So here are photos:
One night, with some last minute instructions from our employers, we were told we must all go out for dinner to the Outback Steakhouse together. It is apart of team building. I am not a fan of fake scenarios where you can feel the tension between the Koreans and foreign teachers. Lots of kissing butt by pouring alcoholic beverages to supervisors (I didn't do this even though people who are lower in the totem pole of status should be).
After a painful dinner where my employers got drunk and then proceed to drive home afterward like assholes, yes, I said it because I hate people that drink and drive. The girls and I decided to take a taxi but first we were going to wonder around a new part of Gwangju. It was the new part of the city and was full of flashing lights and neon signs. I think it's funny that at the Outback Steakhouse, they give each guess a complementary dinner roll with butter in a bag for a gift. It's weird. But the girls and I decided to hand it out to random people on the streets of Gwangju. The funniest thing is that high school kids were all over it. But full grown business men where scared to death of white woman approaching them. Literally, a group of 5 men ran away from us! Korean men, well, they aren't the bravest.
Here is a typical street vendor selling different foods. I had to take a picture of the girls because as you can see those Korean men are staring. This is super common in Korea to have men stare at us white woman. Sometimes they make comments and snicker. I find it's rude and sometimes I said to men, 'Hi, can I help you because you are staring?" then they turn away because they are embarrassed.
Here is the newer part of Gwangju. For some reason, all over Asia, especially in cities, they love using neon signs for advertising. I think it's interesting and sometimes really really tacky. Most of the time I can't even read the signs so I have no clue what these stores sell.
Garbage in piles everywhere. Yes, at night there are huge piles of garbage all ready to be picked up. The most messed up things is that there never are any public garbage cans during the day. So if you buy a drink or a snack from the convenient store, you need to eat it there so you can throw your garbage out. It's uncommon to eat and walk.
I love vending machines, especially odd onces like this that sell telephone cards, coffee and cans. maybe they should change the word 'cans' to 'pop' or 'soda' but technically it's not a can. Unless they say 'can of pop or soda'.
Thai massage sign on the back of a truck. Now that is clever advertising.
Chonnam University - an interesting part of the town where there is a large student population. I like how there are a variety of restaurants, bars, clubs, cafes, and just some nice scenery. I enjoyed hanging out here and taking in the university life all over again, minus the studying.
I wicked photography skills of the flowers in bloom in Korea. Look at the bee work it for the camera!
The notorious holding of hands. Koreans love holding hands with friends. Men with men, woman with woman. However, boyfriends and girlfriends don't really hold hands because well that isn't acceptable. What is up with that? So homosexuality is frowned upon heavily but yet if you were to just walk off a plane as a tourist in Korea, you would think, man this is one big gay country. Even at the sauna, you see friends scrubbing each other down in the nude. So that is okay but true love between 2 people of the same sex isn't? By the way, girl in the middle of the hand holding, mini backs are so 90s.
These are the guard dogs at the gas station where my bus to my house stops at. These dogs look so sad and skinny. I feel bad for them. Apparently Koreans do eat dogs and many of my Korean teachers talk about eating 'dog stew' especially for men's stamina. hmm, I don't know but that ain't right.
Did someone says fridge sale? I have never seen so many different kinds of fridges in one store.
A glove making factory. Yup, I watched these machines turn out some gloves. It was interesting that no one was around and this shop was wide open. Weird. I could have stolen at the gloves in the middle of the day.
So this lady hangs out near the bus stop by the giant Homeplus grocery store in Gwangju. I think she sells various yogurt drinks. Yup, yogurt drinks are quite the trend here. You can get different yogurt drinks that supply you with different types of vitamin and effects (like prune yogurt drinks to clear out your colon). What boggles my mind is that when I worked at Second Cup coffee shop during university, a lot of Asian customers always wanted soy milk because they were lactose intolerant. Yet, in Korea, all coffee shops, including Starbucks serve homogenized milk. Even ice cream shops are super popular. Isn't that weird that Asian people aren't lactose intolerant in Asia but magically something happens when they move to Canada. Just a thought.
My little drunk farmer friend's tools for working in the field. I don't know the mans name, but I see him when I walk to the bus stop and he is always drunk and smelling like booze but he one of the nicest old men I have met. We do a lot of sign language/acting to get our ideas across to each other. One day I even gave him my green tea and he then took me to show me his house so we could drink it together. Hilarious! But honestly he one person I respect for his hard work in the fields at the age of 70.
These are some shots I took of the mountains that surround where I live.
Here is what a typical us stop looks like by where I work and live. Not really classy but it is functional for the 2 buses the come once an hour.
This is what a typical Korean farm looks like. A bit disorganized and messy to the naked eye.
So down where I live there are a handful of overpriced Korean restaurants. I have gone to 2 and they are pretty sad. The decor is bad and the food tries to look fancy with parsley bits and stuff, but it tastes bad! Some of the buildings have the oddest architecture, like this mushroom restaurants which well as you guess serves mushroom dishes. I can't eat Korean food anymore, it makes me nausea when I see it. Honestly, a lot of my coworkers don't like Korean food either.
So in one of the farmer's fields, they have a goat pen. It's cute and the goats look happy with their hay and water buckets. But right behind the goat pen is 9 dogs in tiny cages. As you can kinda see in this photo, behind the wire fence are the cages. Inside are 9 identical looking dogs. The sad thing is that I think the dogs are breed for eating. eeekkk. Under there cages are giant piles of poo which means that the dogs are pretty much living in those cages and they never get out. I don't know what to say. In North American standards, I guess most people would consider eating dogs a horrible and cruel thing to do. In Korea, it's food. But dogs are slowly becoming popular as pets here. But who knows how much longer dogs will be eaten before they eventually just become friends.
I think this tree is great. I like it because it looks like something out of a Tim Burton film.
Here is a close up of it! Scary!
The cute little tractor that one of the farmers own. It's interesting to see what simple lives the farmers live. But once you go to the city, young Koreans are covered from head to toe in name brands including ones that I haven't even heard of! haha
So this is a distance shot of JETI, the place where I worked. On the left side of the photo is the main campus with a variety of buildings. I work and live on that side of the campus. The building on the far right is the English building that is still being built. In my interview to Korea, they promised and said that is where I would be living and work. But unfortunately, that was a lie and the building will possibly be done in May.
Here is a close up shot of the campus. The white building on the left side, it is whre the international department is located (where supervisors life). I leave in a residency behind this building. It's sad to look outside my room and see my supervisors office. horrible. The other buildings are used from the management department and so on.
Here is a close up of the English building that is still being constructed. Thank goodness, I won't be living there because the apartment is like a shoebox, no joke. It's tiny.
Once again, in this photo the white building is where my supervisors work. Where my coworkers and I work is in the building red colored building behind the smoke stack. I don't know why there is a smoke stack because they never use it. But yes, I have climb three flights of stairs on giant hill to get to my office every morning.
Here is a shot of what one of the fancy restaurants near my work looks like from behind. It's pretty gross and really shabby. There is garbage everywhere and the building looks like it is falling apart. eeekkk. I have watched a few episodes of 'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' and this is a typical scary restaurant!
This is a photo taken near the Damyang Spa Lyndsey and I went too. It was a great treat to go to a fancy spa for only $6.00 Canadian! It was great! There is a lot of nice scenery out in the countryside I will admit.
Spring is in the air. I am a bit happy that I will not be here for the humid weather. That is killer. I have experienced it in Japan and in China in the summer. It's the type of humidity where you sweat in places you never knew you could sweat in. I like summer and sun, but Asian summers are too much for me!
