Childhood Memories

Yesterday, I punished a kid by sending him out into the hallway to face a wall and hold his hands above his head until I was ready to let him back into the clasroom. I usually do this for about 15-20 minutes, long enough to make their arms hurt. Yesterday, the principal was walking by and decided to give Tom (the kid) a verbal lashing. I opened the door just in time for all the other kids to hear this, so they were all frightened into submission. After the class, the head teacher came up and to me with a message from the principal. He said that I can punish kids however I want to, but don't make them face the wall. It leaves them with bad childhood memories to face a wall.

HUH?? I read journals from other kids whose mother's beat them with shoes or slap them if they don't study hard enough. One of my students was sick, and called her mom to come home. Her mom said no, keep learning English. I'm not a childhood psychologist, but seems to me that these things, beatings and constant slave driving in school, would leave kids with bad memories. Dunno, just throwing it out there.

Ok, I'm going to Nepal.

I talked to Denise on Skype for the last little while. She is in Goa, India. We were talking about her experiences so far being in India and Oman. I had a million questions. Last week I was really lonely without her. When we hung up, I got on Google Earth because I wanted to look at the Mount Everest Base Camp area. I am so excited I can hardly type. I only have 3 more weeks and then I will be there!

From Google Earth, the area looks like the moon. There is no vegetation, there are one or two buildings here and there in the villages, there is a river going through the valley we will be hiking through. Hundreds of people have posted photos on GE and there are temples, prayer flags and prayer rocks all along the way and it looks so beautiful! Up to this point, I think my mom was more excited about this part of my trip than I was, but now I am so excited and feel so lucky that I am going there. Also, I was a bit nervous about the physical challenge of the trip and the risk of altitude sickness. As long as we are safe and respect our limitations then we will be fine.

20 sleeps left!

I'm sooooooo done

Today was interesting. Actually it was the worst day of my working life. The head teacher yelled at us (foreign teachers). I cried. I went to the doctor and I have another bladder infection from stress. The doc told me to stay off my feet as much as I can because lying down is better for it. Well, working for 12 hours a day doesn't really help that, so too bad for me.

The 12 hour days are rough. I like the morning classes because they are more fun. But after that, the marking, marking, marking, photocopying, entering things into the computer, having the boss tell me to hurry to class (EFF off), is getting to me. So today I had enough. On MWF I have no break, which reduces the amount of time for marking all the extra stuff we have to do. Whatever, details. Friday is a holiday so I'm not going to get everything done with one less day. Anyway we got yelled at because we don't know how hard it is to be Korean and work so hard and blah blah blah. I know they work hard, too hard in my opinion. But its not my fault. They shouldn't put up with it. Like I've said before, we give an inch and they take a mile.

I am sooooo ready to leave this job! I was almost worried about getting fired today, which wouldn't be a surprise here. With 3 weeks left, I could get fired and they wouldn't have to give me my bonus. For the next three weeks, put my head down, hurry to class, speak english, bend over for the school. And THEN I can leave.

JPG Magazine

I created a photo essay of my trip to Japan. Check it out on a site where I post photos.



PS I also have uploaded photos to Flickr. FINALLY!

I miss Japan

As I go through photos day after day (getting them ready to post), the feelings I had when I was at some of these places come back to me and I really miss that place! Everyone was so kind. No one tried to run me over in a crosswalk, the drivers were good, there was no spitting, people held doors for me, the streets were so clean. There was no rotting garbage smell anywhere. The people were different from one another. Japanese people have amazing style. They express themselves through fashion and hair and piercings and tattoos. I want to go back!

Korean Massage

I went to the sauna the other night. Its a public bath and it is the best thing about Korea. I got a massage and a scrub too. Now the term "massage" should be not be used. There was a lot of slapping and punching. I doubt that the lady doing it was an actual masseuse.

I love going to the sauna. You go in, scrub down, get clean and then enjoy the hot and cold pools, the massaging jets and just relax. I try to go as often as I can. This time I splurged and got the massage too. So I am totally naked, and this older bigger Korean woman in her bra and underwear is my masseuse. I lie down on something like an examination table and she scrubs my whole body. She scrubbed so hard I thought she was trying to take the ink right off my tattoos. Then she douses me in baby oil and proceeds to "massage" me. It was painful. When she wasn't slapping or hitting me, she was pulling my arms and legs. Its a wonder I didn't slide right off that table! Plus being naked made me feel even more awkward. Then she runs her forearm down my calves and give me the biggest charlie horse. I yelled and she stopped but in the mean time I have this horrible muscle cramp in my leg. I limped for a while afterwards it was so bad.

I was done with the sauna after that. They give you a set of shorts and a t-shirt so you can hang out in the public areas afterwards. The public areas have hot and cold rooms, a real sauna, a restaurant, mats to sleep on, a computer room, a dvd room and an esthetician. I got my nails done and befriended the lady who did them. She didn't really speak english but we managed to have a conversation. Through it all, we made a date for me to come back and get some of her homemade kimchi.

Hiroshima, Miyajima and Fukuoka

I have been home for 4 days and I have caught up on sleep. I had to work on Friday. Only Friday. I had Monday through Thursday off for vacation. Yes, work on Friday. That's the Korean way.

I really miss Japan! Its my favourite country now. People were so kind and considerate. They stopped at crosswalks. They didn't run red lights. They held the door for me. They didn't spit. There were no motorcycles on the sidewalks.

After Kyoto, I went to Hiroshima for 2 days. I back tracked a little and went to Himeji Castle. It was old and beautiful. I went to the Peace Memorial Museum and the A Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. It was interesting. I didn't feel as much as an impact after I visited the Hollocaust Museum in Washington DC. Its hard to explain, but Hiroshima did not affect me strongly the way I thought it would.

I hooked up some friends at my hostel too. Romi had just arrived from Korea and some people she knows had been in Japan the same amount of time I had. We had dinner. It was nice to talk to people again.

The following day I went to an island called Miyajima. There are wild deer everywhere and this island has the famous gate build out on a mud flat, so when the tide comes in, it looks like the gate is floating. It was beautiful there. I bought a round trip ticket on this gondola thing cause I was feeling lazy. I got to the top and there were monkeys everywhere. I walked to the other peak and took tons of pictures. The skies were getting dark though and I could hear the thunder. By the time I got back to the tram, they had postponed service because of the lightening. I waited for about 30 minutes and knew that it wasn't going to be soon. So I started walking down. It was pretty easy. However the skies opened and I got poured on. It was the same in Jeju. I looked like I had gone swimming in my clothes. I had just given my umbrella to a girl I met at the hostel that morning, thinking it won't rain. That's the problem in Asia, it can change so fast.

So I was soaking. I stopped for some food and then sat in the sun (which had just come back out conviniently enough) to try and dry my clothes off. I even went into the bathroom restaurant, took off my shorts and top and rung them out into the sink. I was too cold to stay there so I headed back to the mainland. I really wanted to see the gate with the tide in and get more pictures. I was just a series of unfortunatly timed events.

This was my last night in Japan so I had to get back to Hiroshima station, retrieve my backpack from a locker and change. Then I got on the train to Fukuoka. I wasn't really excited about going to this city because it didn't seem to have a lot to do.

I ended up renting a bike on my last day. I rode around Fukuoka and went shopping. AMAZING shopping FYI. I found this one store, sort of like a department store, IKEA style, but they sold everything. Appliances, food, bikes. But everything they had was gorgeous and simple. I jsut bought some tea cups, traditional Japanese style ones but they are way more modern. And they were $3.50 each as opposed to the $35 ones I had seen at other pottery stores.

I was sad to get on the ferry and head back to Korea. I truly had a wonderful trip and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed traveling by myself. I did what I wanted when I wanted. The only crappy thing about traveling solo is that there was no one to put sunscreen on that middle part of my back that no matter how I bend my arms I can never reach. Having a friend around would have been nice for that.