Ancient ArchivesMain page is here. |
July 22 2004
Sunset Ride Our time together was stressful at times, so we would kill the tension and stress by driving the crap out of it. We went on quite a few trips out to Uiwang on our scooters. |
July 21 2004
Letters to America Jung wanted me to take some pictures of these letters for a video project she was going to do. When she was young, she was told her dad had moved to the US, so she would write him letters for special occasions.
Jung's dream. Of course her dad wasn't in the US, but was a guest courtesy of Park Junghee's thoughtful policy of arresting people just in case they might have otherwise said something he disapproved of. Also there are pictures of Suhi and the infamous "Little Sisters of the Poop" sign. |
July 18 2004
Keith's Visit Another Sunday morning waking up in Hongdae. What a mess. I should find someone who's cleaner. Hell, this place got so much worse after I moved in. I basically built a huge nest on the floor. |
July 15 2004
Ammie My boss wanted to hire a second teacher to handle all the business we were sure to pick up in the following month. Unfortunately the opposite happened and our schedule cleaned right out. Also, he really didn't get along with Ammie at all and we all ended up losing money over the whole deal. |
July 2 2004
Keith's Visit Earlier, I'd been introduced to Deanna, who runs with my general circle of friends back home, yet we didn't really know each other. One mutual friend we shared was Keith, who came over to visit her for a while and seemed to have a great time in Korea. This was one of the few times anyone had been able to drag me out to a noraebang. |
June 28 2004
Rob One of my favourite students was Rob, a chubby fourth-grader who was obsessed with computers. Not just games but how they worked too. Too bad his mom didn't think there was a future in computers for him. Also I took a picture as proof that my photo has been in Vice Magazine. |
June 22 2004
Parents Visit We all went one day to the Korean Folk Village for a look around. And of course my mom got to beat up my girlfriend, which I'd imagine I'd want to do if I was a mother too. |
June 22 2004
Parents Visit This is a look any child knows: their parent inspecting the mess in their room. These pictures are mostly in Suwon, but the Korean restaurant pictured at the end is Piggy Piggy in Hongdae. This was the day of the first Korea/Japan Oi Festival. I'll never forget my mom wandering around saying "Oh look, a small market. Oh look, a Korean restaurant. Oh look, a Japanese skinhead." |
June 22 2004
Parents Visit We went to a lot of markets during my parents' visit. By the end they were all marketed out, but the trendy girls' market near Ehwa Women's University was a fun day. |
June 22 2004
Parents Visit This gallery shows a trip to Namdaemoon, which is probably the best place to go to get a feel for Korea all at once without being either too dirty, too sleazy, or too yuppie. |
June 22 2004
Parents Visit My parents came to visit for a couple weeks. They had a pretty good time here and got to meet Jung for the first time. These photos are of their very nice hotel room which was only $50 a night. My mom tried to kill a bug, then we went out for dongdongju. Unfortunately they served it warm, which wasn't so good, but it was pumpkin flavoured. |
June 20 2004
Kangwondo Vacation Some of my students took me on vacation with them. Suzie was one of my longest-running students at the time, and her older brother had just moved back from an exchange course somewhere. Her English was better too, at least her reading level. The trip didn't go according to plan, as it was the rainy season and it pretty well rained nonstop the entire time. And don't worry, I didn't eat these things. |
June 18 2004
Students I needed to kill some batteries so I took my camera with me to class. Once again I've learnt a lot about brightening images since these were taken. |
June 13 2004
Jung's Sister This was the first day I met Jin, Jung's older sister. I only got one picture. The pictures in this gallery seem to be from a lot of random moments on the weekend and I don't think they're in order. |
May 27 2004
Thursday night Here are some pictures I took on another weekday excursion to Hongdae. |
May 25 2004
Tuesday I woke up in Hongdae and went back to Suwon for work. |
May 16 2004
Sora I went out for the afternoon with my student Sora and got three whole pictures. |
May 9 2004
Rainy Sunday Another Sunday morning. A few pictures that I should really brighten, plus some of my favourite establishments around. There's Sexy Pig, and also the bar Judas or Sabbath, which I should really go inside sometime. |
May 8 2004
Bugok Railroad Museum This has to be the most interesting museum in the world. They have actual real train cars that you can go in. You can sit in the seats and look out the windows, but no goofing off. This is a serious learning place. Then, to make it even more interesting, we went on a real working train car, identical to the ones in the museum, on our way home. |
May 5 2004
Children's Day I had a holiday in the middle of the week and nothing to do, so I pointed my scooter in a random direction and drove. Most of these photos were taken north of Suwon, around Uiwang. |
May 2 2004
Sunday Morning On this Sunday we went to Kyobo Bookstore and then went to a barbecue restaurant in Sinchon where we made friends with a funny dog. Also I got a picture of Ho Bar the first. I decided my favourite Ho Bar is Ho Bar IV, because if you look at it right it looks like "Ho Barn." |
May 1 2004
Jung I decided to see if I could take good photos of Jung. The page has an error on it; it is not from a Samchung CD release show. That's just what it says on the template page and sometimes I forget to change the heading. |
April 22 2004
Giraffe In the entire year, I only ever had one student I genuinely disliked. Laura (II) was spoiled and selfish, and her parents hired me basically to do the job they never have time for. One time she didn't want to study, so I told her I didn't want to teach her and left. I thought that would be enough, but her parents asked me to keep teaching her. I made it through the end of my contract by playing paper-rock-scissors with her, sometimes for 20 minutes straight. This one thing she did always got me suspicious. How did she draw this giraffe? I had to reconstruct it in Photoshop. I'm certain she knew she was drawing something bad, but how did she know? Weird. |
April 21 2004
Wearing Down Batteries I think someone should invent a machine that drains the energy on batteries. It doesn't have to do anything, just empty the batteries. That way they can be fully recharged again. Anyway, it was an excuse to wander out and take nighttime photos. |
April 20 2004
Jung's Birthday These pictures are all crammed together from several different times, but I do remember we celebrated her birthday together, three days after our first meeting. I should have noted for later that, if we start dating seriously, this time of year will be hell because I have to worry about our anniversary and her birthday in the same week. One year later, it was not pleasant. Two years later I got the hang of it better. |
April 19 2004
Monday After a very busy weekend, I brought my camera with me to work. I got a couple pictures of one student's dog, and some more of the sunset. |
April 17 2004
Hwaseong Fortress Saturday was a busy day. First of all, I had a field trip with my students in the morning/afternoon. We went to Hwaseong Fortress for a picnic. Hwaseong Fortress is an impressive reconstruction of an old Korean fortress, right in the middle of Suwon. It forms a large ring around downtown Suwon, and the park itself is spread out around this circle. After the picnic, I had to get home because I was meeting Jung for the first time. I showed up at Suwon Station, and she was very late. While I was waiting, a middle-aged woman walked up to me with her young boy, and told her son to say "Annyoung" to me. I have no idea why she did, but I was starting to panic. Then Jung showed up in her cowboy boots and announced that she'd already started drinking, and we went to a restaurant. |
April 16 2004
More Students I brought my camera along on my Friday classes and got photos from three groups of students. The first group was Kati, Jennifer, Helen, and Daffy, a relatively new group of girls who were about eleven years old. Their relative English level was low but they were well behaved, if a little active. I of course gave them their names, with particular attention to the spelling of Kati's name. Also I went to the Lotte Mart with Brian, Steve, Laura, and Sonya in preparation for our picnic the next day. It was then that I discovered cameras aren't allowed in grocery stores for some reason. And I also got a couple pictures of Sora and Jungshim, two of my adult students. |
April 15 2004
Reservoir I discovered an artificial lake a couple blocks away from my office while on a scooter ride. Luckily for me I had my camera. This was one of those days where I didn't have much work. I couldn't go far but I did have quite a few chances to explore. |
April 14 2004
Nighttime There was a big weekend coming up so I wanted to drain the batteries on my camera so I could fill them again. I also stayed up in the PC Bang until around 6am talking to Jung. |
April 13 2004
Blossoms Ah, cherry blossoms. The main sign that spring is here. Also a reminder of Japan's occupation in this country last century. Bringing cherry blossoms was apparently one of their attempts to make Korea more like Japan. Unlike Japanese names and "blue" streetlights, this one lasted. 
I had taken the cherry blossom photos for Jung, a girl I'd met online and had been chatting with for a while. We hadn't met yet but were were planning on it soon. She borrowed her sister's digital camera and took some photos around Sanbon, where she was temporarily living with her parents. |
April 12 2004
Students I whipped out my camera during one of my classes. Laura, Steve, Brian, and Sonya were one of my more challenging classes, but they were my students from the very beginning all the way to the end, so we got along well in the end. |
April 10 2004
Everland One of my students took me to Everland for a day. It was a pretty good time. I don't think we ever quite figured out if we were supposed to be friends or I was supposed to be his adult supervisor. Hopefully he had a good time too. He was one of my favourite students, and it wasn't just because his English name was Bruce Lee. |
January 24 2004
Yongsan I had been preparing a big package to send home with gifts for everyone. After a trip to Yongsan I found something to give to my dad. In the end I sent a huge box filled with junk and a list of who should get what. It took months for everyone to get their gifts. |
January 18 2004
Lotte World Deanna and I headed to Lotte World to see what it was like. I had been there in 1996 and had quite a few memories of spending an entire day there. One of my memories was of an escalator that curved. It still blows my mind. I rode on it a few times. Another thing I remembered was a giant chandelier that looked like an upside down skyscraper, but I've never been able to find it. Lotte World has always been a comfort place for me, partly because it reminds me of a small West Edmonton Mall. It has almost as many attractions packed into an area less than a quarter of the size. |
January 17 2004
Coex Field Trip We had our first field trip. I didn't know any of my students that well by this time. On the way there Laura got sick in the car and had to sit out the rest of the trip. Coex is part mall, and part science exhibition. There was one on dinosaurs and one on the human body. I wanted to see the dinosaurs but we ended up in the human body exhibit. |
January 16 2004
Deanna Eli put me in touch with Deanna, a friend of his teaching English in the southern part of Suwon. We went to the bar I always went to. Over the next few months we met up several times and had a few adventures together. |
January 12 2004
Skiing It had recently snowed so I wanted to go out and see how Koreans acted in the snow. I saw quite a few kids playing in the snow: rolling snowballs, using whatever was at hand as a sled, rollerblading, biking, and playing games. At the gas station on the way to my work, there was a girl who would always shout "hi!" and run after me when I walked by. This day I had my camera with me when I was passing and got some pictures. I don't quite understand gas stations here. In Canada, it's usually scummy people working at them, but in Korea they all seem to be high school students. Usually they're the friendliest people you can find. |
January 10 2004
Going Home Originally this heading nearly gave my mom a heart attack. The trip back from the ski hill took longer than the trip there. We stopped for food and I took more pictures. |
January 10 2004
Skiing One of the guys from the bar For You took me to Jisan Forest Reserve, a small ski hill not far from Suwon. The lines were insane; we would stand for 45 minutes, then ride the chairlift for five minutes and ski down in three minutes. |
January 6 2004
Chasing the Sunset I had some spare time at work so I took my scooter out and decided to find a place to take a picture of the sunset. I ended up taking the subway a couple of stops to Suwon Station. |
January 3 2004
Trapped in Itaewon I had my first overnight experience in Itaewon, after missing the subway home. I stayed as long as I could in the bar, then spent the rest of the night in a PC Bang. It was a miserable existence, one I'm glad I didn't ever repeat. |
December 26 2003
For You My new friend Myunghwan took me to a bar near my home where a bunch of his friends hung out. I came there every Friday for a while. They all treated me well, even if most of them didn't know English. |
December 24 2003
Christmas Eve On Christmas Eve I went back to Yongsan. I was supposed to meet Hanna, the girl from the head office, that night, but on the way to meet her she jesused out on me via text message and I decided to find a show instead. Turn was having a metal show and nobody I had met last time was there. I wandered around Hongdae for a bit and saw Yongook, but I didn't know him yet so I didn't talk to him. I ended up going back to Suwon and drinking with another Canadian dude I met. |
December 21 2003
Walking Around Suwon I did some more exploring of Suwon and found a big field nearby with factories. There are a lot of places in my neighbourhood to explore. My home wasn't very far from the edge of town. Plus while putting these photos online in a PC Bang, I met Myunghwan, the first Korean I made friends with. |
December 20 2003
Looking for a Punk Show I found out that there was a show at a club called Turn in Sillim on both Saturday and Sunday nights. Going out, I looked for it but could never find it. Joey's directions sucked. Saturday was a complete bust. On Sunday, I managed to find it and got there just in time to see Samchung. |
December 17 2003
Training The head office sent a couple of employees out to Suwon to help us all get started. We had uniforms to wear but I noticed that the female employee didn't have to wear one. Kind of unfair in their favour, don't you think? Anyway, it was a decent day because I didn't have much to do. |
December 16 2003
Back to Suwon After my training was done, I headed home. Plus I found the grocery store, Lotte Mart, and went shopping for a few things. |
December 15 2003
Alien Registration I returned to Seocho to finish my training. Luckily this day they decided it was more important that we visit the immigration office and get our alien registration cards, so we basically spent the whole day being driven around. Plus we got to go to Burger King. |
December 14 2003
Christmas Concert One of the girls at the head office invited me to a Christmas concert. It turned out to be a very very Christian event. Luckily my lack of Korean fluency got me through it with my soul safely intact. |
December 14 2003
Seocho I had some time to myself on Sunday before work started so I wandered around my new neighbourhood. |
December 13 2003
To Suwon My boss showed up at the company's head office. He took me out for lunch and we planned to move me into my apartment in Suwon as soon as possible. I'm pretty sure we drove up there on a Saturday. |
December 12 2003
Seocho I arrived around 4 in the morning and there was nobody to pick me up at the airport. After phoning my emergency contact, who turned out not to speak English, I found out the ride was late. I was brought to Seocho, a quiet neighbourhood in southern Seoul, and booked into an odd motel that had porn on channel 4. My previous experience in Korea helped me ease in better and I hardly felt homesick at all. |
December 7 2003
Toronto In order to go to Korea, first I had to fly a couple timezones in the opposite direction. I had to stop by Toronto to visit the Korean embassy and get my visa. Luckily my uncle and his family live in Toronto, so I stayed with them. My uncle taught English in Korea in 1996 and I visited him with my sister and cousins for a month in summer. |
CONTACT
Jon underscore Dunbar at Hotmail
010-3212-2812
Please remember that these photos are all copyrighted to me. If you want to use them in any way, there's a 90 per cent chance I'll give you my permission, and be able to give you a copy with a higher DPI.Copyright Jon Dunbar 2004
Photos taken by
Nikon CoolPix 950
digital camera.