Cory And Katy

This was a weekend filled with new and excited experiences. I’ve been hearing a lot about something called “Dr. Fish” since I’ve got here, so on Thursday night, I finally decided to go with my friends Greta and Star to check out a Dr. Fish cafe.

Dr. Fish are little fish who eat dead skin cells. It’s like the opposite of sushi- fish who eat raw human. At the Dr. Fish cafe (which we spent over an hour looking for) we enjoyed some food and drinks before heading over to fish-filled troughs which we stuck our feet in and let the fish have their way with us. Need a visual?

Feasting Fish

So, this isn’t actually one of our feet, but we all forgot our cameras, so I stole this off of somebody else’s blog. The feeling of the fish was really, really weird for the first half hour. Watching a fish swim at your foot so that he can chew on it is a little freaky. After half an hour though, the nibbling sensation just began to feel like a mini massage.

Friday, Star and I left work early to meet up with Cory and continue our fishy fun at an anchovy festival. My town, Gijang, is the anchovy festival capital of South Korea, and boy, do they know how to get down with their fish.

mmmm, mouthwatering cuisine

Thank goodness... I had a hankering for random whale parts.

I don't even know what this is.

This a very traditional way of harvesting the anchovies... but we definitely got smacked by flying anchovies more than once, and that stank don't go away.

These ladies are popping off the anchovy heads and squeezing out the guts.

This lady used and abused us with her drunken dancing. At one point, she tried to physically force soju down my mouth. It worked out though, because her friends made up for it by buying us fried anchovies and beer!

Star and Cory doing their best impression of Daebyon Harbor's mascot anchovies

The anchovy festival was really great and as the only 3 foreigners there, Cory, Star, and I got a lot of attention. The festival’s PR people got a video of us and took pictures of us, and we left the harbor full of food, without paying for a thing. We can’t wait for the next festival!

Koreans calculate age differently than we do in the states, which kind of sucks because we’re considered 1-2 years older. Koreans count the baby’s time in the mother’s womb as a year, so when a baby is born, s/he is already 1 year old. Then, all Koreans become one year older at the New Year. So, if a baby is born 2 weeks before the New Year, s/he is already 2 years old in Korean age, when s/he would be considered just 2 weeks old in Western cultures.

So, since we aged 2 years just by stepping off of the plane here, I think Cory’s 27th birthday was just a little less painful, because his Korean age (28) stayed the same.

To celebrate, Cory came to my (Katy’s) school and ate lunch with me and all the other subject teachers at my school. We had a great lunch and some delicious Korean chocolate cake. My co-teacher even presented him with singing Korean children. Not really, but some students who didn’t perform a song they learned in class very well came to the teacher’s lunch room and had to perform. It was adorable!

The big thrill of the night was the spa we went to in the evening. Korean spas are a big deal, and most are fed with natural spring water. We went to a new, ritzy spa with our friends Curran and Star. You have to get naked with all the Koreans and soak in delightful baths, so we wanted there to be at least two of us of each gender. We get stared at so much here anyway that we thought people might be straight up gawking at us in the spas. Fortunately, I think there is some sort of nonspoken rule about avoiding eye contact or something, because everyone in the spa was very respectful of everyone else’s privacy. Being naked with Koreans was much more fun than I thought it could be! The best part of the baths were the massage streams. Mmmmm. After soaking for 30-45 minutes, we got out and put on clothes given to us by the spa. Star and I joined Cory and Curran in the coed outdoor foot baths for some delightful foot-soaking before heading to all sorts of themed hot rooms. Yes… the rooms have a theme and they are hot. People like to just chill out and relax in them, but we were quite ADD and made the rounds to as many of the rooms as possible.

After the spa, we went to a burger joint that Star and her husband, Anthony, say are the “best burgers in Busan.” And they were delicious. No words, just picture:

This burger actually costs more than 4 hours at the spa. And it’s so worth every bite.

After only a month into this adventure, I have been exposed to what may be my favorite cultural difference between South Koreans and U.S. Americans.  In SK, workplaces take out their employees on a somewhat frequent basis and actually ENCOURAGE the employees to drink too much.  We got to experience this cultural difference firsthand when Katy’s elementary school took us out to a seafood restaurant last week.

While you may be thinking, “Wow! A country where you get brownie points at work for drinking with your co-workers on someone else’s dime?!?! What could be better?!”  Well, stop thinking that.  When I say seafood restaurant, I mean a raw fish restaurant… and not good raw fish.  And when I say drink, I mean soju.  Soju is the Korean go-to alcohol, and it basically tastes like a weak vodka.  Raw fish + soju = fake swallowing.  Don’t get me wrong; we definitely tasted a few new things and did some obligatory shots of soju with the principal and vice-principal, but we were not to the point we couldn’t stand up straight, like many of our fellow teachers.

Mmmm, doesn't it make your mouth water?

How's that snail, Katy?

That good, eh?

What about that red-pointy thing, Cory?

Are you ready for seconds?

So after raw fish and soju, all of the teachers headed next door to noraebang.  We have some great videos of the event, but we’re still working on formatting them so we can embed them on our blog.

In other news, we now have internet at our apartment, so fear not, readers.  You will be getting more Cory and Katy action in the future.  Prepare yourselves accordingly.

We are now settled and getting cozy in our town of Gijang. Cozy is a nice way of putting it, because our studio apartment Katy’s school set us up in is very, very… cozy. Actually, we just learned that the Korean name for such apartments is wonrum. Get it? Get it? No worries though… this type of apartment is generally what English teachers get. Ours is at least clean, somewhat modernized, and within walking distance to everything we need. The only con is that we basically have to do a backbend over our bathroom sink to wash our hair.

In one shot you can see our kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, dining room, living room, and bedroom.

Over the weekend, we decided to explore some neat things our town has to offer. We hiked up a nearby mountain and got a great view of Gijang. We could even see how close the sea is to our house! Lots of other people were hiking that day and when we reached the peak, a couple of different families offered us some of their food after seeing we only brought a couple of oranges with us. Apparently, the big thing is to bring a huge spread up to the top of the mountain and eat there for lunch. We heard some families even bring grills with them! Anyway, one family in particular made us sit down and eat their meal with them. Delicious!

This is the view of our town from the top of the mountain.

The happy hikers.

This is the nice family who shared their kimchee with us.

We took a different way down and came across a small Buddhist temple. Some of the women in the kitchen made us come in and they gave us fruit and coffee. One of the monks even sat down with us and tried out some of his English. After we ate, we were full and we hadn’t even paid for any food all day! So far in our journey, we’ve encountered nothing but hospitality and generosity. After a short tour the facilities, the monk pointed us up towards a fresh spring, and we followed a path up to find some of the most delicious water we’ve ever had.

Buddha-belly luck!

It's like you can see the inner peace in my eyes.

Best. Water. Ever.

Sorry it’s been so long between posts. We’ll try to be better! Don’t forget about us! We’re still alive!  And if you want to see more pictures, you can check out our gallery in the sidebar or my (Katy’s) facebook page.