Lizzy's Travel Blog

"My body is not delicious today"

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:11:14 -0400

Novie, on why you can’t translate phrases directly from one language to another.

I seem to have entered an alternate universe where grown men can openly like One Direction and...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:55:55 -0400

I seem to have entered an alternate universe where grown men can openly like One Direction and nobody makes sarcastic comments about their sexuality.

I find having a maid really strange. I don’t know if it’s just British reserve but it’s hard to have no privacy whatsoever. Pretty much everyone I work with had been into my house, the office boys go in all the time to deliver stuff and fix things and whatever, which is nice of course, but just a little odd.

This weekend was fun, we went out on Friday night which was an experience. We went to the hotel bar, then we went to AM PM which as the name suggests is somewhere you can go if you want a beer or some vodka at any time of day. Then we went to North Food, which is a hostess bar. Which was where it all went a bit odd. The creepy men who go to hostess bars kept buying me shots (which I spat out in the toilets) and wanting to dance with me, and James and Michael were everywhere at once in the way a person can be when they’ve been drinking for 5 hours already.

Fun though.

Sunday we went out with one of my colleagues. Update on that another time. Photos on Facebook when I can upload them.

If I didn't know better

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:00:05 -0400

I would think someone regularly pretended to ride a horse past my house in the middle of the night with two halves of a coconut

Updates will come in pieces

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:54:10 -0500

So I’ve been in Solo for 2 months now, if you don’t count the couple of weeks I spent in Singapore. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t count that though.

I like it here, for the most part. It’s hot and the people are generally pretty nice. I’m having the food problem again though, in Korea everything I ate managed to be both bland and spicy. Here it’s all sweet and spicy. I think it’s a British thing to want your savoury food not to contain sugar.

I’ve only picked up a couple of stalkers, which is a vast improvement on being back home.

My colleague is teaching me Indonesian a couple of times a week, which is nice because it’s getting a bit ridiculous not being able to talk to people. And it’s not the kind of expat community I could make loads of friends it, they’re generally middle-aged men with Indonesian wives. I’m not all that enthusiastic to have a friendship group which consists mainly of middle-aged men, and wives tend to object to that kind of thing anyway.

So where I’m working there’s me, 3 “native speaker” teachers (all guys, all older than me) who live next door to me and in the next house up. It’s a good arrangement. It doesn’t feel like a hostage situation like Korea, but it’s a bit unnerving because you feel like you’re always at work. Then there are the 4 Indonesian teachers (I mean, they’re English teachers, but they’re Indonesian humans). Then there are 2 women who work in the office, with us, who are lovely, and I think 5 who work on the front desk, then the office boys who pick up our lunch and clean stuff and go get the photocopying. I’ve tried to count them a few times but every time I think I’ve got it I spot another one I’ve never seen before.

Tabi: You know what I don't get?

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 08:59:03 -0500

Tabi: You know what I don't get?
Me: What?
Tabi: Why do people go to clubs to sing and to dance? Why don't they go to clubs to paint or something?

Indonesia (part one)

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 09:36:00 -0500

Wow, the traffic here is pretty scary. I’ve ridden a motorbike (as a passenger) here more times than I’d ever done before. Which was none, so I guess that’s not saying much. They do the thing they do in Bali of treating the motorbike as if it were a family car, with the mum, dad, 3 kids all squished on. But they drive relatively slowly, which I guess is how they’re not all dead.

I think our maid must wonder why we all brush our teeth in the kitchen. The answer is simple. There aren’t sinks in the bathrooms.

This of course leaves many more questions.

Apparently the woman who was meant to be my roommate went into culture shock and left after less than a week. So I live all alone. Which is nice in a way, but I find it odd after living with my family for so long.

There are SO MANY mosquitoes here. I’m covered in bites.

That’s not what’s stopping me from sleeping though. At about 2am every night until about 6, there’s non-stop chanting from the mosques. And then after a few hours a cockerel always joins in. When the novelty wears off I imagine that will be quite irritating, but my colleague says that after a while it becomes soothing background noise.

It’s definitely the place which is least like England I’ve ever been to. Which makes me happy.

hereticarts: Social conditioning.

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:09:49 -0500

hereticarts:

Social conditioning.

I think he was probably joking...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 08:01:23 -0400

Me: Okay so I'll see how much of your speech you can remember?
Student: No thanks, I'm full

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 04:44:50 -0400

On Friday my boss asked Liam “What’s your relationship to Elizabeth? Boyfriend?”.

This wouldn’t be all that surprising except that she rents our flat for us. She knows we only have one bed. Weird.

Vicky: Elizabeth is beautiful!

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:48:18 -0400

Vicky: Elizabeth is beautiful!
Bella: Elizabeth is fun!
Jess: Elizabeth is best teacher!
Bella: And kind!
Vicky: And... cool!
Me: Thanks. You still have to do the work though.

SHIT I CAN'T MAKE UP: Convo between my 7 year-old students today

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 08:38:18 -0400

(Names have been altered slightly, just in case.)
Josie: I have a new crusshhhhh
Matt: Me, too! On a boy!
Pearl: You're a boy with a crush on a boy?
Matt: Yeah he's really cute.
Pearl: Oh.
(pause for a bit)
Matt: Boys can like boys. I just can't marry him because boys can't marry boys.
Me: Yeah they can. You can marry whoever you want.
Matt: Really?
Josie: YEAH. my tia has a wife so now I have a titi and an auntie.
Matt: Okay. Then maybe I'll marry him.
Dave: (from across the room) No you can't, you're seven.
(Age was apparently the only foreseeable problem anyone of my elementary schoolers could see with gay marriage. I almost cried out of happiness. Later, when I was asked if boys could kiss anyone they wanted, I replied, "only if they want to kiss you back." And Josie responded, "Yeah! Your body, your life.")
My students are the shit.

--

Reblogging for 7-year olf bad-assery.

Pizza etc

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 14:29:26 -0400

So Friday was my birthday, which was nice, except for the getting older part which I’m not so fond of. 23 is still “early twenties” though, right? It’s 24 when you start being “mid twenties”.

I’d told a couple of the students about it because I wanted an idea of what to do to celebrate, but they just suggested normal things you could do in Swansea (like seeing a film - Hollywood, not Korean, because they don’t dub Hollywood movies when you go to the cinema, they just subtitle them). So at break time my younger middle school girls came to the teacher room, looked in, said hi, giggled for a bit, went back, came back, giggled some more, asked when my birthday was, then when I said “today” said “Happy birthday!” and handed me two bags of crisps. A surprisingly thoughtful present as they were the kind I always eat, and that’s pretty much the only thing they know about me. One of the boys (who is quite young, but is in the class with the older kids because he’s really good at English) gave me a yoghurt drink. I think it was left over from his lunch. It was good, I’d buy it, it was banana flavoured.

I decided in my last class to get pizza for my students, because 1. they speak Korean and I think understand that I don’t eat meat and 2. I wanted to eat pizza but I didn’t want to end up throwing the whole thing away if it turned up and had meat on it or was gross. So 2 of them went to the pizza place down the road from the school, and came back about half an hour later with four pizzas. It was at this point that I realised that there isn’t all that big an overlap in what we consider appropriate pizza toppings for a vegetarian and what the Korean pizza market considers appropriate vegetables to top a pizza with. I also realised why my students were so confused when I suggested that a pizza didn’t have to have meat on it. I ended up with 2 meat pizzas for my students, and for me and Liam what appeared to be a potato wedge and ham pizza, and a sweet potato and ham pizza. I was also surprised to learn that in Korea, ham isn’t a meat.

I’d probably eat the potato wedge pizza again, but not the sweet potato one.

If I though I’d ended up with weird food, though, Josh had weirder. He told me he was at the shop the other night and bought himself normal food, you know, crisps, soju (imagine all the worst qualities of vodka, all the worst qualities of mouthwash and all the worst qualities of being punched in the stomach) and he got a free traditional Korean drinking food. Apparently the shop guy looked very sincere in a way which said “Oh, you’re drinking! Here have your complimentary can of silkworm pupae”. Josh is a man who has eaten eyes, and chicken foot, so he tried one, but he said he couldn’t swallow it. He videoed it, I’ll ask if I can give you the link.

Yesterday we went here

which was nice. Liam got really sunburnt, but I didn’t because despite it being really hot I kept the hoodie on all day (I take sun protection very seriously, I’ve decided the time has come to buy that parasol I’ve been wanting for years but not carried because people said they’d refuse to be seen with me).

There were seafood restaurants with tanks of live fish outside, so it was like a very macabre aquarium. I now understand why when I did a lesson on sea life which involved trying to guess which animal sticker another student was holding the most commonly asked question was “Is this animal delicious?”. We walked around a lot, and almost got hit by several golf carts, and Liam bought some sort of cola product which came in a coke bottle but turned out to be red in direct sunlight.

We were pointed at a lot, and Liam wanted to see if we could convince someone without being able to understand anything each other was saying that no, we don’t have licenses and no, we don’t have any money but please could we borrow a motorbike? We decided against it pretty quickly.

I burnt my hand, so Liam got me a bowl with cold water and ice in it

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 13:54:34 -0400

Me: Every time I put my hand in ice water I...
Liam: What?
Me: Nothing
Liam: What?
Me: Nothing
Liam: You what?
Me: Can't help picturing a killer whale swimming up and eating it

We had our welcoming party about a week ago, in what we think is the only vegetarian restaurant in...

Mon, 28 May 2012 10:34:21 -0400

We had our welcoming party about a week ago, in what we think is the only vegetarian restaurant in Gunsan. We had to sit on the floor and eat vegetables, so over all it was a fairly stressful experience encompassing both my and Liam’s neuroses, and our boss (the only person who speaks English) left about halfway through. Though it might not sound like it, I did enjoy it. It was brunch, which is a good time for a meal in my opinion because it means nobody’s going to expect you to get drunk while you’re eating (at least now that we’ve graduated).

The tables were about 7 inches high and you just sat on the floor (you take your shoes off at the door in the places where you sit on the floor, so it wasn’t too bad, but I did notice a cat wandering in and out of the kitchen). The food’s really spicy, and if you ever have the chance to eat acorn jelly I would recommend against it. It’s exactly how you think it would be. I liked most of it though, and Liam liked some of it too which is more surprising.

Josh also told me that as well as liking the more tentacly sea creatures as dried snacks, they like to eat them ALIVE. He asked one of his classes if they’d ever eaten anything alive, and almost all of them said yes. Apparently you can go to the beach and buy little live octopuses and just put the whole thing in your mouth and start chewing quickly as it (unsurprisingly) tries to escape. Disgusting doesn’t do it justice.

Me: I'm not that easily distracted, am I?

Fri, 25 May 2012 11:12:03 -0400

Me: I'm not that easily distracted, am I?
Me again: Well, I did turn my music off to do this personality test
Me again: I should put this inner monologue on Tumblr
Personality test: *Is still incomplete in the other tab*

I have no idea what the message he was intending to convey was

Thu, 24 May 2012 11:23:00 -0400

Me: So, if you look at the article, does it say that men or women are more likely to live to 100?
Ian: I like men
Me: Yes... I suspected that about you...

Background info for this: On the tefl course I did, they said we're meant to get the students to work things out, not tell them

Wed, 23 May 2012 02:51:58 -0400

Me: Okay, "make babies" probably isn't exactly what you meant to say there... Anyone know what you'd normally say?
Student 1: Birth?
Me: ... Not really...
Student 2: I know! Lay!
Me: Umm... that's more if you're a bird...

Needs must when the Devil drives: Trip to the capital.

Wed, 16 May 2012 22:07:08 -0400

Needs must when the Devil drives: Trip to the capital. :

sailorontheriverlethe:

On Monday I took a trip to the capital to help a friend out.

At the bus terminal we saw this gem:

I want to be positive about the idea, but I’m fairly certain that it would sit unused in the States.

After taking care of business we walked to the Gyeongbokgung palace - the palace of…

I’d write this out myself, but Josh has already covered it pretty well… wait, I’m tiny?! I thought I’d finally come to a place where nobody would notice.

I found out today that in Korea people measure age differently to us. My Korean age is 24. So this...

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:04:07 -0400

I found out today that in Korea people measure age differently to us. My Korean age is 24. So this whole time when I’ve been telling them I was 22, they’ve been thinking I was 20. Confused? I was.

There’s two differences (hence the two year difference). First, they don’t tell you how many full years they’ve had, they tell you which year they’re in now. So our babies start off at 0, then they have their first birthday to celebrate the end of their first year. But their babies start at 1. That’s straightforward enough, but then everyone goes up at the same time at new years. So it’s not so much which year of your life you’re in as how many calendar years you’ve lived in.

It explains why my class who I thought were 13 are so obsessed with stickers though. They’ll spend hours playing scissors paper stone, the winner gets a sticker. I don’t really understand why this is fun, but we spent hours and hours at primary school making playgrounds for puppy in my pocket, so I guess this is just one of those things adults don’t get. They carry around boxes of stickers though, and their primary use seems to be trading rather than actually sticking - when they win one they stick it on a sticker sheet they don’t use it for anything. I wonder if I could cause hyperinflation by buying them each 10 packs, but I don’t think so, I think the value of stickers is constant but the value of anything else would move accordingly.

Liam: It's SO hot

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:22:43 -0400

Liam: It's SO hot
Liam: How is it this hot? I'm going to be complaining about this A LOT.
Liam: Seriously, though, this is the hottest it's possible to be
Liam: This is hotter than a human should be
Liam: People die of heat in cooler weather than this
Liam: How are you not overheating? I refuse to believe you enjoy this
Student: Wow, it's only spring.