Korea | GRRRL TRAVELER

8 ways I stay warm during winter in Korea

Filed under Crazy Korea, Korea by Christine Ka'aloa on January 18, 2011 at 1:51 pm {40 comments}

2011

It’s been said that this is the worst winter Korea has ever seen. It sure feels like it. It’s so cold that the concrete at my work desk provides regular AC breezes through the soles of my shoes and to my feet. Not kidding. During the winter you’ve got to find ways to keep warm.

Here are 8 ways that I fend off winter chill (and I’ve found a couple fellow K-bloggers that do the same):

1. Turn on my floor heater.

Mine only goes to 55 degrees Celcius (aka 122 degrees Farenheit)! But this can’t be accurate because I’m barely feeling 78 degrees. I’m still cold, so it might have to do with the output that it’s powering my ondol with.

Instead of radiator heaters, many Korean apartments, flats and jjimjilbangs have floor warming systems called ondols (온돌). Floors are heated from underneath and thus, heat is spread evenly throughout the house. However, sometimes the effect isn’t always as immediate or effective as a New York City radiator that makes a loud hissing noise (I speak from (more…)

2011 Shoutouts: GRRRL’s mom, my solo travel fears and the mystery I’ll be!

Filed under GRRRL in the News, • EXPAT LIFE by Christine Ka'aloa on January 17, 2011 at 12:00 pm {one comment}

Annyeong 2011! Time is flying and it’s taking a jet.

Writing Home for the Holidays: GRRRL TRAVELER’s blogging mom

It was a winter white holiday for us in Korea and this year,I didn’t have time to write home about it. No problem, my mother, the real family blogger, did it for me!

With my mother in town for two weeks, we climbed the ups of sightseeing Korea through Jeju Island, making our own K-drama tour, desk-warming together at my school, seeing snow fall (*for her it was the very first time),… and she bore the downs of catching a cold during a wicked winter, as well as fears of first time solo travel at age 67! In GRRR! fashion, she survived.

I’m excited to have a crap-load of fun “first time impressions” to share with you, from her Korean vacation, taken from her eyes and words.

Solo Travel~ can I whimper?… Writing the vacation that’s still a mystery to me.

Winter English camp is over and I head to Thailand and Laos this weekend for my winter vacation! Two weeks.

Oh yay.

I haven’t been doing my traveler jiggy dance nor have I researched much on this. My life will be shifting shortly with the end of (more…)

How many travel love letters will you write?

Filed under Jeju Island, Korea by Christine Ka'aloa on January 15, 2011 at 5:57 pm {5 comments}

(Bukcheon Village, Seoul)
Love letter #1 to Korea

As I said 2011 would be my year to ‘experience love’!

Love comes through many doors, inspiring our creativity and playful curiosity of life. For a traveler, love portals can be opened through countries we immediately fall in love with or find rocky romances with. It can be discovered through the odd kitsch souvenirs we find wandering an off-beat alleyway of shops or entered through the trusted smiles of a hotel front desk clerk after a long day of haggling…

If the door is wide open and we’re curious, love rushes in.

Why not write love letters?

“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire…. “
— Roland Barthes (from A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments)

A blog, a photograph, a video or postcard… these can all be “love letters”. But sometimes, the love letters we find for a place can be vague, indirect, the je’ne c’est quoi of mystery. You don’t know why or what it is about a place… but damn it, you love it!

After revisiting Jeju Island’s Olle trails this past holiday season with my mom, the inspiration to write love letters opened up inside me…

I wanted to leave behind an trail of anonymous memories for love to find me.

What are some favorite love letters of places that you’ve written or received?

*Note: Images or writing must be suitable and tasteful for post.

5 Things Working at MTV taught me about teaching ESL

Filed under GAP YEAR TRAVEL, How & why teach in Korea? by Christine Ka'aloa on January 11, 2011 at 8:04 pm {11 comments}

Before moving to live and teach abroad in Korea, I had a career in producing and shooting some of MTV’s top-rated teen reality shows, such My Super Sweet 16, True Life, Engaged and Underage, Camp’d Out. What did this teach me about teaching ESL?

Directing a good soundbite (aka Pronunciation)

Did I just hear someone utter pibe vs. five?

Repeat.

My students may not be TV talent, but clarity and good enunciation is still important for an audience’s ear.

If I don’t correct their speech habits, their pibes will grow to sebens, then to elebens… until their ” pishes swim in a riber”.

ESL students aren’t the only ones afflicted with bad pronunciation habits, though. It plagues English-speakers too. I remember sitting in many Super Sweet 16ers‘ bedrooms with camera on tripod and lav mic on the talent, directing interviews and promotional reads. Sometimes, a ‘regional accent’ or ‘southern drawl’ gets in the way, making a kid sound like they’re talking with food in their mouth. Other times, it can be a speedy delivery, as if the kid’s words are exhaled into one long and slurred, run-on sentence. There were times some of my show kids were really incomprehensible…

I gave the one favorite word that I use today–

(more…)

5 Ways to Trust Yourself as a Traveler (2010 Expat Review)

Filed under Inspiration, Interviews by Christine Ka'aloa on January 6, 2011 at 6:31 am {4 comments}

Living abroad?

Nothing like it.

I’ve made new friends and found a strange new world abroad that I’ve called home for almost a year. Overcoming the various roller-coasting battles of culture shock, food obstacles, a new work environment and an unhelpful colleague, I’ve found my own ways of coping and getting by in Korea and often, without the luxury of Korean translations. It’s surmounted into one exuberant exclamation…

I’ve survived!

The Biggest Lesson I’ve Learn so far: Trust the Unknown

All artists envision their creation, before putting chisel to stone or paintbrush to canvas. Sometimes, the vision is complete; other times, its vague but powerful enough to pull your steps towards your goal. If there’s a lesson I’ve learned from all my travels, living a freelance lifestyle in New York City and moving abroad to Asia, it’s definitely trust! Living in Korea solidified that fact for me and taught me to loosen up… a bit.

(more…)

Do you really want to teach English in Korea? (Part II: Public vs Private schools)

Filed under How & why teach in Korea?, Teaching English by Christine Ka'aloa on January 2, 2011 at 12:14 pm {10 comments}

If you ask most people why they were drawn to Korea, the very first answer you’d commonly hear is– the benefits. Korea has by far, the best package out there. Along the way, you discover the experience itself is so much more, but before I get into that, here you go~

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5 Tips to Celebrating the Holidays Abroad

Filed under Inspiration, Tips & Tricks by Christine Ka'aloa on December 30, 2010 at 6:32 pm {8 comments}

4 Tips to Celebrating the Holidays Abroad:
So how do expats and travelers recreate their own holiday traditions abroad? Here are some ideas…
1) Hold loose expectations

Not all countries celebrate the holidays to the extent we do in the western world and a country’s lifestyle and cultural gap may make it broader. Most of Asia, for instance, celebrates their New Year in February using the lunar calendar and Christmas is usually celebrated in countries where Christianity is present.

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Finding Home for the Holidays: Where will you Ring in the New Year?

Filed under Inspiration, • EXPAT LIFE by Christine Ka'aloa on December 27, 2010 at 2:37 am {6 comments}

In a few days, fireworks will light the sky and party blowers will sound in the western world- Welcome to 2011! Even travel sites are abuzz with Top 10 lists of Hot New Years Eve Destinations (aren’t fireworks sorta the same anywhere you go?). Meanwhile a week ago, my travel clock was ticking and my small life abroad in Korea was in a conundrum over inflating costs of holiday travel and the global list of options. Panic. Oh my God, where to be on New Years Eve?

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A Secret List of English-speaking Doctors in Daegu (which none of us know about)

Filed under Daegu, Survival Issues by Christine Ka'aloa on December 23, 2010 at 8:02 am {10 comments}

It’s a royal pain to be an expat hunting for English-speaking doctors, dentists and dermatologists in Daegu. You do your Google search a number of times, only to find nothing. You ask your expat friends and they offer that one recommendation that everyone goes with, even if it’s (sometimes) crap or expensive.

Recently, on one of my searches I found a link to Daegu’s Metropolitan City site. Lo and behold, a long list of medical practitioners for the expat was hidden there! Why it never popped up in any of my many searches, I don’t know. So I’m cutting a pasting it here!