Danyang Lake, Gosu Cave, Halloween and Mt. Apsan....whew!

After an hour and a half of contortions and getting dripped on by stalactites, I was all spelunked out after our trek through Gosu Cave. But let me back up:

TaLK paid for our second "Cultural Excursion" trip, which turned out to be a visit to a beautiful lake up in some random mountains, an underground hike through a jagged cave system and then dinner at another lake with some unique rock formations.

Once again, the plan was to meet at 8 sharp at Daegok Subway station, which is a solid hour and 10 minutes from my apartment. That night, we had stayed out late at a foreigner ball called "Sugar Joes" to watch some live music from a band called "Adrenalin." It turned out to be an excellent evening because the band played a lot of soul and R&B. But the best part was the fact that one of the band-mates was a 14-year-old white lab who spent the evening begging for pretzels from the bar top. I rolled around on the dirty bar floor for a solid 20 minutes, getting licks and laughing over the pronounced "brain bump" on the back of his head (for all you dog owners, you know what I'm talking about. The knot on top of their heads that houses the peanut-brain ^.^)


We did not get home until about 2 a.m., so during the first 2 hours of our 3-hour bus ride to the mountains, I was splayed out over 3 chairs, dead to the world. When we arrived, you couldn't help but to be jolted awake when a blast of 50-degree wind whipped clear through you. The scenery was picturesque because the leaves are just beginning to turn; with all the trees a muddy mix of browns and burnt oranges. Being from Florida, I've never seen a true Fall, so Korea is going to be a treat.
Doing the Kimchi squat
This was REALLY high up!
These ladies were so thrilled by the cruise! Actually, the one in the middle gave us that container of popcorn when she saw me take a picture. Koreans do that all the time: try and feed me. Everywhere I go it's like sample day at the grocery store.

After the boat ride (including after some impromptu Norabang-karaoke- from the cruise's 70 and older crowd) we headed to Gosu cave. In any State or National park in America, the "Take only pictures, leave only footprints" decree is strictly enforced. I remember trying to snatch a pine cone from Yosemite and getting a tongue lashing from a park ranger, foaming at the mouth over my impertinence...my disrespect for the American Park system... However, in Korea, if you feel the impulse to snap off a chunk of limestone stalactite for a souvenir, the penalty may be a raised eyebrow and a grunt from the park coordinators. In Gosu cave I was flabbergasted to see tourists taking photos (the deadly, corrosive power of the flash!), empty water bottles tossed on to the ground and kids slithering across slippery rock formations like it was Mother Nature's slip N slide.
The unexpected singing and dancing on the boat ride. These people were breaking it down to some Korean jams from the 40s and 50s and subsequently falling down when we hit a rough patch of water. None of them could stop laughing as they kept tumbling over the seats and each other with each swell that rocked the boat.
Our lunch.
The first inklings of fall!
The entrance to Gosu Cave

I saw a dad give his son a boost up to these puddles so he could splash around in his rubber boots. Can you imagine getting away with that at Yellowstone?
A photo op station. These worked much the same as a roller coaster at a theme park. You came to a certain spot in the cave that was supposed to make you gaze up in wonder (going along with the analogy it was like the point where you hit a major drop in the roller coaster) and this hidden camera takes a candid photo of you. Whereas pretty much everyone is in the throws of screaming on a roller coaster, there were some HILARIOUS pics of people caught off guard picking their noses, pulling wedgies or just looking supremely bored. Needless to say,. I did not purchase the 20,000 won photo of me slack jawed, staring at my camera and deleting pictures. Not a Kodak moment.
Look Mom, a trumpet tree!Perhaps a neat-o audio cassette of a popular 80s one-hit-wonder as a souvenir from Gosu Cave?
Beneath our rather overwhelming Captain Morgan stance, there is a man dressed as a woman. We have no idea why he was dressed this way, we only know that his friends were laughing and taking photos, so we suspect a lost bet.
Posing in front of the aptly named "3 Weird Rocks". 3 Rocks. In the middle of a lake. We were there for 2 hours 0.o

Bored on the bus ride home, one of our Korean friend's decided to terrorize unsuspecting passengers. Korean Bugles for fingernails and a Scream mask she won at a balloon-popping contest held out in front of Gosu Cave.

For the past week, I have been inundating my kids with Halloween mania. I had Halloween Bingo, YouTube scary videos including THIS one, which made some run out of the room, a color-your-own haunted house game and tons and tons of M&Ms and Snickers to give away as prizes. It was fun to see what Korean children thought of Halloween, and I can boil it down to this: they think Americans are quite literally posessed by demons one night and terrorize the land and that chocolate is the only means of subduing this madness. Pumpkins are an everyday food in a typical Korean household, so carving a face on one and putting a candle inside was mind boggling. I taught the kids the names of all sorts of Halloween costume ideas (vampire, ghost, witch, mummy, etc.) but the funniest was their pronunciation of zombie: Jom-b. The letter "z" is mispronounced almost as often as the letter "l".
I wanted to test the counting skills of my 4,5 and 6th graders, so I made these little containers of M&Ms. Each one had over 200 pieces, and I wrote the exact number on the back of each pumpkin. The kids had to write their guesses on slips of paper and I gave the whole thing to the kid with the closest guess.

For Teacher Katy's Halloween, I decided to head downtown to an expat bar that was throwing a free Halloween-themed bash catered to non-Koreans. I went as a mummy...or at least I had the intention of going as a mummy. But somewhere along the way I was mixed up with a Greek Goddess/dead bride from the 80s. With no costume stores in Korea, finding something to wear definitely gave the creative juices a workout. I wanted a clever costume that cost almost nothing: thus my idea to be a mummy with gauze costing a little less than a quarter a roll.

The subway ride downtown was entertaining. Koreans do not celebrate Halloween at all...so there I was, wrapped up like a burn victim with crazy eye makeup, next to Amanda who was channeling Daisy Duke from Dukes of Hazard under the oh so unforgiving harshness of fluorescent lighting.There are already Christmas trees up in the subway!

It was a stellar night with some of the funniest and off-the-wall costumes I have ever seen. For example, there were the lost Canadian backpackers. They had these massive hiking back packs adorned with Canadian flags and kept pushing through the crowd, guidebooks in hand, asking for directions in Fargo-inspired accents. I also saw a guy dressed as Wolverine with metal chopsticks taped to his hands, MC Hammer (a token black guy with parachute pants), the entire bad guy lineup from Mortal Kombat and my personal favorite: the lesbian lumberjacks (pictures below).

Class class.

The remnants of my mummy costume at the end of the night.


SJ and I are quite the trailblazers. On Sunday, we decided to spend some quality time together and hike Apsan Mountain. I asked her what "Apsan" means, and she said it means the "nearby mountain". So, people in Daegu have nicknamed it the "close and familiar" mountain because it pretty much rests up against metropolitan Daegu.


Look at all the families nestled amongst the trees, picnicking.

Every day on the subway, when we reach Seongso (my stop) and I leave to go to the gym after class, SJ tells me to "Keep it tight." When I asked her what she does for exercise, she mentioned yoga because it helps her feel firm "and not squish." Now, many, many times when we talk I pick up on these hitches with the English language, but "feeling squish" was just too good to pass up. I explained that she is feeling "squishy" and it's now our power mantra during hikes. She was pretty tired when I took this picture, but like a drill sergeant I started shouting at her to "fight the squishy" so she jogged the rest of the way up with me. I am so proud!
54 degrees. brrr.
She says I am the devil because I make her work so hard.

This was impressive! This man had a monopoly on the popsicle market being that he is the only guy crazy enough to haul dry ice, popsicles and a backpack full of loose change up to the top of a mountain.

My schedule for November is jam-packed full of nonstop traveling, so the blog will be updated whenever I get a spare moment. Expect great things!

Downtown Daegu and Maegok Madness

Dollar General would make a fortune here in Korea. Why? Because Koreans are absolutely bonkers about spending money on large quantities of useless things. Tae Kwon Do may be the "official" pastime of Korea, but I am telling you now that shopping is the greatest thrill for Koreans of every age.

Exhibit A: While quietly minding my p's and q's on the subway, alternating between observing my shoelaces and closing my eyes to avoid the inquisitive stare down, a man with a rickety 4-wheeled cart saunters in, dressed in a cheap suit with a wrinkled, soggy-looking cardboard box precariously perched on the wheeling contraption. The instant the subway doors snap closed, he begins rattling off his spiel in a loud, infomercial announcer voice. He's selling, for a limited time only (limited because he will be escorted off the subway soon by Daegu Metro employees), special indestructible (unless dropped, banged or mishandled in any way) nut cracking scissors! He produces a chestnut and a walnut from his pocket and de-shells them quicker than you can blink. Glancing around, no one seems particularly moved my these miraculous scissors. And yet, you can see the desire to BuyBuyBuy welling up in these people. What if, at some unforeseeable time, they find themselves in need of these marvelous scissors? God forbid they should have to crack those future nuts by hand. So people begin to rifle through their purses and pockets, collecting the 4,990 won ($4.99!) to purchase the scissors. The man sells 7 pairs before the subway train stops, the doors open, and an exasperated Metro employee in a tan jumpsuit herds the salesman off the train.

Other bargains I have seen are special coarse scrubbing sponges with the pattern of the Korean flag printed on them, "Golden Oldies" CDs (This is a man who walks in and turns on a boombox perched on his shoulder and subjects passengers to 5 minute intervals of songs from The Carpenters) and a "blind" woman peddling chewing gum and FDA-approved cutting boards.

Once you exit the subway, the deluge of shopping opportunities doesn't stop. Most subway stops are two levels underground, the lowest level being where the train receives passengers, the next level for shopping and then eventually you get above ground. The middle floor is a labyrinth of cheap shops ranging from accessories stores (oodles of cheap earrings, flimsy belts and leggings, leggings, leggings), imitation leather stores all the way to belly dancing stores. At first, I thought these belly dancing stores were costume shops until I noticed that they only carry sequin-encrusted bras and bejeweled skirts. Apparently, belly dancing is a craze that was swept the nation, and women are flocking to these stores to buy turquoise, fuchsia and canary yellow wispy belly-dancing costumes to wear to their classes. Juxtapose this to the fact that a bikini is regarded as the swimsuit of a harlot (it's one pieces all the way here). It makes no sense!

Above ground, things get considerably more expensive. In Downtown Daegu, the streets are crammed with designer stores including Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Dolce and Gabbana and all the other top name brands. Wedged in between these powerhouse names are artsy boutiques that will charge 500,000 won for a scarf the size and texture of my dish towels.

And it's loud. The closest I can come to helping you get the picture is this: have you ever been to Disney or whatever theme park and suddenly been engulfed in a pack of Asian tourists? Deafening, right? Imagine that times 10. Add the constant clacking of heels, honking of taxis, the pulsing uhn-tiss of dance and techno music pumping out from overhead speakers, food cart vendors hollering on taped up megaphones, cell phone store employees grabbing you by the shoulder to steer you towards the latest widget and phone contract.... it's chaos!

At home, spending a day perusing the mall was often just to people watch. Rarely did I buy much because 1.) fashion is not a priority for me and 2.) it's so damn expensive. Maybe some Dippin' Dots, but that's the extent of my shopping. I'll spend my money on plane tickets and good food, thank you. But in Korea, the people are saddled down with oodles of bags. During one of our Korea vs. America conversations, SJ explained to me that shopping, whether it be for winter boots or a few fresh pig bellies from the food market to grill for dinner, is like a sport in Korea. There is a lot of walking and heavy lifting. You grow breathless haggling with the store owner, trying to finagle the price lower. You barrel into crowds elbowing and contorting to pluck the best merchandise from racks and boxes the moment it is brought out. And then, when the day is done and you have 32 plastic and paper bags dangling from your limbs, giving you the appearance of a human Christmas tree, you get to brag. THAT is what Koreans truly love.

Korean woman 1: "Last Saturday I found these shoes for just 12,000 won at Seomun Market. They were the last pair in red and the guy wanted 24,000 for them."

Korean woman 2: "Oh really? See, because I found those same shoes, in red, with rhinestone encrusted shoelaces for 11,000 won. I had to bargain with the shopkeeper for 3 hours before they gave in."

Korean woman 1: "Well I got a matching silk scarf as part of the deal, and I only had to bargain for 2 hours and bribe the shopkeeper with my lunch."

You get the idea. Fashion and bargaining prowess are King in Korea.

At Maegok, Swine Flu mania has finally caught on. At first, all I noticed were spray bottle of alcohol placed on short tables at all the entrances (there is a picture of a pig face, sneezing by the bottles). Then there was a school field trip cancelled by the Principle for fear of transmission of the flu bug among the students. Yesterday, Jay (my mentor teacher), stood next to me and began to heatedly whisper in a conspiratorial tone that one of his students had a fever and he needed to drive them to the hospital immediately to check if it was indeed swine flu. I will find out today whether it was Swine Flu or just a cold, but the fear in that man's eyes! Goodness!

More and more of my students are coming to class sporting face masks, so it looks like I am educating the next wave of painters for Korea. While I definitely think the hype over Swine Flu is bogus, it doesn't stop me from bathing in hand sanitizer at lunch time or treating the kid's name tags and workbooks like vessels of the plague. I think I will plan a lesson on hygiene...

Click HERE for a video of my students trying to give me a new hairdo. After all this touching, I was positive that I would catch the funk but I am still one of the only TaLKers who has not gotten ill yet, knock on wood.


I am very comfortable with my daily routine in classes. My students know my temper too, and have learned the difference between a warning tone of voice and the "Oh shit, teacher Katy is gonna go ballistic" tone. Since next week is Halloween, I have been hyping up my students for all the fun things I have planned for them. I have scary videos (where things jumo out and scare you), coloring games with pictures of witches, pumpkins and ghosts, Halloween-themed Bingo, and about 5 tupperware boxes filled to the brim with expensive, imported M&Ms to divvy out as prizes alongside Snickers and Twix bars. For the M&Ms, the students all have to guess, in English, how many pieces of chocolate are in the container. They will write their guesses in complete sentences on paper, put them in my Jacko'lantern trick or treat pail and the winner gets the whole container! It's a lesson on big numbers in English in disguise.

One of my most successful ideas has been the sticker reward system. Students earn stickers for doing homework, participating in class and just for being exceptionally cute and/or in need of cheering up (Teacher Katy has been known to give out stickers and candy to make an upset 1st grader smile again).

Here is the reward system.
And here are some of the sticker charts. As you can see, I have quite the little overachievers. The most popular reward so far is the "Terrific Kid" certificate. It's printed on thick, expensive paper with the Maegok Letterhead on top. I write particular accolades for the student in flowery, run-on English and sign the certificate. They LOVE these, and often I will have parents come in and thank me in Korean for recognizing their kid. In fact, sometimes it's hard not to feel like a celebrity sometimes when my 10 minute walk to campus every day feels more like a strut down the cat walk or like a scene from a Disney musical. People lean out of their windows to shout down a greeting. Shopkeepers wave from behind their counters and women pushing strollers and bicycling children match my pace just so they can walk beside me, smile and stare. God forbid I should have a booger or trip one day...the entire city would probably hear about it in the news.


Remember the post called "A Day In The Life"? Well, that fruit vendor who peddles up and down my neighborhood has taken to driving at night too. So the hollering never ceases! Walking back form the gym one night, I managed to turn my camera on for a few seconds to video him. He was giving me a very suspicious glare over the steering wheel, so I couldn't film for long. Click HERE to catch a glimpse of obnoxious fruit vendor dude.

Also, here are some funny photos of moments that appealed to my sense of humor about town:
How is this store not being sued?

Forget euphemistic names that conceal diet products true nature- Koreans are very blunt. They disdain fat people, so there are walls and walls of drinkable concoctions that tout the ability to melt the fat right off you!

Busan Annual Fireworks Festival

My toes are purple and crushed-looking. That's what I get for wearing flip flops to a fireworks show in Korea, where women change heels like underwear.

At 11:30 Saturday morning, my friend Amanda (the red-head from Texas) and I boarded a train for Busan again. We rode on the mugunghwa train, which is the slow and decrepit, nearly-retired albeit cheaper train. I brought a book (my last of 8 that I brought with me- I am out of English books now) but I didn't read because it was so entertaining to watch all the cheapskate ajummas pilfering seats the whole ride long. It would go like this: the train car would be filled to the brim with passengers. Clearly, the ajummas either purchased "standing" tickets or flat out boarded the train without tickets because each time an employee walked past they would slink into the corner, trying to appear busy. The moment a paying passenger left, they would swarm the seat like vultures, flapping and squawking at each other, jostling around until a victorious ajumma would plunk down in her MC Hammer parachute pants with a satisfied grin until she would be shooed out 5 minutes later by the next passenger with the rightful ticket to that seat. On second thought, ever seen the movie "Finding Nemo"? Just think of the flock of seagulls all chanting "mine" over and over again....

Since we enjoyed it so much last time, we decided to spend another day at Spaland, this time bringing Amanda along. It was very relaxing, with only one hiccup: Amanda fainted coming out of the sauna. The moment she closed the door, her pupils began dilating and contracting and I could tell she was going down. She went limp and it was a good thing Eunice and I were on either side of her because we caught her before she smacked into a row of wooden cubbyholes. After some fanning and several bottles of water she was revived, and we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading towards the baths. A traditional Korean Summer food is this concoction called "patbingsu," which is gone from restaurants now because the weather is considered too cold. However, Spaland continues serving it all year long because of the steamy sauna setting. Koreans believe that the temperature of food is just as important as the ingredients, so you often find cold and chilled dishes in the hot months and bubbling, inferno-hot dishes in the chilly months.

Patbingsu is one of the things I will miss most from Korea. It's a bowl full of delicate shaved ice with heaps of sweet red beans (the size of tic-tacs), jellied fruits (pineapple and mango mostly), bananas and strawberries or some combination of fresh fruit, sweetened condensed milk and maybe a scoop of fro-yo or ice cream. Many restaurants will also garnish with cornflakes or some small candies. Sound gross? Trust me- Patbingsu is the ambrosia of Korea. It gets all soupy and intensely sweet when mixed together and, like all Korean food, is meant to be shared. I got my own because I'm a pig... and I ate it all.
This was not the patbingsu we ordered (just a photo from the internet) but it gives you the general idea of what patbingsu looks like.

We ended up lingering until almost 7p.m. at the spa, which was two hours past the original plan. The "spa fog" of warmth and relaxation quickly dissipated once we were outside in the 50ish degree weather, jostling around in crowds of people stretching as far as the eye could see. Busan was inundated with visitors because the Fireworks Festival is ranked as one of the top in the world. Luckily, my mighty Amazon stature (compared to Koreans, at least) saved the day because I was parting the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea. 1 jarring, jostling and mildly combative hour later, we were ocean-side, with a decent view of the water where the fireworks show would be held. The theme this year was "Busan: A love Story," although I never would have guessed from the choice of music.

The soundtrack to the fireworks included "Do-Re-Mi" from he Sound of Music, "Black or White" from Michael Jackson, some old Elvis jams and the battle music from Braveheart. While the music made me laugh, some of the fireworks were truly spectacular. Whereas every fireworks explosion I have seen usually fades after a few moments (maybe with he exception of the golden trails of sparks from the "weeping willow" fireworks), there were bursts that lingered for several minutes in the sky at this show, floating down towards the water and eventually extinguishing with a little "hiss" sound. Then there was the bird. This green, red and blue fireworks bird zoomed around the air for about 2 minutes before igniting into a flaming phoenix, continuing it's circles above the crowd. I have never seen such creative shapes in fireworks either, form daisies to hearts, smiley faces and even the green outline of a squatting frog.

Two instances of "Weird Korea" moments: 1.) You could be at a Baptism in America and SOMEONE is going to let loose a "whoooooo!" of excitement. It can't be helped, we like cheering for everything. But in Korea, during a FIREWORKS show, the most I heard were some stifled "oohs" and "aahs". It was eerily quiet and all the Korean spectators seemed to be transfixed and borderline emotional after the show. Sniffling, smiling like they just watched their kid win the National Spelling Bee or something... it was strange. 2.) I took photos of the gobs of litter blowing about on the streets after the crowd began filtering out. Mid-photo, an elderly Korean man began waving his hand in front of the lens, shaking his head and acting highly indignant and agitated. Eunice explained that he was ordering me not to take photos of the trashed pavement because I would show them to friends and give Korea a poor reputation among foreigners. When I took another picture, I thought he was going to blow up so we had to hightail it outta there before he decided to do more than just yell.
Here is a pic of the streets after the show, moments before old man hand came crashing down over the lens.

Walking to the shore to get a better view
These are blurry because I was taking them while being hustled along by the herd of people pouring through the streets. This is a typical rice/popcorn snack cart. They sell these massive bags full of rice cakes, sweetened puffed corn and fried rice chips.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." Chestnuts are a Korean fav for snack food in the chillier months.
Kimbap (Korean version of sushi). Asian fast food.
Whole, dried squid is another popular snack item. It tastes like delicious, salty seafood jerky.



It was a madhouse trying to get to the train station on time to catch my ride back to Daegu. The police closed down several subway stops because of overcrowding (numerous people were trampled) and the streets were clogged with cars are scooters, making a taxi out of the question. So we ran. Far. It took half an hour to run far enough on foot to get to an open subway. Once underground, it was pure pandemonium trying to skirt the ticket lines and jostle and elbow our way into as subway car. Luckily, Eunice's boyfriend was with us and had a genius idea to take the subway to a different stop than Busan Station, which was surely overrun with latecomers trying like Hell to catch their trains. So we went to some small station that was desolate, and like magic, our train pulled in the moment we arrived. We made it back to Daegu at around midnight, which is too late to catch the subway so I ended up paying hefty cab fare to get to my apartment, but it was worth it to see the insanity of the Busan Fireworks Festival.

On Sunday, Amanda and I spent the day leisurely flitting in and out of local stores in Downtown Daegu. It was a riot trying on Korean clothing. Most pants would not come past my knees and my shoulders were apparently too broad for even the "2X" size shirts. In Korea, 90% of the clothing is tagged as "One size fits all". I think there needs to be a disclaimer that reads "Except non-Koreans" directly underneath because none of my fellow TaLKers have had much success with Korean clothing.

As I have mentioned, tattoos and piercings are uncommon in Korea, so when we happened upon a "piercing boutique." we went inside just to see if it was legitimate. Apparently, a professional tattoo and piercing artist in Korea can get by with a crusty jar of petroleum jelly, some medieval piercing needles soaking in tepid tap water and a stack of store brand band-aids. Blood-borne illness-no thanks!