Lotte World Part I: Disneyland Koreanified

I had been looking forward to the weekend of July 19th for a long time because ever since May I had been planning to attend the Boryeong Mud Festival. Every year, thousands of tourists and Koreans travel south of Seoul to Boryeong, where they participate in mud games, have mud baths, and listen to concerts on the beach. As an added bonus, the mud is supposed to have nutrients that are good for your skin. Unfortunately, there were reports of some pretty nasty rashes breaking out at the festival, as well as eye infections and a few cases of swine flu, so I was convinced that going to the festival would be a bad idea. Instead, we went to a theme park.

Two Saturdays ago, Jihoon, Julia, and I visited Seoul's major amusement park, Lotte World, owned by that maker of cookies, crackers, and various other snacks, Lotte. The cost was about $25 and, surprisingly, the souvenirs and food inside were regular prices. The downside was that much of the park was comprised of slightly altered pieces of Disneyland. Still, if Lotte can keep costs low by not having to pay "Imagineers" to design their rides, I'm all for it!

Lotte World is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, as it opened in 1989. The first McDonalds in Korea actually opened in 1988 and Nam June Paik completed his TV tower "The More the Better" in 1988. Coincidence? I think not. The Olympics were held in Seoul in 1988, in what was a "coming-out" party somewhat similar to China's last year. The games ushered in a new period of international exposure as well as Westernization, paving the way for Lotte World.

Upon entering the park, we rode the escalator up to the top floor of the Lotte building where the majority of Lotte World was housed. Lotte World, Jihoon explained, is the largest indoor amusement park in Asia. Although most of the park is indoors, they've added a new area called "Magic Island" outside.

First stop: picture time with the LW Mickey and Minnie substitutes, the Lotty Raccoons

Second stop: Picture time in front of the Disneyland castle replica

(Koreans and replicas seem to be like pb and j...)

Next we took a ride on Atlantis Adventure, a roller coaster of the same intensity as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland, only this ride had an aquatic theme

graffiti

Please don't get pregnant on the ride guys, it's just wrong

Next we went on Comet Express, a space-themed ride similar to Disneyland's Space Mountain, except not only did the car zoom around on a track, but each individual seat also rotated freely around its base. If there was a way to make the most nauseating roller coaster possible, the designers of Comet Express discovered it.

The operator of the ride had seemingly been forced to wear a pair of kitty ears as part of his space uniform, so we all tried animal ears on to be in solidarity with him.

Following the space ride, we hopped on Gyro Drop, a Supreme Scream-type ride which took us up a few stories and dropped us. Finally, we went on Fantasy Dream, an attraction as saccharine and sickeningly sweet as its name suggests. The Lotte World map described Fantasy Dream as a "fantastic underground train tour full of cute animals." I was sold at "cute animals." The escalator down to the ride was a descent into madness or, as Julia put it, into a place that smelled like old Barbies in her basement. Surprisingly, no one else was waiting for Fantasy Dream, so we boarded quickly. The ride started with a grotesque looking genie, continued with dancing candy bars, and ended with, as promised, a carousel and a train both full of stuffed animals.

We got hungry quickly, so we made our way over to the Lotte Folk Museum, dedicated to the history of Korea. Out of all the restaurants in the old-fashioned style food court, we picked the buffet, which featured pumpkin juk, kalbitang, dumplings, pork, fish, noodles, Korean pancakes, and some other dishes I can't remember. I happily fished all of the beef out of the kalbitang, Jihoon loaded up on cartilage soup, and Julia savored some sort of sweet rice drink.

On our way back through the park, we came across a life-sized mechanical mule. Apparently, you could pay 500 won and the mule would poop out slime for you to eat.

We decided to try out the flume ride next. Graffiti was everywhere at Lotte World, even in the waiting area for the flume ride. Although most of it was in Korean, the drawings of naked people were proudly signed by Americans. No wonder Korean cinema has birthed movies like "The Host."

Next, we waited about 40 minutes for the Pharaoh ride. One thing LW has over Disneyland is that you don't have to wait ridiculously long times for LW rides.

The Pharaoh ride was nearly identical to the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland, with Egyptian paraphernalia substituted for Indy's Indian theme. The waiting rooms were laid out in a similar manner, and the Pharaoh ride even had a faux black-and-white travel video in one of the rooms.

Us with a strange little girl, ready to explore the Pharaoh's tomb

The ride itself also borrowed liberally from Indiana Jones, making use of a room where flames shot up, snakes hissing at riders, and a giant boulder rolling dangerously close to the riding vehicle. Strangely, the rolling boulder came in the middle of the ride, rather than the end. Disney understands "story" and "climax" better than Lotte, but that's forgivable.

a free-fall ride for kids

not everyone was having fun

To Be Continued...

agesimida

The Korean title of Vicky Cristina Barcelona is "I Love My Boyfriend's Girlfriend."

John's Incredible Pizza opened recently in Buena Park, and looks like the second place I want to visit after I get back. It's described as an all you can eat pizza place mixed with the lovechild of Chuck E. Cheese and Dave and Busters, in a venue the size of a football field.

One of the songs tearing up the KPop charts is called "Juliette," by a group called Shinee. It's a decent, catchy song until you realize that Shinee used the same exact beat and melody as Corbin Bleu did in his song "Deal with It."

I asked one of my fifth grade students to define a "ditch." He said it was something like a trench, and proceeded to draw a diagram of a trench and explain that "trenches were commonly used in World War I," going into detail about the strategic implications of said trenches. He then informed the class that he had ADHD, then told us about his aunt who had breast cancer. She was strange, he said, because she was forty and still single. Then he hummed Starcraft songs for the rest of class.

Setback

This past week began with a metaphorical bomb being dropped on the academy, and ended with the equivalent of the Marshall Plan promising the beginnings of a recovery.

To put it in current Korean events, the start of the week was analogous to the all-out brawl which erupted in the Korean Parliament this week, and the end of the week was like the opening of the new subway line in Seoul.

These fights, in conjunction with North Korea's insulting of Hillary Clinton, make the politics of the Korean peninsula quite possibly the most entertaining in the world

The aforementioned bomb was the mass exodus of over half the academy's students at the end of the first session, an event not anticipated by the academy's administrators. In prior years, students had continued to take classes in the second session, but this year they seemed to view the ending of the session as a convenient time to finish their SAT studies and pursue other activities. Monday morning, the manager announced to the teachers that over half the academy's classes were getting cut. I went from teaching 30 hours a week to 8, with 3/4 of my classes gone. As a result, I was offered extra hours doing office work in the main Gangnam branch of the academy, but for half the pay rate.

The office work for the director primarily consisted of proofreading and editing, doable tasks but tedious nonetheless. It also meant I had to travel from "suburban" Bundang to urban Gangnam everyday.

The relative serenity of Jeongja (Bundang)

...and the congestion and hustle-bustle of Gangnam

After a few days, I was becoming increasingly drained by working next to the over-stressed and somewhat jaded director (a nice guy but he has to deal with all of the academy's problems). I came to the realization that I would rather be in the classroom, interacting with students and building off their idealism instead of absorbing the stress of the director. If anything, this experience has taught me exactly how important job satisfaction is, and how much less important the figure on one's paycheck is.

The happy ending to this story is that on Friday I was able to sub for two classes, SAT Reading and World History, both good experiences. More importantly, although there's essentially no way to get my old classes back, I'll pick up some extra classes next week, teaching elementary schoolers. Even though it's not the most ideal situation, I've actually been interested in teaching some of the rambunctious young'ns who arrive at the academy screaming and pulling their roller backpacks around 3 pm everyday. Even if they get to be a handful, I'll be able to find solace in the fact that I don't have to teach members of Parliament.

Racial Tensions

My SAT students are fun, but it seems like the SSAT [sic] classes have the best stories. (I hadn't heard of it before this summer, but the SSAT is a test to get into selective high schools)

One teacher told us that after she finished explaining a problem or concept, one of the boys in her class would look up at her and exclaim "Lies!" in a reptilian voice.

Today, the talk in the teacher's lounge was centered around the fight that almost broke out between two boys in the SSAT class- one boy was making fun of another boy for having tan skin. The boy being made fun of apparently took this as an insult.

Oh, the problems of living in a homogeneous society.

Shrimp, Pigs, Ducks, and Dr. Fish

The main event of the day was the solar eclipse which wasn't a total eclipse as it was in other parts of Asia, but rather a partial one. Still, it had all the students scrambling to the window at break time with their faces pressed against film strips. I have to admit it was pretty cool, surreal almost, to peer into the dark film strip and see nothing but what seemed to be a crescent sun. Another reason I'm glad I'm here this summer.

I was mistakenly thought to be Korean for the nth time again today, this time by the manager of my goshitel. It almost seems to be turning into a running gag... I should come up with a good punchline. Apparently, one of my fellow goshitelers had asked the manager about me and my nationality, explaining that "he looks so Korean, but he speaks... English!"

***

The Saturday before I went to Guam was Pauline's birthday, so we all met up in Gangnam to eat at a nice little Italian place Janice had found. Just as all of us arrived at the table where Janice was waiting, Lil Kim, in her eagerness, accidentally blew out Pauline's candles for her.

take 2

At various points, conversation was conducted entirely in Korean, so I used the opportunity to imagine my own translations of the conversations.

After lunch, we were drawn like mosquitos to a mosquito killing light to what is becoming a regular hangout, Dr. Fish. Only Jihoon was up for the sadomasochism this time around, and boy did he get his money's worth.

inspecting the waters

If Brian was a 4 on the "Reaction to Dr. Fish Scale" and I was a 5, then Jihoon was a 10. For almost the entire 15 minutes he was laughing, writhing, convulsing, and explaining how Dr. Fish should be used by the U.S. government as a torture method.

5 minutes later

Note the little boy happily getting his feet eaten and his mom who seems rather apathetic about the whole thing

Immediately afterwards, Jihoon noticed that his feet were, in fact, cleaner and giddily announced that he wanted to come back the next week.

I had to restrain myself from filling up on the free bread at Dr. Fish, since that evening was a company dinner (events which seem to be fairly common in Korea). All of the teachers met at the main academy, conveniently located right across the street from Dr. Fish, before we all loaded into the buses for an all you can eat duck restaurant in Seocho.

All I know about Seocho is this sign which is plastered on bus stops all over southern Seoul. While Googling this image, I also found that Seocho and Irvine, CA are "friendship cities." Cute.

The dinner was covered by the owner of the academy who is most likely bathing in money- he's invited the teachers to his housewarming party in a few weeks, where we will eat steaks in the yard of his new house close by to the academy/Dr. Fish. The fact that he lives in that area means he's loaded, and the fact that he has a house not an apartment, and one with a yard at that, means he's super-loaded.

The all you can eat duck restaurant was good but not great. After eating duck which had a taste reminiscent of hot dogs (especially when the duck was dipped in mustard), we teachers ate samgyeopsal, a pork similar to bacon. The servers saved the best dishes for last- Korean pancakes, pork ribs, and noodles in a kimchi soup. Even if the food didn't live up to the hype, the dinner was still a great time of hanging out with teachers. The teachers at my branch in Bundang have really seemed to reach a good level of rapport with each other in the last week or two, although that rapport may be short lived thanks to the unfortunate events of this week, which will have to come in a later post.

The director, the owner, the owner's daughter, and his wife

samgyeopsal

Part 1 Complete

I've been in a really thankful mood lately. This is mostly a good thing except for the times when the euphoria stemming from my thankfulness leads me to get caught up in happiness for the happiness' sake, thereby leaving God out of the picture, I realized as I walked through the forest to church this morning.

I've really been blessed in many different areas through my job teaching SAT in Korea, despite the difficulties it may present at times. I'm fairly certain that this appreciation of my circumstances would not be possible had I not crossed the bridge from "bemused tourist" to "settled foreigner" a few weeks ago, when I no longer found Korean culture as alien and enigmatic as I did when I first arrived. As a settled foreigner, I've come to the stage where I have a solid network and schedule and have actually arrived at a point where I enjoy and appreciate certain aspects of Korea. So while I'm still annoyed at the fact that most bathrooms here do not have paper towels or any other materials for drying one's hands, I can accept it because of the positive aspects of life here, such as the bargain rates for drugs (prescription of course) and the governmental "tax" on trash which seems to reduce waste. I just can't figure out why foods such as crackers and cookies are individually wrapped more frequently here than in the U.S.

Teaching in Korea this summer has also allowed me a number of opportunities I wouldn't have had elsewhere. When I stop to think about it, I almost feel like I'm getting paid to blog and hang out with friends, a surprising number of whom ended up in Korea this summer. At times, I find it hard to believe that I'm able to subsist here for the summer and that I'll be able to return home with some money saved. Teaching SAT Writing and training students how to write essays reinforces the basic tools of writing to me, and teaching Novel Reading classes gives me an excuse to read all of the classic novels I've always wanted to but never had the chance to do, all while studying the content, form, and style of these works in order to strengthen my own writing. I do all this while absorbing Korean culture and picking up some Korean (the equivalent of First Week of Beginning Korean, but Korean nonetheless). At no other time or place can I imagine such a serendipitous confluence of factors, and for that I have no choice but to be thankful.

The first session of SAT classes ended on Friday, launching me towards my current state of contentedness. It was sad to see many of the students leave for the last time, particularly my 2nd morning class, which was the best class I've had so far. Not only was this class actually interested in the SAT material and in scoring well on the test, it was comprised of many varied personalities. To overgeneralize somewhat, the class was made of a few hyper/easily amused girls, some intelligent but reserved girls, a class clown, and an inappropriate video gamer with a penchant for humorously misanthropic remarks. Teaching really is about the interaction a teacher has with his or her students, and this class made it easy to enjoy teaching.

Either there's some sort of Pan's Labyrinth thing going on or it's the invention of a new Asian Pose

I had been collecting 1,000 won from students everytime they didn't do their homework, and used the money to buy food for them on Friday. The morning classes had been somewhat diligent and only had enough money for pizza. The afternoon class, however, had amassed a collection of 25,000 won among 5 students and were able to get a meal of dumplings, jajangmyeon (black bean sauced noodles), jampong (noodles in seafood/kimchi soup), and tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork).

Another type of part 1 is coming to a close, as Janice leaves this week for Hawai'i then Japan, and as this weekend will be Jihoon's last free weekend. It's been fun, guys.

Now I face a dilemma- to add or not to add the students who friended me on facebook?

Return to the Country of Toilet Seat Covers

This Sunday I traded one U.S. army stronghold for another- I traveled from Seoul to Guam in order to obtain a teaching visa from the Korean consulate there. I actually entered the country without a visa and have been teaching since the beginning of June without the proper status. Apparently this is not an altogether uncommon practice.

Fortunately, my academy paid for my flight. Unfortunately, that flight left at 8:20 pm and arrived at 2 am in Guam. Thus, in the midst of a summer storm, I managed to find the airport shuttle to take me from my goshitel to the airport and take my first flight out of the country since I arrived on June 4.

Reentering U.S. territory was strange, though not shockingly so. I was especially struck by the lack of bright, neon colors everywhere and the diminished amount of "cutesiness" I hadn't previously recognized was so integral to modern Korean culture. Being able to converse with restaurant and hotel workers was actually not as satisfying as I had imagined it would be- I think I've grown so used to not being able to hold conversations with workers that I've almost accepted it as normal.

I finally arrived in my hotel room around 2:30 am, slept, checked out, and headed over to the consulate at 11 am.

looking out the window

The consulate turned out to be a house behind a strip mall. There seemed to be a total of three people working there, and I spied a swimming pool in the backyard.

The Korean Consulate in Guam

Luckily, this meant that the turnaround time for my visa was about half a day. I eagerly found a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant near the consulate and proceeded to order, then devour, the first beef dish I could find.


So intent was I on gorging myself on cow meat, however, that I failed to realize that a tropical storm had begun while I was eating my meal. Suddenly, my plans of spending my day in Guam relaxing on the beach were completely shot. Since it would be a very wet 40 minute walk back to the hotel area, I spent the afternoon in a mail services area, then wandered around an outlet mall. Finally, I procured my visa and returned to Tumon, the touristy area of Guam.

Guam reminded me of Hawaii, only less developed, slightly trashier, and with more Japanese and Korean tourists. Instead of being misidentified as a Korean, I was frequently asked "Japanese?" and, on one occasion "Doko made?" (Where to?)




My co-teacher Ben had spent a few months working at a resort in Saipan which happened to have another location in Guam. Ben got in touch with his old boss, who now works at the Guam resort, to get me into the waterpark there. Sadly, the storm prevented me from getting to the waterpark until evening, and by that time I had no luck reaching Ben's old boss.

the waterpark

For dinner I went to a buffet which was supposed to be $11 and delicious; it turned out to be $16.50 and only somewhat delicious. Still, I ate enough beef to make it worth it.

I was tempted to just stay in Guam and teach SAT there... not

My final stop was Guam's Kmart, which claims to be the largest Kmart in the world. I have my doubts.

The building only extends a little past the right edge of this picture

Among the goods I purchased here were a pillow, peanut butter, and spaghetti. Being roomless, I hung out in the hotel lobby until 12:30 am, then in the airport until 3:20 when my flight left. From the airport, I unloaded at my goshitel then rushed over to teach my 10 am class.


-----
Random Note:

I can only dream of being as good as these guys.

Just missing an "a"

The Sunday after we took a day trip to Gyeongju, we attended a service at Yeouido Full Gospel Church, which is the largest church in the world according to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the service was entirely in Korean. That didn't prevent us non-Korean speakers from enjoying the theatricality of the service, however. During the worship time, we were led by a group of singers dressed in perfectly identical outfits who had meticulously coordinated their movements to be in sync with each other. Jihoon said it felt like North Korea. The "modern" worship was followed by the singing of traditional hymns, led by a full choir and orchestra.

church playground

Worship

The message itself was difficult to comprehend without any interpretation, but the K friends later told us that it was basically talking about what to do in order to be blessed. There were many emphatic "Amens" interjected by the speaker as well as the entire congregation. Following the message, an advertisement was shown for a DVD set the church was selling, mostly comprised of the original pastor speaking in other countries and healing people. Overall, the church was not as cultish or personality-driven as I had expected, but I still felt as if I hadn't really worshipped by the end of the service.

The masses leaving as a group of men in matching outfits bow

Following the service, we took a tour of Yeouido, described by Wonhoe as the "New York of Seoul." Yeouido is essentially a small island in the Han River which serves as the financial headquarters of Seoul. They've even got their own miniature version of Central Park.

Pauline in front of her workplace, World Vision

The library of the National Assembly (legislative body of the Korean government)

I mentioned that I had visited the National Assembly library over the weekend and my students thought I was such a nerd. They said it was ok though, because I went to Brown.

After the library, we headed over to Gangnam to what is becoming our regular hangout, Dr. Fish. Since I had recommended that Brian try the place, I took the plunge and subjected myself to the enjoyable torture once again.

The next day Janice, Brian, and I went to the jimjilbang during my lunch break. It was quite a deal- for less than $7, you can rest in hot rooms, hotter rooms, ovens, refrigerators, and freezers. There was also a small movie theater where you could watch movies released on DVD. There was also the option of using the Internet, getting a haircut, getting a massage, and eating at the restaurant there. After thoroughly baking ourselves, we soaked in the hot tubs and sweated it out in the humidity room. I was amazed at how refreshed I felt afterward... if only I had not come down with stomach flu that night!

I've either had this thought before or read it somewhere, so I won't dwell on it too long, but one thing about having the flu was that it reminded me what pain was. The intense cramping and severe exhaustion I felt jostled me out of my physically painless world for a week. As I read over Jesus' suffering leading up to his death, I felt as though I could come a little closer to realizing just how high the cost was for him.