Letters from Korea

Oops

2009-09-28T23:53:39Z

Updates are getting to be once-a-month things! Oh well. Anyway. It's just turned fall here (literally, this week) and even so we have some hot days bursting in... actually, we may have more warm days on the horizon, it's been pretty overcast lately. Anyway, I'm excited about sweater weather! My favorite time of the year!

The end of this week (Oct 2, 3, 4, 5) is Chuseok, a special traditional Korean holiday where they give gifts and make food and go back home to their families... like Thanksgiving, basically. Anddddd, it's a great time for foreign English teachers to travel because it's off the peak season, but the weather is still nice. I'm going to Japan-- I'll be in Fukuoka for a few days and I'm going to take an overnight trip by train to Nagasaki.

Expect pictures!

"She's built like a steakhouse, but she handles like a bistro."

2009-08-12T15:28:55Z

Hey, I'm Chloe. I'm an English teacher living and working (and playing) in Busan, South Korea. This day was July 23!

64 Pictures Total, >

Ugghh, it's like 10-something in the morning and I do NOT want to be awake!

First thing I do in the morning is check gmail, facebook, sometimes twitter

Time to take care of the teeths! I'm still not really awake. Facewashing, potty, etc.

I take out the iron since all of my clean clothes are wrinkled.

Teim czech!

Do some dishes since I have no clean ones.

Eat breakfast (frosted flakes) while the iron warms up.

Update my FB status.

Start ironing a skirt--realize it smells musty and that it must have been in the washer too long. Start ironing a new skirt.

Finally, I'm dressed, clean, neat and mostly aware. Inside my purse: 60gb flashdrive, cellphone, Sony reader, and camera case. Also a bag of marshmellows for my students.

Linkin Park for the walk.

I play frogger across five lanes of traffic. Everyday. In Korea. Yeahhhhh--the other option is to wait 10-15 minutes for light to change.

Cross another big street--six lanes, but the light here is much faster (also, there's no median to play frogger here)

Cross one more street without a light and just a crosswalk to protect me--there might as well be a skull and crossbones there for all the drivers pay attention to that.

Finally on the right side of the street!

My school--Deokmyeong Girl's Middle School

Entranceway

I change my sandals for my school slippers--everyone has to change their shoes inside.

Into the teacher's room.

Tea while I boot up my work laptop. The powdered tea that Koreans are so enamored of is not nearly as good as properly steeped tea bags or loose tea, but it's soooo convenient that I use it all the time now too.

Time check!

You can JUST see my coteacher's head through the glass. A few minutes later we had a "disagreement" so no other pictures of her.

Some of my students stop by my desk--they're helping out the science teacher that sits next to me. I don't understand why they love to hide their faces when someone takes a picture--they will take a million photos of themselves with their cell phones!

After printing out the worksheets I need for class, I leave the building and head for the high school building across the courtyard--our middle school is using this building for summer classes and summer camps.

Begining of class.

End of class.

1 hour of English fun and games

I follow my students out and down the street -- my work is done for today!

I come back home and find an angry notice in the elevator. My Korean's way too basic to figure it out, though. I put it out of my head and settle down to do some interneting and find I've broken my stylus' click buttons. Damnit! Lucky I carry a spare!

Time check!

Looking for a long read, I find that one of my favourite authors has written something new... about three months ago. I guess I need to start checking for updates more frequently.

I decide the washer can be washing clothes while I do other things.

These clothes can dry while I do other things too.

While clothes are washing and drying, I straighten up the aparto. Looks a little better, anyway.

Took 'bout an hour.

I download Sperenza's latest onto my Reader.

I decide to cook dinner (that's chicken--I didn't give the Nikon enough time for the light meter to work accurately)

While the chicken is cooking, I run down to the convenience store in the lobby.

Bought some pringles and apple juice for dinner, along with my yummy chicken club sammy.

After lunch-dinner, I've got some time, so I read some SGA fic--Sperenza's 'Written by the Victors' SO GOOD.

Time check while I set my alarm. I'm sleepy, so it's time for a nap.

Ugghhh, time to wake up again.

I get dressed and ready to go to hapkido.

A quick stop at the one mart and a little caffiene to perk me up.

Head to my local station...

and get off about six or seven stops later.

Hapkido. I explain to my demo partner, Anne, how I'm going to punch her in the face. She disagrees. I resolve the argument. Ahahahaha, in actuality, we're practicing our moves for a demonstration competition on Saturday.

I leave hapkido at about 9:30--later than usual, but we're practicing extra hard for competition. I go home, drop my bags, and across the street to the shopping center--to Home Plus. (It's a grocery store)

Time check when I get home---ahhh, tired!

Gmail has 'sploded--this is because halfway around the world, all of my friends are at work now and are facebooking and gmailing and whathaveyou.

I pour a little apple cider vinegar on my feet (helps cure/prevent athlete's foot) and hop in the shower.

Change the laundry.

Sort through spoils I got from Home Plus. Sugar overload! These are treats for my students. Tomorrow is the last day of English camp, and the team with the highest score for the week will earn this massive jackpot. I may have gone overboard.

I watch Nickelodean in Korean while I do my nails--gold for the competition to match my yellow belt. I hope next year they'll be blue or even red! :)

While my nails are drying, I watch Die Hard 4 and type up the worksheets I'll use for tomorrow's class. I like to multitask.

Time check!

I write out all of the stuff I need to do tomorrow, and all of the stuff I need to pack (despite the list, I forgot deoderant and a towel) Yeah, my fridge is also a whiteboard.

I crawl into bed with a bunch of icepacks and ice down my legs; I'm really sore.

This was an almost-real sleeping shot; I was too tired to even put the camera back on the nightstand!

HI

2009-07-18T12:11:19Z

So its been a month since my last post, oops! It's summer break now. Like most of my friends, I have English camp starting next week. Unlike most of my friends, my "camp" is an hour each day for five days. :D Compare that to the three, four, FIVE hour camps that some of my friends have (for up to three weeks!) I'm pretty lucky.

Sooo, what else has been going on w/me? I've been training pretty hard for the Hapkido competition that's coming up. It's next Saturday! There's no sparring involved (take a deep breath, mom & dad) it's all exhibition work--we perform our combos with our teammates. Me & Ann (my partner for the competition) have been practicing really hard and we're getting pretty good. Next week is the last week to practice before competition so I expect we'll be going at it pretty hard :)

Meanwhile, life here is going smoothly; I've been cleaning up the aparto little by little; it's not horrible, but I've been putting off some things like scrubbing down the bathroom and mopping the balcony (the floor is pretty grimy out there now). I did the bathroom today and washed about half the dishes last night, took out the garbage & the recycling, washed the sheets and remade the bed, etc. Still, I've got the usual pile of clean clothes to put away, a pile of dirty ones that need washing, and tomorrow I've got to do all of the floors ('cept the bathroom, I did that today).

I had my first taste of Pizza Hut here in Korea today! Mmm, tastes just like home. I was going to get Papa John's but when I called they said they didn't deliver to my area. I think they do, the problem is my accent is sort of bad. I've seen Papa John's delivery mopeds near my house. So anyway, I didn't feel like going to Kyungsung (maybe 4 or 5 metro stops) so i decided to go to Pizza Hut because it is literally right next door. The only thing is they only have 'sets' so you can't choose your toppings and usually when I want pizza I want a certain type, y'know? Anywho, I was up for BBQ chicken today, which they have, so I went over there and got a regular size BBQ chicken and and regular pepperoni. Just so you know, pizza sizes in Korea are SO SMALL. A regular is like the 'small' of yesteryear in the states. I know at least at Papa Johns and Piza Hut in America they don't actually offer 'small' anymore, the starting size is medium or sometimes large? Anywho, the regular is approx 18,000won but it's maybe double the size of a personal. :P Still, it was delicious.

Hapkido

2009-06-18T14:00:21Z

Today I had my first hapkido lesson which was fun and awesome. For those of you who are in Korea, I'm studying with Master Yoon in Gwangali. He's really nice and speaks good English. Also, the classes are small, which is cool. Today, it was only me and Master Yoon's protege or star pupil or I'm not really sure what to call him, but he's a black belt and he actually teaches the classes on Wednesday instead of Master Yoon. So it was just me and him, which was cool for my intro class. We worked on the basic warmup stuff that they do every class, and then some kicks and punches.
So, starting next week, I'll be going 3 times a week. Fun!

Welcome to Deokmyeong Middle School

2009-05-25T11:11:01Z

This here's my school. On the right, you can see just a bit of the boy's high school, and on the left, I believe it's an elementary school?

Don't forget, you can click on the photos a couple times to blow them up nice and big.

I couldn't get a good shot of the gate, but right inside, this is what it looks like; rather lush, yes? The school that you see is Busan Marketing High School, the girl's high school that we share gym and courtyard with. The students are mine, though.

Ahaha, they're late! Oops! Everyday, this happens; a few girls will rush past me on my way to school 'cuz they're laaa~aate.

And then this happens: see the girls doing squats and holding signs? That's the punishment for being late. They have to hold signs which presumably say things about discipline and school rules or maybe just "I'm a horrible student that can't get to school on time" and they do squats until the gym teacher is satisfied that they're sorry. Or their thighs are sorry, anyway.

The school in the background is the boy's middle school.

Here's a nice shot of my school. See the two girls with the mops? They have school chores. Every day (or week, depending on the school chores) classes are assigned to do different things. This class has outdoor duties today. Not that they're working especially hard at it.

The tech school on the left is a private elementary school. I'm sure you're getting the idea now; we're surrounded by schools!

Some girls working hard, some girls... not. Oh, middle school. The yellow building is part of BMHS, the white building is ours? Mostly ours. I think.

This is my shoe cubby (bottom right). You can't wear outside shoes into the school; only "slippers" (Slippers being any pair of shoes that you designate for indoor use, as long as you don't wear them outside.) I have two pairs; a heeled maryjane shoe that's more dressy, and these casual flip-flops like most of the men teachers wear; which are cooler and nicer in the heat.

I go to the teacher's room first,you can see my desk right there, the middle one with the laptop on it. All teachers have a desk in here; it's the communal teacher's office.

Here is a random hallway, the fourth floor I think, with some random students (wearing gym uniforms). The layout of the school is a simple rectangle; just long hallways stacked on top of one another. The students have their own shoe cubbies, which you can see here, outside of each homeroom.

"My" classroom is up here, tucked out of the way, lol.

This is it; a strange mix of modern and antiquated. The rest of the classrooms are similar; except they're a bit larger. Oddly, I don't actually teach English classes in this room; like all of the other teachers, I go from homeroom to homeroom to teach. I have "English Only Zone" here, which is just free conversation with students that want to come up sometimes during lunch. The past two or three weeks, I've had zero attendance, lol.

Two of my cute students present their uniforms; the one on the left is wearing the winter uniform (green plaid skirt, vest, tie and white long sleeve blouse--there is also a blazer, but it's much too hot for that) and the one on the right wears the summer uniform (blue plaid skirt and white blouse with blue plaid trim. There's also a little blue-plaid bow-tie for it, but she's not wearing it.)

Corporal Punishment

2009-05-19T12:20:00Z

Someone asked me about corporal punishment in Korea and I decided to make a short entry about it. Yes, CP is present in Korean schools in various forms. There is varying corporal punishment in most all Korean schools; sometimes it is light, sometimes it is quite severe. In my school, it's usually pretty light; most teachers will smack a student on the arms or back (sometimes on the butt or the back of the legs, if it's a female teacher, but male teachers keep it to the upper body or lower legs). I've never seen a girl get smacked in the face, and from what I've heard, that's a bit of a taboo. I have a previous entry here about how I was instructed to hit my students with a stick, which I do sometimes--I don't beat them or hit them multiple times, but I do give them a little *thwack* with my pointer if they're misbehaving in class, on the back or shoulders. I think its a bit of a respect thing; my students look embarrassed when I give them a thwack, like "Uh-oh, teacher caught me texting in class" but they're also a bit more focused on their work when I'm walking around with my pointer. Also, taking away their cell phone is still a more serious punishment; I think most girls prefer I give them a thwack.

Teacher's Day

2009-05-16T04:41:03Z

Yesterday was Teacher's Day here in Korea. This is the day where students (and parents) express their gratitude towards teachers (teachers are very well respected in Korea) by giving them gifts and letters. Also, we had only a half a day of classes (school got out at 12pm). So I got 2 boxes of tteok (Korean rice cake), a can of Nostalgia (a rice juice drink), a bottle of orange juice, a bouquet of roses, and my favourite, a letter from one of my students!
Also, both of my morning classes were cancelled, so that was cool.
The high schools got out earlier than we did too, so around 11, the teacher's room was flooded with high school girls in all different uniforms--(it's traditional to come back and visit your favorite teachers); a bit of a madhouse!

So it was a lovely day, altogether, although I was so tired!

Memories.....!

2009-05-16T03:30:01Z

So, while I was in Seoul, I went to the Seoul Art Museum, which had a few nice exhbits, but overall, wasn't too great. But afterwards, Mallory called me up to report that the Seoul Art Center was amazing, so we made plans to meet up there. Since I didn't know exactly where I was going, and Mallory's directions were a little vague, I popped into this familiar place, which was actually a little freaky with how much it was exactly like every FedexKinko's in America, right down to the type of machines used. Anyway, I got to use the computer, and the guy didn't charge me--he was too busy watching movies on his computer, so yeah, EXACTLY like every FedexKinko's in America, lol.

Western Brands and Stores in Korea

2009-05-06T11:40:17Z

So, in the interest of making the internet a more useful place, I've decided to build lists. This list is quite simple: all of the American/Western brand things that are <b>easy to find/readily available</b> in Korea, listed in alphabetical order. I will come back and update it when I find/notice new things. It should be noted that you can find a lot of (varied) western brand products at places like Costco, Home Plus (Tesco) or through online shops such as EZshopkorea.com, but I haven't listed all of those individual products here, because they vary and change, etc.

Last updated July 18, 2009

Brand Name Products

Abercrombie & Fitch
Aveeno (have yet to find Aveeno Baby)
Barilla (mostly spaghetti and flat pasta)
Bic
Cheetos (barbecue, hot and spicy, and spicy chicken flavors only so far)
Clean and Clear (face wash, scrub, toner, lotion, acne medication + Clear Fairness (a line of wash, toner and lotion only found in Asia))
Coca Cola (regular, cherry, zero)
Dove
Evian water
Gatorade (usually just lemon)
Green Giant (corn, green beans)
Haagen Daz
Halls
Head & Shoulders
Hershey's (v. limited, mostly plain bars)
Jellyroll pens
Johnsonville (beddar cheddar, bratwurst)
Johnson & Johnson (baby wash, lotion, oil)
Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Fruit Loops, Honeycomb
Lipton (lemon, plain)
Minute Maid (Grape, Orange)
Mountain Dew (regular, code red)
Nair
Nestea
Neutrogena
Nintendo
Obagi
Pepperidge Farm cookies
Pepsi (regular)
Philadelphia Cream Cheese
Prego sauces
Pringles (sour cream and onion, fresh cheese, barbecue, plain)
Pond's
Powerade (blue, green, yellow)
Ricolla
Scotch tape
Snickers (regular, light, dark)
Tesco (Tesco owns Home Plus, so you can find a wide assortment of Tesco-brand (generic western) products in any Home Plus)
Theraflu (day and night mix-ins)
Twix
Vans
Vaseline (intensive care lotion)
Veet
Welch's (grape, white grape, white grape peach, orange)
Yoplait (plain, strawberry, peach)

Stores and Shops

7-11
Abercrombie & Fitch (rumoured)
Adidas
Armani Exchange
Bobbi Brown
Calvin Klein
Columbia (sporting equipment)
Converse
Costco (several in and around Seoul, Daegu, Busan)
DKNY
Elizabeth Arden
Estee Lauder
Guess
Ikea (available through importers: see www.ikeaworld.kr.co or weagookinmall.com There is rumour of an Ikea in Seoul, but I haven't confirmed it yet)
MAC
New Balance
Nike
Ralph Lauren
Shisedo (I know it's Japanese, but I figured a lot of girls would be familiar with it)
The Body Shop

Restaurants

Baskin Robbins
Bennigan's
Burger King
McDonald's
Domino's Pizza
Dunkin' Donuts
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Krispy Kreme
Outback Steakhouse
Papa John's Pizza
Pizza Hut
Popeye's Chicken
Red Lobster (supposedly, I have yet to verify)
Smoothie King
Subway (plenty in Seoul, I've heard all the ones in Busan closed)
Taco Bell (Seoul only, apparently)
TGIFriday's
Quizno's

Beat Me With Sticks, I've Been Bad

2009-05-01T13:58:11Z

So because today is May Day, our principal gave the lady teachers money to buy a lot of food and well... stuff their faces. So that's what we did. Since the main course was spicy noodles, I substituted oatmeal, but the side dishes were still good, and the teachers were eager to try out their budding English on me. The main thing that I took away from this was that I apparently need to hit my students with a stick. The following is a transcript of the conversation in question:

Teacher: Chloe, how is my class? Class 2-7?
Me: Um... 2-7... *trying to remember*
Teacher: Are they good?
Me: Hmm...
Teacher: Do they sleep? They sleep alot.
Me: Yeah, sometimes.
Teacher: You...hit *mimes hitting*
Me: Uhm? *blank*
Teacher: Student sleep, hit with bar.
Me: Bar??
Teacher: *miming*
Me: Oh, stick? Hit them with a stick?
Teacher: Yes, hit them with a stick. *mimes a vigorous beating*
Me: Oh-kay.
Teacher: Communication, no. *shakes head to indicate that this doesn't work* No communication, just stick!

This was accompanied by other teacher's laughing, encouragement, their own beating-with-stick mimes and a general sense of "rightness" that some crucial information had now been imparted to the foreign teacher.

Hit them with a stick? Well, I can't say that I haven't felt that some of my girls couldn't use a little stick of encouragement. LOL.

LOVE this job!

2009-04-21T01:58:59Z

My third period class was just cancelled. So I have one more class and I'm done for the rest of the week because it's midterms.

I LOVE THIS JOB.

Popsecret

2009-04-13T11:58:55Z

I think I've mentioned that if I leave my building and go straight across the street, there's a movie theatre. Beside the obvious advantage, I like being able to get movie theatre popcorn to snack on at home. I think the movie theatre people think I'm weird, because I come in and buy a bucket and leave, but lol, whatever. Movie popcorn is good.

Seomyeon

2009-04-12T07:30:28Z

So, last weekend I was just hanging out. I didn't feel like going out with the crew, so I went out to Seomyeon to see if I couldn't find myself some red bean (patso) buns. They're quite tasty. I also got some neato night shots of Seomyeon, which is soooo much bigger than this one picture. Picture street after street of these crowds and lights and shops and so forth. Unfortunately, you really need an overhead view to get a full picture

Here's one of my favourite little curiosities in Seomyeon, which we've nicknamed "The Dollhouse". It's a cafe where you can eat, drink and watch tv in these little dollhouse-like rooms. Isn't that neato?

A protest (or maybe a memorial) I passed on my way home. Evidently this was some sort of curiosity to Koreans as well, because there was a large crowd that stopped to watch and take pictures.

I'm not dead!

2009-04-11T04:17:21Z

I've just had a busy week. I had my open class yesterday, and the whole week my coteacher nagged me about it; "Let's change this or that, let's talk about this." Plus I was exhausted this whole week. I was going to sleep early at seven, eight, nine o' clock at night, and I was still tired the next day. Urgh.

So anyway, there's more. But later. Ciao!

Sick

2009-03-26T10:00:16Z

So, everyone says that when you first come to Korea, you get sick. It's a new country, new kinds of pollution, new job and with any luck, not just a few parties!

So I've been trying to stave it off with a balanced diet and regular vitamins, but I got a bit lax last week, and as soon as I dropped my guard--forgot my vitamins a few days in a row and ate a little more junk than I should've, and the next thing I know, I have a tickle in the back of my throat.

I thought it was just a sore throat from talking a lot; I actually have had a couple of those already, just because I'm doing way more talking at a time than I'm used to, but they went away after a few hours of resting my voice. So I didn't think anything of it at first, but a couple days later it was much sorer, and by then, I was trying to stave off the inevitable cold by tripling up my vitamins. Wednesday and today I was pretty blah, my coteacher let me sit at the back of the class for fifteen minutes while he went over homework and I even told my 3rd graders today that they had to be a bit quieter because I wasn't going to speak loudly because my throat hurt. They agreed to that and for the most part, they tried, they really did. Anyway, they did good. :)

I spent most of my (extensive) free time sleeping at my desk today because I was pretty beat. Also I was a bit out of it this morning so I didn't even realize that I'd left my camera at home until I was at school for quite a while. I was feeling too beat up to run around school taking pictures anyway. Some of my coteachers mentioned that I didn't look like I was feeling too well; they were so concerned! They're so sweet!

Afternoon classes were cancelled today and teachers got to go home at 3pm. At least three of them came up to me to explain that I was supposed to leave at 3, even though they don't speak much English, which is totally sweet of them (I have learned that Korans HATE to do things they aren't good at--like speak English--because they are constantly worried about how they appear to others; doing things they are bad at makes them look less competant.) That was pretty nice. Hopefully I'll feel better soon and I can get out and take some photos. There are some wonderful things to see pretty close to here, so I can't wait to get back on my feet and get a ton of new photos :)

I'm not sure if I have any classes tomorrow; if I do, it's just one class, but still, it'd be cool to have none at all. Hopefully I'll remember my camera tomorrow.

The Week in Review

2009-03-25T04:01:45Z

So nothing much happened last week. I taught my classes, I went out to dinner a few times, for galbi and samgupsal and bibimbap, all delicious.

Friday, I broke my tradition of going out only on Saturday because I wanted to go shopping and get some stuff done on Saturday. So I went out with the girls on Friday, we went to a delish galbi/samgupsal restaurant, had a lot to eat and a bit of soju too, and then met up with some of Courtney's friends to go to Fuzzy Navel the foreigner bar/club in Seomyeon. I went out to get new shoes at 10pm because frankly, the Vans that I've been wearing just don't fit right, have been pinching my feet and basically making me miserable for weeks now, and I just got so fed up that I couldn't take one more minute of limping around in those things. Honestly, I don't mind walking about or getting in some long distances, but I've been playing it pretty close to home lately because I knew that my feet were going to be horribly miserable, and so I ended up in a cheap shoe shop at 10-something at night buying a new pair of shoes with Courtney's friend Malcom (Marcus?). Ahhhh, they fit so much better! So then we went back to Fuzzy Navel and had some drinks, played some darts (Where I totally slaughtered the competition by like, 100 points) and then Scott and Matt and Courtney and Jenny went out to get some food from the one of the street vendors--they line the streets with their carts, and you stand at their little counter and eat steaming hot soup and dumplings and fried things and roasted short ribs.... delicious stuff. Some of the bigger ones have tents where you go in and sit on a stool in front of a little counter and eat. That's where the foursome went. APPARENTLY, there was an altercation with two Koreans, wherein Scott was forced to defend himself, and then they came back to the club. The Koreans that had started the fight called the police and came after him and Scott was 'detained for questioning' aka arrested. So we're all waiting at the club for news and we're all rather subdued, and then at about 3am, Scottie returns! Jackie's coteacher Sohee helped him out with translation--always good to have a Korean on your side, but mostly, obey the number one rule: NEVER FIGHT WITH A KOREAN. Because it is always the foreigners' fault.
So of course, Scott not being in jail or deported meant that we needed to celebrate some, and then we decided we were hungry and needed breakfast. McDonalds' is 24 hours and breaky starts at 4am, so there we were, along with a bunch of other partied-out Koreans. Finally after breakfast, caught a cab home, had a bit of a shower, and fell into bed around 5:30/6am. Uggghhhh.

Saturday Fedex dropped off my computer at 11am on the dot and it took me three tries to find something appropriate to answer the door in, cuz I couldn't find any pants at all. I must have looked horrible too, because the delivery guy apologized profusely for disturbing me, which was actually, a little disturbing. So I got my computer, and then I went back to sleep until 4pm. Wherein I got up, did not do anything except go to Popeye's for some chicken, and Baskin Robbin's for some ice cream (cookies n cream, which they don't sell in the freezer case. Korean ice cream flavours tend to be all fruit, or fruit-ish like strawberry cheesecake. They're good, but sometimes you want cookie dough or cookies or stuff like that) And then I went to be around midnight and wasted my Saturday.

Sunday, I was productive and cleaned my house and washed clothes and unpacked my computer (came through with only a teeny dent on the back panel, which is not noticeable unless you're looking for damage, which I was. It shouldn't be a problem, but if it is, I can straighten it out with a philip's head screwdriver) and a ton of other chore-like things. I went out for bibimbap with Courtney Sunday evening, where she gave me good ideas for lesson planning and I practiced my rudimentary Korean by placing my order. :)

This week, my 1st and 2nd graders (7th and 8th graders) have gone on a three day field trip to South Sea and Seoul, respectively. 1st graders will be doing some sort of regional orientation/training for middle school life, 2nd graders will be pretending to be educated at the National Museum and Namsam Tower before being let loose in Everland, an amusement park/zoo. So Monday we played games, and Tuesday, my 2nd graders got 15 minutes of practicing "I hope_____________" (ie: I hope I meet a movie star at Everland) before it was time for school pictures. The rest of Tuesday was filled with the expectant hum of students and teachers as Korea took on Japan in some sort of giant baseball tourney. My last class of third graders(9th grade) told me, "Korea is fighting Japan in baseball." So I taught them to say "Korea is playing Japan" "Korea and Japan are playing against each other" "Korea is winning/losing." "What's the score?" "The score is...." etc. My coteacher asked if it would be okay for the class to watch the game. I said yes, but they couldn't get the tv in the classroom to work properly, so eventually we had to go back to lessons.

Today, I have no classes since I only teach 1st and 2nd graders on Wednesday. I still had to come to work though, so I've been napping/on the internet all day long. After lunch, I might take another nap. Tomorrow, I hope to get in a post all about my school, so you can have pictures and such of what a traditional Korean school looks like--a little different from a western style school!

COMPUTER!!!

2009-03-20T01:28:05Z

So, my mom shipped my darling Maxima to me on the 9th, it reached Korea on the 13th, and ever since then it has been back and forth with customs to get them the correct documents they need to clear my computer without charging me $250 in taxes. WHEW! It's finally through customs! It's on it's way!

Now if only I had a desk....

This Week in Review

2009-03-15T09:32:25Z

So Monday, Courtney and I went to the CGV (movie theatre) next to my house to see The Watchmen in IMAX. My coteacher, Mrs. Kim gave me a gift certificate for that theatre. The movie was terrible, but it was cool to fumble through the Korean way of watching movies. For one thing, movies all have assigned seating, just like plays and other theatre. Second, they're A LOT cheaper, something like 5k to 7k won (approx $3-5) and a large popcorn and 2 drinks is 7k won---amazingly cheap. You also have your choice between sweet (caramel) and salty (regular). I've been told some theatres also offer spiced popcorn n stuff. The CGV next to me also has Coke Zero. :) Yay, Coke Zero.

Tuesday, I stayed home to revise my lessons from Monday; they didn't go over so well, but the revisions worked well for the rest of the week.

Wednesday, I stayed home and was a bum.

Thursday, my coteacher took me to immigration to apply for my Alien Registration Card (an absolute necessity for any foreigner living in S.Korea; you cannot apply for things like cell phones and put bills in your name w/out an ARC). Later that evening, my head teacher took me out to dinner at Ashley, "An American Grill and Salad Bar" although there's nothing American about it. The only vaguely western things on the menu were spaghetti and lettuce. And the spaghetti had squid and gochujung in it. Still, it was a very nice gesture, and the dinner wasn't bad once you got over the fact that you would not actually be eating American food as you had hoped. ;)

Friday, I rested up and stayed in.

Saturday, I met Emily and Jackie at Nampodong for lunch at a lovely pasta restuarant and then shopping. Nampodong is a huge shopping district with a zillion stores and stalls and the streets are full of peddlers. We stopped at the Krispy Kreme on the way back, and apparently it is custom at the Krispies in Korea to give you a free donut whenever you buy anything! So I got some donuts, plus a free one. It was lovely and warm. After that, Emily and I went to Home Plus, and I found a green tshirt (for St. Patty's Day celebrations) and afterwards split up, I went home, she went to meet up with some friends.
A few hours later, I met up with Destiny, Jackie, Soehee (Jackie's coteacher), and Amanda for galbi and seomgupsal, delicious Korean bbq that you cook at your table. After that, off we went to O'Brien's to celebrate St. Patty's, but the drinks were disgusting, and it was wall to wall people. The music was also rather terrible. So then we hopped into cabs and went to Fuzzy Navel, where I drank Long Island Ice teas, and pina coladas (which are actually really good at FN) and ate French fries that tasted like they were from home and played darts and danced and met other foreigners until about 3am, when I decided it was time to go home.

Talent

2009-03-14T18:50:40Z

It is 3:41 in the morning. Tonight I have discovered that I have a tealent for playing darts v.well while rather inbreated... inebriated. This leads me to believe I may in fact have a talent for playing darts while not drunk. I am sure thais is connected to the hitherto unknown talent of archery. They both have sharp, pinty objecs directed at bullseyes. Clayton disagreed. But while playing with Esther, Clayton complained that I should not be so good because this was my first time playing. But Esther reminded him that I had kicked ass at archery, even though I had only done it once before at summer camp in the 9th grade, which was almost ten years ago!. Clearly archery=darts, because they are both sharp and pointy and aimed at concentric circles, and Esther drew this conclusion without any hints from me, so I think this logic is sound.

Since I have now discovered two previously unknown talents, clearly, Korea is good for discovering unknown talent.

Chew on that.

Wow.

2009-03-13T10:45:23Z

It has been three weeks since I took the plunge and boarded a plane for a completely new life.

And I kind of really love it.

Ways That Korea Rocks

2009-03-12T11:19:29Z

I took my pants to the alteration shop today to have them hemmed. They said it would take ten minutes. Floored,I decided to walk to the ATM (one floor up). By the time I came back, they were done. It cost me 3,000 won ($2.25,approx)

How awesome is that?

Moving In, Settling Down

2009-03-11T13:59:41Z

So I’m sitting on my bed eating Fruit Loops and watching CSI: Las Vegas. By now you’re wondering if I’ve fallen off the face of the earth, or perhaps, have I been cannibalized by my students? Well, no, I’ve just been busy with moving in, settling down, and maintaining a social life.

So why don’t you come in, sit down, and let me tell you about my life so far. I live in a high rise on the 18th floor, about 15 minute's walk to work.

So here’s the breakdown: Saturday, the 28^th, my coteacher, Mrs. Kim came to pick me up and took me to my new place.

Mrs. Kim takes a break to take a call from her son, I take a break to take a picture of her. Candid shot FTW!

There was a lot to do! We had to pick up my bedding from the cleaners, inventory the furniture and furnishings the house came with, go to the store for some things like hangers, electric kettle, toaster oven.

Notice the guy kneeling in the corner? He's hooking up my internet. On a Saturday! 30 minutes after we called! Yeah, life in Korea is kinda sweet.

We also got my internet connection hooked up!

Then after a lot of paperwork and stuff, Mrs. Kim left me to my unpacking, of which I did none. Instead, I went out to Seomyeon (pretty much the heart of Busan, with the biggest station, an underground mall and an aboveground shopping/eating district that you can (and probably will) get lost in) to meet up with all of my friends from Orientation for dinner.

Destiny looks at the camera, while Jesse watches me buy a new hat.

After dinner, we went out to Fuzzy Navel, a bar for foreigners where we met a lot of other English teachers, both public school and hagwon teachers. It was fun and interesting; I had a good time. I did kip out a little early so I could catch the train home (trains stop running a little after midnight)--I'm right close Seomyeon, but I didn't realize how close at the time and I didn't want to take a taxi.

So anyway, let me introduce you to the apartment! Come in, come in, it's really quite a sweet pad.

I've got a bit of a hallway here, that opens into my single room. As you can see, I've got a line of closets/cupboards on the right, which are EXCELLENT.

My living space:bed (it's a Super Single) tv, ac, and best part: BALCONY! Oh yeah. Also the tv. Three things you cannot escape, even by moving to Korea: Law and Order, CSI (thank goodness!) and Oprah. Everything else is variable, but those are without fail.

Some views from the other side.You can just see the washing machine beneath the range--Most koreans do not have ovens; it never became a part of the Korean cuisine. My washing machine is also a dryer. Yes, that's right, it's a badass 2-in-1. I put my clothes in, push some buttons (I've mostly gotten the hang of guessing at the meaning of the Korean symbols by way of pictures and numbers and different colors) and my clothes are washed and dried in the same machine. Almost all modern washers in Korea are washer/dryers, or so I've heard. Why they don't have these in America is not really a mystery; most Americans have space for a washer and a dryer and besides, companies are making more money that way, aren't they?

The bathroom; by Korean standards, fairly large and with a SEPERATE SHOWER STALL! You have no idea how excited I was about this; a lot of Korean bathrooms do not have a delineated showering area, much less a shower stall. My bathroom is still a "wet" bathroom (look at where the drain is in relation to the stall) but it's nice to have the stall regardless, and a clear space for bathing. Some of my teaching aquaintances are not quite so lucky

A view of the balcony in daytime. It's a nice view.

Just a view of my closets. Nice, in'it? It's a lot o' toilet paper too. They don't sell it in varying quantities, here. You can buy it in a 24 roll pack or... a 24 roll pack. Yeah, those're your options. Notice the place for my shoes? Just like in all Korean homes, you take your shoes off at the door. There's a raised floor, as if to remind you, "shoes off!" It's a good practice that I've already gotten used to; Korean streets are dirty.--Koreans spit rather routinely and although there aren't many pets, those that are here are allowed to poo willy nilly on the streets. Still, you don't see a lot of poo, because there aren't a lot of pets, STILL, it's out there, along with spit and all sorts of other things. You don't want to track that crap through your house where you also walk with your bare or stockinged feet.

You've had a look in my closets, might as well peek in the 'fridge, eh? Yeah, your eyes don't deceive you, that's Welch's and Dole and Heinz. I'm in Korea, people, not the another dimension. :D I've also got Pringles, Cheetos, and Peppridge Farm cookies. Barilla pasta on the shelf and Prego sauce in the cupboard. Still, though, it's been a little bit of an adventure learning the Korean grocery stores, as well as stove-top cooking. Once I get my flight fee back, I want to buy a crockpot so I can cook more easily and still be healthier than frying everything. I'll also need to get a bigger pot for boiling things/making soup/stew. The two that came with the place are basically about the right size for making Ramen and boiling eggs.

Here's the view from my balcony at night. That bright shine is the moon--it was full and super-bright tonight!

So on with my week-in-recap. I work at Deokmyeong Girl's Middle School. I teach 18 classes a weekbut only have to do lesson planning and such for the 2nd Grade (8th grade), because they have an actual English Conversation Class which I teach. 1st Grade (7th grade) and 3rd Grade (9th Grade) don't have English Conversation, so i go once a week to their regular English Class and help with their listening/speaking practice. I'll do a longer post about my school later.

Me and about half of the Crunk Crew--yes, we're all EPIK teachers.

I went out a couple of times this past week with my crew (nicknamed the Crunk Crew by several of our members) for dinner and drinks and whatnots, but the big party was this past Saturday: The EPIK Pub Crawl

We started off at The Basement at PNU (Pusan National University, like most college areas full of bars, clubs, restaurants, and cheap, eclectic shops of all sorts), where I met a bunch of new and old EPIK teachers, then the Pub Crawl organizers provided charter buses to Seomyeon where we hit two more bars. After that we bussed somewhere else (okay, I don't *quite* remember where we ended up) and hung out there until about 2/2:30-ish. Most of the CC (crunk crew) was headed off to another bar, or noraebang or what-have-you, but I decided to call it quits about then, so my night ended about 3am. Still, you can tell from my shirt I had a good night (Yes, that IS a phone number that I collected, as well as a few, err... admirations?)

Thank goodness I had bananas at home; I scarfed one and along with about half a liter of water, and some advil so I was pretty good for the next day; just tired.

Thus endeth my week in review! :D

Orientation, Day 5

2009-03-06T01:46:41Z

So, Friday, our last day of Orientation, started off with a rather bleh breakfast--the fish was clearly leftover from a previous meal, the rice was a little off, and basically, it was sort of a struggle to get enough to eat, especially for me, because their dairy wasn't lactose-free. :( Anyway, I managed, and then we had two presentations, one from a native-english teacher about the basics of teaching, including things we should be prepared for outside of the classroom (She was really good, and it turns out she was the wife of another English teacher who had presented earlier in the week) and then we had a Culture Shock class, basically about what to expect from Korean culture.

After that was a quick lunch and then we piled on the bus again, this time for a tour of Busan! Oohh!

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round...

Busan, Korea, from a bus.

Up steep hills, down steep hills, geeze...

Our first stop of the day was at the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) Center which was sort of interesting, half museum, half... something else, I guess. We took a bit of a walk-around, but it wasn't that interesting. The best part was being accosted by a mom and her six kids because the kids wanted to take a photo with me. One photo turned into like, three or four, but whatever, it was fun and the kids were adorably fascinated by my hair.

The picture looks a lot darker than it actually was.

The view was a lot more interesting to me, even though it was a bit drizzly.

The edge of the building (it's completely round) with Destiny and Amanda dancing and Matt and Richie talking.

The entrance to the Korean War Memorial. There's a list of rules posted at the entrance which include, "No running or exercising", "No Loud Talking", and the best, "Straighten Up Your Appearance". Gosh, it's like it was written by someone's mom. No slouching in the War Memorial!

Then we piled on the bus again. Our next stop was the Korean War Memorial. We got our very own tour guide, which was cool. He was from Canada, so it was easier to understand him than our last tour ,guide, who's English was very, very broken.

This is not a church.

The first stop was to a church-like place that was not a church.

IT JUST LOOKS LIKE A CHURCH.

We watched a video on the Korean War. It was alternately funny (when the English expressions were completely mixed up) and very sad.

A shot of a piece of the grounds--the memorial is HUGE.

Then we went out all over the grounds. They've got little bits of memorial all over the grounds, so we went around to most all of them.

Like this one.

Ricky takes a moment to look contemplative. Or maybe he's just cold.

This was a very nice piece of the memorial, although the overcast sky made it a rather boring shot.

Next on the list was a trip to City Hall where we toured a little museum of Busan and ended up being shown a video about Busan (that we had seen earlier in the week) and a couple of different scale models of Busan. The gift shop, arguably the best part of the tour, was kept just out of reach.

This is one scale model of Busan. There was a bigger, better one, but by the time we got to it, I was thoroughly bored and VERY hungry, so there's no shots of that one.

So then we went back to the hotel, had dinner (I can't even remember what it was) and thus ended the day.

How to Shop in Korea : A Tutorial

2009-03-03T05:40:52Z

Shopping in a land where you don't speak the local language and most people have minimal, if any English sounds scary, doesn't it? Yeah. However, I have quickly learned that it's not as hard as it sounds. Here are some things that I've learned about shopping in Korea:

1) Take a native or a friend familiar with the store, with you the first time. They're not there to read labels for you, they're there to show you the layout of the store. It will go much faster if they say "This is the bread aisle, this is the dairy, produce is down there, frozen foods are here." Their second important job is to introduce you to the sales and prizes that the store offers. The Home Plus near me offers shoppers a Point Card to be used when you shop, and you can use those points like dollars--like frequent flyer miles, a certain number of points equals a dollar (or won) and you can use that to save on groceries and other items. The HomePlus near me also offers free prizes if you spend more than 50k won or 100k won. So far I have collected three of the four prizes offered, but I would not have even known about them if my coteacher had not explained the system to me---once you're done shopping, you have to take your reciept to a different level and "cash it in" for the prize you want. In my case I've recieved a grocery bag on wheels (EXTREMELY USEFUL for wheeling your groceries home), a 5-piece set of glass dishes with airtight rubber lids, (also terribly useful) and a gallon of fabric softener. There's one prize left, a three pack of tissue boxes. :)

So take a native speaker AND make sure they frequent the store they're taking you to. If they don't, they probably won't know the rewards systems that you want to take advantage of, just like you probably know nothing about the rewards offered at Harris Teeter if you always shop at Safeway.

Once you learn the rewards system, it's not hard to take advantage of them even without the language.

2) Read the packages.
A surprising number of packages have English on them. Even if they're not all in English, they will often say somewhere on them what is inside. Flip the package over and check the back if there's no English on the front. Sometimes things won't have English on the package, but other packages will--if all of the packages around say "Salt", there's a good chance that the middle package is also salt. Just to be safe though, you might want to go with a package that clearly says Salt. :)

3) Look at the product. Lots of products have little "windows" or clear packaging, making it easy to determine what's inside. Does it look like chicken breast? It's probably chicken breast. Does it look like bacon? It's probably bacon. Does it look like beef? It probably beef. Do those pastries look like they will make you fat? They wil make you fat.

4) Look at the pictures. Maybe you're on the soap aisle and you can't figure out if it's laundry detergent or dishwasher soap--how do you choose? A tiny picture of some bubbles and a woven pattern could give you a clue--it's laundry soap. A picture of a gleaming glass on the back will tell you it's dishwasher soap.

5) Watch commercials!
Some commercials make it remarkably clear what the product is, or is supposed to do. Other products might have different names, but are basically American/Western products and you can deduce this from a thirty second commercial. For example, I recently saw a commercial with a woman who, after sniffing her couch cushions and curtains, was clearly dissatisfied with their aroma. She grabbed a bottle and spritzed every fabric-covered surface in the room. The entire family rushed in for a whiff. Ahhhhh. I'm sure you know what this product is just by my description. It's Febreeze! But watching the commercial to the end, I discovered they call it something along the lines of Fabrigee and it's name is entirely in Korean. Nevertheless, I was able to buy the product and my house spells fresh and clean. Mmmm, Febreeze-y.

Thus endeth the lesson. Happy shopping!

Day 3 and 4 Orientation

2009-02-27T13:24:06Z

Orientation Day 3

Today we met our co-teachers for the first time. I was very nervous, and through the first class, I only became more nervous, because my co-teacher didn't show up. My stomach was in knots! But she did show up, half way through class and I felt better. It turns out she had a doctor's appointment. Her name is Mrs. Kim and she's quite nice, but the first thing she said to me was, "We have a problem with your apartment." Ooooooh no!

The problem was that they had a Native English Teacher (NET) last year and they found an apartment for her for 400,000W. They were planning on giving her apartment to me this year. However, the landlord decided to raise the rent by 50,000 won. Since the rent budget for an NET is 400,000W, I had two options; I could pay the rent increase of 50k W out of my own pocket, or she could go looking for a new apartment. However, there were no guarantees she could find one by Saturday--I might have had to stay in a motel for awhile. So I asked her if I could see the place first, just to make sure.

We ate a quick lunch (some sort of spicy stew, so I didn't eat a lot of it) and then jumped in her car. She drove us out to the apartment for a quick peak. In realtor's terms it was "cute". Small, (very small, but I was expecting that) but neat and clean and modern, with more furnishings than I expected. After that, we swung by my school. I am v. happy.

Mrs. Kim came back with me but left early to finish renewing the lease on the apartment.

Later, we went out to Thursday Party, a bar in Haeundae to celebrate the birthday of one of the English teachers, which was a lot of fun. We came back pretty late, but I think everyone had a good time, and at least we're all a little more comfortable getting taxis!

Orientation, Day 4

I'd like to lie to you and tell you that today was fun and exciting, but it wasn't. It was dreadfully dull, actually, we were in classes all day from 9am to 7:30pm with just breaks for lunch, dinner, and snacks.

Oi.