Category Archives: Out in the Big World/Travel

South Korea, Jeju, New Zealand (North and South Islands), Fiji, Thailand and China — the places we’ve been honored to visit on this year-long adventure.

Our First Vacation

19 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by in Family Ties, Out in the Big World/Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Jeju Island was formed about 1.8 million years ago.  And, more recently (about 7,000 years ago,) its volcanoes once again got a little rambunctious and started creating the most beautiful rock formations here, there and everywhere, just to add a little cherry on top beauty to the place.  

  In our four days there we climbed up to a crater left from an erupted volcano, saw the old women divers known not only for their unique catches, but for their ability to hold their breaths for an inordinate amount of time.  We went in an underground lava tube (quite like a cave, really), hiked to numerous waterfalls and ate black belly pork.  Oh, and we hung out at the pools and the beach.  A lot.  It’s still 93 degrees on Jeju Island and the humidity is well into the 80% points.  Getting back to Daegu brought the temps down into the high 70’s again, heaven!

We decided to go to Jeju on dozens of recommendations and the inconvenient fact that we didn’t have our immigration cards in time to go to China for the holiday of Chuseok.  Funny how the way things work out is often better than the way you planned.  Welcome to my life!

 

 

Purple is the New Black

09 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Common Sense, Out in the Big World/Travel, Strange Customs

≈ 9 Comments

I have a little crush on the cab driver who brought me home from the hospital today.  When I got in his car, I couldn’t help but notice his pimp daddy purple shirt, his white driving gloves, his dapper pinstriped pants and his barely there grey at his temples.  I handed him the only business card I have with my address on it, which was from our principal, Gary Odom. 

“Do you know Bong-mu Dong?” I asked.  Usually this question receives a “ney (yes)” or a gruntish response, but not today.  Not from my dapper daddy.  “Yes, I know it well” he said.  You know it well? I thought.  I think I love you.  Hearing English when I’d just spent a frantic hour trying to navigate the Korean emergency room for Luke’s wrist (which is not broken, thank goodness), was like retreating to the walk-in cooler in the hell-hot kitchen of a restaurant.  Just for a second. 

Then, as we pulled away and our chat continued, he asked, in much more broken words “How big here Korea?” – he wanted to know how long I’d been here – and no matter how I tried, for the next few miles, my answers were too hard for him to translate.  We struggled, and laughed a little, until both of us got a little tired, of straining to simplify and still not being understood.  Plus I get wicked car sick in the stop/start of the city traffic.   “Card again?” he asked me when he stopped at a red light.  I gave it to him.  “Oh, Gary Odom,” he smiled kindly, “You do good. You good principal, yes?”  And then there was that split second, between when I knew I should have tried to correct him (god knows Gary deserved that) and when I decided not to, that I felt so at home with Mr. Purple shirt.   It was something in his kindness that made me think of home.   Yes, I decided to answer – I knew he’d be happy just to get something in the conversation right, yes, I am.  I’m a good Gary Odom principal.  Only I didn’t, I just smiled back. 

He brought me home, the long way, but I forgive him, and when I got out of the car he said ” goodnight, new friend!”   I mean, really.  He just made the whole kooky day a little less scary and a lot more friendly.  A small town heart in a gigantic city.  Don’t you love my Pimp Dapper Daddy too?

 

It’s Gettin’ Kinda Hectic

17 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Common Sense, Out in the Big World/Travel

≈ 2 Comments

I think I have an inkling of what it’s like to be illiterate.  My days are managed by making common sense connections (oh, that sign must say “stop” since there’s a city bus barrelling at me.  Oooh, that one says “restaurant” – see the pictures of shrimp on the sign?!)  But it’s an illiteracy having once been able to read, you see.  It’s kind of like when the power goes off during a winter storm in Maine.  I still walk room to room and flick on the lightswitch, with genuine surprise the light doesn’t come on.  When you’re reading Korean, the lights don’t come on either, but I keep expecting them to.

I can read it...but what does it say?

So I’m thinking about my students and how difficult it must be for those who either A.) hardly understand English – for there are a few;  from India, from China or B.) still translate the language in their heads, as in, it’s still not automatic to think/answer/write in English.  Oh my.  Their reading lists include classic American Literature (consider the colloquialisms of Huck Finn!), Shakespeare and Chekov, to name a few.  I think I may have planned for more than I can accomplish.  Or hey, maybe not.  I’m in Korea, for crying out loud, I’ve accomplished more than I ever planned.  Maybe these kids can, too.

Guy is picking up the language like a child.  He’s already speaking to the cafeteria staff, albeit in broken sentences.  He’ll say “thank you. breakfast,” in Korean, with a bow.  The ladies delight at this giant smiling American.  “Oh, yes, breakfast.  Wow!”  It’s been 7 days, it’s still a challenge for me – not only to pick up Korean, but to understand a Korean when he/she speaks English.  The same lady, our cafeteria manager, actually, was trying to figure out if we were supposed to be there at all, and I swear she was saying “tomatowi?”  I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.  Try again.”  She repeated “tomatowi?”  This went on with me getting flustered, her turning bright red, both of us smiling and trying really hard.  Guy walks over “yes, dormitory!  We live here.”  Sigh.

This, by the way, has all happened here on campus or down the street at the mall.  We haven’t had time to venture out into the ‘real’ Korea, but I saw an open market yesterday that I’m dying to get to.  I saw peaches the size of cantalopes.  Yum!  Stay tuned.