Monkey Beach in Apgujeong

Monkey Beach is a cheap club in Apgujeong, the ritzy area of Seoul that boasts a sort of Rodeo Drive shopping area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgujeong). Never go here! You think that it is a good idea when you here about the buckets of alcohol and free glow-in-the-dark glasses, but do not be taken in! I figured "It's in Apgujeong, so even though it's cheap, it must still have some class." Wrong.

A picture with the birthday boy, whose bright idea it was to come here. I won't hold it against you... :)

You think I would be happy with my 12,000 won rum and coke (my second, free one because they took my first one away before I was done! Luckily I was with a Korean friend who could tell them where to put their bucket. Back into my hand!) and my free glow-in-the-dark glasses, but I could not enjoy my time there. I heard Tubthumping by Chumbawumba THREE times! This song was voted 12th most annyoying song by Rolling Stone and they played it thrice, among other songs that must have been on the CD they were playing.

We are trying to be classy, sipping our buckets leisurely at our reserved table...

...but it's hard to do with all the stripper poles and shady GIs that are there!

I was so angry that I could have pulled the snot out of a Korean man's nose. Oops. Monkey Beach de-classed me...! Why????

LOTTE WORLD! The greatest Disney-wannabe in the world!

WELCOME!
Sort of. This gate is closed at 9:30am so there was no one there to greet us. Or let us in.

This is the Lotte World mascot. Remind you of any other animal with whiskers that wears a tuxedo and a top hat? (Yeah, I mean Mickey.)

Lotte World is also trying to copy Rome with a Trevi-esque fountain outside of the ticket office. I like the sales racks and piles of clothing in the foreground of this picture...

This is the ticket office. We got there at about 9:00 or 9:30 in order to ensure that we could ride all of the rides before students got out of school. (This is on a Saturday, mind you. Poor Korean kids.) Anywho, the outdoor offices were closed, so we had to go down into the basement of the Lotte Department Store/ Jamsil Subway area to the open ticket window. I think we got 10% off because we are foreigners, so it was about 30,000 won to get the all access pass. With certain credit cards you can get up to 50% off, I think, but we didn't have any of those.

The problem with getting there so early was that a lot of the rides were closed. This lag in open rides allowed us to browse the carts that are all over the park and ride some of the smaller rides that were still enjoyable, like Bumper Cars (which of course we took to the extreme) and the the Gyro Drop (pictured below). The Gyro Swing (not pictured), my favorite ride, was open this early, though, so if you are thinking of going, I still say go early.

They also had a good selection of arcade games to play, which we all enjoyed because we are very competitive. Phil kicked this basketball game's butt and won 3 little teddy bears as a result. Haha.



While we were waiting in line, there was this guy dancing next to the line. He was dancing for about 30 minutes! Phil was saying a lot of funny things, but I don't think you can hear that. But check out this guy's moves...

Lotte World also offers shows. This was a Halloween themed song and dance type show. It was okay, but it seemed like the dancers weren't very in sync. There was some breakdancing, too. Of course. Koreans love breakdancing.

The Gyro Drop!

There are also a lot of photo ops around Lotte World. Very entertaining when you are waiting for rides to open. Or people to come out of the bathroom.

All in all, Lotte World was pretty fun. We ended up staying until about 6pm. An added bonus is that you are allowed to leave the park and come in again, so we were able to eat lunch outside of the park, which theoretically should have been cheaper (but we went to TGIFridays and spent about as much on lunch as we did on the ticket to the park). And, like most places in Korea, you can drink beer there. Many of the food/drink stands had water, soda and beer to sell. It's no Disney World, but it's pretty close!!

A Day in the Life* - Shopping and Konglish

*Warning: This is just a reenactment of what a normal day might entail. Not an actual day.

The first part of my day is being woken up by construction on the weekdays (screaming girls on the weekends). They are building a new subway line, which is sweet, but I hope that it's finished before I leave.

If I'm going shopping, then I jump on the subway. My closest station is Balsan (pronounced sort of like pie-san). It's on the purple line, which is also the line I need to take to Dongdaemun to shop.

We need to hydrate before we go shopping, so Phil buys a soda from a street vendor.

We also grab some food from the Dongdaemun Market. This is stir fried pork intestines, I believe. It tastes good, but it's very chewy. Andrew couldn't eat it (lame-o) so I ate most of this and Andrew ate the noodles. Then he got a deep fried hot dog covered in French fries. (I'll get a picture of that soon. I can't believe they don't have them in the US!)

Now we're ready to shop! We're going to Doota, which is in the background.

This is in the underground area of Doota. Lots of shops and people.

Phil is looking for the perfect shirt. Could this be the one?

I don't know why blogger won't rotate the picture. I rotated it in iPhoto, but that still doesn't work. Anyway, can anyone figure out what this shirt is trying to say? Konglish...

More Konglish. Peace and bombs in the same bubble? Hmmmm.

Leaving the market via the shoe area of Dongdaemoon. Phil likes.

Yeah, this is the subway theater. We can sit and watch performances on our way back home. Pretty classy.

Picking up supplies for the night. I think this was about $9 for 3 liters. Soju is too cheap! PS We did NOT buy this ridiculous bottle.

We did buy this though. Because we are stylish. And we needed the fiber.

And at the end of the night, Phil (pronounced "peel") and I are left to our own devices in Shinchon/Hongdae. Then we take a taxi home because the subway is closed. And that's the end of my day!

I have internet!

Hey everyone! I have internet in my apartment so now I have no excuse to be lame. It took a while because I wasn't sure if I would be staying in my stinky apartment but apparently Korean people cannot smell, so I have to stick it out until it is unbearable again (and hopefully that will not happen). Anyhow. A lot of things have happened, obviously. And I know most of you are super dorky, so I am going to try and include weblinks so that you can further research some of the cool Korean things I am experiencing. Here are some...

"Work" Life:
I am in my sixth week of teaching at the Mokdong-2 branch (http://job.cdi.co.kr/teaching/PhotoList.aspx?BranchIdx=86). I am finally getting the hang of it. I teach three different classes (but two of them are similar and since my school is so small, they don't have enough teachers to teach them separately so I have to double up). I teach English Chip Level 3. English Chip is the lowest group, so it's the most draining to teach because you have to entertain 10 year-olds who are tired because they have already gone to school, the music academy, math tutoring, etc. and then they come to the English academy from 7pm-10pm. Some of my students say they don't go to bed until 1 or 2am!!! EC classes meet 2 times a week and I teach four of them, so out of my ten 3-hour slots, 8 slots are EC3. My other two slots are Interactive Listening and Interactive Reading Level Par (for Interactive they use golf terms, so the lowest is Par, then Birdie, then Eagle, then Albatross. Yay! I know golf talk!). Par is the highest level for my school and I love teaching it! Listening is easier because you just have to play sound clips and then discuss them with the students. Reading is the other class and it is harder than Listening, so only five students (all girls, haha) are in it. It's nice to have a small class but it's harder to get them talking. They are getting more comfortable now, so it gets better each week. Most of my favorite students are in the Listening and/or Reading classes.

These are some pictures of my EC3 students, being crazy with the Photobooth on my awesome new computer!!! I had to bring it into work with me the day I bought it. (The picture on the left is supposed to be them on a rollercoaster. You can kind of see it above Billy's left hand. The other biy is John and the girl is Julie.)








Here are pictures of the classroom. The girl in the front of the right hand picture is my favorite student! Her name is Sally and she is SO cute and sweet. Another teacher, Phil, tries to take her from me, but she loves me too much to fall for his tricks. John from above and Sally are cousins. I want to hang out with their family. They must be cool and a little crazy.

Play Time:
There has been a lot of fun times had. Unfortunately there is little photographic evidence to support that claim. But the norebangs ("singing rooms") are amazing. When I went to visit my friend Debbie, we stayed at one until 6 or 7 am without even realizing it! People stay out so late that there are just as many people singing and walking around at 6am as there are when you start norebanging at midnight. (Sidenote: Sheila, I need your help dealing with pictures! Right now they always paste into the top. Do you know how to fix that or if Blogger just has photo albums? Thanks. :) ) So here are some of the highlights of playtime since I have been here...

Here are people from work. Every Wednesday (we get off early on Wednesday because we start at 2pm instead of 4pm) we go into Hongdae or Shinchon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongdae_area and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinchon) to "revel" as wikipedia put it. Left to right: June, Phil, Eric, ME, Sandie, Fabienne and Androuche. I don't know how to rotate the photo... :(


This is from the nght that our boss to everyone from our branch out to eat, drink and nore! Mr. Lee is the one dancing around and making everyone drink tornadoes (beer and soju, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soju)


Here we are eating silk worm larvae, called bundaegi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundaegi) which looks like roaches or something. That kid Ben bought some to challenge people to eat it. I accepted, of course. I think this youtube video captures the experience pretty well: http://www.ifood.tv/video/korean_food_silk_worm_larva_bundigie


This is us digging for sweet potatoes. We think it was really just slave labor...


But I kicked ass and got lots of sweet potatoes to take home. We made them with chicken, apples and cinnamon. yuuuuummmm...

Well, I have to go see fireworks. It's only about 1:15pm, but we have to get good seats and alcohol to occupy our time while we wait. I'll post about it!