I woke up at 11:30 today and saw how nice and sunny it was outside. I couldn’t let myself sit around my apartment playing xbox all day, so I decided to head out to somewhere I’ve never documented before. That place is Namdaemun Market (남대문 시장). It’s located at Hoehyeon Station (회현역), right between City Hall and Myeongdong. Myeongdong is another huge shopping area in Seoul, but has a bit more flash and allure.

Namdaemun Market is the largest market in Seoul. To get an idea of how huge this place actually is, check out the map I set up to show you exactly how big it is. What you see is pretty much 90% made up of the market.

You can find anything here. I saw ripoff Louis Vuitton stuff, fish split wide open, dentists, restaurants, you name it, really. I didn’t see much  in the way of electronics though. Nothing can beat my favourite place, Yongsan electronics market.

The place was completely buzzing because of the holidays coming up. I saw this really creepy Santa robot kind of thing that was doing the robot dance. I also saw some great bad Engrish shirts and hoodies, but I’m saving my pennies for my Hiroshima plan for Christmas. I am not 100% sure if I can afford to do it, but I know I will lose my mind if I have to sit alone in my apartment for the 9 days we get off for Christmas. I’d honestly rather work than sit at home doing nothing.

There’s a Salvation Army in this area, too. I went there and found this:

This used to be some kind of bakery with the Salvation Army attached to it. Now it’s being gutted and redone. I doubt the Salvation Army will be back there.  Sad.

Today I went to COEX mall to pick up some new shoes and a couple of shirts.

COEX is located at Samseong station (삼성역), which is also where the Seoul World Trade center is located. COEX is the biggest underground mall in the world, if I am correct. One of the reasons I hate that place is because it’s so huge. It’s hard to find pretty much anything without a map. There’s anything you can imagine there… even an Apple reseller.

Funny I mention that. I was there and I whipped out my iPhone with the cracked screen. You should have seen the faces of the employees there. Since the iPhone just arrived here on November 28th, they hadn’t seen a beat up iPhone yet. Mine is pretty haggard after a year of using it without a case. I’ve dropped it down stairs, on concrete, you name it. I even left it in a taxi cab one night. Luckily I have an amazing friend who spent 2 days of her time to bring it to me.

Anyway, COEX is huge. I’m not talking huge as in Yorkdale Mall huge. I walked out to find a payphone. After walking for 15 minutes in one direction, I realized I was still walking over the mall. There are several hotels built on top of it, as well as the Seoul World Trade Center. There are official retailers for many international companies as well, such as Nike, Adidas, Apple, Sony, Levi’s, you name it. It’s really a paradise if you’ve got a bunch of money and time to spend. As you know, I’m rich, so this is my ideal hangout. All English teachers are rich.

Speaking of the international experience, I went to some “Italian” place at the food court there. They had some pretty decent pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I love Korean food, but it was nice to have some real, greasy pizza, which was almost as good as HD Pizza at home.

The place is called Sbarro. It belongs to HAL/9000 on Flickr.

This is not my photo. It belongs to HAL/9000 on Flickr.

I have been here for 1 year and 5 months.

I have learned to read Korean fairly well, although I have no idea what it means most of the time. I’ve learned to understand some Korean, especially when someone is talking about me, and sometimes I wish I didn’t understand what people were saying about me, although I don’t really care what people think of me.

I’ve paid bills, argued with phone companies, moved across the city by myself, got sick, been rich, been broke, ate some of the most… interesting food I’ve ever experienced, learned how to adapt in a Confucian culture, finally seen the iPhone come (!), climbed mountains, been to a couple of different cities, been to Japan, learned to cook Korean food, taken over 10,000 photos… I could go on.

I still haven’t decided whether or not I am coming home in March, but right now I am 90% sure that I will. This will be my first Christmas not with my family. I made a feeble attempt to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation last night. I didn’t make it through the opening credits. It feels wrong to be without my family on Christmas.

I don’t mean for this to be another of those reflective posts. That’s getting a bit worn. I guess this will be about my next (or last) 3 months in Seoul. 25,000,000 people. Hell Canada has 35,000,000 people in an area bigger than China. One thing I’ve always wondered is how the sewer system here works. At least 20,000,000 people take a shower (questionably), use the toilet, wash their hands, etc. Walking down the street, you can often smell the acrid fumes from the sewer, but that’s to be expected in a city of this many people. Also, many Koreans refuse to drink the water. I myself drink the water often, and haven’t felt any ill effects. I think the issue with the water isn’t whether or not it’s clean, but possibly the presence of metals. Again, I’m not concerned. I did a tour of a water treatment facility with my old school and I was pretty impressed.

For Christmas this year, I am considering going to Hiroshima. My cousin went there this year and took some really inspiring pictures. I would love to see the monument and pay my respects to all those who died there. I’m hoping to find a last minute deal of some kind.

Anyway, this post has kind of turned into a ‘thinking out loud’ thing. That wasn’t really my intention, but it is what it is. I would really love some feedback from you guys in terms of what I should write about, or any questions you might have about my daily life. My email address is at the bottom of this page, so feel free to email me with anything you can think of. I’ve got almost 12,000 visitors now, and I’m sure at least one of you have thought of something you’d like to see here.

I’m doing a language exchange with a couple of businessmen I met at a Starbucks one day. They teach me Korean, I teach them English. It’s actually pretty cool to have a different perspective on things. They work for a really big company. One of them is a high-ranking internet security officer, and the other is a system administrator and trainer for (I’d say) the world’s leading corporate unix systems.

I have to go all the way to Jamsil (잠실) to meet with them every week, but we end up having a great time talking about technology and security.

Anyway, on the way to Jamsil is a station called Gangbyeon (강변). Here is Seoul’s second biggest electronics market, called Teconomart (테크노마트). I usually have a bit of spare time before we meet, so I got to look through Technomart. The salespeople aren’t as pushy as at Yongsan (용산), but from my experience, the prices are a bit higher at Technomart.

After 2 more stops, I arrive at Jamsil station (잠실역). Jamsil is an upper-class part of the city, and from what my friends tell me, one of the most expensive places to live in Seoul. Here there are huge apartment buildings with helipads on top. I’ve heard that a condo here can cost upwards of $5,000,000. That’s a lot of bones. Located here is Lotte World, one of the major amusement parks here in Seoul. I went there in the summer with a friend (see my previous post about it).

Jamsil is a really nice place, but it’s not very central. It’s about a half hour or 45 minutes by subway from the center of the city.

I’m still trying to decide whether or not to stay here another year or go home. I’ve got 3 months to weigh my options. Stay tuned.

It’s been a while.

I am nearing the end of my contract here. I have about 3 months left, and it’s put me on an emotional rollercoaster. There are days that I love this city so much that I want to hug every square inch of it, and there are days where it feels like its people and walls are shrouding me in gloom and despair.

I am wondering whether or not to stay here for another year. The main factor in my decision is the fact that my brother’s wedding is happening this summer, in mid-July, which is about a week before I’d have a week off.

I do love my job. I love the kids, I love the city, I have a free apartment, a culture that spans millennia to explore, amazing mountains, and possibilities of advancing and maybe even having a ‘career’ here.

But, while I was looking through photos of my family last night, I felt the emptiness of living without my family. I also really miss my area, Niagara Falls, the calmness of Port Dalhousie, the fact that I can get a slice of pizza and a pop for $3.50, my friends, and especially my dog.

He’s not a dog. He’s an Irishman from the Renaissance who was reincarnated.

I talked with my old coworker who is back in the US. He came back home without a plan, like I am right now, and he is depressed and pretty much without work. The same happened to the guy who left before him.

I am still weighing the pros and cons, and I haven’t talked to my boss about any of this yet. Best case scenario (if I stay), I renew my contract, come home for a week for my brother’s wedding, and stay in Seoul. I can’t miss my brother’s wedding. I’m hoping I can bring a special someone from Korea to the wedding with me. But that’s just me dreaming.

We’ll see what happens and how things pan out over the next month. I’ll have to make a decision by January or so. I know I will be spending Christmas here alone, and I hope to use the time to reflect and get out and see some things.

I am also considering creating an entire new blog devoted to translating rap lyrics into ‘high English’.

Sorry for the delay in my update. I’ve been kinda down lately, but today is a good day. I will try to get out and update my food blog as well. Stay warm.

On Thursday night, I left my iPhone in a cab. I was pretty upset about it, but I figured it was gone for good. It slipped out of my pocket while I was in the cab. I started to panic, thinking of selling off my stuff to get an iPod touch, so that I have the internet with me, as I have been accustomed to for the past 2 years, since I got my first iPod touch.

Thursday and Friday nights were restless for me. I wondered who had my phone, and whether they could find it in their hearts to return it. Hell, how would they even return it anyway? The whole phone is in English, aside from some of my Korean friend’s names.

Lucky for me, the cab driver had a conscience. He called up my friend who lives about 5 hours away from Seoul. She arranged to meet with him this morning. She called me up and said she was in Seoul, and that she would like to see me, that she had something important to tell me. I always get nervous when people say that. It’s usually bad news.

We met at Express Bus Terminal, and sat down for some coffee. I asked her what it was she had to tell me. She pulls out my iPhone. It’s really the last thing I ever expected. She lives so far away. She came all the way to Seoul, spent the night, and met with me today to get it back to me.

If that’s not the nicest thing you’ve heard all day, I’d like to hear what was.

Well, fall is finally here. Fall is my favourite season. Some people get what’s called SAD (seasonal affective disorder), which is an acute depression when summer leaves, and fall/winter comes in. I have reverse seasonal affective disorder. I get depressed when spring comes. When fall is in the air, I’m ecstatic.

I’ve really had a lot of time to sit back and reflect. I have only about 4 months left here, which will fly by. I am feeling a lot of nervousness about leaving Korea. I feel like I did most of my growing up here. Actually, I know I did. I had to pay my first utility bills, do my own laundry, and be accountable to nobody but myself. I’ve felt the highest of highs here, as well as complete rock bottom. I know that I will return to Canada a different person. But who will that person be? Yeah that’s lame and poetic-sounding, in a super-lame way, but it’s the truth. I worry about what my family will think of the new person who walks off the plane around March 13, 2010.

I know I will come back to Korea. I plan on coming back here with my brother and his wife. I am 90% sure that I will be back in Seoul, but I’m also considering Pusan. I hear from a lot of expats there that it’s not a good place if you like to drink, but I don’t drink, so does that mean that it would be great for me?

Yeah, I'm super good looking...

One thing I have learned (wow if I had 오백원 for every time I said that) is that you have to be humble. I’ve seen idiots come and go here, who came here thinking they knew it all, and that Korea (and the world) owed them something. The only thing Korea, or anywhere else owes you is the experience of living on your own, taking care of yourself. It’s not that I haven’t had a lot of help from my parents and family, but the stuff I see here is ridiculous.

I learned to be passive, and less of a hothead. I learned to just chill and see what happens… well, only with certain things, of course. I learned to tolerate other people, no matter how annoying they are. I learned to sleep through people hacking up phlegm in my alley, having to use chopsticks for everything (really can’t remember the last time I used a fork), and having cross-cultural relationships, which can often lead to a lot of understanding.

One thing I will never learn though, is to stop missing my family. That’s a part of me that will never leave. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of them. I worry about my grandmother, I worry about my mother’s worrying, I worry about my dad driving around a tin can truck all day, I worry about my little brother doing nosedives in small, single-engine airplanes in northern Ontario, I worry about my other brother’s stress with school, and the stress of putting together a wedding. I worry if I will still matter to my little cousins who I’ve been apart from for so long. I worry if my friends will still be there for me. A lot has changed with me and with them, and I wonder how that will be once I’m back.

Alright, this is getting long and kind of deep. Not really what I had in mind. Here’s a nature photograph I caught today during my break. Real, live Korean old men, in their natural habitat.

Yeah, I'm a thrill seeker, but crikey, education's the most important thing. - Steve Irwin

Yesterday my school and I went to Paju to make some tofu and pick some sweet potatoes. It took about an hour to get there. Paju is located in Gyeonggi-do, very close to the North Korean border. When we got to Paju, the streets were heavily fortified with traffic control devices that make drivers weave in and out between them. My guess is that this is to prevent any North Korean defectors from making a quick escape to the South. There were guards with huge machine guns strapped to their backs. We had to present our foreigner registration cards, and everyone had to have positive ID on them to cross into Paju. I always get nervous in situations like this, although I haven’t broke any laws in Korea since I arrived here, except maybe J-walking. I always expect them to drag me out of the car and arrest me.

It’s a beautiful Sunday that I couldn’t waste at home, no matter how sick I am. I headed to Apgujeong for some mexican food at Dos Tacos, which I reviewed in my food section.

Unhyeongung is located at Anguk station, exit 4 (안국 역). I’m on my way now. The Anguk area is known for its preservation of traditional Korean houses (한욱). I will definitely be taking pictures there.

Unhyeongung is a smaller palace that was part of the Joseon Dynasty. It was originally built in 1864. As with most temples and palaces in Korea, it has been destroyed and rebuilt into what it used to look like. The Japanese really did a number on this place. It was rebuilt in 1996. Admission was 700 won, or about 60 cents Canadian. I don’t mind paying these small fees to see cool historical places like this, because I know that the money is put to good use taking care of the place. By contrast, Seoul’s most magnificent palace, Gyeongbokgung, is 3,000 won, or about $2.75 Canadian.

This palace used to be bigger, but part of it is now used by a university.

There was a kind of dance performance happening when I went. It was pretty cool. I made a video of part of it.

This palace is much smaller than Gyeongbokgung (경복공) but it was pretty cool to see, and gave me something to do for the day. If you’re around Jongro-gu’s Insadong area, I definitely recommend checking it out, along with the rest of Insadong. If you’re a tourist or foreigner, I’m sure you’ll find yourself at Insadong to get some gifts and souvenirs for your friends and family.

I’ve added a food page, as suggested by my future sister-in-law. I will periodically update that page with reviews of different foods I’ve tried. I should have started this 14 months ago.

You can access my food page at the top of my main blog page. Just look up and to the right, and there it is, along with my music recommendations, the iPhone debacle, and my flower project.

Enjoy!