Here we go!

I was talking to my parents on the morning of the 22nd, two days before I was scheduled to leave for Cambodia. I was eager to share everything about my trip, and was reading the information listed on the visa . "Entry is 24/Dec/2009, and exit is 24/Jan/2009, single entry with my passport number."

My mom interrupted me with "Wait, what? What do you mean January twenty-fourth, two-thousand NINE?"


Apparently embassies can make mistakes as well as the rest of us when it comes to changing the year when we end the old one. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal, but at the behest of my mother, emailed my travel agent as soon as I got a chance. Within an hour of the first e-mail, I had not only sent a scan of the page, but a "Quick Service" courrier had come to the school to pick up my passport, which I reluctantly handed over. Several emails throughout the day assured me that they would fix it with the embassy, and I would have my passport back in my hot little hands by the time I left work on Wednesday, my last day of work before I left.

Later that afternoon, after the students left and much to my surprise, I received my passport back from another delivery man. I eagerly opened the envelope, flipped to the visa page, and promptly broke out in hysterics at their remedy to the situation: scratch it out and write the correct date in black pen.


I thought at first that it was quite a fuss (and expense on the part of the travel agent) for something that I could have easily fixed myself. My co-teacher had to point out to me that they had stamped over the date, probably as proof that I hadn't done exactly that. I had to go back and check the original photo to make sure, but yes, a pen and a stamp was all it took.

So now, after a lovely Christmas chat with my parents in which we virtually exchanged gifts, I will finish cleaning my apartment. I love coming back to a clean home after a vacation, but I have more pressing reasons to make sure my place is clean this time. A friend of mine's family is coming in tomorrow to Korea to visit her, and then a few days after Christmas they're all going together to Japan. Her place is much smaller than mine. Her family has a place to stay after Christmas Day, but nowhere for Christmas Eve. I don't have much room, but I'm glad to offer a bed and a shower to them, but it of course means that my place needs to be spic n' span before I leave.

I'm all packed and really excited. I don't know how well I'll sleep tonight, but seeing as how I need to wake up at 5am, I'm thinking that I need to at least try to go to bed at a decent hour.

I'm, like, totally cultured.

I'm on several mailing lists for events in Korea, as well as facebook groups and other ways of keeping up with what's going on. In general, I will either delete the messages I'm sent or barely skim them if something looks vaguely interesting. In one of these emails, I happened to notice that the Seoul Arts Center was putting on not one, but two ballets for the Christmas season - Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. I took several years of ballet as a child, but I'd never actually been to see a real ballet before (and by real, I mean a ballet company performing, and not my school or another children's school). So I called up Kathryn to see if she wanted to go to one with me. We settled on the Sunday matinee of Swan Lake on a Sunday, which was amazing to watch.



I did get a little confused about the story line - it'd been a while since I'd been exposed to the story, and all I really remembered was Odette was a swan who had to be on a lake when the moon was out in order to turn back into a person.


Then I got a message from another friend, who had wanted to go to see The Nutcracker. My parents had a VHS copy of Baryshnikov dancing in The Nutcracker ballet that I practically wore out as a kid, so I knew that story quite well. The ballet they performed in Seoul was remarkably similar to the Baryshnikov one, with the exception of another pair of dolls danced with each other, while in the original it had been Clara and the Prince doing their goodbye dance. There was even a growing tree as the backdrop, and the Asian dancers were made up to look English from a distance.


.

They were both lovely performances, and I felt quite cultured (and lucky) that I got to see both

It's countdown time (again)

We finally had our musical performance at school today. The morning was spent doing last minute practicing, and the afternoon performing and then relaxing by letting the kids watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (the great old claymation one).

Sapphire girls

Sapphire boys

Not only do I now NOT need to worry about if my kids have memorized their scripts, dance moves, and staging, and get back to actual teaching, but today also marks my standard countdown time (I don't like to do countdown unless it's a week or less) until I leave for my Vietnam/Cambodia travels.

So here's the rough itinerary I've been building for myself for the past few months:

• 12/23 - Skype my parents and have our Christmas exchange online.
• 12/24 - Board a plane at 10:30am. Fly to Hanoi, and transfer to another flight to get to Siem Reap in Cambodia around 5pm. Get picked up at the airport for free by Earthwalkers and taken to the guesthouse.
• 12/25 - (Christmas Day) Take a tuk-tuk to Angor Wat before dawn so I can see the sunrise over the temple,
  
  
  
  take a ride on an elephant around the ruins,
  
  
  and get a bird's eye view of the temples from either a hot-air balloon or helicopter
  
  
  

• 12/26 - Either take a trip to the floating villages of Siem Reap or take a dirt bike tour of 'hidden Cambodia'
  
  
  
• 12/27 - Take a last look around my guesthouse, and then catch a flight at 2pm to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon), where I'll arrive around 3pm
  
  
  
• 12/27 - Arrive in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and get settled in the hotel.
  
• 12/28 - Do a walking tour on my own of Ho Chi Minh City
• 12/29- Take a boat from HCMC to several islands, including Dragon, Phoeniz, Turtle, and Unicorn Islands. Take a row boat trip around Unicorn Island and bike through one of the villages.
  
  Take another boat to Ben Tre province and attend a handmade coconut candy workshop. Take a boat through the canals to Vinh Long and bike to a home-stay with a Vietnamese family, where I'll have dinner with them and stay overnight.
• 12/30 - Go to the Cai Be floating market in the morning
  
  
  and then take a boat ride to get get to a local orchard. Take a bike ride through the village, then stop back in Vinh Long where I'll take a bus to a Bonsai garden in My Tho, and then back to HCMC.
  
  
• 12/31 - Fly from HCMC at 8am to Hanoi, where I'll be picked up at the airport by my hostel. Do a walking tour of Hanoi and the Old Quarter, buy some souvenirs, and ring in the new year with other travelers and then get some sleep
• 1/1/10 - Take a boat tour of Halong Bay.
  
  
• Spend the night on the bay and watch the sunset and sunrise
  
  
  
• 1/2 - Explore more of Halong Bay, any last minute things in Hanoi, and then head back to the airport for a midnight red-eye back to Seoul
• 1/3 - Arrive back in Seoul at 5:30am, get a bus back home, catch up on some sleep, upload my pictures and call my parents to tell them about the amazing trip I just had.
  

(most pictures found via google search or through the hostel websites)

Checklist

Things I wanted to get done today:

• fix the problem of an overseas address with my IRA
• get lodgings for at least one city booked for my Christmas trip
• type up the minutes from the ATEK meeting I ran yesterday and post them online
  
• research more about what there is to see in Siem Reap
• hang up my laundry to dry
• buy some more "stuff" for my kids' auction on Friday
• get at least something done on my TEFL
  

Things I actually got done today

• fixed the problem of an overseas address with my IRA - with a 27 minute phone call to add (get this!) ONE DIGIT onto my zip code.
• booked lodgings for three nights in Cambodia with Earthwalkers, an environmentally friendly guesthouse in Siem Reap that offers lodgings and tours. I'll be on the back of an elephant in the jungles of Cambodia on Christmas Day!!!!!
• typed and posted the minutes from the ATEK meeting. It wasn't a complete bust, but seeing as how I STILL don't really know what my volunteer job entails with the organization, I thought it was nice that I even had a meeting.
  
• Researched more about what there is to see in Siem Reap, and my three days is sooooo not enough! I can do off-road dirt bike tours of 'hidden Cambodia', hot air balloon rides over Angor Wat, and take a tuk-tuk around the literally hundreds of temples, ALL TOGETHER for less than $100!
  
• Hung up my laundry to dry.
• Updated my Bank of America account so that my IRA and student loan are both linked to my account. This way I can see my net worth slowly raising itself from the massive negative number that it's currently sitting at (half of my last payment actually went towards the principal instead of the interest!!)
• watched the next episode of Kung Fu - I'm about halfway through season 2
  

Adventures in Hangul

Since making the conscious decision to stay in Korea until my loans are paid off, I decided it would be in my best interest to learn Korean. I'm able to get by in normal situations that a foreigner would find themselves in, such as a restaurant, a taxi, asking directions, or other such things. But I can't carry on even a simple conversation in a social situation with someone about the weather, movies, interests, family, or anything else for that matter. And since my circle of friends is slowly growing to include non-foreigners, I decided that I need to take an actual class that involves tests, homework, quizzes, and tuition. I have taken two "classes" already, but because of the level of informality, they both fell to the wayside.

You would think that Koreans would be rather gung-ho about foreigners learning their language. If you think this, you would be surprised at how difficult it is to find Korean lessons for foreigners. You would also be surprised at how many Koreans have looked at me in wonderment and asked why I wanted to learn Korean, since English is so widely spoken here.

Regardless, I was determined to take lessons. I asked around, searched on the internet, and made inquiries wherever I could. I took a level test at City Hall a few months ago, only to find out that the single beginner's class was offered from 4-6 pm on Wednesday afternoons. Not the most ideal time, seeing as how I teach until 3:30 every day and I can't leave work until 5:30. I suppose that's what comes from offering free classes.

Then I found out in September that the company I work for, YBM, offers 50% discounts to any employees. So of course I jumped on that chance. However, after much fuss and discussion with the office staff, I came to discover that the 50% discount is only valid after you've worked for YBM for three months. So I sat on my hands in anticipation of November 1st, when I could start. At least, I thought so. According to the head honchos, because my contract says I started August 3rd (the first Monday of August this year, and therefore the first working day of the month), I wouldn't have worked a full three months until November 3rd, which was too late. So, I resigned myself to wait another month. While waiting, I somehow managed to excite Chris, one of my co-workers, into wanting to take lessons as well.

The registration deadline is the 20th of the month before classes start, and I had been asking Miss Mia (the now vice-principal), if I had been signed up for the classes at least once a week since the beginning of November. She kept assuring me that she had told Aaron, the office manager, several times so she was sure I had been registered. I wasn't so sure, and on the 20th I went in to talk to him myself, something I'd been avoiding because his English is only slightly better than my Korean. Of course I hadn't been registered, and so we spent the next 20 minutes or so making sure that he signed Chris and I up for the classes that we wanted (MWF 6-7:50). I went back a few days later to check on the first day of classes, since the first of the month fell on a Tuesday I wasn't sure if the first class would be Monday or Wednesday. Aaron called the school, and confirmed that classes did indeed start on Wednesday the 2nd.

So, Wednesday, December 2nd finally arrived. I was incredibly excited. I had gone the day before, like the dutiful student I am, to find the correct building and make sure I knew where I was going so I wouldn't be late for the first class. (And yes, I did that every semester in college as well. Who wants to be late for the first class of the semester?? It does NOT give a good impression, and you never know what you're going to miss.) Chris and I even snuck out about 10 minutes early so we could try and catch a bus. We ended up taking a taxi after I realized that the only bus that went to the place we were going came every 14-19 minutes, and we only had a 30 minute window to get there.

So, wrapped in multiple layers against the winter chill, we arrived at the building and I confidently strode up to the second floor ahead of Chris, eagerly anticipating what I was sure was going to be an informative evening. I approached the desk, where a Korean woman was standing behind it helping another Korean who looked to be signing up for English classes, and stood ready to wait my turn. Once she had finished helping the Korean, she turned to help me, and our conversation went something like this:

"Yes, can I help you?" she said.

"Hi! We're signed up for a Korean class today that starts at 6 o'clock. This is our first time, so we're not sure where to go or what to do. We also haven't paid yet." I paused, indicating her cue to point me in the direction of my classroom, or look to a list and see how much I owed for my class.

"Oh. Uhhm, there's no classes today." Her brows furrowed a bit when she said this.

I was a bit thrown off by this response, but I continued in an upbeat note. "Oh, there must be some mistake. You see, we were told we had to sign up by the 20th in order to take classes. I work for YBM, and the guy from our office signed us up last month. We're taking the Monday Wednesday Friday class that starts at 6."

"No, there no classes today. The schedule changed, only Tuesday Thursday class." At this point she seemed to be a bit annoyed.

"Oh, well....um. I don't understand. We signed up for the Monday Wednesday Friday class. That's why we're here today."

"No, no class. It changed schedule. Class start yesterday. Look, only Tuesday Thursday schedule."

At this point she pulled out a schedule and pointed to the block for 6-7:50 pm that did indeed show Tuesday Thursday classes - right next to the Monday Wednesday Friday class. I attempted to point to the latter but to my dismay she pulled it away and tucked it under the counter as soon as I reached out a finger.

"But, there's a Monday Wednesday Friday class listed on there. I don't understand. I can't take a Tuesday Thursday class. That's why we signed up for Monday Wednesday Friday. Are you saying that there's no longer a class during that time, and the only night classes started yesterday?"

"Yes. Yesterday first class. The teachers ask the students what schedule they prefer, and sometimes they decide to change the schedule. Now only Tuesday Thursday." At this point she was starting to huff a little bit, and was definitely annoyed with us.

"But, this is supposed to be our first class. It's the beginner class. I don't understand how the professor could have asked the students if they wanted to change the schedule if we haven't started the class yet. And if they changed the schedule, why didn't they notify us?"

"No, no, no, no! I don't know! No class today! Only tomorrow." She was really getting annoyed with me now.

"Ok," I said, a smile still on my face, though decidedly less enthusiastically that it had been five minutes prior, "Forget about December, then. What about January? Will there be a Monday Wednesday Friday class in January that we can take?"

"I don't know! Schedule always changes! I don't know!"

At this point, two foreigners who were waiting behind us decided to put their two cents in. The girl waiting by the desk said "I've been waiting four months to take a class. Schedule changes happen all the time."

The guy standing off to the side added "Yeah, they change the schedule all the time, you just get used to it."

I didn't really respond to them, since I wasn't quite sure how to take that information. Especially since the fact that I was asking a receptionist to supply me with information that I thought would be readily available was apparently an offense to her good natured-ness and I had inadvertently insulted her by asking why the class I had signed up for had suddenly disappeared. So instead I turned back to the receptionist for one final attempt.

"Ok, so you're saying that I can't sign up for a class in January, because you don't know if there will be a class in January, and that the class I signed up for that was supposed to hold the first class tonight has been changed by the teacher because he asked the students and they preferred a Tuesday Thursday schedule, even though we haven't started the class yet?"

"No, no! No classes today!"

"Ok, thank you very much. Have a good night." And I left.



I ranted and raved a bit with Chris at dinner, and we both puzzed and puzzled till our puzzlers were sore, but couldn't figure out what had actually happened, or why they hadn't told us that the classes had been changed or canceled. I decided to go ask Aaron the next day.

I hunted Aaron down, and asked him to call the school and find out what had happened, since we hadn't been able to take the class. He called, and didn't seem to understand the problem because the school said there was a Monday Wednesday Friday class. At that point, I decided that Aaron was no longer a helpful avenue, and I needed to find a new route to obtain the information I was looking for.

After a conversation with the math teacher, Sarah K, about what had happened later that afternoon after school, she decided to call them for me. After a rather long conversation, of which I understood hardly any since it was conducted in Korean, I learned the following information:

• There is a MWF class.
• The MWF class had been canceled for December because of low registration - only two people had signed up.
• There is no cancellation notification policy.
• YBM teachers are not considered normal students.
  
• Non-YBM students sign up for classes first, and if there are any spots left, they are then opened to YBM staff.
  
• Therefore, if a class fills up, I can't register because other people come before me.
• Also, if I am the only one to sign up for the class, they will cancel the class, but will not tell me that it's canceled.
• It is up to the teacher to decide if they want to cancel the class based on the number of students registered. There is no minimum number.
  
• I have to wait until the last day possible to register.
• I then have to call a few days before the start of class to see if the class is scheduled to continue, or if it has been canceled.
  

So, I'm going to try again for January, and hope Chris and I aren't the only ones this time. Never give up, never surrender! I will learn Korean...

This just in...

It's SNOWING!!!

It's the first snowfall of the season! At least, it's the first time that it's snowed in Korea this year in a place that I've been. And it's blowing around like crazy and starting to stick already. I'm utterly thrilled, and can't wait to get out and go to a palace or temple and take pictures!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.



*edit* - according to blogger, this is my 100th post.

cool.