ba de ya...Say do you remember..ba de ya..dancing in September....

 September was actually a very busy month and because I waited forever to write about it I am going to give the water downed version. Some things will be forgotten, and I know at times my writing will be rambling.

First I will talk about Chuseok…This is Korean’s fall harvest festival, much like Thanksgiving, you visit family, eat a lot of food, give thanks for blessings etc. This was a very interesting and fun cultural experience for me. I learned a lot about it so I could talk/teach the children about it. I impressed my school/boss with my awesome puppet skills, I gave a puppet show explaining what Chuseok is…the plot: Korean girl runs into non Korean friend, Korean girl can’t hangout with friend because she is getting ready for Chuseok…she goes on to explain what Chuseok is to her non Korean friend. In the end she invites her friend over to make traditional Korean food…and they lived happily ever after : )

We made songpyeon, they kind of look like potstickers, they are a rice dough filled with either sugar, honey, bean paste, dried fruit. You make the dough and fill them and then you steam them. For ours we filled it with sugar and seeds, they are super good when they are warm because the sugar is melted. I think I remember having these at my cousin’s first birthday party (she is half Korean) but I don’t think I fully appreciated them at the time.

The kids all wore their traditional clothes (it’s called Hanbok) it is always super cute to see kids dressed in clothes that you aren’t used to seeing children in. I still get a kick out of seeing my 3/4/5 year olds in suits haha. They all looked so adorable in their Hanboks and I was super jealous I didn’t have one of my own. In all honesty I think I am going to purchase one before I leave Korea, I don’t really know why I would ever need one but I feel like it is an important thing to have in my life also knowing me I will invent reasons to wear it. 

my crazy 3 year old boys

my 6 year olds

Songpyeong (you don't eat the pine needles)

My 10 year old boys (I never want to hit them upside the head...)

children in their Hanbok

Along with Chuseok comes vacation days!!!! I went to Hong Kong for a few days, got in Saturday night and left Tuesday afternoon. I was trying to visit my cousins in China, near Hong Kong but that plan was ruined when the people that they are volunteering for took them to the middle of China (aka 20 hours away) that weekend. :( I am still upset and sad about this so  I don’t want to talk about it anymore…

However I had a friend from back home that was working/living in Hong Kong at the time. We’ve know each other since middle school; he was nice enough to put me up and show me around the city. I think we ended up having a pretty successful adventure.

Highlights of the trip:

World’s longest escalator.

   

Taking the sky tram to the top of a mountain and looking down into the harbor

Randomly stumbling upon a tourist information center that told us about all this fun free stuff happening in Hong Kong that weekend. (It was inside this fake trolley car)

World largest fish lantern (it’s in the Guinness book of world records)

Fire dragon. They had this super long dragon that they had covered in incense and lit, they had a huge team of people running/dancing/carrying it, while someone was hitting drums…it was super cool to see but the pictures didn’t turn out very well, it was sooooo long it was crazy

Disneyland Hong Kong!

I hadn’t actually planned on going here but when the option came up I figured why the heck not! Now it can make it a goal to  go to all the disneylands (Tokyo isn’t that far, and I’ve been wanting to go back to France and after Harry Potter world opened in Florida, you know that’s on my to do list)

Now this Disneyland is very small compared to California, but it was nice to be able to do literally everything in one day and still enjoy it. I was able to see my Disney boyfriend Stitch, it was fate because he was both on my ticket and when we went to the Stitch show he picked me to be his girlfriend.

After a long not planned adventure of walking in the opposite direction we made it to the Avenue of Stars…China’s Walk of Fame if you will. We were able to see such stars hand prints such as Jackie Chan, and Jet Li…I was also able to do some Kung Fu moves in front of Bruce Lee’s statue (I did gather a bit of a crowd doing this).

There were some more fun things here and there and lots of inside jokes. Thanks Matt for being a good host!

Last thing to wrap up September

These are just some pictures of a little outing in Seoul. Some friends and I went down town on a weekend and they were having some festival preparing for Chuseok. We got our faces painted and walked along the river. Saw the statue of the King who invented the Korean alphabet. The weather was still nice…it was the perfect weekend outing : )

I know I have some catching up to do, but I am still enjoying every minute of Seoul. I love Korea, I have made some really great friends, that will be my excuse for my lack of blogging, I’m so busy enjoying life that I don’t have time to stop and write about it ;) haha. I love you all. I hope you all are doing well!

August in words and PICTURES!

Alright let me first off apologize for being a bad blogger :/ I guess it just means I’ve been having too much fun to stop and write about it. So let me just give you some thoughts and highlights on the last month. Sorry if it becomes random and out of order, but for anyone who has ever talked to me knows this is how I speak ;)

My Summer Vacation was nice. I stayed in Seoul for it, I was kind of trying to see if I could get out of town for a few days but by the time I got my act together everything was basically sold out. However I think it ended up working out better this way. I got to sleep in and explore Seoul during the day time. I also did a lot of shopping!

Tangent: Korea and I were made for each other. The shopping is ridiculous and I mean that in the best possible way. I seriously feel like I live in a giant forever 21 but better. All the clothes are super cheap, and cute. It is normal for girls to dress up girly, do their hair and makeup, wear cute little dresses everyday; there are venders everywhere selling handbags, hair things, and cute clothes everywhere! Plus in Korea you don’t really show your arms/upper part of your body, so all the dresses have sleeves which I love! However the flip side is that it’s totally normal to wear teeny tiny shorts or dresses, but you can just throw on a pair of tights or leggings or just wear a pair of undershorts just in case you have students that like to pull up your dress when you’re not paying attention. The shoe shopping is okay too. It’s crazy because I am a size 7 ½-8 in shoes and I am literally the second or largest shoe size, haha. I can’t understand how they have such small feet.

Okay off the shopping tangent. I went with my friend to this place called Cheonggyecheon. I was excited to finally see this place because a friend of mine had blogged about it before I left for Korea  http://ariellesophia.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/cheonggyecheon-demolition-and-community-restoration/

Basically here is the story. There is a river in the middle of Seoul, over the years this river became super polluted and was a dumping grounds for everyone’s trash so the city decided to cover up this eyesore with a major freeway. A lot of pollution and a few decades later some people got an idea to clean up the river and split the freeway around it. Now it is beautiful park where you can walk along the river and forget that you are in the middle of the city.

When I was walking around I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t that long ago that it was a polluted mess. The water looked so clear and the trees and plants so healthy. It was so nice, you are walking below street level so you really can’t hear much of the busy city around you. It was fun to see some families playing in the water and having picnics.

In this same area there is Dongdaemun Stadium, this is where all the athletes used to practice, even professionals. They had a little cultural and history center that was nice to look around at. Plus there were some random statues that my friend and I had to have a photo shoot with :)

Little brother big brother water fight, the little brother totally owned his older bro haha

My friend Brittany

Hilarious Korean Mannequins  

Another fun thing that I did was go to a dog café. Let me explain, this is a place where you can get some drinks and play with dogs, or if you have a dog you can bring it. It was so funny and fun to play with all these cute puppies. Plus it was just funny to see these dogs running wild all over this place, on top of tables, windows, they were just everywhere. Plus I felt like the girl of Finding Nemo chasing all these dogs around the café trying to catch one so it would come sit in my lap. You can take a look at this place on one of my favorite websites since I’ve been in Korea

 http://www.eatyourkimchi.com/bau-house-dog-cafe/

This couple is so funny I love them and wish we were best friends.

I know my eyes are closed but I kept laughing he didn't want to stay still

Where are you going?!

I just spent this last weekend in Naksan, it is the beach in the East of Korea. It was so beautiful, the weather was perfect. The water was so blue, it reminded me a little of Hawaii, how the water changes shades of blue the farther out you look. It was nice week took a bus on Saturday morning and played at the beach all day, our hotel was right next to the beach. We played some volleyball, swam in the water, took a nap on the beach, listened to music etc. Then some friends and I got cleaned up and walked up to the Buddhist temple nearby. It was on top of a hill so you had a nice view of the ocean and the city below. There weren’t very many people there when we went so it was very nice and peaceful. We were also there during a prayer/chant time so it was cool to look in and see as well as listen to the chants. Something that I hadn’t realized before was that the Swastika (Nazi symbol) was actually from the Buddhist. I knew that the symbol had been around long before the Nazis used it but I didn’t know that the Buddhist used it. I had been wondering about it for awhile now because I see that symbol around Seoul often, it even shows up when I use my google map on my phone. It’s nice to know that Korea is in fact NOT full of Nazis. There was a tall Buddhist statue at the very top of the hill, where people would come and light a candle, asking for their prayers/wishes to come true. There was also a frog statue that if you touched its head you could ask for 2 wishes :) We ended up going back to the temple in the morning to get some pictures in the daylight too.

After walking to the temple we went back to the beach and listened to music and watched fireworks and mingled with the other people on the trip. Then we went to sleep in our hotel. Just a fun little fact about Korean hotels, you sleep on the floor, you have a little mat and a blanket and pillow. It really isn’t that bad. However my friend and I about died laughing when I went to lay on my pillow, she kept calling it the captain crunch pillow because it was so loud it sounded like it was full of cereal, upon farther examination we discovered that it was filled with cut up pieces of drinking straws. Haha So if you ever have an industrial size bag of left over drinking straws and you don’t know what to do with them…cut them up and put them in a pillow case and BAM!

The next day we woke up went back to the temple and played a little bit more on the beach. Then we went to another beach where they have the longest zipline in Korea! It is super fun you zipline over the water and land on the beach. However I forgot that the sun = death and failed to sunscreen my ENTIRE body and got a weird sunburn on the tops of my feet and ankles. WTF why am I destined to be an albino the rest of my life. Luckily I was able to buy some Aloe and I have been using it twice a day so hopefully I will have normal legs again soon. In the mean time I have been wearing a lot of tights. Something that I love/hate about Koreans is that they call you out. Didn’t wear makeup today…your face isn’t as pretty as normal, getting fat…you’re getting fat you should go on a diet… you have a freaky leg sunburn…what happened to your legs, everyone come look at these crazy legs. Haha In all honesty I think I love it more than I hate it :)

View of the beach

Me on the Zipline!

Ceiling in one of the buildings, I love all the colors

Statue

Some art in the museum at the temple

At work we had our talent show yesterday. It was super cute the kids did such a great job. Their parents came and watched. I was the MC for the event, I always wonder how much people really understand when I’m speaking, at the very least I looked nice, I got all dolled up for it, It’s the Korean way ; )

Makeup for the talent show, these are some of my 7 year olds

Talent show, musical peter pan (weird version) 

Please note the batman costumes, they were bats in the show... bats=batman? haha

Some of my 5 year olds, the boy flashing the peace sign is one of my favorites

More of my 5 year olds. The one with the yellow bows was the one that cried everyday until I came to teach :)

My 6 year olds, minus one. 

A few of my 7 year olds, playing with fun Korean toys!

Today was the last day of one of my Korean coworkers, she teaches the 5 year olds, however since we changed to a Wonderland school (one of the top English schools in Korea) she didn’t feel like her English skills were high enough to perform to the new standards/demands. She is super sweet and it’s true her English isn’t very good at all, however it was kind of funny trying to speak with her because she always had a deer in the headlights look. The new teacher will start tomorrow, I met her very quickly today, she seems nice, but I wonder how the students are going to react to the change, I don’t think they told the students, which to me seems a little weird but maybe that’s just how they do it here. I hope I don’t have 10 crying 5 year olds tomorrow :/

Quick shout out to my favorite pass time in Korea Noraebong (Korean Karaoke). I seriously love this! It is so fun, you get a little room with some tambourines and a book of songs. You get to pick which songs you want to sing and then it plays the words for you like normal Karaoke, but at the end you get a score! It reminds me of when you’re driving in your car with a group of friends singing super loud to whatever song is playing, only this time you actually know all the words and can drown out your voice a little with the tambourine ;) Oh and in case you were wondering, I rock at this and often times get 100s, I know I’m awesome! Haha. Alright I love love love love you all. I will try not to let so much time pass between updates.       

Out of order weekend recap

Alright I think I am mostly going to recap the weekend. I don’t really remember much from last week and basically the only thing I do during the week is teach and all those days run together after awhile. Friday was an awesome day. For a school field trip we went to a water park, so fun! We took a charter bus which was nice but whoever decorated that thing OMG. I wish I could have taken pictures it was awful is the best way possible; purple curtains, tassels, maroon seats, and when you dimmed the lights the overhead lights were red, and green; which to the decorators credit when the lights where dimmed/almost off the purple curtains did match the maroon seats. This was the first long field trip I have been on. We got on the bus at about 10am and didn’t get home until about 9pm.

The place we went to was nice, it had an indoor swimming park with a wave pool, lazy river, several slides and different swim areas. At this place too they had an indoor ski slope with fake snow and there were large windows so you could watch the people skiing or snowboarding. Once we got to the water park we had lunch in a private room. It’s so funny to see what a typical “field trip” lunch is, everyone had kimbab/gimbab or samgak gimbab (this is the triangle shaped one), kind of like Korean sushi. Not one child had a sandwich :) Also everyone used Tupperware; when I think of all the garbage that is created with sack lunches which honestly I always thought was stupid. If you had room to bring it with you, you have room to bring it back, or if you’re afraid of losing a lunch box, don’t bring the gold plated lunch box or make sure your kid isn’t a dumbass that looses their stuff everywhere. I would tell them, hey if you lose your lunch box you don’t get a lunch for the rest of the year, done and done.

So once we had our fill of Kimbab we got ready to go swimming, this is where all the cuteness happened, a bunch of little kids in their adorable swimsuits with matching swim cap, almost every student had a matching swim cap, so cute : ) Then we took them all down to the pool. I was a little confused because I was the only teacher that actual wore my swimsuit, the rest just went in their clothes, and I was worried that I was going to look super covered up, I figured with all these skinny asian bodies they would be rocking the bikinis, guess not. All the students had to wear a lifejacket which was a good idea, almost everyone at the pool had one on so I don’t know if it’s required if you’re under a certain age or if everyone just does it. I was okay with it, then you didn’t have to worry about kids drowning, it was hard enough keep track of them as is. I became a hero for several students in the wave pool, they got in it and quickly realized they didn’t like it. It was kind of funny because there is this one boy who is 7 years old and a bigger kid for his class, usually a little bit of a trouble maker and can be a bully but he started freaking out, almost crying. He kept saying, “Marcie teacher, I don’t like” haha I understood that he meant he didn’t like the situation he was in, I didn’t take it personally. So he was clinging onto me for dear life as well as 3 other students; I took them safely to shallow water.

After the indoor pools we went outside and they had a water gun field, it was about the size of a soccer field and there were a ton of water guns and the kids just had a free for all. Then they had a pool with rafts in it were they were pushed around by workers to make it seem like they were on rough water, then there was an outdoor water slide and these pool toys you could sit on and ride, kind of like those bouncing balls that you sit/jump around on. After that we got dressed and then we had some dinner and played around a little bit. Then we went back outside and they had kind of like a summer camp song time, except this had a DJ. The workers were like the camp counselors leading the dances, it was really run, I had a great time spazing out. However my boss was there taking a million pictures so I’m sure once I see how ridiculous I really looked I might regret it :/ Then we headed home, the trip home was okay except 2 of my least favorite students were sitting by each other and I can’t believe I didn’t pull a grandma geri and slap someone. If you’ve listened to a 13 year old fake snore for over an hour then you can understand where I am coming from.

Friday morning I got my bank account and bank card! So I feel like I’m rich! Haha I made sure I thoroughly checked to see if it worked this weekend ; ) I bought a few things, I did some damage at the bodyshop, I love that store, I bought some shoes I don’t need but are really cute so I could find a need for it. I finally saw the last Harry Potter! So I can enjoy my life again.

I did have an adventure trying to get home on Sunday night, my friend and I caught the last train, which we didn’t realize ended only 2 stops away from where we started, FML right?! Also the subway worker was not in the mood to help 2 lost American girls, he just kept yelling at us OUT! However I did feel a little bit of justice because another guy started throwing up everywhere, gross but kind of awesome considering how I was feeling towards the worker. Luckily when we got outside this nice Korean girl and her boyfriend helped us figure out where we were and told us were we could get a cab. We had been denied by a cab already, why, the world may never know, but we walked a block down and the cabs were very happy to take us home. It ended up working out because we weren’t as far away as we thought we were so the cab wasn’t too bad. I guess the lesson learned is to never take the “last” metro train.

Saturday night was another night filled with all night dancing and shenanigans, followed by breakfast and tea in the morning before heading home for our Sunday naps ; )

As you can see I am running out of steam. I will have to tell you about Emart another day. Also my older kids are having their pop song contest tomorrow which is bound to be good : ) Love you all!

PS. I start my summer vacation week Thursday! I think I'll get my phone on my day off too! 

some sharing and over sharing

Hello everyone. Sorry I was being dramatic last week… I won’t stop blogging, yet ;) Blogging is kind of hard to get used to doing, it feels like a one sided conversation. After awhile it can feel a little awkward, you feel a little narcissistic; however I am a filthy hypocrite because there are several people’s blogs that I read/spy on and never leave a comment, so I guess you can call that Karma.

I’ve been keeping pretty low key this last week, it was pretty rainy last week so you don’t really want to explore when the streets are flooded. My school did have a talent show on Friday for the younger kids (4-7 year olds). The older students will have their talent show next week right before break. The talent show was really cute, I naturally was the MC and did the most amazing job ever : ) haha. The kids did a lot of songs and dances and recited a few stories they had memorized. The two 4 year old students did a few lunch time songs and chants which was cute, but the funniest part was that they had these towels wrapped around their heads like princess leia hair (the cinnamon buns over the ears). I have no idea why they did, or how it related if at all to their skit, but alright, plus I’m not going to lie I’m impressed that the teacher was able to do that with a towel.

Some exciting news for me was that I got my alien registration card this last week. This is your idea card while you’re in Korea.  You can’t open a bank account or get a cell phone contract without it. I think you also need your card id number to use a lot of websites too. However I think since I’m foreign my number doesn’t work on the websites, I will have to ask or try it out. I should be getting a bank account this week then, which I am very excited about, I hate dealing with cash especially coins! I just hope I can have online banking, I’m not sure I can function without it

Sunday I met up with a friend I met a few weeks back. It was really fun to explore Hongdae with her during the day time. I’ve only been there at night because that’s where all the clubs etc are. Hongdae has a ton of coffee shops it’s crazy, in this small area there are like 300 coffee/cafes ( do not quote me on the number I have not verified this “fact”) We walked around and did a little shopping I only bought some nail polish and band-aids because I still needed to go grocery shopping (which I did today). However once I get paid on Friday I am very very very prepared to spend some money, shopping is seriously a hobby in Seoul, there is always stuff being sold everywhere and for the outdoor markets you can haggle the price : ) We did get some dinner at Taco Bell which was kind of a fun reminder of home, I think there are 3 in Seoul. It isn’t really the same, the menu is way smaller and the price is way higher but it’s more or less what you expect when you think of Taco Bell. Unfortunately Taco Bell is about as Mexican food as you’re going to get in Seoul, I think there might be a few other hidden Mexican food restaurants but they are few and far between.

Tomorrow I am going to Emart for the first time, it is kind of like walmart in the sense that it is a superstore, one stop shopping, but it doesn’t have the negative stigma attached to it. Hopefully it isn’t too crazy. My school is taking a trip to the water park on Friday so I wanted to buy a beach towel and get some summer/water clothes, like shorts/flipflops etc.

Today I went grocery shopping which is always fun. I was being my smart shopper self and totally came in under budget! If you don’t bring your own bag you have to buy their plastic bags, however they are pretty stingy with them; considering they are only like 5 cents I would gladly pay for two bags instead of trying to shove everything into one, heaviest bag on the planet. I need to buy some reusable bags but I also like using the store bags for my recycling, considering how much you can recycle here you go through bags pretty fast. However having to carry your groceries home makes you want to buy/eat less, which is a good thing. But once you get home with all your delicious groceries you always want to eat everything or at least some of everything. Speaking of, I should go make some dinner! I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Oh I almost forgot, today when I was teaching the 5 year olds one of the girls lifted up the back of my dress so I mooned half of the class…awesome. Oh my gosh. Hopefully I was quick enough that those poor kids didn’t see too much of me, but I now know to be on my guard next time. 

blahing

I am so over blogging already :/ I need some validation that what I am writing is A)being read and B) being enjoyed. With that said here is a little random recap of the last week.

Teaching has been going well, overall. I did get super mad at one of my students and kicked him out of the classroom. I just meant for him to go in the hallway but he just went home instead. Luckily he came back the next day and I was able to talk to him. I just wanted to smack him upside the head. He is 14/15 years old and has been a problem in class for awhile. He isn’t a bad kid and I know he can do a lot better which I think is why I get so frustrated with him. I hate it when students don’t try, I am very willing to help someone learn but they have to make so what of an effort. I’ll lay out the scenario for you, there are 4 students in this class, it is the last class of the day, I get it we are all tired. We just read a short story/conversation then there is a fill in the blank section that is set up exactly like the conversation we just read and the students get to fill in their own answers. Ex the text says, I just got back from China; we stayed there for 2 weeks. What the students have to fill in… I just got back from _______; we stayed there for __________. Easy right? So the other students were filling in their answers and this student just had his head on the desk. I went over and told him to do his work, trying to help him, asking him what country do you want to visit? How long did you visit? At this he started writing 1000000000000000… and that is when I took the pencil out of his hand and took his book and put it outside in the hallway. Basically it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, if you’re going to acted stupid acted stupid by yourself and stop wasting everyone in the classes time.

This week I have to write evaluations of my students which I have mixed feelings about, because I really don’t know what level they really should be at, I am just comparing them to their classmates which doesn’t seem very fair. Plus I don’t want to write too harsh of reviews so it reflects badly on the teachers but I don’t want to be too easy either. Basically I am trying to stick to strengths and weakness, saying areas that the students are doing well/improving in and then areas where they need to spend more time practicing. I guess I just feel a little guilty because kids work way harder on their studies than we do back in the states, so it seems mean to tell them they need to work harder, but as they say When in Rome ;)

I have one favorite student who is 5 years old, I just want to kidnap this kid he is so cute, he has this fat head and he is just so funny and sweet. I think my favorite thing about him is that he doesn’t really smile, you tell him to smile and you get maybe a little movement in the cheeks, but there is this one song that we sing that he just LOVES and gets so excited about, you’d think I just told him we were going to Disneyland, he gets this huge smile on his face and he is giggling almost shaking with anticipation. I just love it.   

On Friday we had another cooking day, but we made milkshakes and ice cream sandwiches, it was pretty fun, the kids were super excited about it and it is always fun watching kids really enjoying eating, they get so messy and are so happy looking. However I don’t know if Koreans understand the difference between cookie and cracker, what we really made were ice cream cracker sandwiches, the kids didn’t seem to mind so I just went with it, but it was weird to me. From what I can tell Koreans aren’t that big into sweets so that could explain why. In my afternoon class we made funny face pizzas which turned out pretty good. We used tortillas as the crust and it turned out well, I might be making them at home sometime in the future. I am thinking about getting a toaster-oven. This not having an oven is really annoying but at the same time I really wonder how much I will really use it if I do buy one.

Saturday I just stayed at home and slept and cleaned, it was actually really nice. I got all my laundry washed and really cleaned my bathroom. That is the one pro to having a Korean bathroom it is so easy to clean, you just soap and scrub everything down then you rise everything off with the shower head, then you let it air dry out, it is awesome. Just make sure you put everything away and that you don’t need to use the bathroom for a little while. I also did a lot of reading this weekend. I just finished reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes  I hadn’t read it before and I really liked it a lot. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it because sometimes those books written in the older style can be hard to get into. Not so with Sherlock plus you always feel smart when you figure it out before they tell you what happened. I also finished reading a book called The Secret Holocaust Diaries this was another random book that was free for kindle and was really good. It a compilation of this Russian/Ukrainian woman who was born in 1927 and was the only surviving member of her whole extended family and her life before during and after the holocaust also living in Communist Russia etc. I was an amazing story and unbelievable that she was able to survive so much. I was really interesting to see the holocaust from a non-jewish perspective, especially a Russian perspective because the Russian alliance between the Axis and Allies was so shaky. It has gotten me on a Russian kick and I am trying to decide if I want to read War and Peace or Anna Karenina by Tolstoy or Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.

Today Sunday was a nice day, I went to the park for a while and practiced my Korean. Shout out to Aunt Stephanie that binder of lessons is awesome! I have all the vowels down and almost all the consonants. I have been lazy about studying but I think I am going to try to spend at least 30minutes a day practicing I’m tired of not being about to speak/read/understand anything. I have also been looking into taking a beginner Korean class, there is a free one that is coming up in September that I might take but I will see if there is one sooner.

I have summer vacation coming up at the end of the month which should be fun. I think I will go to the Southern part of South Korea with a few friends most likely Busan. I don’t really want to travel outside of Korea yet I will save that for my winter vacation days :)

I love you all! I hope this wasn’t to rambling for you.

Looks like someones got a case of the Mondays

I have been lame with my blog, sorry about that. I know I should update more but I have kind of fallen into a routine so everything seems too boring to write about. It also has been raining a lot and you know how I feel about rain… it ruins your life and makes you the laziest person on the planet, more or less.

However it is a good thing that I am feeling more at home and comfortable teaching, I know what’s expected of me. I know where the supplies are, I know all my students names, I am getting better at understanding the Korean/English accent, and I am definitely becoming more animated when teaching. I don’t worry so much about if I am doing a good job or not. I stress a lot about doing a good job, I want to make sure when I do a job that I do it well, so you can get a little paranoid when everyone is speaking a different language, you always wonder if it’s about you.

I had a good weekend, Friday I went to the grocery store after work, which is always an adventure. You’d think by now the grocery store workers would avoid me like the plague but no they come up and ask me if I need help, or at least that’s what I think they are saying. I polity pantomime that I am okay, just looking, thank you; the one phrase I know…thank you and say it all the time, I figure if I speak English and pantomime but end it with a Korean thank you it’s about equal to speaking all Korean ; ) I just don’t know how to explain to them, that it’s okay that I am looking at this shelf for 20 minutes, I am just trying to figure out what it is then which one is cheaper/the best deal…but wait make sure it’s still the same product.  Luckily most things have pictures and some even have it written in English, so it’s not too difficult. The most annoying this though at the grocery store is the damn announcers, I think they are telling about the store deals but freak it is non-stop loud monotone announcer voice, the Charlie Brown parents spoke with more emotion. English is very sing-songy compared to Korean, my students struggle with it, I have to be very expressive when I speak or read, basically over emphasize.

Saturday was very fun; I met up with a Korean boy my age that had been an exchange student of one of my mom’s friends. We met at Myeongdong, which is an area in the city famous for its shopping, oh my gosh! It was amazing, (un)fortunately I didn’t have any money so I couldn’t go shopping but man I can’t waited to do some damage there : ) We got some tea, I tried pine needle tea, which is surprisingly delicious, I would totally get it again, it was sweet but not candy sweet. Then we took a bus to Namsan, it is a government protected park/mountain, might be a little over kill I’d say big hill but there is a tower kind of like the space needle and you can see a panoramic of Seoul, we saw it at night so we could see all the city lights. It was a really cool place, I want to go again when I have a camera, it would also be cool to see it at different times of day as well as seasons. We didn’t stay long because he had to get back to his city because he had to work in the morning. He was really nice, I’m sure we will hang out again. After that I met up with some friends and we went to Hongdae again (the club area), it was a lot of fun again, we danced all night and met lots of new people, my new friend Brittany will talk to anyone/everyone I really admire that about her, I want to try to be more like that. There is one of her coworkers that reminds me a lot of my brother, maybe it’s because they are around the same age and are some of the few guys that really get into dancing, but it was kind of a fun reminder of home.

Speaking of my brother, I was able to talk to him, via skype Sunday night, which is way more fun that just IMing. It was great chatting with him and hearing about his adventures as well as sharing mine.  I think he would have a field day if he visited or taught here, his personality would just fit in really well, I really don’t think you can be too goofy when teaching Korean kids, they just love it.

Today (Monday) was a little ridiculous, it wasn’t a bad day but one of those days when you ask yourself “really?!” several times throughout the day. It started off with one of my students crying because he was being scolded by the Korean teacher, I think he didn’t practice his reading. Then later during lunch one of the girls threw up, I don’t think she was sick, I think she was just trying to hurry up and eat and that made her sick, then literally like 3 minutes later two kids bonked heads together and one got a bloody lip ( I think they were just spazing around and knocked heads, they’re 7 it happens). Then later I come into the classroom and a shelf has been knocked down, what I can guess, a student was trying to reach something off the shelf above and knocked the one lower down. One of the 5 year olds licked my arm. Then to round out the day I had to scold my older students, one in particular, he even got a head flick; but I did promise those students that if we get finished with our class work early I will teach them a few slang words (feel free to leave some suggestions).

I hope everyone has a good 4^th of July! Shout out to Regan and Janet’s family you know how big of a deal 4^th of July is to us. I wish I was there to celebrate it right with you all! Love you all!!

PS. Enjoy this youtube video in honor of 4^th of July

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8adJShQSX8o

We keep it partyin' til the AM

This last week went well at school. The second week was at least easier than the first, I am still getting the hang of everything but I at least feel like I have a better handle on what I’m supposed to be doing. I had to crack the whip a little on my last class of the day so they would be better listeners, basically I threaten to take away their extra credit points, so far it works pretty well.

Friday we went on a field trip to the War Museum, this was pretty fun but a little wild. The museum has a lower level that is like a Children’s Museum. The kids were super excited about it and there was a lot of fun stuff there. However I think we tortured the poor kids will a lot of staged photos; no don’t really play just act like you are and then get out of the way so I can stage this 10 more times. The outside had a lot of old war stuff, like airplanes/tanks/ships etc. Unfortunately it was raining outside so we didn’t spend very much time outside. It would be cool to go back when the weather is a little nicer and look around a little more. The car ride there was funny, we had 18 students, and 4 adults in a van and this van was the size of a mini van, maybe just a little bigger, it’s a good thing all these kids are so little. But we sang songs on the way and I talked a little about what we were going to see. Did a little review of new vocabulary words etc. Oh shout out to Mykle the kids love the slippery fish song! You earned me some points with the director’s husband he love the song too : )

After school I picked up some stuff at the grocery store, I went in for bread and came out with a sack full of stuff; isn’t that how it always is? Then came home and did a little work for school and watched some shows online. I am getting a little desperate and will watch anything, all the normal stuff like hulu and abc etc don’t work over here :( The main event of Friday night was me doing some laundry!! Haha I have no idea what the settings are I just know I need to push two buttons and it “works” but there is no dryer so I have to hang dry everything, but it has been raining so much my stuff is taking forever to dry!! It’s at least warmer so they aren’t so bad and the washing machine spins them surprisingly well.

Saturday morning I slept in a lot! I think part of it was that I was tired from the week, part of it was that it was raining so what’s the point of getting up, and the last part was that I knew I would be going out that night so I needed to be ready for a long night. I got ready at my house for the night and then went out in the monsoon to head to my new friends apartment (we hadn’t met in real life at this point). I got to her place just fine with time to spare. I still don’t really know how long it takes me to get around so I have been getting places early. I’m sure once I get more familiar with the city I will get back to my old (late) self :) I got to her apartment and no one was there! I wasn’t sure what to do. I waited a little bit, knocked again. Then I saw this girl coming out of her apartment and I asked (pantomimed) to use her phone. I call my new friend and I guess she had sent me a message telling me to push back our meeting time but I missed her message. This not having a phone is a real problem! I can’t wait to get one. The girl that I borrowed a phone from was super nice. I have no idea if she understood what I was telling her but I could tell she didn’t want to leave me unless I was okay. Luckily there was a coffee shop just downstairs and I just waited until the girls got back down there. The girls I met were Elena and Brittany, Elena is from Texas and has been working here for just about a year, she is leaving in a few weeks to go home but is coming back after a month to work in a new school. Brittany is from Colorado and has only been here for a month and a half. They are super nice girls and I think I made some new real friends : ) We got ready and headed to Hongdae which is a pretty big hot spot for nightlife. The cab driver there was pretty funny, they were playing that song “last Christmas I gave you my heart” on the radio so we gave him a karaoke show : ) haha We hopped around to different bars/clubs most of the night, the girls knew a bunch of people and it was someone’s birthday so we met up with a lot of different people. I was crazy because there were so many English speakers in one area, where I live I am lucky if I see one. We sang and danced all night. I learned some cool Korean dance moves, which I will be practicing in my room this week so I am ready for the weekend! However Koreans stay out all night. We didn’t head home until about 6 in the morning. We went out and got some breakfast and had to deal with a creepy Korean man that wanted to sit at our table with us. Then I made my way home, debating on whether or not I should sleep or not, because I will need to sleep later that night and be ready to work on Monday. So I stayed up a little bit did some things. Then I took a short nap finished getting things ready for the week.

I know I will be going out again next weekend so there will be new stories and adventures to be shared.

PS. Special shout out to my mom! Happy Birthday!! I hope you have a wonderful birthday I love you very very much!!!! Talk to you soon : )

Would you like to be my friend... confirm or ignore.

Review of my first real weekend in Korea

Fridays at my school are “special days” this could be field trips, cultural days, cooking days etc. This last Friday was a cooking day! My morning students made; mini hamburgers & frozen bananas (dipped in chocolate). My afternoon students are divided up into 4 classes; one class made hotdogs, another mini hamburgers, another pizza, and another egg salad sandwiches. I think I have found the root of the Asian obsession with taking pictures, they do it at the schools! They seriously took a picture of each student with his or her mini hamburger and then again with their frozen banana. The students couldn’t eat them until after they had taken a few posed pictures with their food. I can understand a few staged photos here and there but I would rather just get some candid photos and call it a day. I kind of understand the reasoning; schools are much more like a business here than in the states, the schools need these photos to advertise their school. However I was just waiting for a kid to drop their hamburger all over the floor because they were too busy posing for the camera. Luckily everyone got to enjoy their creations without any accidents. The afternoon class was a little more chaotic, we had all the students downstairs in the gym each set up at their own station, there were only about 30 students and 3 teachers plus me, but when you have a propane stove top, an electric dutch oven thing and every student has a knife things get a little stressful. Plus about 12 of those students are spaztaticular, they have only been learning English for a few months, they are older but so much harder to control. I am still trying to figure out the best classroom management for them, I am trying to decide between punishment vs reward, I might end up doing some type of mixture, like a point system.

On Saturday I really mostly slept a lot. I am still getting used to the time difference, I think the week took it out of me. However I live really close to the river, it reminds me a lot of Portland’s waterfront. There is a bike trail, a small rose/flower garden, running and walking trails right along the river. There are basketball courts, soccer field, children’s playground, a stake part area, a rock climbing wall, and fountains. There is a swimming area but it isn’t open, I’m not sure why it isn’t considering it’s summer. However one of the fountains is super cool, you can run around and play in the water but the best part is that the water will go in time with the music playing. I love watching it and it is fun seeing the kids run around and have so much fun. There is also a metro station that stops right by it and I think every Saturday they have an open air market. I love to go here on my off time, it is a nice place to get outside and enjoy a little sun or people watch. I spent some of Saturday here and Sunday morning here too.

Saturday night I hit the web to find some friends. I found a meetup website that looked promising. I found a group that was getting together Sunday evening for a walk in one of the older parts of Seoul and then going out to dinner, the area is called Insadong and Bukchon . I really wanted to go but it involved taking the metro, I haven’t been on the metro in Seoul yet and I was a little apprehensive about trying to do it on my own. I left a comment seeing if anyone that was going lived near me and wouldn’t mind helping me out. There were no takers, so I just decided to (wo)man-up and just go for it. I got to the metro station alright, I am pretty sure there is a faster way to get there but I took the route with the least turns and kept to the main/busier roads. While I was heading up the escalator to the station I heard some people speaking English, so naturally I waited for them to catch up to me and asked them to take pity on me. They most helpfully obliged! They helped me get a metro pass, which they call a T-money card (best name ever), and we chatted during the trip, they made sure I got off at the correct stop and even gave me their number just in case. The girl was from Montreal and the boy was from Tennessee. I transferred to my new train and got to the meeting place with plenty of time to spare. There were about 9 of us that showed up for the walking tour and dinner outing. I really like the idea of meet ups especially in new cities, it can really be difficult to make new friends. We saw some of the old traditional houses which was interesting to see among newer buildings. We walked around the shopping area too, it is more of the arty area. I would love to go back to this area and look around some more.  Dinner was very good, we went to a vegetarian restaurant that mixed Chinese and Korean style of cooking together. One of the guys that was there, lives pretty close to where I do and knows some girls that live right around where I live. I have added them on facebook and I think we will hang out later this week or weekend. After dinner a few of the other girls and I went to a late night shopping area, this is an open air market too. Where they have lots of great look knock off designer bags/sunglasses etc. The area is called Dongdaemun, am sure I will being going back again! After that I was able to get myself on the right train home and find my way back to my apartment! I was feeling very proud of myself and I really think I can handle this subway system. It’s crazy how much there is in Seoul and now I feel like I have it at my fingertips. I really want to explore and see a lot, so I hope I can make some new friends that will come with me, it is always more fun to explore with a buddy : )

I hope everyone is doing well!

PS: Shout out to my dad! Happy Father’s Day! I hope you had a great Father’s day!! I love you so much!!!

How do you say "pee in a cup" in Korean

Korean Physical

So today was the day that I had my physical exam. I have to get and pass this in order to get my alien registration card…I can’t get a bank account without it; thus pretty important. I was lucky enough to get an early morning time, at first my appointment was going to be at 9pm but my director found a different hospital that could get me in at 9am. Considering that lately I’ve been falling asleep at 8pm I really appreciated the change.

One of the other teachers came with me, she is the head teacher and super nice, her name is Ester. The doctor’s office was in this skyscraper type building and there were many other things inside it…like a school. The doctor’s office was quite the adventure; there is no way I would have been able to do it alone. The moment I was asking myself…wtf what is going on here. Is when I was asked to go into a room then I had to take off my top and bra then I laid down on the bed and the “doctor” put clamps on my ankles, wrists and these little suction cup things on different parts of my chest, mean while all these things have wire attached to it connected to a machine. Maybe this is a normal piece of equipment but I had never seen it before. I felt like I was a Frankenstein monster. The rest was pretty normal, eye exam, hearing test, blood test, this machine that you stand on and hold on to and it determines your weight, muscle mass, water level etc. The peeing in the cup was the funniest part. I was told not to eat or drink anything the night before or in the morning, so not thinking I went to the bathroom when I woke up leaving nothing in me for the doctor :/ oops. I couldn’t do it, I had to drink a few glasses of water and do some other parts of the exam and then try again. Keep in mind there are about 6 other people (not all staff) that are watching and witnessing my exam. Luckily I was able to get something out the second time but it wasn’t easy. I was so scared that someone was going to knock it over and they were going to ask me to do it again.

After the exam we headed back to the school, the exam already took longer than we thought it would and were about 30 minutes into class. But before I was allowed to teach I was given a little snack, which was very nice but it was lukewarm pumpkin soup, I didn’t really want it but Ester insisted that I eat it. Today was a weird food day for me, after school the director always provides a little snack for the teachers. Which is awesome! But today she went a little more traditional Korean than usual. There was this round thing that I thought was something holding purpleish rice…this isn’t a crazy thought because at lunch today the rice was purpleish, it had beans in it. Turns out NOT rice, I pretty sure it was intestines sliced up. It was the first thing that I’ve had to spit out in Korean. Luckily the staff just had a good laugh about it. I hope I didn’t offend anyone, I’ve been pretty good about trying everything but there was just no way I could eat that.

Tomorrow is cooking day, which should be fun. The kids are very excited about it. We are making lots of “American food” hotdog, hamburger, frozen banana, sandwich, pizza and fruit drink. I have to make a hamburger recipe tonight.

A moment of Kudos to myself:

The first day I started teaching in the maple class (second youngest age group) I noticed one of the little girls looking super sad. Later during the class she started crying (had no idea why) I just let the Korean teacher handle it. A little bit later I asked the class to do something and she looked like she wanted to cry again. So I went up to her offered her a hug and then had her sit back down and do what everyone else was doing. The next day she looked a million times happier and was super excited about class, very involved etc. So I just figured that she had an off day, she is 5 normal. Well I guess that she has been crying everyday in class for a long time, she cries for another older student in another class, I’m not sure if they are related or not. But I guess since I’ve started teaching she has stopped crying and asking for the older student. I just thought that was so funny…just go ahead and call me the child whisper  :)