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“SAAAAAAAAAYTAAAAAAAAAH!”

Ah, time to wake up and greet another day in sunny, freezing cold Korea!

It's getting harder and harder to get out of bed these days. My window has a serious draft, and the heater (an ingenious sub-floor hot-water convection system) spends most of the night fighting to keep the thermometer somewhere north of freezing. I've tried plugging the crack with shirts and the window curtains, but the relentless wind always manages to rip my barrier down and slip into my room while I am sleeping. I combat the thermodynamic theif with my 20-degree down sleeping bag and a thick quilt.

By morning I am as snug and toasty as a hibernating bear, and just as reluctant to leave my warm cocoon. The howling wind outside contributes to my fierce retisence to open my eyes. However, hunger and my bladder conspire against me and usually by the time the laundry lady can be heard clump-clump-clumping towards my wing of Dongsamjugong I'm up and stumbling towards the bathroom.

“SAAAAAAAAAYTAAAAAAAAAH!” Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm up already.

By the time I throw my door wide and enter the land of the living Gavin has been up for an hour and a half, plugging away at the internet, a steel REI mug in his hand and some Bach wafting into the living room. He shoots me this look like he's just seen a ghost.

“Please tell me today is a coffee day,” I growl out and disappear into the bathroom. Gavin laughs.

“Yeah, it is.” Thank God.

Fresh ground Sumatran is ludicrously expensive here, nearly twice what I'd pay Stateside for the same bag of coffee. To extend our stash Gavin and I only drink coffee every other day. On the off days we drink a dry, earthy green tea. It provides half the caffeine and none of the excitement one finds in a cup of dark, smooth Sumatran joe. I live for coffee day.

If it's not coffee day I'll try to wake myself up by taking a walk up Bongnaesan. Simply getting out the door is like jumping out of an airplane. The twenty-knot wind shakes and rattles the windows that line the hallway like an angry, rabid dog. I secure my hat to my head, cinch my hood closed, zip my Gore-tex jacket up to my chin, crank up my iPod and jam my gloved hands in my pockets.

The climb up Bongnaesan is a fat man's nightmare come to life. The grade will steal your breath. Even me, a 2003 Appalachian Trail Thru-hiker (my ego had to get that one in) looks up in stupor at the trail winding upwards from the streets of Young-do. By the time I've reached the top my hat, gloves, and jacket are all off and I'm sweating through my sweatshirt.

The view is worth it, though.



Most mornings I just can't muster the nerve to get out the door. Luckily, the lean Korean diet keeps me from gaining too much weight. I'd love to talk more about the food, but I'm saving that subject for an entire blog update. There is alot to talk about. Well, before I waste too much more time, here it is...

...Strait from the country that played Starcraft when they should have been studying for their English exam comes your favorite sayings, idiotic idioms and mistranslations: The Korean Files!

“I can turn reality into anything” (...With enough alcohol... - student notebook)

“Happy is he who desires what he may and does what he ought” (OK. What, exactly, am I allowed to desire? - Student notebook)

“Romantic Place: How you got me blind is still a mystery. I can't get you out of my head.” (You were also alot uglier until I was rendered sightless. -Student notebook)

“Have A Cool and Happy Thanksmoving” (The little-known holiday celebrated by the British commemorating when the Pilgrims left England. --Sweatshirt)

“Pinky Plinky Death” (...Makes for delicious Pinky Plinky soup. - Sweatshirt)

That was fun, wasn't it? If you just aren't getting enough wacky Asian mistranslation from SoKoNotes, you need to check out www.engrish.com. It's all the fun of SoKoNotes without the annoying guy spouting off useless opinions and posting photo after photo of random old women at busstops.



Oh, but that reminds me. The title of this week's update: Oh, You Mean There Are People Riding My Bus? The Many Species of Busan Bus Driver.

The cold weather mentioned earlier has rendered my motorcycle almost totally useless. Sure, the temperature climbs to a managable 40-degrees (No. Farenheit) in the daytime. I say manageable. The wind still finds and exploits every opening in my plastic and Goretex shell, and in the shade the temperature drops ten to fifteen degrees. At night, riding a motorcycle is to come to a new and horrible understanding of the word 'shrinkidge.' I have to park the bike and drive it home the next day.

So the bus has once again become my primary method of transportation. I actually think I can hear my parents sighing in relief from here. Golden bank tree leaves fill the engine compartment and cling to the spokes in my absence. Sometimes when I walk past it, I cast a sad glance towards the motorcycle, wondering if the cold will break soon so I can don my black helmet and streak through the city to parts unknown.

The bus is a poor stand-in for the motorcycle. It's warm, sure, but it's slow, often crowded, and I don't feel appreciably safer. After a long day of working at ESS there is nothing quite like clinging for dear life to a bar overhead while the driver whips the bus full of people through the streets of Busan like a child might drive an R.C. car. As these nightly trials have progressed, I have become the Charles Darwin of the Urban Jungle and started a bus driver classification system based on the severity and type of driving characteristic.

Ah-hmmm. The Origin of Species...Of Busdrivers In Busan.

Lurchers: There are buses that sway inexplicably from side to side like drunks. I'm not sure if this the driver's fault or some sort of problem with the bus' shock absorbers, but the drivers' general tendancy to drive erradically makes it worse.

Weavers: These are kind of like the lurchers, but this trait can be traced to the driver himself and not to any flaw with the bus. These guys behave like the only other vehicle they've ever driven was a motorcycle. They weave in and out of traffic, hog lanes, and dart rapidly to the curb to pick up passengers.

Slammers: Some drivers seem to know only two positions on the brake pedal: Off and pressed-to-the-floor. I've never had the laws of physics illustrated so forcefully for me as when I am on a Slammer's bus. So THAT'S what Conservation of Momentum feels like.

Jumpers: The opposite of Slammers. Now if only I had 100 won for every ajumma hurled into my arms...

Poppers: No desperate housewives here, only a tragic inability to properly operate a clutch. Busan's busses are old, manual transmission relics from the end of the last century. The worst Poppers can hurl people to and fro like waves turning shells on the shore.

Every now and then you get on a bus and you make it home without getting motion sickness. These good drivers are a rare species, driven to near extinction by pressure to be on what I assume is a very tight schedule. The good people of Busan often spruce up the difficult bus rides with their good heartedness. I cannot count the number of times a passenger sitting down has offered to hold my bags for me until either they or I got off the bus. The drivers are always polite and well-dressed and the busses are always clean and warm.

But I digress.

One of the peculiarities of teaching English is discovering how hard it is to learn English. It is a healthy alteration of perspective when you see how hard it is for someone to differentiate between an R and an L when their native language has neither. It reminds me of a joke a close friend of my father's used to tell about a Chinese restauranteer trying to say 'Fried Rice.' You can guess the punchline. I live it every day.

I teach the 5Ps on Fridays: Basically, the worst of the worst of the worst fifth graders at ESS. I started out with four students, but more and more join the class each week as their Korean teachers weed them out of the higher-level classes. Now I'm up to eight, and on the menu is nothing but meat and potatoes: ABCs, there is, that is, it is, colors, numbers, and simple vocabulary like 'cat.' Last week we studied foods.

I asked the kids what about their favorite foods. The vast majority listed fried rice (Kimchi jigae) as their top choice. To a child, they all spoke it incorrectly: Flied Lice. In Korean, there is a letter called 'leer' that is a difficult-to-pronounce combination of R and L. Try saying 'R' with the tip of your tongue shoved into the roof of your mouth and you'll just about have it. Sometimes it sounds like 'R' and sometimes it sounds like 'L,' depending on the word and the person speaking it. I generally pronounce it like an 'L' and no one corrects me.

To take a leer and split it apart can be confusing for the Korean children. So I give the 'flied lice' speech. I first diagram the 'L' and the 'R' on the chalkboard. Next I write 'fried rice' under the 'R' and draw a bowl of steaming fried rice. The children all scream and rub their stomachs and yell, 'Teach-uh give me. Give me!' Then under the 'L' I write 'flied lice' and draw a human head frowning with little insects jumping all over it. 'Rice' I say and point to the bowl of fried rice. 'Lice' I slowly enunciate while indicating the insects. The class goes silent for a moment and then the realization hits all the children at once. Their eyes light up in disgust and they hold their mouths and shake their heads.

“NOOOOOO, Teach-uh!”

At least for the rest of the class period they pronounce their R's and L's correctly. By next week they're back to their old habits again.

Well, there isn't a whole lot more to talk about from last week except how bloody cold it is and the complexities of learning the English language. On to the photographs.

The shops of Nampo-dong have been closing earlier in response to the colder weather. A month ago this alleyway was thick with people by this time of night. Now it's a good place to get jumped.



These ajummas extend their operational hours by covering their alleyway restaurants with plastic tarps and cranking up a space heater or two. They aren't partial to having their photographs made, as evidenced by the cold look I'm getting here, but they can whip up a plate of steaming, nutritious food in no time flat.



Oftentimes the people eating within the tent are a friendly lot. These men allowed me to photograph them and then they let all but forced me to partake of their food and share few shots of soju...Actually, five. The rest of that night is somewhat of a blur.



If you are in a rush and need something hot to eat, stop by a covered tent.



Gavin and I went to the Busan museum over the weekend. It was better laid out, cleaner and more English-friendly than other museums I have visited in Busan. I learned, for example, that the concrete bridge from young-do to Nampo-dong was made by the Japanese during the occupation between 1910 and 1945. The orange steel bridge that I cross every day to come into work was built by the Koreans.

The Koreans shared very nice relations with the Japanese for hundreds of years, as they were equally capable of kicking each other's butt. However, the British gave the Japanese firearms and unbalanced the equation late in the 19th century. The Japanese invaded and annexed Korea. They oppressed the population, enslaved the women, and built a few bridges before being evicted by the Americans in World War II.

I spotted this museum-goer and took a photograph.



Old men.



Pigeons.



Pigeons and old men, together. Yongdusan park.



The light is fabulous in the city.



Gavin and I went to the re-opened Ole' 55 bar Saturday night. They had a punk band come in and cover a few Beatles songs. They were skilled musicians, but terribly unoriginal in their style. This was their lead singer. When he wasn't singing, he was...



...Wishing his favorite bartender a happy birthday.



Look ma, no safety harness!



The air is super dry here. Many mornings I wake up feeling like a mummy. It takes a few cups of water and a shower to restore the moisture to my skin. The cool, dry air turns wet laundry into stiff laundry in a matter of hours. Check out Gavin's shirt standing up by itself on the table top.



Old man at Seomyeon station. Either he was blind or he truly didn't mind that I was photographing him from a distance of one foot.



He had these great big elongated ears. I liked the way the light caught his face and so I made a photograph.



Well, that about does it for this addition of SoKoNotes. For all of you who don't know, the link below will take you to the public folder of my iDisk where you can download soundbytes from Korea. The latest update, which will be made available a few minutes after I publish this, will be from my first day on the job. Yeah!

http://homepage.mac.com/fotonotes/FileSharing1.html

Peace. --Stephen