Baseball Batting Cage

Last Sunday we kicked the day off by going to cafe 73 for brunch. What significance does the number 73 have? I have no idea. Anyway, they are a 5 minute walk from my place and offer a decent feed so I will go back again. I was excited to see that they have REAL sausages, not the over processed vacuum packed crap you normally get in Korea. 

With full stomachs we walked down the road to the batting cage. It was my first time going to a batting cage, and quite possibly my first ever time to hit a baseball. I remember playing softball once or twice in school, but never baseball. 

Pictured below are the tokens we purchased for the pitching machines. Each one is good for 20 balls and cost 2000 won (about $2). 

The tokens go into this machine here. Pop in the coin and choose either low ball (green button) or high ball (red button). This particular station had a variable ball speed which could be selected by the 4 red buttons at the top, but the other stations were fixed speeds (80km/h - 100km/h and 120km/h). If you are spending a lot of time in the cage, you can slip on some gloves to prevent any blisters. If not, just pick up the bat and you are good to go. Word of warning. Be ready to start once you put the token in and punch the button.

You can see some orange lights at the far end of the pitch. These were LED displays that depicted a pitcher which would move as the ball came out. It was a nice visual cue for when to expect the ball. 

Batter up!

And it was a home run. The crowd went wild! Sorry ladies, but I'm engaged.

Because my beloved fiance is left handed, we had to wait for a different station.

After waiting about 5 minutes, one of the special stations opened up. As you can see in the picture below, there is space to stand on the left or the right side. Word of warning though for the lefties. Once you put in your token and press the go button, be quick stepping across to the left side. Jihyeon almost got hit :)

There are also a few arcade games you can play when you are sick of showing up Babe Ruth.  

There are also noraebang cubicles (aka Karaoke) you can hire. 

As you can see they are small. There is only really room for at most 4 people. Judging by the wear mark on the floor they seem to be popular. 

Upstairs there were ping pong tables, none of which were in use. 

After hitting a few balls we stopped at the GS25 (convenience store) and bought some ice cream. They had an offer. Buy 2 get 1 free. I finished mine quickly, but Jihyeon took a little longer with her TWO ice creams. tisk tisk tisk. 

Getting a Haircut in Korea

Saturday was a day of firsts for me. My first haircut in Korea, the first time I have had my hair cut by a man and the first time in I don't know how long that I didn't get my standard number 4 clipper cut. I also played pool for the first time in Korea on Saturday.

My day started around lunch time with Jihyeon at my local Lotteria restaurant for lunch. It is pretty much the same as McDonalds but owned by a large South Korean conglomerate who also makes industrial chemicals, electronics and clothing. While there some of my students came in and said "Hello" and then said "G'day" while trying to throw an Australian accent. I politely returned the hello and waited for the inevitable "Teacher! Is she your girlfriend????" but was pleasantly left to eat my lunch in peace. 

It is starting to get hot in Korea so I thought I should get a haircut before it gets too long. I have also had really bad bed hair the last few weeks and forgotten to flatten it down before going to school on more than one occasion.... embarrassing. 

Hairdresser is on the second floor and as you can see takes up the whole floor.

The hairdresser was quite a different experience for me compared to what I am used to in Australia. For starters in Australia they are typically small operations with 3 or 4 seats and only a couple of people cutting hair. In Korea it was like a full on well oiled machine sucking people in and then spitting them out with a fresh new haircut. I didn't get as many photos as I would like because Jihyeon decided she wanted a haircut too, but here is what I have. 

The first thing I noticed when I walked in was a rather large reception desk like you would find in a hotel, not a hair dressers. 

We were ushered to a waiting area and chose which hair stylist we wanted to use. While we waited we were offered a drink and something to eat (for FREE). 

After waiting for about 20 minutes I was ushered to my hair stylist. I explained to Jihyeon what I normally got and she translated to the hair stylist. He flicked my hair around a bit and said he didn't want to give me the cut I wanted because he though it would look bad. Not wanting to piss the guy off and tell him how to do his job, I didn't argue and let him cut it how he thought it should be cut. 

I don't have any more pictures because Jihyeon had decided to get a hair cut too so was ushered off to her hair stylist. After getting my hair cut I was again ushered (I am not sure if it was because I was a dumb westerner who can't speak the language, or if ushering people around the salon is a normal part of the service) to a different room where I kicked back in a leather chair and had my hair washed by someone who's full time job was washing hair. After that was done I was again ushered to a different area of the salon where someone else (who's job was drying hair) dried my hair before the hair stylist made another appearance to check his handy work. 

After that I went shopping and bought a couple of new shirts to wear to work. I hate shopping for clothes in Korea. Everything seems so much more expensive than in Australia. In Australia It is easy to find cheap clothes, but here in Korea even the cheap supposedly factory outlet stores are kind of expensive ($70 for a shirt that is on sale). 

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant called "Flying Pan". I have been there once before and ordered the lasagna which was good so I took Jihyeon back there because I know how she loves Italian food. BTW, big thanks to John for introducing me to this place.

Here is the location on Google maps. Attn Blogger: it is a pain to add a map to a blog post. FIX IT!

View Larger Map

After dinner we played pool. Pool (or 8 ball or billiards) is a popular pass time in Korea and there are pool halls everywhere, though not all of them have 8 ball. 

I won :)

Ground Hog Day

I have just finished the end of my...... I think it is 3rd week? Yes, 3rd week teaching English. I am starting to know how Bill Murray felt in Ground Hog Day. I have been reliving the same day over and over again for the last couple of weeks. Each day is a little different, but my classes are essentially all the same. I change between 3 different lesson plans depending on the grade I am teaching. I am looking forward to teaching something different next week (though I still need to finish off the lesson plans). Classes have gone well but I did have 1 problem class this week. In the class were 5 boys who clearly did not want to be there and couldn't care less about English. I have since found out that they cause problems in all classes (not just English). I am not sure yet what I will do. If I can work out how to stop them disrupting the other students I will be happy. I tried separating them but that just resulted in them talking louder so they could hear each other across the room. 

Weekend in Iksan and Jeonju

Last weekend I traveled to Iksan all by myself to visit Jihyeon. I managed to get there without any assistance which I am proud of. 

On my way to Iksan I spotted someone moving into a new apartment. The Engineer in me thought it was interesting. I have never seen anything like this before. The load up an platform and send it up the outside of the building and then offload it through the balcony window. The elevators and stair wells in the unit complexes are quite small, so I guess this is the only way to get large furniture into the apartments. 

The first sign (that I have seen) that spring is on its way. WOOT!!! I can't wait for it to warm up.

And.... I made it to Iksan successfully. 

Now, I have been making a conscious effort to avoid the big M but Jihyeon really wanted to go there for lunch. I got the Bulgogi burger which is basically a normal hamburger but the meat is covered in some sort of Bulgogi sauce. It is pretty good. I don't know if I will go back to a quarter pounder or a cheese burger again. Also note how they served us in plastic glasses instead of the normal paper cup. I seized the moment and taxed one to use at home.

And yes that is right. Like most food in Korea (you will like this +David van Bilsen), you can get McDonalds delivered to your house by scooter (for free). 

We then headed to the movies to see Warm Bodies (zombie movie). It wasn't great but parts were funny. I crashed at Jihyeons place Saturday night. Her mum seems to like me, she kept giving me food and went out and bought some oranges and apples just for me :).

On Sunday we headed to Jeonju to visit a Hanok village. Hanok is a term used to describe traditional Korean housing. I went there in 2011 when I was last in Korea, but Jiheyon wanted to go with me so we headed off to Jeonju (about 1 hour from Iksan by bus) to have a squiz. It was good to check it out again and have a personal guide to explain some of the stuff to me. 

The painting in the background below is of the first king (Taejo Yi Seong-gye) of the Joseon period. You can read more about it here if you want but I will give you a quick rundown. The Kingdom of Joseon lasted for about 5 centuries and was founded after the overthrow of the Goryeo Dynasty. During this period Confucian ideals were integrated into society and a great deal of emphasis was placed on trade, science, literature and technology. It was in this period that the old Chinese characters were abandoned and a new writing style was invented by King Sejong the Great. 

The Koreans built sort of a temple/fort around the building where the painting is housed to protect it. This is the main entrance. 

For lunch we went to a Korean restaurant (the queue was out the door waiting for a table) and I had Kalguksu which is a Korean noodle dish consisting of handmade knife-cut wheat flour noodles served in a large bowl with broth and other ingredients. My meal cost 5000won (about AU$5). 

Wondering around the Hanok village I spotted this tree. It is meant to be 500 or 600 years old (I don't remember the exact age)

And next to the Hanok village was the first catholic church in Korea. The church was built on the site where the first catholic missionaries were martyred. 

Back in Daejeon

This week I saw (and heard) a bird first the first time since arriving in Korea. I have seen plenty of whopping great big bird nests high in the tops of trees but I had not seen or heard any birds. I wonder if I will see more as the weather warms up.

Meeting Friends and EPIK Orientation

This morning I rode the subway again and went to meet John. John is an Australian who has been living in Korea for the last 4 years working as an English teacher and happens to be the brother of one of my primary school teachers who is by chance good friends with my mum. Anyway, John was kind enough to shout Jay and myself lunch at a burger place called Kraze Burgers near City Hall station.

It was pretty good. I wish I had of taken a photo of the food, but it slipped my mind (again). If I am looking for a burger again I will be going back there. The burgers alone were about 10,000 won each which is a little more than you would pay for lunch if you went to a Korean restaurant by the time you include something to drink and some chips (the cheese chilli fries are great!), but if you are looking for some western food this is a better choice than McDonalds. 

I thought I would post an example of my camera (Sony RX100) operating in HDR mode. 

Here is a picture of John and myself with HDR mode turned off.

Here is a picture with HDR mode turned on.

 

The HDR mode takes three quick photos with different exposure settings and then merges all the pictures together to try and make the photo as good as possible. As you can see it works really well when objects are stationary. 

Anyway, after meeting John for lunch I headed to my EPIK orientation. There was nothing scheduled for today so a group of us went for a walk near where we are staying. We came across this amazing market of fresh food (fruit, fish, meat), clothes and nick nacks. I'm planning to head back when I am not part of a large group and take some time to try and get some awesome photos. After that we stopped at a small Korean restaurant (half the group headed back to the orientation venue because the restaurant wasn't big enough for all of us) and had something to eat and played a couple of drinking games to break the ice. After that I headed back to our orientation venue for dinner only to find that I was too late. Sadness. I ended up grabbing some instant noodles from the local convenience store. 

That is all for today