Sunday, November 30, 2008

English Camp!


This weekend was the pinnacle of our hard work on a weekend, english-immersion "camp". Katherine organized this event with the help with a couple other EPIK teachers fromt the area. Twenty-eight excited high school girls came and participated in a pirate-themed extravaganza, complete with crafts, carnival, and Noraebang...oh yeah, and some English related stuff.

Aside from the frequent mobbing by the girls (I swear there are at least five arms hooked around me), the camp went extremely smooth and was actually quite fun. Katherine's planning was very well thought out, and every activity was as engaging as it was fun.




In about three weeks, I will have my school's camp, which may or may not be as interesting. Shortly after that, we will take a trip to Cambodia/Vietnam, and then back to Canada for a visit. Next week marks three things, our Anniversary (9 years), my birthday (not 27), and our first year anniversary of being in Korea. It's hard to believe it's been a year. Really, really hard to believe.
See you soon.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Yukata DIY

You will need:1 Yukata

Wooden shoes
A piece of cloth and a bow.




Accessories. From left to right: A piece of something hard to give you the "column" shape. An elastic clip to keep the Yukata closed. (I'm sure you could just use a string and some safety pins) and a tie to help when you adjust the length.

Instructions: If you are built with an hour-glass figure, you should pad the waist in order to look good in yukata. A sports bra that "flattens" the breasts to the body works well for yukata. A yukata slip is an optional item and not a necessity by any rule. However, if you're putting on a light weight (thin material), light colored or semi-sheer yukata, it might be wise to have this extra layer of "coverage" so your underwear does not show through. (A fashion faux pas in any culture.)

How to wear a yukata (for women)

Hold the garment open and raise it to make the hemline come to about the height of your ankles. This is how length is adjusted. Make sure the center back seam of the yukata aligns with your spine.
Bring the right-hand side in, and wrap the left side over it. The yukata should gather at your waist.
*Important note that I just learned: NO Japanese would wear any yukata with the right side over the left EVER. Left flap is ALWAYS on top. This is a rule. (Japanese custom has it that only the dead are dressed with the right side over the left.) In these photos I have my right side over the left... whoops. Hey, I'm an ignorant Canadian... no longer. ;-)


Tie the yukata shut tightly with the tie just above your hip bone .
Fold the material down over the tie. Smooth the wrinkles out on the upper front and in the back at this point. Tip: Pull the right flap down and across by putting your hand through the hole found under the left armpit to adjust. (A clever built-in feature of yukata.)
Tie the yukata in place with the second tie (this is where I use the elastic band clip thing) just under your chest.

Place and secure the waist panel over the second tie so that the wide and flat part of the panel is covering the front. I bought this panel in Japan, but you could probably use a flexible piece of plasic covered in fabric and tie it on with some string. Cardboard might work too, in a pinch.
Now you're ready for the sash and bow!

I don't know how to tie the traditional sash and bow. When Yuzu's Grandmother did this for me, she had about 2 meters of fabric. I cheat and just use a prefabricated bow. It works okay, though not nearly as beautiful.
Remember to iron your sash! oops!
And, don't forget the shoes!
Peace!


Lastly, get on a plane to Tokyo. Go to the top of Roponggi Hills. Find a cute man and take a cheezy picture. It is an experience that you will never forget.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Japan video



Forgive the poor quality, it looks really great on the computer, then you upload it and they transform it into shit.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

And now something from out of left field...



My second magazine photo op! This time all the way from Namazu Japan!

And now for something completely different...



Yes, this is Noe Rae Bong. Yes, that is toilet paper wrapped around my waist.
Yes, it is fun!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Tokyo, Japan July 30-August 3

We arrived early enough in the day in Tokyo to hunt down our hostel in Ueno. This place was amusing, you had to step over the first single bed to get to the next one, that was how small the room was. so we made a point to not spend any time there at all. We went to Ropponggi Hills to look at a few of the art galleries that were in the area. The first stop was the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Institute. There was an exhibit of European still-life paintings, an amazing style of painting that often involved metaphor and symbolic imagery of death. The second stop was the Fujifilm building, which housed a small museum with amazing stereoscopic images, both old and new, as well as several galleries. Most of the photography wasn't very remarkable, however there was a black and white exhibit that struck me as very intimate and exposing of candid Japanese culture. So I purchased a book with all the photographs in it, I'll bring bit back to Canada and show you guys, have no fear. After that we wandered back to Ueno Park to see what it would be like, as we were bringing the family in there in a couple days, and since we were so close, we decided to have a glance. It was definitely nice, and we visited another gallery in a free gallery. It was cool to see some contemporary Japanese art, but I wish we could've seen more.

Early the next day we worked our way to Asakusa to find our Ryokan and check in early enough so that I could go to the airport and pick up Mom, Dad, and Kristen, and bring them straight to the bed, as they would be coming off a 9 hour flight and over 20 hours of traveling. I took the Skyliner train to the airport to meet their arrival. They were in good shape though, a little excited to be there, yet a little overwhelmed in the process of getting back to the hotel, a process involving negotiating trains, subway stations, and crowded sidewalks with luggage.

Many of the places we would visit in the next few days we had been to at least once already, such as Shibuya, Harajuku, Ueno Park, Ropponggi Hills, with the exception of the Asakusa shrine called Senso-ji, as well as a park in central Tokyo that used to be the Tokyo palace. So here I enclose some photos from those days. Mom wrote down a lot of information about the places and took lots of pics.

These pics are from Senso-ji:

At Ropponggi Hills, we went to the top of Mori tower to see the view and look at a strange aquarium show:

In Ueno Park, we saw several temples and interesting shrines. The zoo was notable as well, though not as impressive as the Seoul Zoo in size, the selection of animals was very diverse:

And finally, the Tokyo Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, it had one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen in my life.


Soon after we hopped on a plane back to Seoul and then Taebaek. More to come...

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

July 26-30, Mishima, Fujisan, Hakone, Numazu

As early as we could muster on saturday morning we worked our way to the Shinakansen (bullet train) station. However due to some miscommunication over which tickets we needed in order to board the train, and some rather unsuccessful arguing, we forked out around 30000yen ($300) for both of us to take the three hour train ride. But three hours and several hundred kilometres later, we arrived, still anxiously awaiting our first glimpse of the mountain we hoped to conquer the next day. However, the haze was in the air due to humidity and intense heat, so the enigmatic mountain was nowhere to be seen. Jon and Yuzu picked us up from the train station, prepared to feed and house us for the upcoming several days. Jon and Yuzu were fellow alumni from the vis.arts program at the UofR, and we had all spent many occasions back in the good ol' days having good times and chatting about art. Jon and Yuzu have been together for many years, and they were living with Yuzu's parents. We pulled up in front of a beautiful yellow house, and not even an hour later, we were being dressed up in Yukata to go to the summer festival in Numazu. We hopped on a bus and headed out to Numazu to meet up with some of Jon and Yuzu's friends. Numazu was packed with people, though not as many as the night before in Osaka, so it was a nice comfortable level. Even though we were dressed in what we felt to be as little as a bathrobe, it was still hot, but the air was filled with smells not too distant with the local fair in Canada, just with more octopus. Loud drums and a parade created the atmosphere of intense celebration. I dabbled in some octopus balls (delicious pastry/octopus/i-don't-know-what snacks) which are a delicacy usually limited to festivals. We enjoyed the fireworks for a little while, but soon headed back to Mishima to prepare for our climb to Fuji, as we were planning on leaving at 3:30am in order to be hiking by 5:30, as Fuji is a long hike, and we hoped to miss the cold and dangerous nightfall.


3:30am comes round. We rouse our selves from bed and grudgingly pack up the Jeep and head on our way to climb the mountain. Little was I to know how much I would be suffering by midday. Fuji is a mountain that is 3775m (12.366 feet), a height which takes well over fifteen minutes of ascending in an airplane to reach. We drove up to around 2400m as a starting point, and even at that height, you can look downwards on most of the clouds. It was a good day for climbing, sunny and cloudy, a beautiful temperature compared to the intense heat we'd been experience in the previous week. The first 500m went by very quickly, taking around 4 hours reach the various reststops along the way. Fuji is an active volcano, and the most recent eruption, though well over a hundred years ago, was still apparent on the sides, a desolate landscape with the odd strange looking yellow flower here and there that grew in amongst the lava rocks that was our path up. The clouds were stunning, we watched them form and smash into the side of the mountain, causing the temperature to drop 10 degrees in just a few seconds. However, around 3100m or so, I started feeling kinda funny. My pack went from 50lbs to 500, in a very short distance i was so exhausted that I was starting to feel very dizzy. I thought, I just have to sit down, I'll be fine. To no avail, instead of feeling better, I started feeling worse, MUCH worse. My head started to hurt and nausea was creeping over me like a dark shadow. At this moment I had the panicky thoughts of, Omigod, I'm easily four hours from medical help, shy of a helicopter rescue, which is not something I'd like to experience from the receiving end. It is absolutely terrifying to be sick on the side of a mountain with no idea what's wrong and what to do about it. So at 3200m, we turned back. I felt really bad, as I was the only one in the group to be struck with this strange illness. After another hour of hiking downwards, with many impromptu rest stops (volcanic rock is not comfortable to lay down on), I was feeling worse and worse. A hiker ahead of me who was on her way down was vomiting, and I was glad I hadn't progressed that far. A Canadian couple who was returning from the top saw me suffering and asked if I was okay. A short discussion concluded that I had altitude sickness, and that I should try some of their canned oxygen. I felt better right away, not cured, but better. I find it a nice comforting thought that the Good Samaritans that stopped to help us were Canadians, and I'm not surprised. Eventually we found a reststop that sold oxygen (at over $15/can) and I sat down for a therapeutic fifteen minutes, feeling no trace of the sickness that I had felt for the previous two hours. But we were already too far down to go back up, as it would have been another nearly 2-3 hours from the point where we'd turned back to reach the top. So our battle with Fuji was over, and I got my ass kicked. Next time, I guess.

Needless to say, we slept well that night after nothing short of a feast at Yuzu's parents' house. Our destination the following day would be to a beach not too distant with an excellent place to go snorkeling. Neither Kat nor I had ever tried snorkeling before, so we were excited. It was unbelievable how easy it was, and the amazing fish that you could see from less than 100 yards from the shore. Although Yuzu took a lot of photos, most of the ones I took with their waterproof camera turned out really bad, so you'll just have to imagine. We saw Moray Eels, Sea Urchins, Jellyfish, iridescent blue and yellow fish, butterfly fish, starfish, Box Pufferfish, etc. It was very exciting and inspires me to try the same thing in Korea. Mt. Fuji was visible from the beach we were at, and we could finally get some perspective of its size and height, considering that we were nearly 100kms away, it still towered in the distance.

The day was supplemented with some delicious Tempura and Sashimi at a local restaurant, a visit to an Onsen(a gorgeous public bath from natural hot springs), and a barbecue that evening with enough food to feed a village, thanks again to Yuzu and her mother. The next day was a slow trek to Hakone park, filled with temples and beautiful landscapes. One Koi pond looked like it was writhing from all these massive fish. That night would be the last, so we went and got drunk at the Okinawa restaurant, eating sea grapes and other fancy dishes. I even tried jamming on a Japanese styled string instrument that reminded me of a banjo, except it used snakeskin as the drum instead of canvas. All in all, an incredible experience and an unforgettable one, a chance to go and stay with a Japanese family and people who actually know what there is to do and see that's a little off the touristy path. After a glorious exchange of gifts, emotional goodbyes and quick posing for pictures with Geisha, we hopped on a train to head back into Tokyo, one day before my parents were to arrive.