye bye on the 4th.

We got mints! Glorious tasting mints! Score! It was a great start to the cab ride. It was at this moment that Alex made a mention of penis rock as the taxi drove by it. Apparently the cabbie understood enough to know what we were talking about and chuckled.

It was at this point that he started talking about gochu (slang for penis in Korean) and about the size of Western and Korean men. This included about twenty gestures to get his point across. He then commented on the size of mine and Alex’s penis.  He said Korean penises are spicy and that Western men have long ones because he’s seen them in movies. He then made twenty more gestures. He was driving the whole time, slowing down so he could make more penis gestures and so that he could look at us while gesturing. Alex was translating everything he said in Korean to me so I’d understand. He also mentioned that penises fit ALL INSIDE THE WOMAN! And made even more gestures to get his point across to us. Wow. Wow. Wow. What a ride thus far. But just you wait…..

When he mentioned that he saw large Western penises, he would always motion to the cd case in his car. I asked him in broken Korean if he had porn in the car. Which led to more gestures and him fiddling with the cd case, trying to open what looked like a secret compartment. He did have one!! He brought out two burnt porno dvds and showed us. He started waving it around the cab, to which Alex responded that he didn’t want to see it. If Alex hadn’t had said anything, we could have potentiality been watching adjumma porn. After this, the ride returned to a somewhat normal state. Both Alex and I were in a state of awe over the events that just happened in the last five minutes of the cab ride.

We reached Shinea and got out of the cab, still in a state of awe. Maybe me more so than Alex. I’ve never had a cab ride experience like that in my life ever. It was amazing, awkward, and funny all at once. I hope that some other foreigners get in his car and have a similar adventure. Crazy things like this made Korea not so boring.

I attended the festival with friends back in 2008 as well and had a great time. The festival was canceled last year due to concerns over H1N1 (swine flu).

We arrived early afternoon into Jinju, found a love motel to stay the night, then proceeded to the festival. The festival is quite large and there are lots of things to do and see. The first thing we decided on was food. We found the food stalls and ordered BBQ pork on a spit, Korean pizza (파전), and, beer. We filled up on food then walked around the festival. Much of the festival was the same as it was 2008 but in different locations. The lanterns are absolutely beautiful and range from cartoon characters to historical depictions of events in Korea to representing different countries. At night they light up and look stunning.

The weather started to get bad early evening. Like many of the Koreans, Breagh and I hid in a soju tent and enjoyed some soju and snacks while waiting for the rain to pass. It never did.

The rain kept on getting worse as the night wore on. Breagh and I braved it for as long as we could tolerate but eventually caved and went back to the motel to dry off and hope for a dryer and nicer Sunday.

A nice Sunday was awaiting us when we woke up. We went back to the food stalls and found some Turkish men who were selling (amazing) kebabs. We gorged on those then walked around the grounds more. Breagh tried on some Hanboks the night before during the rainstorm and we wanted to do that again during nicer weather. We paid the 3000W fee to try on the Hanboks and got to wander around the festival grounds for the next 5-10 minutes dressed up like Royal Koreans. It was fun. Hanboks are beautiful but they are heavy fabric and you will get very hot wearing them for a long period of time. We took off our royal robes and went looking for swan boats.

Swan boats were also spotted by Breagh on Saturday. Weather ruined our plans of doing that the day before. But not Sunday. We paid for our ticket and waited 45 minutes for a boat to come back so we could hop on. We then had 25 minutes to take our swan paddle boat around some of the nearby lanterns. After avoiding several near collisions with Koreans, our time with the boats were up. We turned back to shore, hopped off the boats, and made our way back to the Jinju bus terminal.

If you’ve never been to the festival before I suggest you go. The festival runs from October 1 to October 12.

The website for the festival is http://www.yudeung.com/ .

What is an Officetel you ask? Galbijim has the definition of an Officetel as a type of apartment with a few more amenities available than usual. My definition of an Officetel is a studio apartment that consists of one room plus a bathroom. I spent two years in Mokpo living in an Officetel that my school provided for me. It consisted of a small entrance way, a small bathroom/shower stall, a main room with bed, tv, and stove, and a small closet where the water heater was kept. Some Officetels I’ve seen had balcony’s as well. Some Officetels are also a loft apartment (slightly more space).

Officetels are much cheaper for schools to rent for their foreign teachers to live in than renting an apartment. This also goes for famalies too. I’ve seen many famalies with 4-5 people in total all living in a one room studio. You will most likely end up living in one of these tiny places. I had mixed feeling about living in an Officetel. Some days it was alright and some it was shitty. Here are some pros and cons to living in an Officetel.

Pros
- The small size of an Officetel means that it’s easy to cool or heat.
- Officetels are small and don’t take a long time to clean.
- You can multitask in the bathroom (shower while doing laundry while brushing your teeth)
- If you don’t need lots of space to live, Officetels are perfect.

Cons
- Poor construction. These places are built cheaply. Windows leak air, things never work, etc. Be careful.
- If you can’t stand living in small spaces, you’re screwed.
- The walls are very thin.
- You can’t fit more than 4-5 people into an Officetel comfortably.
- One room and one room only.
- No bathtub.
-The last picture. Make sure you switch your shower/sink back onto the sink before trying to use the sink or you’re in for a surprise.
- Lack of sunlight. My apartment was built before the larger apartments across the street were. The apartments blocked all sunlight from entering my place. My Officetel also had two sets of windows, one of which was tined and the other was frosted glass.

Welcome to your (probable) new home when you come to Korea. Officetels generally aren’t that bad to live in. I liked it my first year in Korea but not so much my second. The lack of light was getting to me as was the lack of space. But for one year in Korea, this is a great type of accomodation and will be fine for living. I’m going to also post some flickr searches of Officetels as well as Youtube results. Click on the links in the previous sentence to see.