On Friday, April 26

We gathered in Sillim

to celebrate Mark Kim,

and have general merriment

and boy was it fun.

It was Mark Kim's Birthday. One of my longer friendships in Korea, we met each other last February while hiking Gwanaksan.

Good Jinsu; bad Jinsoo...I made them switch clothing.

They are Korea's Goofus and Gallant. (remember? from HIGHLIGHTS magazine?)

이차! /ee-cha/ (means second place)

after dinner we went to 이차 for drinks and merriment. Shaun lives nearby and he came over on his motorbike. my head is WAY too small for this helmet. Kate and I got a little silly--we hid behind things and jumped out at Mark, singing the Red Robin Restaurant birthday song.

"Happy Happy Birthday, May all your dreams come true."

"Hapy Happy Birthday, from all of us to you, HEY!"

Writing to my Students: A Miss Susan Story

As if I didn't have enough to do for my students and work, I decided to keep a web journal for my students to read about my personal life, using the key phrases and vocabulary they are learning in class. It is incredibly simple, but here's the link if you want to look at it :)
http://misssusanstory.blogspot.com/
Peace,
Sus

TRANSITION...UGH...SPRING...YAY!

Ah...I am having a rough couple of weeks. Here is a pic of Cari's goodbye party at a very hipster spot in the trendy-yet-outta-the-way-the-way-hipstersl-like-it neighborhood called Gangnam-gu cheong. Theres a lot of happy faces and good people in this picture. and all of them,

are departing slowly yet sequentially from my life. It is weeks between each departure, but it seems like a blink, and they're gone. I'm looking back at photos from memopries that seem like yesterday and relizing that it was ten months ago that Nina and I sat at Olympic park and sipped hot chocolate from the wrap around porch at Tous Les Jours coffeeshop, and it was five months ago that I was excited for the first snowfall, rushing off to the park to build snowmen with my dear friends. It's been two months since my last concert, a week since my last good climb, and two days since my last goodbye. it's killing me a little bit each time. Maybe i'm being melow-dramatic, but i've been here nearly 3 years, and every six months or so, I have to go to parties, and live it up till my good friends leave, and then I have to go out and meet new people and have this conversation:

"So, hi, I'm Susan"

"Nice to meet you, too"

"Where are you from?"

"Seattle...well near Seattle...but I lived there before moving to Korea."

"What brings you to Korea?"

"Ah...interesting...hmmm...."

"Yup, yup, I work at a public school. Did my time at a hagwon...oh really? you work at a hagwon and you like it? good for you."

"...? just about two and a half years...yeah I guess I can speak a little Korean."

"So do you like hiking? is this your fist time with __such n' such__'s group?"

"Oh...I see..."

"You hate kids? then why are to teaching kids???"

ugh....stop already i'm bored!

So yes, I go thru this convo so many times.

yesterday I hiked. and it happened again and again. I listen to this convo more than i take the time to have it anymore.I would rather ask, "Who's your favorite Pooh Character?" or whatever else is on my mind. The other one I hear a lot is travel-talk. What to do/see in Thailand, Malaysia, India...oh yes, I've been there, you must go try blah blah blah....

Sometimes it's interesting, It's just so distant, removed, and easy convo.

I got bored on the hike yesterday, even though the view was INSANE, and we literally climbed up the face of the mountain at times. most of the way up, actually was practically vertical. I promise to post some pics, but I didn't take any while hiking, too busy focusing at the work at hand!

Kate and I sang a lot of songs and it was joyous, and I found myself thinking about what I would miss about Cari a lot. That's the thing about hiking, though. If you have things to sort out, it can really clear your head. but if you're trying to distract onesself, you very well may find yourself bawling on the side of a mountain, or downright miffy, at the least.

Langkawi; tropical island paradise; Two girls named Stephanie

I don't even know where to begin here.

Landing in Langkawi and arriving at my hotel, I realize that I am on a real, honest-to goodness vacation. this spot has everything a good vacation needs:

-beach

-sun

-sand

-fancy cocktails

-palm trees

-no expectations

-

-

-

And then There were the extras:

-motorcycling

-parasailing

-cable car

-crazy monkeys

-friendly jungle cops

-lofty mountain swimming ponds

-friendly people

-great food

-good massages

Oh, and don't forget the two girls called Stephanie.

They also were traveling alone.

We banded together and explored the sights. Stephanie and I got attacked by a monkey on day one, and day two, Stephanie, Stephanie and I went to the beach and parasailed. Well, Stephanie and I did...Stephanie decided to ride over to the island and watch and take pictures.

We waded around in the water, watched other parasailers, and chatted about really nothing at all. On arriving back at Cenang Pantai; we found beach chairs and our books and took each time playing in the water, sleeping in the shade, reading, writing, and chatting.

That's really all I did in Langkawi. No major life lessons. other than...beware of foreign drivers and remember to remind yourself what side of the road you're supposed to be driving on...

oh yeah, and Monkeys are cute but they are crazy. don't look it in the eye! don't touch! don't run...and most importantly, Don't call it any bad names!

Pulau Ketam; Crab Island

This island blew my mind. Sam and I went there on a whim; a..hey let's leave the city and see what we find. one hour by train to the port Kland on the Western sea, then a tootin' rustic ferry ride (we caught the slow ferry there 1.5 hours; and the fast one back--30 freaking minutes!) on the sea and we had reached Pulau Ketam; in English it is Crab island. We expected to maybe lie on the beach, see a small town, but neither of us expected this: an island built on stilts. the WHOLE thing. nothing touched the ground, and it resembled to me a residential representation of the game; swamp monster that my siblings and I would play on the slide at the park. you can't touch the ground, or you're out. the swamp monster tries to tag you but can't get on land...

Ketam is the Malaysians weekend vaca spot. We were two of maybe eight white people there, and I was certainly the only American. The town seemed to speak very little English, its residents were neither thrilled nor ingenous toward their visitors.

At the entrance to the town there is a white-sea-whithered old hotel renting bikes for 5 ringgit each. they're old and too big with giant baskets on the front, and the seats don't adjust due to salt-air rustage, but we get them nonetheless. We notice then that the roads are also on stilts. The concrete slabs that was roughly the width of a neighborhood sidewalk come up off the ground, and a rider who is not careful could find themselves kareening one way or another off the edge of an un-fenced edge, and in who knows how many inches of mud???

We visited every temple and I took pics at each one; the markings looks like the dharma initiative stations on LOST...

I did many headstands...

We met some fishermen. After seeing my headstand they invited us to their bbq at one of the local shrines. It seemed they had gotten up so early, fished, and started bbqing and drinking as the sun rose. they had a bottle of brandy that was the length of my arm--like a gag prop from an improv show--and it was almost empty at 230 in the afternoon.

We visited a restaurant boasted "We speak English," on a sign--surprise!they didn't--one of their guys did. We got all types of seafood, and I ate my first prawns, sweet-and-sour crabs, and some other things. AMAZING. everything was so fresh. It was indeed the most authentic thing will have experienced on this vacation in SE Asia.

Thank you, Pulau Ketam!

Batu Caves; Malaysia

Day two in Malatsia was hot and sweltering. Did I mention it was the middle of winter? I had been walking thru snow not 48 hours earlier! I heard of the Batu caves through my correspondence with the folks on couchsurfing.com--they told me Batu in one of the top must see sights to visit while touring KL.
We tromped through the city on an early Sunday morning. It was the final day of the Chinese New Year, and Chinatown--where we caught the bus--was bustling as usual. we found the bus adjacent to the bank. and took and hour ride out to the GOMBAK district, about 8 miles out. We arrived at the most massive and elaborate cave mouth I've ever seen; made from limestone, it takes 272 steps to ascend into the mouth of the caves. you must pass by a giant golden statue who is facing away from it, like a guard with a staff. We took off our shoes and walked up..up...up.
Inside there was water dripping--limestones are alive with fresh water; without it they would crumble and die. People of all types, from all around the world, were drawn to this place. hindus visiting shrines, getting their heads covered in ash during the lunar holiday; tourists snapping photos; and me, doing headstands. There were monkeys running up and down the rocks, and the place reaked of incense. Touch the walls and they were soggy with a moist, ashy substance. I found that out the hard way.

Sun, Sus, Sam...here we are at the end of the main cave, trying to pose like the statues above.

This man on the bus has yellow ash smeared all over his head. We're on a bus heading back to Kuala Lumpur.



I was inspired by traveling again, and overjoyed to have made a few new friends, I'm so glad my first stop on vacation was so voerwhelmingly successful! When I arrived I jumped excitedly; I recognized this as one of the checkpoints for the contestants of the Amazing race! ...also I found out a month later that they were again in Malaysia (this time Penang)...during the same time I was visiting Langkawi. Ka had said, don't go to Penang...it's lame. so I skipped it...hmmm.

More pics from Seoul Pillow Fight Night

Open Demo Class has has been Scheduled

My first of what is to be FIVE (count them, 5--last year it was just the one) demo classes of the year has been set for May 19th.

Mark your calendars, people! The party's coming to MY SCHOOL!

Classics never die; and therefore they are so...

I've been away so long from this site, I fear my fake fish may have died!

Hey y'all! I must apologize for the tardiness of my blog entries as of late. March is always such a busy month--being the new school year and all; my class load has practically doubled; and new standards tests/lessons/open demo class rules have got me all abuzz day in, day out.

In the evenings, I try to wind down by meeting my running buddy for a run around Sokcheon lake in Jamsil; and after that I climb at the local bouldering gym, K2.

Once a week, I try to stay home and get some rest, and on the weekends I am heading out to explore the world where I live. I love to hike the mountains in and around Gyeonggi Province, and I have fallen in with a cool group of rock climbing mad men and women, who inspire me to scramble up stones, mountains, and anything I can get my hands and feet on.

Last weekend I found myself in a big ol' pillowfight near city Hall. it was insane! how much fun was it? well it was a lot of fun. We beat the snot out of each other for an hour and a half! and then we went to Itaewon for teriyaki. On Sunday I joined some West-enders for a game of kickball. we had nine players which made it tough to play--not enough people. until three 8th grade kids joined in and we had a rousting good time.

Ah well, below are two scenes from the pillow fight day in Seoul. Enjoy!

This one's from Eat Your Kimchi (blog) This one is really well done. The crazy guy with the pillow rage: That's James. Me, Nina, Sirius and Libby are in and around there someplace.

From Youtube I'm in this one a lot..so...I figured I'd post it

I promise to finish writing about winter vacation soon.

Much love and sunny days to you,

Sus

Key Phrase of the week: "I don't like rainy days, I can't play soccer!"