Buddha's Birthday

In the first weeks of May in Korea they celebrate Buddha's birthday. Since the celebration is coming up, Buddhist temples have started to pimp themselves up. There is this huge temple near my workplace in the Yangcheon area that I bike along every day of the week. It looks like some sort of Chinese style building so at first I thought it was just that, maybe some kind of Chinese Culture center in Korea. After asking though, I was told that the place is a temple, and that actually, there are a few people that my coworkers knew did temple stay there. It must be weird to do temple stay in the middle of an urban area like Mokdong. 

By night, the building looks plain gorgeous. The lanterns are shiny and colorful and there is some sort of "walkway roof" you can stroll under, that I think might only be there around this time of year. Then again, I'll have to wait until Buddhas birthday is passed to know if that was the only reason they were there.

The render of the pictures is not as nice as I hopes but at least we can see the colours. Every time I take pictures I marvel at the majesty of eyesight. We are so lucky to be able to see everything in depth and color. A picture will never be able to render the beauty of what our eyes will imprint in our memories. Eyes have the magical power to add in-depth pictures to our memories and I feel blessed everyday I get to add some beautiful pictures to my inner album ^^ 

This picture (up) was the closest to what my eyes could see that day. My favourite colour there is the blue lantern. Isn't it funny thought, how when there are many colours juxtaposed you will be able to tell with one you like best, but then, that same colour would not feel as beautiful if there had only been that one shade? It's the same with people they say. And I totally believe it.

Fortis Collegiate - Mokdong

Fortis Collegiate.

I have been working there for already two weeks. Time really flies, and I really feel like I've not accomplished much. The fact that I have been REALLY sick all through since April 1st, does not help. Every night, I cough myself to sleep; every morning, I wake up coughing and half-way through the afternoon I usually get a daily let's-cough-our-lungs-out-for-15-minutes party in my throat. It's pretty bad. 

The first week I had no voice. Luckily, kids are amazing. They understand that sick people exist and wait patiently until my voice comes back. Students at Fortis are amazingly well-behaved. That is, if you compare them to the kids at NgLOW, who all had come from play schools and were to be moulded into schedule following beasts...

Teaching at Fortis is not straining so far. Being a more book-based school, the schedule is somewhat easier to foresee - if I compare it to NGLOW, that had a great monthly-based concept, but always got us the books late because they are still publishing them and they never get printed on time.

Kindie-time is much less part of my day than before, so I feel like I just get the best of both worlds. I see those babies in the mornings and end up my day with bunch of small classes of elementary to middle school kids in the afternoons and evenings, all kids who are bright and lovely. The book system is a bit confusing because they not only have Student Books, they have a Practice Book (sometimes two, one for Spelling and Grammar, and an ON one) and a Workbook. I think there were some mess up in the timing of some books because some kids are all up to date, some others are all over the place with all the books at different stage of completion. Anyways, so far I've been busy trying to understand how everything works, while getting all books up to date with their Student Book levels. In two weeks we'll have mid-terms so we'll need to prepare tests for each classes, and some new homework-only reading classes were added to the lot so it makes for lots of correction after school. 

All in all I am pretty busy.

But weird,

I am NOT stressed. 

The only stress in my life is my cold, that has not gone away for 12 days straight so far, even with the help of meds since I went to the hospital three times so far. 

Work has me busy, but I don't find it hard. I feel in a weird state now, as if there's something big and bad coming up, someone going to complain about me big time, because I'm doing everything wrong, because I feel like everything is right. 

This kind of situation only happened to me once before. It was in grade 10 or something, in trigonometry class, when I had this final test and I felt like I did everything right but just started doubting. And in the end I had 100% average for the whole semester. 

You know, when you do things right, but feel like you don't really should, cuz you're human and all, and you should make mistakes.

 Stupid elections went on in Quebec in the last 3 weeks, and while my party, QS, got 2 more candidates elected, the whole election felt like a messed up scam. Quebecers are depressingly old-style I'-not-voting-for-what-I-want-I'm-voting-against-what-I-don't-want. How can ANYONE think they can get what they want voting that way?

Anyways, to end my rambling, here is a picture I find kind of memorable, what's with me and all those sweet kids.

Traffic Lights

One of the first things I bought in Korea was a warm wool jacket. I hadn't thought that winter would be as windy and dreadfully humid and the warm wool/cashmere jacket I had brought with me was like a poncho, which proved to be throughly  inadequate for the place. After a year, I have only had the opportunity to wear it twice, I think, which is really a shame because it's a very nice jacket...

I bought something I didn't have: bright stunning intense colours. 

I have always loved pastel baby colours and most of the clothes I have bought in the last years was following that pattern. Coming to Korea, I got dragged to hot colours, dunno why, maybe because that represented such a strong contrast with my previous colour choice. 

In any case, I noticed that while I still love baby colours, hot pink, red, bright blue and yellow suit me so much better. Goes much better with my hair colour and skin tone. So I mostly buy stuff in those tones.

My very first acquisition in Korea was the first step. A bright orange jacket. Feels so bright it's like almost red, so here is the first of my traffic light jacket collection: Korean Spring 2013 STOP ORANGE!

When winter came again upon Korea after last fall, I realizedI needed to get a jacket with a hoodie. But I was in no rush. I did not want to spend a lot of money. The first jacket I got was a bit over $100 and as I already have a few jackets I didn't feel the need for another one. 

Until I fell in love with this little duckling, $30, yellow hoodie, with hoodie full of soft amazingness. It got me through winter, and I don't know what I'd have done without it. It was perfect for the weather, while being pretty loose so I did not need to worry about the number of layers I had under when I went out in the cold.

So here I introduce you the Korean Fall-Winter 2013-14 jacket collection: SLOW DOWN YELLOW!

I just moved to a really windy part of Korea (or maybe it's just spring. Spring in Korea is windy) and got a bicycle, so I was thinking I'd end up needing some kind of wind-breaker. It was just a thought until after a couple of very hot spring days, I chose to go out with only a thin sweater and scarf to go for work, with a pretty intense cold attacking my vocal chords pretty nastily. I wanted to go see Nexen after work and it had been windy and rainy all day. While the rain had stopped by nightfall, the weather was still pretty windy and cold - enough to kill out the remains of the beautiful cherry flowers in the trees alongside the Yangcheon river. So I resolved to do the detour of going home before going to the game, to get my winter jacket. It was not so cold, really, just REALLY windy.

Then.

In the dark, right behind the place I had parked my bike, I see it illuminating: 

SPRING SALE JACKETS! 

So I got another jacket.

It's a very light large adjustable jacket, with big pockets and a hoodie. Perfect for this spring weather, when I'll be biking by the windy river on my way to and from work, to and from baseball. It's got a really nice shape and the colour is really bright in daylight. Here we are, Korean Spring 2014 collection: GO GREEN!

Moving in Korea - Take 4

I don't know for others, but Korea for me has been a year of moving around. Thinking about it, I have moved 4 times in a year. Sometimes within the same vicinity, sometimes to change completely my surroundings. As I am not a person that like to explore on my own unless I have no obligation at all regarding time or money (if I have absolutely nothing to do on a great sunny day, enough money to pay for a cab if I am lost, a bag that is not too heavy to carry around then ok)....

Says the girl who decided to move to Korea on her own?

Yup. I love seeing myself as a person full of contradictions...

When I re-signed my contract with NGLOWkids, I was glad I wouldn't have to go through another moving spree, so I finally bought two big pieces of furniture: a bookshelf and a coat hanger with a bag compartment at the bottom. Well thet ended up being an extra thing to worry about in moving this time. People always get surprised at how much stuff I end up gathering. Thing is I am slightly OCD when it concerns my living space. It needs to be clean and neat, and practical. 

So even in the smallest apartment, I will find the perfect place to put everything to that it looks clean at all times. Moving however, puts me in the distressing situation where I have to find a new meaning and a new place for every single thing I own. I also am the kind who tries to keep a maximum of things to make crafts and stuff when I wrap gifts and write letters, so I end up with an incredible amount of what I simply call "stuff". People usually disregard "stuff" as being an insignificant detail, but I see it otherwise. When I say I have lots of stuff. I mean I have lots of stuff. When I mean that moving everything with only a SUV will require amazing Tetris skills, I mean it. People should not underestimate the amount of work it requires for me to move. Even from a tiny-ass apartment that looked perfectly clean when everything was set in place.

My ladies ready to go.

My ladies, in their temporary spot on the bookshelf

Making my place into what I want it to be will be a whole process including me buying a couple of sticky hooks to hang things around and a lot of scrubbing, but I know the place will look great eventually, as the frame of the apartment already looks quite nice.

That's a quick overview of the place with stuff less scattered over the floor than on the first day. I got a bad cold with fever on my first night in Guro, and have been pretty knocked down since, but I suppose I am lucky it's the weekend. The weather would have been great to walk around and explore the place but I will have other days...

I walk past the demon's door whenever I go in or out of my apartment. Why does this door intrigues me so? Is there a handsome demon/vampire that lives there? While I am curious, I hope I will never get to meet the owner of this place, because it is much more fun to imagine who could be there than be disappointed my reality.

My building is situated in an area that has lots of buildings giving an "industrial era" feel, with lots of red bricks and traffic. While it looks creepy at night, I like the look by day, it is full of small parks and now all the cherry trees are in bloom in most of the small streets I walked by.

Me walking around with my macbook, trying to find an open coffee shop around the area, that is open on a Sunday. I failed my mission, all that was open were chain coffee shops and I ended up entering into a "Coffee Mama" that had decent tasting coffee but nothing more. I hope I'll find nice coffee shops around, otherwise I'll be missing Dongtan's proximity to amazing small stores and coffee shops...

For those who thought Christianity was not glamour in 2014. Here is a little to ponder about in your free time...

Momo eui Darag Bang

I have written about Momo's sewing school before, a beautiful handcraft haven I have grown greatly attached to. Ironically, the school will be moving to another area of Dongtan in a few weeks to join the local "culture center" of Dongtan in a much bigger room that is shared among a couple of other teachers all working in specific different fields of crafting, including sewing machine work, hand sewing, knitting, chalk and styrofoam art, ribbon art and Korean calligraphy. I was really sad to leave Dongtan for I would not be able to go to the school as I liked, but the place I know, full of last fall's memories, will be no more anyways, so I feel a bit better.

If you do live near the area, however, I strongly encourage you to go to the school. It is right on the street where the McDonald is, in the same building as the Jaws Ddeokboggi, 4th floor. Opens from 10AM to 9PM closed on Sunday and Saturdays of the 2nd and 4th week of the month. I'll try to get the exact address and see if they have a website. Otherwise, if you really need to know where it is, I can explain it clearly with pictures, just ask me in the comment space...

Last week I went crazy on going to the school, because for once, I did not work in the mornings. I only worked part-time so I went to the sewing school in the morning to finish up projects I started, and start new ones, trying to make the most of my last days in Dongtan, with no friends around, so I did not feel too bad to see no one else than my teacher everyday.

My teacher took some pictures as I was doing tome felt sewing, she thought it was a nice picture opportunity. As I had no make up, I was not so sure, but the pictures turned out quite nicely so I must give in Korean eye for nice pictures once more.

From The Airport - Hongdae

Last weekend was really busy for me. I cleaned up my new apartment all afternoon up to the very last minute I could, then left for Hongdae. A senior (weird how we don't really use that naming in English, but as Korea has rubbed on me, and he is older than me, I feel weird saying "friend") from McGill I met through Minho (met in China: isn't it amazing to have Korean acquaintances that you have met in China? I love how my stories are always more complicated than they need to be...) was having a concert in Hongdae at 8PM. I have mentioned him before, when I wrote about in a previous blog entry, and said I did narration on one of his songs, BLACK SKIES.

So I obviously went to see his show. I don't know what I was expecting, but I couldn't have been happier. I am a big pop music fan, for "music" lovers, what I like usually is crap, but while I love pop, I like all kinds of music as long as it's not too death-metal-sounding (mind you, I admire the artist's research when it comes to death metal's instrumental, I just don't like the yelling part) French rap or western (unless I am in a western bar with people who know those in-line dances and do them together, in this one particular scenario I love western music).

Anyways, straying again...

The show was just the prefect length for a standing concert and the room, while being full, was not packed to the extent of having to look for place to put your feet at. I was really happy with everything in general. They had lockers for jackets (I love Korea) and the room was pretty clean, giving an almost high classy feeling. If you want to get there, here are the direction Min sent me to get there, and even me, who gets lost in a phone box, got there with no problem. I love GPS in phones, makes it so easy to get around. I don't remember the name of the concert avenue though ha ha.. Might edit this entry later and add...

**.... omg U_U I had to stop writing. "Let it Go" started playing in the coffe shop I'm stationed at. This song has taken over Korea... how many months have passed since the movie is out? **

...the name of the place.

I was like SUPER underdressed. I had helped out at a school's market day in the morning and dressed up warmly to stand the cold outside for the few hours I'd have to stand outside, then got to cleaning my apartment and went there directly, so I was wearing short boots black pants and a long red woollen sweater with my hair down. I was thinking, hm, it's hongdae, people are more "grungy" than the pretty dressed up style people wear in say, Gangnam. Well appears Hongdae has more than one type of people hanging out there and I still have a lot to learn. 

People at the concert avenue were all dressed-up, heels, dresses and clean-cut jackets, suits, formal/semi-formal ... and there was me. Even Min, who came with his date, was all dressed-up. Man I felt soooo sexy

The only good point was that, for once, I was not overly tall, as all the people sort of had heels. I actually felt short over my 173cm, trying to see the front stage, with tall koreans all around. It felt quite disorientated for a while. 

Then music took over everything else. I was not expecting much "liveliness" from a band with only two people doing everything on their own, but they were great. There was something on stage, that I have rarely seen. It was everything but boring and I suggest anyone who gets a chance, to go see them play. 

If it can be proof enough, I did not take any pictures or film anything as I was watching, because I didn't want to miss the show (now, I regret not having done so, because I only have words to describe the concert, and well. You need to believe me don't you?

After the show I went out with Min and a couple of his friends for a drink and as most of the places we wanted to go to were full so we ended up going to this Japanese place that had amazing food. We also drank Sake-lemon-soda, A mix I had never had before and really liked. To be honest, I don't like the flowery taste of sake, so I was dreading it, but mixed like this it tastes amazing!

Sake lemon soda heaven mix

We had a lot of different yummy foods, but my personal favourite was the tuna tataki. 

Moving to Guro

I found a new school.

To be honest, I was hesitating between two schools that I both appreciated greatly, and whom both would have liked to have me start as soon as possible. I even had to write out positive things that could be compared from one school to another, with things that were different for both places, to set my mind up...

It was hard.

But I am greatly happy that I chose this school. Even if I am still living in the dread of the getting adjusted to the new school thing. As I am a bit of a control freak, I need to live in an environment that is 'under control' to put myself at ease to try learning things anew: I know that in this school I will have a lot to learn, and I will mostly be rushing through learning/teaching/getting adjusted in a very short period of time and have the stress of being effective and loving at the same time. 

If I want to handle this stress, where I can't control anything, as I am not used to the place and will need to learn tons, I will need a haven of peace, where I can loosen out and be at peace: home.

So I have gone to take a look at my new to-be-apartment. Ideally, just to tidy things up, but realistically, to clean it up my way before I move all my things.

Good thing I went ahead with that great idea.

The girl that lived there, did not live by the same standard of "clean" and "nice" home as I do, to say the least. Now I am not one to fret with details (well that's a lie, but wtv) but I decided to focus on what is positive for now. 

As I was scrubbing the kitchen and separating what foods were past due date and what foods were to be kept, I fell across a few bags of Quakers Oatmeal morning sets: BLISS! 

Did you have those before? I love my oatmeal in the morning but hadn't had had it in years. Trying a better diet since the new year, I had discovered the good of oatmeal for the system, and had been craving it (you see, in Korea, they generally sell oat in whole grains instead of flattened ones, so the way to cook and eat it is much more bothersome for lazy me) for weeks at that point. That discovery made my day a happy day indeed. I had been at cleaning all afternoon and felt like Snow White cleaning the dwarves' mess and finding some treasure to cook for dinner.

Found a nice red ribbon while cleaning and did it legit Snow White style.

 So I cleaned and the next morning, I had an amazing breakfast. I also found, looking quickly in the fridge (I didn't get to scrub it yet so dunno how much of what's in it is still edible, but it looked just fine except the I-need-some-cleaning part), a yogurt carton that tasted exactly like Yoplait! from my youth. Man I loved those liquid yogurt fruit drinks. It appears that Korea and Denmark have been in on this yogurt tag-team for quite a while, making the same exact drinks but in cartons, instead of the plastic bottles we had in Canada.

Because I am good on positivism, I'll add that the girl left some clothes in a basket that she did not want and I found some 10 ish pieces of clothing that I really liked in the lot: free clothes! That should help me try not to shop in the coming few weeks.

Slept with those on and wore them today, as my encouragement to my peeps back
in Quebec, that have had a never-ending winter this year.

Today I had a haircut for the first time in a year! Yay!

Actually I am growing my hair so I usually avoid hairdressers like plea, but meh... my split ends were growing so high up that they were risking to damage the good part of my hair. So I chose to cut. They look much shorter because I asked the lady to make it a straight cut, but she actually did not really cut them much. They will be in much better shape (they already are) with this and it makes me blissful. My hair was long enough so I could afford cutting it without feeling like my growing it up had been a waste. Took me a long time to grow them past "porn-star" length but what was down was so dead that it was best to cut it out. Now back to porn-star length but they will grow faster than before so I'm not too worried. 

I have been seeing so many high schoolers with their perfectly straight lines of long dark hair and I was getting jealous of their perfect lines and non-splitted ends so that's the cut I asked for. And so far I love it.

Two weeks ago - keep in mind I am leaning over
so they appear longer too. Notice how the end is
so thin that there's no thickness at the tip? All of
it was split 3, 4, 5, and sometimes 6 times for each
single strand of hair. Messy messy....

Standing straight on this picture so we see the real length,
but not that the hairdresser slightly curled the end as she
blow dried it. 

See how it now all has the same length? From now on, as it grows, the end will be thick and it'll feel longer than before even when it will reach back to the length it was before.