Late to school? That’ll hurt.

17 11 2009

Oh my poor students. This has got to hurt.

I’m not 100% sure what time the kids are supposed to arrive at school. Its before me for sure, and I arrive usually at 8.40am. I think its closer to 8am. Unluckily for them sometimes they are late. Usually its not a big deal, just a few words from their homeroom teacher, maybe some extra cleaning duties or the like.

Not today. Every now and then the school goes on a lateness campaign. A teacher, usually a PE teacher, waits at the school entrance and directs all the late kids into the corridors of the school where they must kneel down with their hands above their heads. Usually only for 5 minutes but sometimes much longer.

Did I mention that it was about -8 celcius last night and about -4 when this was happening? And the school isn’t heated except for the classrooms? And thats cold cold concrete they are kneeling on? Ouch.

But wait, it gets worse. Depending on the day, the teacher and the level of their hangover, corporal punishment sometimes rears its ugly head. They are made to assume the “downward dog” position, hands and feet on the ground, bums up. Then the teacher (usually PE teacher, again) comes along with a love stick and administers a few “taps” across the cheeks. Nothing hard or violent but intended to be a physical reminder of not being late.

This isn’t too bad. You should see what happens when they get caught smoking……..

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Tags: Korea, Punishment, School, Student
Categories : Gangwon-Do, Korea, School, Student

Espressamente Daegu

15 11 2009

I live in Taebaek. Seoul is 3-4 hours away. Chuncheon, our provincial capital is about 3 hours away. Daegu, 3rd largest Korean city is about 3 hours away. Taebaek is the middle of nowhere.

Sometimes we need to get away and have our dose of western goodness. These days we are turning to Daegu more. Why? Its closer than Seoul, we can drive there, its like “mini Seoul” and it has Costco.

Major added bonus is this place.

We’ve been going to Daegu for a few years now, and about a year ago discovered Espressamente Illy. Think of one of the most modern and funkiest coffee shops anywhere in the world, then put it in downtown Daegu. Its an amazing place. I know Illy associate themselves with design and fashion and this place is no exception.

Delicious delicious coffee’s, amazing cakes, awesome sandwiches. Hard to beat (actually there is one place better, but its in Seoul).

We usually go for breakfast. Korean breakfasts are usually nothing flash. Rice, Kimchee and Soup. Other alternatives are opening up, Dunkin Donuts, Macdonalds etc, but they can’t compare with first rate food like this

Yes, its expensive, but so is every coffee shop in Korea. What you see above was W19,000 and worth every individual won. Its perfect coffee with the milk steamed to perfection, the sandwiches are freshly made, with (by Korean standards hard to find) fresh ingredients.

Enjoy

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Tags: Coffee, Daegu, Illy, Korea
Categories : Coffee, Food, Korea, Shopping

40D of sadness is now happy.

9 11 2009

I should have updated this a week ago, but my camera is back in fine working order. Thanks to our friend, Lee, It was sent off to Canon, quoted on, repaired and delivered back to me all in the space of about 2 weeks.

Final cost? Pretty well bang on the estimate at W380,000 including shipping.

What did they do? From what I can gather they replaced the whole “mirror box”, seeming the entire guts of the camera from the shutter forwards.

Does it work? Yup, as good as, or better than ever. Everything is sparkling clean inside and if anything, it feels slightly more solid now. Mounting lenses is a slightly tighter fit, with more of a machined finish, in no way a bad thing. So far I haven’t taken many pics, but focus seems spot on, which was my biggest concern.

All up, great work from Canon Korea.

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Tags: 40D, Canon, Photography, Repair
Categories : Korea, Photography

Udaipur, city of lakes and palaces. Days 5 & 6

8 11 2009

Continuing on from Kumbalgarh, it was about 80km into the town of Udaipur. Udaipur, the royal city of lakes and palaces is justifiably famous. Why?

The city is built on and around Lake Pichola and contains a vast number of royal palaces. If you can remember the James Bond movie, Octopussy, you will remember part of this city. Much of it was filmed in the Lake Palace (now a hotel) and in the Monsoon Palace. While we didn’t get time to visit the Monsoon Palace, we could see it on top of a mountain just out of town.

When we arrived into Udaipur it was a challenge to get to our hotel. We were stuck in traffic for quite a while and only once we got close to our hotel did we find out that a large tree had fallen, taken out a wall and brought the power lines down, right out the front of our hotel. This also meant no electricity for a few hours. It’s India, no big deal.

We initially went out to see some traditional Rajasthani dances. A short(ish) performance showcasing a range of different dances. Quite interesting.

The next morning we headed over to quite possibly one of the most amazing palaces in India, the City Palace of Udaipur. This is the largest royal palace in Rajashtan and stunningly beautiful.

Entering through the gateway in the street we came into a large courtyard, still with parking spots for elephants, now used by cars.

Like most such places it has been partly turned into a museum. The guard was rather proud of his moustache and happily posed for photos.

More pics from within the City Palace

The next day we ventured out onto the lake for a cruise. The centrepiece of Udaipur, it gives great views of all the famous sights as well as superb photo-ops.

Our boat dropped us at one of the floating hotels, so we could wander, take pics and pay exorbitant prices for drinks. The option was there for dinner but not at those prices.

Sunset came quickly with us still on the lake.

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Tags: India, Udaipur, Rajasthan, Palace
Categories : India, Tourist

Random observation of the day

3 11 2009

Why is it that when it is 30 degrees outside the teachers in my office set the AirConditioning to 18 degrees, but when its 5 degrees outside they set the heating to 28 degrees?

Someone please explain?

I came in this morning to the heating on high and everyone dressed in their warmest winter clothes. I almost died from heatstroke.

And then there is the whole argument for keeping the windows open in the middle of winter for “health” so the classrooms are freezing even if the heaters are on full.

Sparkling.

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Tags: Korea Temperature Winter Summer
Categories : Korea, School

November keeps getting stranger

2 11 2009

Wow, its only the 2nd and odd things keep happening.

Firstly, and most amazingly,

ITS SNOWING!!!!

Its been snowing since about 9am, so about 4 hours so far. It’s not really settling yet, but it is damn cold and the kids hare having fun being idiots (as usual).

The other unusual thing was lunch. Having been here for over 3 years I thought I’d seen all of the various lunch options. Today was a surprise. Not sure if its because its a new month and the budget has reset, or if its a special welcome back lunch for the VP, but it was special. An absolute mountain of mussels. I don’t even like the things but everyone got a heaping serving of them to go with the rice, kimchee, mini hotdogs in sauce and the miscellaneous stewed fish (yurgh). I think I was given about 15 mussels. Pretty impressive for a school lunch.

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Tags: Korea, School, Taebaek
Categories : Gangwon-Do, Hamtae, Korea, School, Student, Taebaek

November starts with a bang

2 11 2009

While not technically the first day of November, its the first school day and surprises all round.

1. First snow of the season. Well, not quite snow in the town, more rain/drizzle but up at the O2 ski resort there was a light dusting. Hopefully this bodes well for the season ahead. Also the coldest morning to date, being about 1 degree when I left home. We’ve had colder nights but usually its been warming up during the days.

2. I arrive at school at my normal time, about 8.45. Usually Mondays my first class is 3rd period, so about 10.50. This gives me time to get organised, have a cup of tea, do my photocopying and catch up on whatever I need to catch up on. Today? Nooooooo. Nothing of the sort. I walk into panic stations. Seems one of the English teachers has got the dreaded swine flu. Not my main co-teacher but the other English teacher. This obviously means bulk changes to the timetable, giving me some extra classes and moving them forward. No big deal. Then as the bell rings, 9am, start of classes, the timetable changes again. I’m up first class, with one of my worst behaved classes, with nothing prepared. Oh well, 5 mins at the photocopier with a convenient “Reading Builder” book and I’ve got material. Luckily my main Co-teacher, Mrs Kim, helped me out. I’ve never walked into that class to silence before. Throughout the whole class the kids were well behaved, no swearing, no hitting, even no sleeping. Unbelievabubble. Whatever she did to them was magic. They were back to the fun they were last year. Hope it stays that way.

3. Swine flu. We’ve got teachers sick, we’ve got students sick, I feel sick, many people have a standard seasonal cold/flu. Whats going on? What will it take for the government here to do something about it all? Swine Flu is here, now and spreading. We’ve had the local elementary school closed for a week or so after over 300 kids were absent (out of 1600). Schools in other cities are starting to close. Its not just the kids mingling at school thats the problem. After school they all go to private academies and PCBang (Internet Cafe) where they mingle with kids from all the other schools in the area. It doesn’t help either that now its cold everyone is staying in their sealed warm classrooms. Every class has a few kids off sick. Swine flu or otherwise. I’ve heard stories of kids having Swine Flu but their parents not wanting to look after them at home so sending them to school, sick, so the school can look after them. Can we say “Crazy”?

4. Finally, after 8 weeks or so, the school has a Vice Principal again. He’s been away for 2 months on a Principal training course at one of the Education Universities. Good for him. It means he should become a full principal soon. Now that he’s back, a few of the odder things that have been going on here should get back to normal.

5. Procrastination. I have a uni assignment due on Wednesday. Nothing like putting off uni work to make you do other things

I’m sure there are other things that will only be revealed as the day goes on. Oh well, as the Koreans say, “Fighting!!!”

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Tags: Korea, School, Taebaek
Categories : Gangwon-Do, Hamtae, Korea, School, Student, Taebaek

Hill Forts at Kumbalgarh, Day 5 begins

23 10 2009

Oh India, why must you be such a contrasting place? You have both the best and the worst of travel. Really you do.

Located 80km North of Udaipur is the formidable hilltop fort of Kumbalgarh. Built during the 15th century by Rana Kumbha, this fort has some of the most impressive fortifications I’ve ever seen. Its huge walls stretch 36km and are still intact. Supposedly this makes them the 2nd longest continuous walls in the world, after China’s Great Wall.

These walls meant that during its entire history, the fort was only defeated once, by the Emperor Akbar, and that was aided by the poisoning of the water supply. Put simply, this is one of the most secure forts around.

We were in for a bit of a surprise when we arrived, as there was a French film crew filming part of a travel documentary, using a pair of old American mustangs to travel to various forts and around India. More impressive was their use of a camera mounted on a remote control helicopter. A toy that looked very difficult to use, but loads of fun.

The fort itself used to have a temple at the top of the hill. Unfortunately now the temple is just a bare shell

We spent a good few hours exploring the remains of the old fort and temple complex. Unfortunately much of it is ruins now, but still it remains highly impressive.

Within the vast 36km walls are other settlements and temples. Obviously at 36km long we couldn’t walk the whole walls, in fact we barely had time to do a few hundred meters. There was plenty to be seen in and around the main area. Numerous temples are right there, mostly allowing entry.

One of my favourite views was through the main entrance/exit doorway of the final set of defences, the entry into the main fort. It opens out and shows the vastness of Rajasthan and the defences of the fort.

And of course, how could I forget the monkeys? These cheeky buggers were hanging around the entrance, where the restaurants were. They obviously want nothing better than to steal food from tourists.

After the fort, we endured the next few hour onwards and into Udaipur, our home of the next few days, and the goal of the next post.

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Tags: India, Kumbalgarh, Travel, Udaipur
Categories : India, Tourist

The 40D of sadness

22 10 2009

Yargh, Urgh, AAAARGH.

Maybe it was in retaliation for purchasing a small point and shoot camera the week previous, or maybe it was just irritated with 2nd grade too, but no matter the reason, my Canon 40D decided that enough was enough. Shooting in sports mode (6.5fps) the first 2 pics worked and then it jammed. The mirror inside seems to have lost one of its hinge points, and now is jammed into the body. No moving mirror, no pictures = expensive fix.

You can see the mirror in the pic. Mine seems to have jammed off center, with the top left hinge probably being broken. Result? the mirror no longer swings up when a photo is taken.

Usually when you push the shutter, the autofocus does it thing, the camera calculates the exposure, the mirror flips up and then the shutter fires. Now mines still does all of that with the exception of the mirror. So all photo’s consist of just the top 10% of the frame, where light leaks past the faulty mirror.

Never a good feeling when your expensive toy decides to break.

Still, help was on hand. As it was obviously time to send it back to Canon for some TLC I went to see my friend Lee, who runs our local photo/computer store. He helped my out greatly by calling Canon, organising it to be sent back for evaluation and a quote.

Warranty? Unfortunately no. I bought it about 18 months ago, grey market from the markets in Yongsan. Basically I saved about W400,000 by buying a Japanese domestic market body. Very much worth saving. Even so, it would be out of warranty anyway.

Well, it was sent on Friday, was inspected and quoted on Tuesday and I should get it back this week. Amazingly fast. But how much? This much :

Thats W376,000, or about AU$350. About what I expected really. They are replacing the whole mirror box, so it should come back better than new and hopefully much cleaner. This is where I’m thankful to be in Korea. I’ve heard some bad stories about Canon Australia and the long slow process of repairs. Especially repairs to overseas bought cameras.

So it should all turn out ok, except for the wonderful out of pocket $$$. Isn’t it funny how every single month something crops up to cost $300 or $400 that you were not expecting.

I’m looking forward to getting my camera back and taking more pics. It feels strange using a small point and shoot camera, its just not the same sense of taking a photo. That physical feeling that you just don’t get with an all electronic camera.

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Tags: 40D, Canon, Photography, Repair
Categories : Korea, Photography

Mountain Climbing Day (or ouch, my legs hurt)

21 10 2009

October, oh October. Month of limited classes, ridiculous numbers of exams and those strange, odd and crazy days. Days like “sports day” and school “climb a mountain day”. Last week was very much a standard October week.

Monday? Completely normal. I taught 2 classes, both 2nd grade, both EVIL. Noisy, sleepy and downright annoying.

Tuesday? Exams for 3rd grade. Exams again? Didn’t they have exams 2 weeks ago? Yup, more exams. And more to come in another 2 weeks. Guess which grade I teach on Tuesdays? Yup, right again. 3rd grade. No classes.

Wednesday? Still 3rd grade exams. So just one class for me. Another bunch of evil evil 2nd grade students. How can 2nd grade contain both the best kids in the school, and be on average the worst to teach?

Thursday? Sports Day! No classes for me. Just sadness and depression, RIP canon 40D, I loved thee well. My camera decided to not love me any more. Yup, it broke, and with it my enthusiasm for the day.

Friday, oh Friday. TGIF, or not. Climbing a bloody mountain. Yeouch.

1st and 2nd grade got to climb Taebaek-san, our local famous spot. But 3rd grade? No, they need something different, something more challenging, something more fitting for their growing bodies and emotional requirements. We went into Cheoram (another of the Taebaekian towns) and climbed there.

Thanks to GoogleEarth and my GPS, I managed to map where we went. All up the blue line you can see is about 9.3km, starting with a brutal uphill section to the lunch spot.

I saw, for the first time in this region, some ruins that might be Korean war related. Most of the war bypassed this area because of its mountainous nature. Not to say the locals didn’t fight, they did.

From the lunch spot, 4km into the hike, you are confonted by this depressing sign. Either way and you know it’ll hurt, but we went left.

Being on top of the ridge line gave some fantastic views of the mountains and the results of Autumn. The golden foliage was in full colour, and the light was stunning.

The new camera even gave me a few surprised. I’m used to the lens flare from my DSLR and its lenses, but this was something completely new and unexpected. I actually like the effect it gives.

The 2nd half of the hike was the worst. Mostly downhill on dry, dusty trails that were both narrow and covered in dry leaves. It was difficult wearing decent shoes to get grip, so I don’t know how the kids and their “fashion” shoes managed to survive with no broken bones.

On the way down we passed a traditional tomb. These “body bumps” are the tombs of a families ancestors and are lovingly tended during varions holidays and festivals throughout the year. Tombs like this can be found all over Korea in the most unlikely places. This one is about 4km from the nearest road, up a mountain.

Upon finishing, the kids all left to walk home, or at least walk to the bus stop, another 1km or so. Teachers? We piled into cars and just drove home. The legs really were a bit sore for the next few days.

Fun? Yes. Something I want to do again? Not soon.

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Tags: climb, Korea, Mountain, School, Taebaek
Categories : Gangwon-Do, Hamtae, Korea, School, Taebaek

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