The Wheels on the Bus Go....

SLP took us on a field trip as they do every third Thursday... anything cheap and almost free will do!

My Cassiopeia class pink ladies, Joo Young, Seo Yeon & Da yeon (L to R)

We got to ride big buses all together and Cassiopeia class was once again donning their hot pink name tags (I love that pink continues to make itself known in my life after all these years of being opposed to it- and no, it wasn't my selection). Da Yeon gave me her little pink visor and it sealed the deal, we were off and the air conditioning finally kicked in.

As per usual, there was a fight over who got to sit with you so I just let the bus' motion throw me around in the aisle much to the children's delight. Je hee, my most troublesome little one whom I love (yes she's my temper tantrum favorite, a spoiled princess to be sure) got to get her hands on my iPod and I quickly set an age appropriate play list. We sang a little Bob Marley and Kate Nash. She bobbed her head to and fro. So kyuptah (cute), I love her!

This month was the National Museum of Korea where all us teachers got to say "Don't Touch" about 30million times. I somehow managed to accidently find the cool rooms with sexually provocative and suggestive art as well as some Warhols (these are famous, "What 'famous' mean teacher?")... and although I would have loved to stop and postulate, I had wee little ones who have yet to learn those things in any language.

Post-modern German photographs with nude women in black vinyl thigh boots was an awesome challenge to get the
kids to miss.


















And they did because I found robots instead. So caught up with the cool, literally not scorching hot rooms that we neglected to make lunch on time but we ate with our picnic mat just as quickly as we could and overall had a blast.



They each brought me extra gimbaps and fruit, I had lunch x7 and it was awesome.




Getting them to not eat their candy proved to be a chore... "Save for later, at go home time."

I love my kids but they are exhausting!

Some might call it hungover hiking...

I agreed to partake in a morning hike after little sleep and much wine. I made the commitment to do it even as a huge part of me wanted to head down to the beach and soak up the last remaining seaside moments of the weekend.

Mosquitoes buzzed and hopped all over us at the trail header and the greenery swallowed us up. Scaling the mountain, zigzagging back and forth didn't seem to strenuous but it wasn't necessarily welcomed either.

The incline became more rigorous, the girls ahead slipping and sliding in their flip flops, I forged ahead until I saw the ropes. The straight up, nearly vertical trail with ropes on one side to sustain those pilgrimaging up to the temple atop the island. Shit, ropes? Well, it couldn't be that bad, it would however be a first.

"I can do this, I can" I thought to myself as a man passed by me with a baby on his back coming down the mountain. For the first round, the first 3 minutes I just kept breathing and focusing on my footsteps directly in front of me and below, not looking ahead. Coming around a bend at the top, I exhaled deeply and through my back down onto a flat rock for a moment of respite and water. The endorphins were kicking in and my heart began to thump in my head blurring my vision.

I started up the hill again as those with me scampered ahead. We hit another leg of rope-dom, fuck! THe wine began to swirl and the lack of food to absorb began to talk to me. What was I thinking? "Stop, stop and go back, you're going to be sick" is what I heard but I just let the sweat trickle off my brow onto my nose and took an audible breath, beckoning my heart to stop it's racing.



Again and again and again, after each round of reaching a crest another ropes course hill appeared. An hour of battling my body and my mind, I reached the top. I could barely catch my breath as it found a dry pocket in my throat and brought about enormous waves of nausea. I wasn't finished though, there was still more, the temple had yet to be found.

More rocks, less grip, more breathing, more focusing on the task at hand and oodles of arguing with myself as to when it was okay to give up.



I don't know how I managed to not turn back, I surely would have before. My face was shimmering and although my eyes went in and out of focus due to lack of oxygen, I felt so alive and so accomplished.


Reaching the top after knowingly knowing that I "couldn't do it" and wouldn' t have created a silence that just ate me up. One of my favorite quotes from Illusions is echoing in my brain now so I suppose it should be typed: "Argue for your limitations, and you can have them."

A Better Beach, Deokjeok-do

Deokjeok-do. Do - meaning island... "do" do, indeed. Although it took us an unnecessary 24 hours to arrive there.
With two three day weekend holidays back to back this month in Korea, I had planned only to participate in travel for one of them. Come Friday night, I was told of the big plan and it set my wheels turning. A really awesome little lady named Lindsay, a fellow SLP teacher, is always in the know and given that she would be leaving after this month I felt obliged to atleast turn my head and listen to her invitation. So come 11am Saturday morning, I receive solicitous text message number two and the truth is I really had no excuse not to go. Laundry and grocery shopping could wait (as could the previous holiday weekend's unpacking).

$10 taxi ride to meet Erica (my last minute partner in crime) at Yongsan station, each of us chiding the other to make record time... I left the instructions and basic reigns to Erica for the rest of our travels. We fumbled our way to Line 1 and looked for our final destination, we were on the correct train bound for Dongincheon. An hour and a half later with twenty to minutes to catch another taxi to the ferry, we realized we'd somehow missed the part where we were should have transferred trains. When and where and how and what, not so sure but we were o the opposite end of the line, an hour's drive from where we were supposed to be. Muggy and frustrated we called our friends who were already island-ing it up and blushed over our mishap. Gimbap and another two hours later we were back in Seoul and putting on our dancing shoes. We were going to get to Deokjeok-do but just a day late. Dance, dance, dance until 3am and then 6am alarm clock- not the smartest of combinations but there was a long ferry ride on today's calendar. Perfect for napping. We made it to the right train at the right time, hailed a cab after asking a few locals with broken Korean and a good flip through my handy dandy translation book.





Grabbing coffee and our friend Robert, who had cleverly decided to add Baileys to his morning cuppa joe, we began to board the ferry that was docking. Passport? Passport number? I haven't carried it with me since arriving and my European money belt has long since been thrown away. We were held up, no passport number, no ferry.
Erica being the electric and elusive etherean that she is jut batted her eyelashes and said the obvious, "I don't have it" and just kept walking. I on the other hand flipped out a little and briskly made up a number and signed illegibly. We were gonna make come hell or high water!

Surrounded by blue and not a Seoul in sight, I was beyond happy. The ferry locked up the bow but finally let us out onto the deck when we were about 3o minutes from the island.

I miss being afloat and getting all wind bitten by salt air. It was definitely different than the Larkspur ferry in the San Francisco Bay. Strange little green islands blurred past and there was something strange about the air.



We finally arrived and beached it up properly.

This was a beach and this was a holiday. Sunburns were prevalent and so was Cass, Hite, and Soju. Pregnant lesbian English teachers, drummers, acoustic strummers, Canadians, Californians, New Yorkers alike- and all of us cheaply, happily drifted along without much sleep and without much care or concern for anything.

Busan weekend get away

Where to begin? Chronologically would be the popular vote I'm sure but who among you is keeping tabs?


Train rides and lots of 'em. The writing bug has been confined to my journal for the most part this past month and it's so disjointedly distracted these days with the humidity and oodles of opportunities around every corner.

I missed the most highly anticipated holiday celebration of the year in order to go and beach it, however I did find myself at Beomesa (one of the founding Buddhist temples in Korea) on Buddha's big day and witnessed many a lantern. Amber and I had planned to get away the moment we could and we did (as soon as our shifts ended at SLP we were on the midnight train to Busan for our three day weekend get away).

Busan was played up and it had been three months since I'd last seen the shore that my expectations were soaring. I've found that there's a general lackluster about things as of late, maybe it's the so-called three month curse (the majority of foreigners claim to hit a wall and fall down a bit at the end of their first quarter abroad). The beach was basically a park with sand, including pigeons and school uniform clad teens. Having committed to getting at least a drop of sunshine on my skin, I donned my bikini and caught many a stare. Curves don't happen in this country, and I certainly put them in check as I tip toed along the icy surf.

Amber and I did find ajima visors to bolster off the heat, which I think was the beach day highlight! Summation of Busan's main beach: for the birds (the pigeons).

There are no seagulls, not one! Returning on a whim at dusk we found that that was the real time to attend Haeundae Beach, the lights twinkle in the absence of stars and it almost can appear Mediterranean.


Best find was the awesome drum circle with Korean traditional drumming that nearly had Amber and I (chingus extraordinaire) demonstrating what hips are supposed to do with the crazy rhythms. Intoxicating truly, it brought on the elements, rain and thunder came shortly thereafter.

The other great find in Busan was appropriately not beach related but up in the mountains in the depths of stillness. Beomesa temple was such a treat, its gates were the opening to the heavens as legend says and we found ourselves leaving the city and the world behind. The green and the mists, it felt like fresh morning all day. I even stopped into a prayer room and was given instruction by a very kind old woman who placed prayer beads in my hands and showed me how to bow after lighting incense.

To get away from the masses was after all just what we had envisioned and so it was. Just have moments to giggle with no timetable or agenda was what the doctor ordered in any case. In fact, it was such a necessary prescription that like antibiotics we couldn't taper off a day early. Monday was a holiday and we had planned to return to Seoul after our Friday/Saturday jaunt but to no avail, all the trains were full. Hmmmm 7 hour bus ride in the humidity and expected holiday traffic or 5am Express train with first come, first serve seating the following day? We opted for the latter and I had one of the most delicious moments I've encountered in a very long time. With only a few hours from teaching the little ones, I still had the world to myself. It was my unprecedented introduction to The Land of the Morning Calm that is Korea.

I adore trains and I love seeing things from a different perspective, one of them being the rarity of true morning.
I often forget about the dawn, the aurora and its still, sweet gentle kiss that warms like a bird's heart beat. We often watch the details fade away into silhouettes, losing their distinction moment to moment as the sun sighs against the horizon amidst crimson and plum dusk. Morning, however, serenely heralds the day, the darkness fading away into cool descriptions like sugar wafers dissolving into sweet on your tongue. A witness to death and dusk, the magic of birth evading us, life and its simple and humble gifts go unnoticed and therefore imbalanced. I could see myself seeing the dawn far before my twilight years shake me up at ungodly hours and being ever so inspired by its yawns. My heart hummed with the train as it stumbled along without complaint and the day took its shape.

A Little Spring In My Step

The blossoms are budding and dandelion bubbly wisps are floating on greener air. Night and day, Seoul certainly is during one or the other.
The seasons have only played a roll on film for me during my life and to taste the spring as it comes out from sleeping in real life is delicious. I relish my Sundays and the aimless walkabouts in the sun that seem to spin like a web around you capturing the light and the dust.

It could be Paris but the air is too dense and exhaust filled, I can imagine though that just beyond that barbedwire is the Seine if I squinch my nose and sing Edith Piaf quietly to myself.

Mmmmm wandering and having adventures that nudge you gently in and out of cafes for a cup of tea is about all I desire anyhow on my day of rest.

I can't manage to stop myself from looking up, looking down, looking all around and sometimes just closing my eyes and not looking at all.

Daylight and crisp cool breezes that make your heart curl up and cat nap are the magical mysteries of the 4 o'clock unsung hero of an hour. Wherever you may be find yourself around that bewitching dusky hour and take tea, will you?

Walking with an intention and then realizing that my sense of direction is non-existent when rambling is on the menu- well, that and some silly pants, provoked the heartiest laugh these streets have heard. Leaving the vacant streets for a bit more population and choices for dinner led me back away from Haebangcheong into Hongdae, atleast I know my metro when I loose my head and my feet in the atmosphere.

After all, as S. Williams says "I'm a star, this life's the suburbs, I commute."

My Oma introduction

We often walk around, closed down and hearts zipped, and I must say that I'm grateful that I've never had an easy time of it. Something about starting a new adventure makes you see that every moment is part of the adventure, even the idle bits. There's no starting line, the race has begun and it moves on with or without your awareness. Two months ago I watched the California coast disappear from my sight and said goodbye for a year or more. I was met with a tear or two but mostly a calm stillness because I was stepping into my waking life. No food and with a bit of sleep I still managed to be as chit chatty as ever.

On my flight from Tokyo to Seoul, I found myself next to a lady, Mrs. Kim, who was eager to smile and ask me where I was from. Using my Lonely Planet translation pocket book we were able to converse for the two hour period. Enough was understood- she had a daughter, I was a new English teacher, I was a vegetarian, she wanted to make me kimchi and pumpkin soup. Done and done, she gave me her husband's email address and phone number.
So after a month of being in Seoul, attaining a handphone (cell phone) we attempted broken translation and her 10 year old daughter attempted to utilize her non-conversational English-so we could make plans to meet. "You come Daejeon station from Seoul station. Okay?" was about all I got but still didn't know if she was saying "DaeJeon" nor where that was. Made my way to Seoul station ( my second time navigating the Seoul Metro solo) and bought a ticket to DaeJeon on the speedy KTX train. I forgot my ipod but found myself quickly reminded of my love of trains and enjoyed being completely present to the rainy countryside passing by.



After a bit of confusion as to where I was supposed to meet them upon arriving, I grabbed the attention of a teenager and put them on the phone with the Kim family. They came and found me and then proceeded to take me into the mountains where we dined on traditional Korean food in a cliffside teahouse/restaurant/museum.
It was gorgeous and lavish. I didn't understand that I was spending the night and had nothing, not even a toothbrush. They prepared for me, evening giving me 10-year-old Sang Eun's bed. I certainly wasn't prepared for the shower pot, literally a pot, and squatting on cold tile with a bucket was a new experience to be sure.



The bathing experience of a lifetime, didn't get that zestfully clean feeling but it was certainly entertaining. Only recently have homes had running water and this is the traditional way of bathing- even in the jjimjilbangs.

Grandma Kim loves her plants and has about 45 pots filled with all sorts of greenery. I love this picture, I snapped it as we were leaving the house Sunday morning without them knowing.


The Kim family quickly became my family, and I was informed that their house was "your house, me house, ok?" Mrs. Kim asked me to be her daughter and that I call her Oma, she was so amazing. Strangers on a plane, no more. She showed me her craft, calligraphy, and taught me to write my name.
We went to museums, she made me ridiculously delicious pumpkin soup. She even sent me home with a care package of food and medicine (she could hear that I was getting sick). What blessings! I'll be seeing them soon for the Flower Blossom Festival, and I can't wait.

Sang Eun and I at King Muryeong's burial site, the tree blossoms were just beginning to bud and it was so cold. She's quite a character, this face sums her up quite well.

Need a hot soak for your footsies... pull over in the middle town, hike up your pants and have a go. Sang Eun was a bit surprised by a few funky toes, needless to say she didn't do the dip.

A bit tuckered out after so much sightseeing, a jam-packed day of ancient royal tombs, countryside, an overwhelming sushi lunch, and museums.

Ok? OK!

Okay, Ok Young is the nicest man I've ever had the privilege of meeting. Born in 1928, a word traveler and skilled linguist, he and I began a beautiful friendship at the Korean Memorial War Museum and it transferred into delicious spoils fitting of a princess.

Jessica and I were to meet Ok for tea and it turned into a gourmet meal at one of the finest restaurants in Seoul. We had the private executive lounge dining room and were treated like royalty. Ok knows the award winning chef and had prepared a several course delectable meal. The luncheon became a party of five when Mr. Lee (C.E.O. of Ok's company) and his son, Mr. Lee unexpectedly came to join us. Straying from the menu a bit as Jess is not shellfish friendly and I was a strict vegetarian at the time, made for interesting segways and a little blushing but it was quite delicious after everything was said and done.
We did go for tea sometime later (three hours, wine pairings and several courses later) and he welcomed us into his home at the base of Namsan tower. The view was epic as was the home he built that was rather modern and pristine. Inside we found ourselves cozy and warmly lit by 4 o'clock sunshine. It was quaint and modest and we were so grateful for his hospitality that never wavered.

It's nice to have a genuinely grand grandfather here in Korea, he's wiser than grandfather time and is far more generous.

He kept saying he felt "like number one", look at his little face- priceless! It's over, I love him.

And for the record....
It's too cute not to share, so here's an email from Ok shortly after our afternoon delight:

Dear Ella,

Thank you for your wonderful comment on our lunch. I hope Jessica enjoyed too. Did you get to your friend on time?
I have enjoyed every minute of your company.

I think you can do much better as far as your circumstance is concrened. Make use of the situation you in. I might help to you here and there. I would like to see you someday Embassador to Korea. Reportedly we would have Lady American Embassador soon. You are so young and smart, why not dream of, though extraordinary.

Again thank you for your warm mail and I will be happy to answear your questions on Korean history and culture any time.

All the best,

Ok