English Haircut, Seosan

Hey, Seosan people. So I’m out of here soon and so I want to post as much practical information as possible before I leave. Getting a haircut in Korea is terrifying. Even if you know the proper vocabulary for getting your hair cut (which you don’t, because Korean textbooks don’t teach you this stuff), it’s still pretty scary. Especially because Seosan is far from a bustling city, you would think your chances of getting an English speaking hair stylist would be hard, but you would be wrong! Go to Hosu Hair Salon! The main guy there worked in London for 3 years and speaks pretty decent English. There’s a few expats who go there that I know of and I haven’t had any bad experiences there. You also get a little discount card where you get a thousand won credit every time you visit. I’ve drawn a map to the location.

Thoughts on the First Snow of the Year

Last week we got our first taste of snow in Korea. You know what I hate? Snow. I should clarify, I hate the wet stuff that turns to ice that very same evening…the powdery stuff is fine because you can walk on it without feeling like you’re going to break your neck. After growing up in South Carolina and Georgia, I was really happy with the snow when I first moved to Korea. What used to be something that might happen every couple of years and only amounting to an inch or two became a yearly expectation. In Georgia, it also melts pretty immediately and here it sort of stays on the ground until Spring. It wasn’t until my second year here that I truly began to hate snow…partially that’s because I couldn’t use my scooter anymore and my life suddenly became more expensive from bus and taxi fare. It’s pretty, of course, but that fades as soon as you walk on it or drive on it. The first few days it’s great and then I stop wanting to leave the house. It’s crazy to have a white Christmas every year, but Korea isn’t all that festive around Christmas time so it just seems like an inconvenience. It’s not so bad though. I haven’t fallen yet. I invested in the following product: Yaktrax. They clamp around your shoes so you don’t slip on the glass like surface of the ice that you encounter every time you walk 2km to your favorite coffee shop. Don’t worry, my friends have mocked me already, but I will be the one laughing while they’re lying on their backs, sprawled out on the ice, and I am leaping around like a mountain goat. I’ve driven a scooter too long and Seosan is too small to take taxis. My scooter allowed me to only pay about 7$ every week or two in gas, so it’s very hard to accept that one trip to the grocery store and back will cost me 9$. Anyway, here are the obligatory pictures of the snow:

Expat Thanksgiving: Seosan, Korea

Last night, the expats in Seosan got together in a local bar and with the help of about 5 or 6 ovens we threw a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, stuffing, some great bacon and cheese mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, biscuits, and all the other normal stuff associated with a big family potluck. It was a bit chaotic for sure. There were easily over 40 people in attendance, so it was a little hard to get everyone organized, but it turned out pretty well. My girlfriend and 3 of my friends from Suwon. My friend James made a green bean casserole, but he’s Irish and didn’t know that everyone hates green bean casserole (I’m just kidding. There was none left). I made my grandma’s macaroni and cheese, but I didn’t put enough salt in it…I also made an apple pie and a blueberry pie from scratch. The apple pie was beautiful, but the blueberry pie turned out pretty ugly since the blueberries bubbled over the lattice top, it reportedly tasted good though. I will not be making another pie without a pastry blender though. Thanks to Urban bar and all the people who organized the event.

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Post-Modern Park, Seosan’s 호수공원

In the center of my peaceful city (Seosan) is the main park. You might notice the banner of this site…well, that’s part of it. We have a nice little gazebo out in the middle of the lake and some fancy new restaurants surrounding it…but more oddly, there is a large collection of odd sculptures scattered about the grounds. I often wonder what the locals think about this stuff. Back home, people might think that the local gay community decided to decorate the park, but since homosexuality doesn’t exist in Korea then I guess they’re left wondering. Here’s a collection of interesting things I’ve seen in Seosan and Seoul.

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Seosan’s Urban Bar

In my attempt to drum up business for the small places I like, I’m introducing Urban Bar. This place is tiny and quirky, so very unlike a normal Korean bar. The music is alright, nothing special most of the time. If a lot of foreigners come in, he has some “remember the late 90’s?” mix that he puts on. It’s got a dart board and some instruments that no one plays…but the allure is how much effort he puts into every single drink he makes. He’s a master mixologist! Every drink is precise with ingredients you wouldn’t expect. I ordered a sissy drink, a kahlua and milk, which as you know has two ingredients: kahlua and milk. However, when he made it, there was kahlua, milk, and about 3 things i’d never seen before and I was given an entire cinnamon stick as a stirrer. Along with the typical stuff, he also makes mojitos (with actual limes!) and sangria, both rarities here. I don’t care for drinking too much, but if I wanted to have a nice mixed drink, I go to this place. You’ll pay maybe 7,000-10,000won for a drink, which is steep, but where else are you going to get it?

Urban Bar is located near the traffic circle. If you’re standing directly in front of Gloria Jean’s coffee, looking at the traffic circle of death, take a right until you get to Family Mart and take a left down that street. It’s past some abandoned shacks on the left across from Family Mart on the second floor.

Coffee Namu

So here is my favorite coffee shop in Seosan. It’s called 커피 나무 (coffee tree) and the guy goes through great trouble to make a good cup of coffee. It has all the usual drinks, the lattes, americanos, for 6,000w etc., but more importantly he has a variety of hand drip coffee from 6,000w-17,000w. There’s not many places in Korea you can get Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, but this is one of them. I haven’t brought myself to spend 15$ on a cup yet, but soon enough I will. He’s open from 11am-11pm and many times I’m the only customer for hours at a stretch. If you live in Seosan, I encourage you to support this shop since he’s doing something different and doing it really well. If one of the chains closes, you won’t miss it, because everything’s a chain.

The city of ghosts

I arrived in Seosan yesterday. My initial thought was “what have I done?” but I think I’m getting over the shock. I walked into the city from my apartment and it only took me 30-40 minutes……..today, a teacher showed me how to walk there in about 10 minutes…seems I had gone incredibly out of my way. School seems easy enough. The books pretty much have my lesson plans laid out for me and I just have to come up with a game. I feel like such a chump for all the work I did last year. I don’t have a co-teacher for the 6th grade and I teach them 3 days a week. This is a blessing in disguise, I’m convinced it is. My apartment is pretty decent and lacks the clutter that was so pronounced in my last apartment (so much furniture that there was no wall space). I’ve met some people, they seem nice, but I’m attempting to avoid a full schedule of foreigner hang out time. I’ve got to really crack down on the Korean this year if I can. Oh well, that’s all for now. I really have no solid opinions of this place as of yet, but updates will be made.