Korea still has a ways to go in terms of making all their buildings wheelchair accessible. Just like with smoking, I see Korea as similar to the United States 25 years ago. They are making progress though...kinda.




Is it just me or does that ramp look a little...steep?

My students are playing the Tanso in music class. The tanso looks like a recorder but instead of a plastic mouthpiece there is an indentation that you blow across like a flute. Sort of.

Anyway, the quality of the instruments vary wildly. Some students have new tansos made of plastic resin, while others have varnished wood ones. Some even have ones that look to have been passed down since before the Japanese occupation of 1913. These guys look hollowed out by hand and are bound together by some kind of old wire. I feel bad for these kids. Good think kimchi cures tetanus.

Seeing kids outside of school is a pretty common occurrence, since most of them live within walking distance to the school. However, whenever I see them, their behavior depends on who they're with. If they're with their friends, they tend to be very friendly. Even when they're alone, they still will say hello. However, when they're with their parents, they're almost always afraid to say a word to me. Many times the parents will recognize me, walk up and say hello, and ask their child to do the same, and the students will just give me the deer in the headlights stare. I don't know what to make of it. I can see if the student is just shy in general, but twice I've had kids who are the exact opposite of shy act this way around their parents.

Video Game Review: Eternal Sonata

I started Eternal Sonata with a little bit of trepidation. The last RPG I played was Final Fantasy X, and it was not a pleasant experience. I ended up giving it up about ten hours in. Luckily, ES, while a very modern RPG, cuts out a lot of things that I hated about FFX. I compare ES to FFX in this review simply because it was the newest RPG I'd played before ES.

To begin with, the cut scenes are far fewer. The time amount is probably the same, but the time between them is much larger. One of the worst things about FFX is that you'd have a cut scene, usually about 10 minutes or so. It finally ends and you think you're getting ready to start the action. You take five steps out of the village and boom, another cut scene. ES has no such problems. Admittedly, there are a lot of cutscenes, and if you play this and last generation RPGs, it's just something you're going to have to deal with. Luckily, ES lets you skip any cutscenes you like by pausing and pressing B. Or A. Whatever the green button is. This is especially useful when you're fighting a boss repeatedly, because you know each boss has to have a long soliloquy before each fight.

This leads me to my next point. The game actually makes you grind a little. This is my number one complaint with modern RPGs. It's even worse than the rampant cutscenes. What's the sense of spending $60 on a game if you can just breeze through it? The first time I died fighting a boss and had to start from my last save point, I practically wept for joy. Fighting around in this game is a joy too. The battle system is half turn-based and half action-rpg like Secret of Mana, which adds an extra element of difficulty to the fights. There are no random battles--you can see every enemy before you enter the battle screen. FFX suffered from major loading problems before and after battles. ES has next to no loading when fighting enemies.

Of course, the game is beautiful. This is by far the best-looking game I've ever played. All the scenery is perfect; I just wish I had an HDTV to take in even more of the goodness. The jaggies that made every PS2 game look bad are gone. There is no overworld, like in traditional FF or Dragon Warrior games, but the in-game world's environment is really, really vast, so while you travel across a wide plain you really get a sense of the size of the area. One downside is that unlike the RPGs of old, the linear nature of this games means that you rarely revisit places you've been before in the game.

The plot is pretty interesting, and I give Tri-Crescendo some points for thinking outside the normal RPG box a little. You really learn a lot about the life of Chopin during the game, and also get to hear full versions of his works. Of course, if this doesn't interest you, it's not important to the game and can be skipped using the method described above. The cut scenes are well done, but the dialogue, just as with all JRPGs, is a bit on the corny side.

There are a few things I don't like about the game. When do we get an RPG that doesn't use the same enemies over and over again, just with different colors? I mean, for crying out loud, this is the XBOX 360! Some of the monsters are poorly designed too--some of them look like monsters you'd see in a PS1 RPG--a striking contrast to the beauty of the rest of the game. Another annoyance is that the game has locked up on me 3 times since I started it, maybe 4. Luckily it's always been just after a save point, but it's still annoying to have to get up and cold start your 360. Of course, this is a problem that's not relegated only to ES, but it kind of puts you on the edge of your seat a little more when you're playing a game that's so dependent on save points.

Another thing I question--why is the voice acting so bad? I thought for sure we'd left bad voice acting behind in the last generation, but it's back with a vengence in ES. You're better off just turning on the Japanese voices and reading the subtitles.

I was pleasantly surprised at the ending of the game. I thought for sure I knew how it was going to end, and while I was mostly correct, the pacing and structure of the ending was excellent. The game took about 30 hours for me to complete, and I spent probably more time than I needed to wandering around the areas collecting things and grinding.

I can't recommend the music in this game enough. In a game about Chopin, I was expecting some of his music, but I believe the recordings they used of his pieces during the cut scenes were recorded specifically for the game. The in-game music is some of the best video game music I've ever heard. Unfortunately, like most RPG's, the battle music stays the same throughout the whole game, so you get sick of that after a while.

On the whole, this is the RPG that has given me hope in the future of the genre. While I'd like to see a return to the less linear RPGs of yesteryear, I know that those days are probably gone. In trade, now we have beautiful games like Eternal Sonata that are truly works of art in every since of the word--story, pictures, and music.

I give Eternal Sonata a 9/10.

I'm cured!

I'm feeling much better today. I think it might have been some bad food I ate. This weekend is just for resting. Tonight is a school staff dinner, and tomorrow I'm just going to hang out at home. Next weekend will be the big weekend--my maiden voyage to Seoul. I need to hit Yongsan, Itaewon, and Insadong. Yongsan is supposed to be Mecca for cheap electronics, Itaewon has a big English bookstore, and Yongsan is the antiques district. A train ticket from Ulsan costs about $60 round trip, but I'm hoping I can stay with a friend when I get up there so I won't have to shell out any more cash for a hotel.

Here's some K-Pop. All my girls students love this group. Their name is Big Bang.

Ugh...

I have a stomach ache today. It sucks. Both my co-teachers are sick. Tis the seasons. Maybe I should go to the doctor.

Vlogging the YMS Fall Festival, Day Two

The second day of the festival was held at KBS hall, sort of a civic center for Ulsan. It was a day comprised entirely of performances. The day started, as all performances do, with a lot of standing around.



Finally, after about two hours, the show finally started.

First up was the Yeonam School Song




Things were still pretty normal--no cause for alarm. We had the Happy Hands club, just like Napoleon Dynamite!



Next up were the dancers. This was cute, and what I was expecting to see.



After them, more dancers. This was not what I expected to see Middle School girls doing at a school-sponsored function. Can you imagine how long this would be allowed to go on in the US?




...and then came the biggest shock of all...even the teachers had a dance routine! (By order of the principal, only the cute teachers under 30 were allowed to participate.)



And then, just when you thought things couldn't get any more weird, the festival ended with Miss Yeonam, a drag competition.



And that was it! The Yeonam Middle School Fall Festival was...interesting, to say the least. And I guess we do it all over again in the Spring!

Big update tomorrow on day two of the fall festival

Until then, enjoy some Sufjan :)

Vlogging the Fall Festival Opening Ceremonies

Today was the first day of the Yeonam Middle School Fall Festival. There were lots of cool exhibits that showcase the artistic skills of the students, as well as your normal food and carnival games that you get at any kind of festival. By far, the most interesting thing about the festival was the ceremonies. To begin with, all the students massed outside at the end of the soccer field. If you've seen old drum corps or High-step style bands, you'll recognize the opening set.




This was followed by each class (there are many) paradaing in front of the booth that the dignitaries (as well as myself) were sitting in. The first class' theme was something about a monster and how to beat on the monster and shoot it with toy guns.



After all the students came out, there was the pledge and the singing of the National Anthem.



This is when things started to get a little bit weird. The chagi jalgi was brought out, which is kind of a Korean Hackey Sack. I thought maybe it was for the students to play with, but no. This chagi jalgi was for a special duel between the principal and vice principal, who, by the way, don't really look like chagi jalgi guys.



After the principal won the match, he celebrated his victory in the only obvious way possible, by singing a song.




...and that was it! The students fled inside and began walking around the exhibits, playing the games, etc. I took some good pictures of the art--some of it was really impressive. Tomorrow is the performance day, expect another update!

If you're going to comment anonymously...

...that's totally cool. Just make sure you sign your post somehow (first name, fake name, Don Cornelius, whatever) so I know if one person is commenting on one thread several times or two, or whatever :)



oh, I mean ^^

Today was the first day of the Ulsan English Festival. Each Middle School sends a foreign teacher plus a few Korean English teachers to man a booth, each with a different theme. Our booth was the airport, and my job was immigration officer. What that means is I asked each student for their passport (a paper one they filled out at another station in the booth) and asked them where they were going in America (apparently America is the only destination out of our airport), why they were going, and how long they were staying. Those three questions. Over and over and over. I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of masses of Asian schoochildren at events, but thats what it looked like today. Think a crowd just slightly larger than the Michael Jackson at Budapest concert. Ok, that's an exaggeration. That was the biggest crowd ever. But anyway, not much fun for me. And guess what? I get to do it tomorrow, from 9-5! All freakin day! Those three questions! Oh, did I mention the booth beside us had YMCA on repeat blaring all day? Apparently Koreans never get tired of that song. Before the festival started, that booth was playing other things. I heard Rock You Like A Hurricane followed up by the Imperial March from Star Wars. A perfect segue if ever there was one. Once the festival officially got going though, it was YMCA from there on out. Can't wait for tomorrow!

So what do you do all day, anyway?

I come into work around 8:15. I leave at 5 or 5:15. Out of all this time, I only teach 3 or 4 45-minute classes, so I have a lot of free time. A lot of free time. Especially when classes are canceled, like they were today in the afternoon. Here is a list of places I frequent online. Maybe you can kill some time there too!

Message Boards:

Digital Press - I've been a member here since 2001. Great community tailored to retro gaming enthusiasts who are also interested in current consoles.

Atari Age - I go here just for their Atari 8 Bit computer board.

Audio Karma - Vintage Audio Discussion

HHS Band Alumni - I run these boards.

Blogs:

Gizmodo - Gadgets and stuff

TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Gaijin Smash - Rarely updated, but the archives are gold.

Homestar Runner - Of course.

I supplememnt this with MAME and AIM, and somehow I'm able to escape boredom :)

Woo hoo! Beautiful Katamari is out! This is why I bought a 360! Now I just have to wait two and a half weeks for it to get here from play-asia :( Maybe I'll throw in a little extra for expidited shipping, but the site's blocked here at school so I have to wait until I get home.

They want me to sing another song at the school festival. This one. It's not going to happen. Not only do I not know the song, even if I did know it there's no way I can sing that high.

Emoticons in Korea

Korean emoticons are different than the ones we use in the west. Normally, to describe happiness or a smile, we would use :-), or the shortened form :). In Korea, however, they use eyes to show emotions, so happiness becomes ^^. For the life of me I had no idea what this meant and in text messages with my coteachers I just thought they kept hitting the ^ key by mistake.

Other Korean (and I assume Asian) emoticons:

(^_^) = smile

(^o^) = laughing out loud

d(^_^)b = thumbs up (not ears)

(T_T) = sad (it's a crying face)

(-.-)Zzz = sleeping

(Z.Z) = sleepy person

\(^_^)/ = cheers, hurrah

(*^^*) = shyness

(-_-); = sweating (as in ashamed)

(^_^);; = sorry! my mistake

(?_?) = nonsense, i don't know

(^_~) = wink

(o.O) = surprise

v(^_^)v = victory

(>^_^)> = hugging

(>^_^)> <(^_^<) = hugging each other (^o^)

Source.

I found out today that I'm supposed to be a judge for the an English speech contest put on by several elementary schools. You know, because of my long history and recognized competence in that sort of thing.

Korean names, even almost two months in, give me trouble. You've got the last name, which you say first, and is limited to mostly Park, Kim, and Lee. Then there are the other two names. Koreans, almost without exception, have three names-just like in the United States, except in Korea you have to say all three names, unless you are speaking informally, but then you still have to say the first two. Although the names are so short, I guess it makes sense. The pronounciation has to be exact though, or no one will be able to tell who you're talking about. Case in point: the teacher who sits beside me at Yeonam Middle School is named Yun Jeong, and my co-teacher at Gangdong Middle School is named Eun Jeong. Not a whole lot of difference there.

Adding to confusion, Koreans frequently omit the subject of sentences, so you have to make sure it's well implied whether you're talking about yourself or someone else when you say, "I'm going to the store tomorrow." How you do that, I don't quite know.

Para Gliding...not for the faint of wallet

Wow, what a weekend!

Saturday morning I met my adopted Korean family to go climb a mountain. In my small brain, I thought this meant climb a little hill with a nice little hiking path. Oh no. We're talking a rocky mountain-size mountain here. 1000 meters. It about near killed me. The first half was all rocks, all incline. Not gravel rocks either, but these big boulders you had to climb up and over. The last half, thankfully, was comprised of a paved fire road, but by that point I was so tired from the rocks I felt little relief from the pavement. At the top we saw some guys para gliding. It looked super fun, so I asked one of the Korean people I was with if she could ask how much it cost. Before I know it, the guy is waving me over and we made plans to meet Sunday morning to go out with the rest of the Ulsan Para Gliding Club.

Sunday morning I got up and met Mr. Lee, the head instructor of the club. He was friendly and smoked about two cigarettes a minute. We went to his house to meet the other members of the club, a Greek guy (yay English speaker!) and another Korean guy. This is where the good times stopped. All three of them smoking in his van, no ventilation to speak of, me choking to death.

The first mountain we went to was deemed a no-go due to the lack of wind. the second mountain we went to was too windy for most of the guys, although the instructor took me up for a tandem flight.

Para gliding is cool, but way too expensive for me. Lessons cost about 500 bucks, which isn't too bad because you basically get lessons forever from Mr. Lee, who is a really great teacher. The expense comes in with the rest of the equipment you have to buy. The canopy and harness alone costs $5,000, and the rest of the random stuff you have to buy like a helmet and windsuit brings the total up to around six large. Not for me. Still, para gliding is something I've always wanted to try, and now I can say I did it, and in Korea no less. I took some pictures of Saturday, but unfortunately I didn't bring my camera on Sunday, so no record of my first flight exists.

Seagulls sing your hearts away

It's getting to the point now where I really miss being able to talk in English. That's the number one thing that sucks about being here. Especially outside of Seoul, people either don't have much English ability, or (more frustratingly) do have the ability to speak English but are too shy. I think I'm driving my co-teacher crazy because I keep wanting to talk to her, just to be able to talk. Ugh. Anyway, it's Friday. Tonight I'm going to stay in and put in some quality time with the 360, and tomorrow I'm going on the mountain climbing expedition. After that, we're supposed to go to a sauna. We'll see how that goes. Anyway, it will be good for me to get away from my apartment and from the school, the two places where I spend most of my time.

Wine for the the woman who made the rain come

Another day of testing, which means another day of sitting here with nothing to do. Hopefully I'll be able to finish This Side of Paradise today in the downtime. Eternal Sonata, the game I ordered from Play-Asia on Sept. 24th, finally came this morning. I was pretty worried it was going to get lost forever, so now I feel more confident ordering stuff online.

This is my new favorite website. It's called the Gallery of Regrettable Food. It's basically a collection of old cookbooks from the 50's and 60's with the most garish pictures you'll ever see. The commentary on each page is a riot.

Tea for the tillerman, steak for the son....

Sorry for the lack of update yesterday. I found out yesterday morning that my mom is back in the hospital. After that fantastic news, I went downtown to Samsan-dong to see if the main Catholic Church in Ulsan has any mass in English. While I like my church here in Yeonam-dong, I find I'm not getting much spiritual fulfillment there. Anyway, the main church also has no mass in English, so I'm going to have to go to Pusan. Pusan is about an hour away by bus, so I'm going to ask Mi Sung if she can call the church and confirm that they do have an English mass.

Let's see...any happy news? Hmmm... There's testing this week at school so I have even more free time than I do normally. Also, I'm climbing a mountain with my adopted Korean family this weekend. That should be fun and a change of pace from my normal weekend activites, i.e. drinking and sleeping. Oh, and my letter got read on my favorite Korean Podcast! Here's the link. If you don't feel like listening to the whole thing, my letter is read and commented on at the 1:15 mark (that's one hour and 15 minutes in).

New videos today!

Click on the movies link on the side of the page to see!

Randomness is bliss

To further the notion that to be unique in korea is something to be undesirable, Koreans all clap as one. Even the students. It doesn't even sound like clapping. I don't know what it sounds like. Something strange though.

Things I miss from the US:

You know I started this list and can't really think of anything. Of course, there are lots of people I miss from the US, but as far as actual things go...I guess I miss my car. I miss XM for the BBC and baseball. I miss ESPN Radio. I guess I can get both of those here though via the web. I do miss cruising around in my car, which leads me to...

The bus in Korea. I finally figured out how to take it. Let me just say I'm glad I live in a country where there is no odor in people's persperation, because you're packed pretty tight in there. I don't think I could survive the bus in Europe, or even the US, where people's hygenic habits are less than stellar. Right now I'm sitting in a pizza place. Normally I go with the hot chicken, which is about the only way to get chicken around here.

Oh, I miss chicken. Good chicken. Like KFC :) And Taco Bell. And Arbys. And Tudors. I almost cried last time I thought about Tudors.

Ok anyway, so I'm about ready to order this new kind of "combination pizza". Who knows what kind of food it will be a combination of. Squid? Octopus? Kimchi? All of the above? As long as its not seaweed. I really hate the seaweed here. It's completely different-tasting than Japanese seaweed I've had back home at Chinese and Japanese resturaunts.

Oh, that reminds me, I miss Chinese food too. There is an Americanized Chinese resturaunt down by Ulsan University I'm going to have to check out soon.

I got my pizza, and what I thought was a cheese-filled crust was actually filled with mashed potatoes. Weird, but pretty good.

One of my female students brought in a cd of one of the popular boy bands in Korea, FT Island. I had been wondering in a country as wired as Korea how artists make any money in album sales, since I'm sure downloading tracks off the internet is so commonplace. The package she brought me showed me how. And when I say "package," that's what I mean. The whole operation came in a thick plastic bag. Inside were three keychains, 10 sticker pages, a full-color, nicely bound, 30 page artbook with interviews and bios of the bandmembers, and of course the cd. Total price for everything? 11500 won ($12.58). Now that is what the RIAA needs to do to encourage people to buy records rather than download them. Back in the old LP days, this sort of thing used to be commonplace, but with the advent of the smaller form factor of the compact disc, many record companies abandoned the booklets with lyrics and pictures in favor of a cheaper, single sheet of glossy paper with the production and songwriting credits. It's no wonder people download music now! What else do you get with the music if you buy an album?

I met the head of the English department at the University of Ulsan at Purple Haze Tuesday night. He seemed really interested in having an English teacher work for him with a music background. He said as long as I'm in the process of getting a master's degree online he could hire me as a professor there. This is certainly something I wasn't expecting to consider. A university job is definitely the pinnacle of teaching in Korea, but it would also mean I'd have to commit to a master's degree in English, and also commit myself fairly long-term to teaching in Korea. Of course, I have a lot of time to think about it, as this year's just started.

I might go to Seoul this weekend, for the first time. Woohoo!

CD Review - The Else, They Might Be Giants

The Else, TMBG's first "proper" album since 2004's The Spine, is in many ways the successor to John Henry, the band's last album with Elektra, released in 1994. John Henry saw the band move in a much more "rock" direction, and most of the cuts on that album featured not only a full "real" band (hence the name John Henry), but a horn section as well. While The Spine had a few songs that fit this mold, The Else completely embraces this tactic for almost all of it's cuts, with heavy guitar and drums, multi-tracked vocals, and, in some cases, a full symphonic orchestration.

Song-by-song breakdown:

I'm Impressed - This is a Flansburg vehicle that's catchy enough, but on the whole pretty unremarkable. It's upbeat and a good title track, but beyond that, there's nothing special about it.

Take Out the Trash - It sounds deceptively simple in the beginning and lyrically is a bit cliché, but redeems itself somewhat in the chorus. The verses kind of remind me of a hard rock version of Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.

Upside Down Frown - Another solid Linnell number. This one has the a cool kind of shuffle dance beat behind it. The lyrics are vintage TMBG--only the beat is different.

Climbing The Walls- Stylistically, this is in the same vein as many of Linnell's songs on John Henry. Not much to write home about. Musically the song is boring and lyrically it's just a bunch of phrases similar to the title. Bleh.

Careful What You Pack- I thought this after I heard The Spine, and this record definitely confirms it--Flansburgh has caught and passed Linell in terms of lyrical. Flansburgh's style has also matured some too--he can craft a pop song just as well as anybody. Careful What you pack starts out with some ambient electronic noise that sounds like it was ripped straight of a Mum album. When the song finally hits its groove, Flans comes in with "The known, the unknown, and the underknown..." At this point I started to lose hope in the song--it sounds like just an excuse for some wordplay, but the lyrics improve drastically and by the time you get to the chorus this is the catchiest and most sublime sounding pop tune as any Fountains of Wayne song you've ever heard.

The Cap'm - This is why we love John Linnell. Again, the words are nothing to nothing special, but it's that Paul Revere and the Raiders "Glad All Over" beat that gets in your head and won't get out. Think Dr. Worm, part II.

With the Dark - I'm kind of undecided about this track. It might grow on me a little its ok enough, pleasant, but nothing really great. It almost sounds like three or four songs that they couldn't finish smashed together. The music is really reminiscent of John Henry. The best bit is when Flans sings about "bustin' my pirate hump, rockin' my pegleg stump."

The Shadow Government- This is the one Flansburg song that I feel is timeless TMBG. It could have been on any of their albums and fit fine. Again, Flans is at his best lyrically, and the will have you singing along after the first listen.

Bee of the Bird of the Moth - I hate this song. If you have The Spine, this is in the same vein as Wearing a Raincoat. Just a bunch of repetitive garbage.

Withered Hope - One of the deepest Linnell songs on the album--the lyrics are reminiscent of his younger days back when he was churning stuff like this out like it was going out of style. The combination of horns and dj scratching is really impressive. Lots of good musical stuff going on here.

Contrecoup - Linnell really starts to pick up speed towards the end here. This is the Linnell song that I feel could fit on any TMBG album. Classic stuff.

Feign Amnesia - Filler. Sounds like a Mono Puff song.

The Mesopotamians - I'm so glad this album didn't end with Feign Amnesia. The Mesopotamians is great musically and lyrically. It actually sounds like something that came from the Apollo 18, which is high praise from me, given that that's my favorite TMBG album.


And that's it! As far as recent TMBG albums go, I'd rate The Else far above Mink Car but just a notch below The Spine.

I rate The Else 8/10

I guess I haven't written too much about my other school, Gangdong Middle School. It's a much smaller school than Yeonam Middle, only about 100 students total. The layout of the school is exactly like the school levels of Katamari Damacy, and even the outside of the school is the same, with the bleachers and the soccer goals and the dirt floor. And I'm not saying this because it's not really true and by writing this making you believe it's true and therefore making it at least a little bit true. It really is true!

Gangdong Middle School. Not really much else to write.

Engrish

If you haven't been to Engrish.com, you should check it out. Most of the Korean Engrish is on the Engrish from other countries page. Here's a few examples.