I Am Headed Back to Busan, Korea

Hi Everyone:

In case anyone wonders why I have been writing about my life and experiences in Gumi, Korea and what happened when I first arrived in Korea three years ago let me explain. There are a few reasons for this:

• Firstly, and the most important reason is that I wanted to be true to my experience and since who I am now and how I view the world is so much a result of what I have experienced that it made sense to start my story [and thus my blog] at the beginning of my Korean Adventure. Since I kept both a trip diary and a personal journal from the moment I got on the plane in Halifax, Nova Scotia it wasn't that hard to go back and recount my experiences from the beginning.
• Secondly, it wasn't until I was at my Mom's house in Canada that I actually had time to figure out how to start and publish a blog [with much help from the book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating A Web Page & Blog]. Moreover, since I was in Canada I couldn't exactly write about my day-to-day life in Korea since I wasn't there.
• Finally, the reason I was home in Canada and stayed in Canada for much longer than I thought was that just before Christmas my Dad died of cancer. He hadn't been ill long, in fact, he was diagnosed and died of cancer in less than 3 months. My family is a small one with only my Mom, my younger brother and myself left in my immediate family. It was a hard time for all of us and writing about the past and my adventures in Korea [several years ago] provided me with a welcome break from the day-to-day pain of my loss.

I have kept a quote journal for many years now and in it I write down quotes that I read that I love and want to always remember. The quote that seems to be the recurrent one in my life these days is one by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night."

I think that it is at night when the hustle and bustle of the day is gone that we - or at least I - feel my grief the most profoundly. It is then that I think back over my memories and wish that things were other than what they are.

This is a picture of my father holding me my very first Christmas. My parents were pretty poor then you can see they only had folding lawn chairs for furniture but it doesn't look like either Dad not I cared about that.

This is a picture of my Mom, me, my brother and my Dad at my graduation from University. I graduated from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. We are standing in front of Palmer Hall an all-female dorm that I lived in my first two years at Mt. A.

This is one of the last photos that was taken of my Dad. We didn't even know he was sick when this picture was taken but looking at it now he does look rather old and sick here.

They say that time heals all wounds. I'm not sure that I agree with that but with time the pain gets a little less and eventually there comes a time to move on. So, I have signed a contract to work for a school in Busan, South Korea. I will be heading back there March 30th and will arrive in back in Busan on March 31st. It will be the beginning of my fourth year in Korea. Wow! I can't believe it!

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So, since I am headed back to Korea I will be traveling and getting set up in a new apartment and starting to work at a new school. Therefore, I will not have internet access for anywhere from a few days to two weeks or so. I want you to know that I will be up-dating my web blog as soon as I am up and running with internet access in Korea - and maybe even sooner if I get bored and find an internet room [PC Bong] that will let me use my zip drive [data stick, flash drive ... whatever you wanna call it] to up-load pictures and spell checked entries to my blog. So, keep me bookmarked and keep checking my site. I will be back.

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Also, since I will be the only foreigner at my new school if you are in the Busan area and want to get together for coffee and/or to chat please e-mail me. I'd love to hear from you. My e-mail is queenforayear@hotmail.com [and the "e-mail me!" link on the left side of my blog under the "Recent Posts" and "Links" section works, too.]

Lastly, don't be afraid to comment on my blog I appreciate the feedback. I am moderating comments [just to avoid spam - as Blogger suggested in their guide to blogging] but so far I have published ALL comments.

Bye for now. See you soon.

Camp Carroll, Waegwan

My first visit to Camp Carroll, Waegwan:

I headed back to Waegwan. Since my first visit there I have learned that Waegwan got it name from the fact that there used to be a Japanese settlement there. Wae means Japan. It is a small community located in the province of North Gyeongsang about 1 hour North of Daegu [Taegu], South Korea. It seems to be mainly an agricultural community with a large American Military Base there. The base is called CP Carroll [short for Camp Carroll] and is located in Area IV. Camp Carroll is called "The Crown Jewel of Area IV" and is a growing base. It has a new in-door swimming pool, an out-door pool with water slide, a large gym, racketball courts, and even minature golf. It has grown a lot since I was first there in the Spring and Summer of 2003 and now most soldiers [including NCO's - Non-Commissioned Officers] are housed on the base.

Most of the soldiers I have met from Camp Carroll are either in the fields of Signal or Communications. The base, also, has an MP [Military Police] unit attached to it. According to Globalsecurity.org Camp Carroll has a population of around 2,700 people.

If you've been reading my blog you will know that I met a soldier at Psycho Bar in Gumi and we became friends and previously I took the train to Waegwan to visit him. At that point I wasn't comfortable going onto the base - especially as I grew up in Eastern Canada with a Navy presence but no Army to speak of. This time I decided to let my friend sign me onto the base and get to look around at his "home in Korea".



Once again I took to train to Waegwan from Gumi. It's only about a 10 to 15 minute ride heading south toward Daegu. I love the train it is pretty affordable and it is never affected by traffic jams.

For more information of Waegwan and it's history check out Waegwan Wikipedia.

Here are some pictures of the base that people have shared with me for my blog.

The Barracks.

 

The Chapel

 

 

The Commissary

 

 

Fitness Center

 

 

Shopping Plaza

 

 

Main Gate

 

 

Miniture Golf

 

 

Water Slide at Outdoor Pool

 

 

 

Poolside

 

 

Racketball Courts

 

 

The Gym

 

Globalsecurity.org has a good summary of Camp Carroll and its area and purpose. The link to it is Camp Carroll/Taegu Storage Area.

And, here are some pictures of the area surrounding the base. These pictures were all taken on  Korean soil.

The first thing I noticed when I approached Camp Carroll was the water tower. It seems to loom over the landscape and is a good landmark if you get lost and need to find your way back to the base.

This is a close-up of the same water tower seen in the picture above.

There are always KNP [Korean National Police] with these riot shields at the gates to Camp Carroll and all the other American Military Bases in Korea. It takes a little bit of getting used to and it doesn't mean that there is any problem it just seems to be a normal precaution.

All cars that are owned by American Military Personnel in Korea have different licence plates. The first digit [in this case the number 5] is specific to SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement] cars in Korea. The 5 means Daegu [the area of the country the car is registered in]. In Korea, licence plates designate the area [this has changed on the new licence plates perhaps in recognition of the increasingly mobile society. If you move to another city and have to change your licence plate it's a huge inconvenience]. But at this point [2003] Korean cars had the name of the city written in Hangul on the licence plate (this car says Daegu ,대 구, in Hangul). [ I assume that Koreans figure English speakers can't read Hangul so need another way to recognize the area the car is registered in.]

What this means is that you can immediately recognize a car driven by a member of the American Military by the extra digit prior to the dash in the licence plate. That doesn't seem like such a good idea in turns of security - at least not to me. I know I am always a little nervous driving in a SOFA car - I just feel like it stands out and therefore could be a potential target... but maybe I am just being paranoid.

The majority of Camp Carroll's NCO's [Non-Commissioned Officers] used to live in the huge apartment building in the background of this picture. It's called the "Hanbit" but they pronounce it "Hanbee". This has changed with the expansion of the Camp Carroll base the increase of housing on-post. Now almost all personnel are forced to live on post.

I like this picture cause it shows the contrast between an old traditional house with its garden and the new, modern apartment buildings that seem to be sprouting up everywhere.

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I had an amazing day visiting Camp Carroll. I ate pizza and drank soda [pop for all you Canadians] and even had my friend buy me a couple of English magazines to read. [I will have to buy a couple rounds of draft at Psycho Bar to pay him back.] I didn't have any American money and I had not even thought about the fact that they would use American money on the base. Since I am paid in Korean Won and everything I buy is in Korean Won I assumed that everyone uses Won at least in Korea. What I forgot to realize it that an American Military Base really is just a little piece of America only located on foreign soil. It takes a while to get used to but if I closed my eyes and ignored the walls and gates I could imagine I was back in North America with everyone speaking English and talking about movies and TV shows, etc.

I'm not sure I'd want to live on a base with the walls, and the curfew, and all the restrictions, etc. but it sure was nice to visit.

Dinner With My Students

Did I mention how much I adore my Level 2 students at LG Learning Center? They are so fun to teach and my time with them goes by so quickly! They even help me with everyday things I need to know to make my transition to living in Korea easier.

For instance, then I first arrived in Korea I had trouble using the metal chopsticks that were provided at the cafeteria of LG Learning Center. I'm a pro at using wooden chopsticks but the metal ones I found slippery so I was always spilling food all over myself and the table. It was embarrassing but I didn't want to resort to bringing and using a fork from home as I thought it might be considered disrespectful. My students noticed and one day one of my students brought me some wooden chopsticks. I was so pleased and I used them so skillfully that my students could see that I did indeed know how to use chopsticks. I left the meal that day feeling quite proud and maybe even a little full of myself until I heard the student who had brought them to me telling another student that his 4 year old son had "graduated" from using the wooden "training" chopsticks to using metal ones. In other words I had less skill using metal chopsticks than a four year old Korean child. Needless to say, my ego deflated very quickly. But I was still deeply moved by the gesture of kindness to me and I soon regained my composure and there after used those wooden chopsticks proudly and skillfully everyday at lunch.

My students were thoughtful in many other ways both large and small. One day they heard me asking another teacher how to make a collect call to Canada from a pay phone. That teacher didn't know and neither did my students. I thought I was out of luck. However, the next day during the small talk I use to start every class - my student, Francisco, proceeded to tell me he had done some research and he could now tell me how to make a collect call to Canada. He then gave me a sheet of paper with detailed instructions on it. In case you ever need to know here's how to do it:

1. Hit the red emergency button on the phone.
2. Dial 1541 [no idea what this does maybe it is to get an operator (?) I'm not sure.]
3. Dial 001 [This gets is an International Phone Carrier Company number - also you can try 002, or 008. Personally I haven't had much luck using 001 so I use either 002 or 008.]
4. Dial the country code - for North America it is 1.
5. Dial the area code.
6. Dial the phone number.

For more information on how to make phone calls in Korea here is a helpful website from Tour2Korea. Here's the link How to call Overseas from Korea.

I guess my Level 2 students like me, too. They invite me to go to dinner with them. I wasn't sure if it was considered appropriate so I checked it out with my superviser, "Julie", and she said it was fine. So, I happily told them I could go and we pick a date and time to go to dinner.

This is my favorite picture of me and Jin Teacher with my Level 2 LG Learning Center Students. From left to right in back: Peter, Bill, Kenny, Terry, Francisco, and Mr. Shin [he didn't want an English nickname] and in front is me and Jin Teacher.

Here's a photo of Terry pouring Baek-sae-ju at the restaurant. It is a type of Korean alcohol that tastes like white wine. I love it! I had never tried it before but my students ordered it for me to try [since they know I am half-French they always tease me about liking wine, etc.]. Here Terry is teasing a fellow classmate by pouring from two bottles at once into his shot glass.

Our dinner was wonderful. We had So-goki. This is strips of beef that have been marinated in a sauce and we cook them ourselves over the burner in the middle of the table. The beef is so tender that it just seems to melt in your mouth. Yum! To eat it you take the cooked beef and place it in a lettuce or sesame leaf and then put some salad on top of it and roll it up. Then if you want to you can dip it into a sauce or if not just eat it plain.

After dinner we go to a singing room to sing Karoke. In Korea you don't sing karoke in a bar in front of strangers instead you get a private room. I much prefer this method as you don't have to either:

• wait a long time for the song you want to come on
• embarrass yourself in front of complete strangers

Here's a photo of me singing Karoke. Lucky for me at least half the songs are popular English songs [like top 40 songs from back home] so I don't have to try and sing in Korean.

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I have to say it was a very enjoyable occasion. I am tired but very happy and in high spirits at the end of the night. I wish all my classes could be as special as my Level 2 class is. I miss them. When they "graduated" from the Learning Center they all gave me their business cards. I think about someday e-mailing some of them just to say "Hi" and that I still remember and appreciate their kindness to me. Maybe someday I will.

Field Trip to Gyeongju

I got a chance to go with my LG Learning Center Class to Gyeongju, South Korea. For those of you who don't know Gyeongju is a very historic site. It was the seat of the Silla Dynasty from the 4th to the 10th century. It is a World Heritage Site because it contains "monuments of exceptional significance in the development of Buddhist and secular architecture in Korea" [quote by UNESCO my last link]. It has the Pulguksa [some people spell it with a "B" making it Bulguksa] Temple and a National Museum. It is located in the southeast of Gyeongsangbuk-do (a province in South Korea). It took about an hour and a half to get there by bus from Gumi.

For more information on Gyeongju check out the following sites.

Gyeongju - Nara City

Traveljournals - Gyeongju Photos

Korea Bike Tour: Gyeongju

Bulguksa Temple at Gyeongju

Gyeongju City

UNESCO World Heritage Site

This is a brochure from the National Museum of Gyeongju. They didn't have any brochures left in English so I took a French Version. I knew at least I would understand 80% of the French pamphlet. I didn't expect to have to use my French in Korea. I guess it just goes to show you never know when something you've learned previously will come in handy.

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I didn't have a digital camera at the time I visited Gyeongju but I did take some photos and I've scanned them into my computer. Here they are:

These are the gates to Gyeongju. You can see the parking lot just beyond the gates.

Here is a picture of 3 statutes. I love the stone statutes that seem to be located at every historical site in Korea.

This is a picture of me in front of one of the statutes at Gyeongju.

This is a picture of a Buddha Statute.

This is the Shilla Crown.

Here is a head-less stone statute.

This is some kind of stone pillar.

This is a stone temple of some sort.

This is a closer view of the same temple.

This is my favorite picture from Gyeongju. I wanted to save the best for last.

The only thing that I didn't like about my day at Gyeongju was that it rained very hard. You can see the water-stains on the stone statutes and in my second from last picture you can see how shiny the ground is because of all the rain. The rain made it harder to look around and really see ALL there was to see.

Queen For A Year

Queen: For A Year - The Title of My Web Blog
I have been thinking a little about the title I chose for my web blog. Some people have been joking with me that the title of my blog is misleading and that it sounds like I am a gay guy who is acting like a "Queen". Other people think my blog is about a Beauty Queen who is presiding on her reign for a year. And, yet other people think that it will be about a female soldier stationed over-seas.

Technically, the term "Queen For A Year" refers to a woman in the military who is stationed over-seas (usually in a war zone) and who is in an environment where there are many more men then women.

For fun I googled "Queen For A Year" to see what I'd come up with on that term. I found the following link that talks about a female soldier, Kayla Williams, who wrote a book about her experiences in the American Military. She has this to say about the term and phenomenon of "Queen For A Year":

Any female soldier stationed abroad in a predominantly male military environment, she says, automatically becomes more attractive - "Queen for a Year" - and it can go to your head if you are unused to being noticed at home....

Here is the link to the web page showing a review Kayla Williams' book. Love My Rifle More Than You

Another blogger writes about the things he doesn't want to forget about Iraq.

He writes:
Queen for a Year - the fattest, ugliest, most obnoxious girls had the pick of the litter for one year. The line was "remember that you are only one plane ride from being ugly again."

The link to his blog is here. A Candle in the Dark - Blog

I didn't choose the title of my web blog knowing these things and it's not exactly a tell-all of my wild days chasing guys in Korea [that's for another blog someday - just kidding:)]. So, why did I choose this as a title for my blog? Well, let me clear up any confusion - that the brief blurb that I wrote in my profile doesn't - and tell you the inspiration behind the title of my blog.

I chose the title of my blog because any foreigner who looks like a "Westerner" does create quite a stir in - Korea - a homogeneous country.

As someone from my hometown wrote me in an e-mail when commenting on my blog (we) foreigners do get a surprising amount of attention in Korea. She told me how she and her boyfriend were living in the Sasang area of Busan and how they seemed to be the only foreigners there and how a guy driving a motorcycle actually fell off his bike and had an accident cause he was so busy looking back over his shoulder at them. I know it's hard to believe if you haven't been there and had similar things happen to you but its true.

Foreigners joke about being so noticed in Korea. As anyone who has read my posting titled "Neighborhood Boys" will know I even have/had Korean children watching everyday for me to walk by their house so they can run out and talk to me. After a while with all this attention you start to feel like you need to do your hair and make-up just to go to the store to pick up some milk for your cereal at breakfast. You know that wherever you go someone will be watching you and noticing what you look like.

Also, myself and some of my friends felt like we got so much attention that we were like "movie stars". One friend of mine who I'll call "Amber" told me how she had changed to a new color of eye shadow and how that class all her students would talk about was how it made her more pretty and that now she looked like a princess. She joked and told me, "After this I never dare teach class without my make up on. Now I know how Britney Spears must feel." So, I joked back and said, "If you are Britney Spears who are I? Queen Ann?" That sort of started our Queen For A Year jokes. After that whenever we would complain about getting too many stares etc., we would say "Oh, well, it's just part of being Queen For A Year."

I wanted some photos to add to this post. I didn't take these pictures with the idea of blogging instead it happened this way. After we started joking about being Queen For A Year wherever I went I tried on crowns to see how I would look. Here are some of my pics.




This is me trying on a Thai Crown at my favorite Thai restaurant in Itaewon, Seoul. The restaurant is called Thai Suki and I highly recommend it. Since I live in Busan I only get to go there about 3 times a year but the staff always remembers me and even encourages me to try on the Thai crown and model it every time I visit.

This is me trying on the head dress part of an outfit one of the girls wore on the day she graduated from Kindergarten. Look at "Sarah" in the background. She seems to be looking at me wondering, "Ann, Teacher, what are you doing?"

This is me in a paper crown. I wore it on Halloween Day at one school I worked at. I didn't really have anything in the way of a costume to wear so a friend made me a paper crown and told me I was now "Queen For A Year". In general, Koreans don't celebrate Halloween but every school I've ever worked at has had some kind of special event for Halloween - sometimes it was called "Carnival Day" and sometimes it was called "Market Day" and sometimes it was even called "Halloween".

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I hope this clears up any confusion anyone had regarding the title of my blog.

Weekend in Waegwan

I met a guy a couple of times at a Psycho, the foreigner bar in Gumi, and he is an American soldier who is stationed at Camp Carroll in Waegwan. [For whatever reason all the American Military bases in Korea are called "Camps" and since there are something like 33,000 American Soldiers posted in South Korea whenever you go out to foreigner clubs you will meet some of these guys.]

Waegwan is about a 10 minute train ride from Gumi heading South in the direction of Daegu. So, after meeting a couple of times and chatting [in Psycho] he gives me his e-mail and cell phone number and we start sending text messages back and forth. We decide to we want to meet and spend sometime together. So, one Saturday he invites me to meet him at the train station in Waegwan. This is a good landmark so that we can easily meet up with each other. This is our starting point for exploring the local area.

So, once again, I am off to have a new adventure here in Korea.

I arrive at the Waegwan Train Station. It is, both, the beginning and end of my trip.

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I should admit that I didn't spend the weekend in Waegwan I actually only spent a Saturday exploring it with my new soldier friend but some how a title like "Saturday in Waegwan" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "Weekend in Waegwan" with its alliteration.
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My friend offers me the chance to go onto Camp Carroll [the American Military Base] and look around but still not knowing him that well I decide we should just explore the town. [I tell him that next time I will let him sign me on the base and he can show me around his "home away from home" and that we can go to Anthony's Pizza and eat American fast food.] And, since I now speak some Korean and he speaks none we find a lot of interesting places that he has never seen before even though he lives in the area.

We walk around the market area of Waegwan and I found one of my favorite things in Korea - a coffee vending machine. For around 300 won [like 30 some cents Canadian] you can get a small coffee. This vending machine is a little different as it offers cans of drinks and lotto tickets, too. I have never bought a lotto ticket in Korea cause I have never been able to figure out how to check my numbers.

At the market we see this crate of baby chicks that have been dyed. The poor little things I wonder if the process of dying them results in the dye running in their eyes and blinding them or at least hurting their eyes. Koreans don't really celebrate Easter so this wasn't some sort of a display for Easter or anything like that. Wonder if Korea has an SPCA? Looking at these chicks I'm guessing they don't.

Walking around the market we see this old man selling fresh veggies.

I see this in the inner courtyard of a Korean house we walk by. It appears to be an oven. What you need to know is that Korean houses and apartments don't have ovens. Normally, there are only two gas burners. I guess it's because Koreans don't eat many baked goods but instead eat rice and lots of vegetables so therefore they don't need ovens. In fact, for the most part you can't even buy bread at a corner or convenience store you have to go to a either a bakery or a big supermarket. So, I wonder why this house had an oven. I found it most interesting.