Muuido Island

This past weekend, Matt and I went out to Muuido Island, a small island off of Incheon.  Considering it's the middle of monsoon season, we got lucky and had only clouds in the sky.  We made it to the pier on Incheon and took a short ferry ride across to Muuido.  You could actually see the other side easily... I'm not sure why they didn't just build a bridge because you could easily walk.. but.. whatever works.  After a ferry ride and windy, bumpy bus ride across the island, we arrived at Hangaggae Beach and checked in to our little beach hut.  There are a couple rows of them along the edge of the beach... enough for max.  3 people to sleep in and they give you enough blankets to make a cocoon on the floor.  Like little minboks on stilts.

Row of Minboks on stilts

Here's ours!

It was low tide, and the interesting thing about Muuido is... when it's low tide, there is absolutely no sea.  It goes completely out.  You can walk all the way across the bay... out to about a kilometer.  It's pretty wild!  We took a long walk and saw all sorts of snails, crabs and sea cucumbers.  We got to the other side and it was beautiful.  Completely deserted.

No sea

The other side

We actually got lost coming back and went into complete panic mode, which is hilarious in retrospect. 
On our walk, we thought we were walking straight and went for about a mile... we were walking for at least 20 minutes until we found the other beach, which we thought was the other side.  When we started walking back where we thought we came from, the ocean started coming in fast.  It was actually pretty cool to see.  Anyway, we panicked because we had no idea how we were going to get back through the ocean without swimming... instead, we stopped at a beach that wasn't overtaken by the sea yet.  We didn't have shoes or any money so we figured we would have to beg someone for a ride.  As we walked up on to the beach, we were commenting on how similar it was to ours... and then it turned out that it was ours.  How stupid we felt! But also so relieved because we were starving.

We had lunch of some noodle soup with fresh clams and spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing black jack on the beach (the first and probably last time i beat matt- just need that on record).   It wasn't the best weather or the best beach, but it was nice to be at any beach at all and we had a lot of fun.  The next morning we woke up and it was monsooning (of course) so we had a trek getting back to Seoul.. which was definitely worth it because we ate a ridiculous amount of Taco Bell (definitely a novelty here) and watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind at a DVD bang. I wish we had those in the states!  You basically just rent a really cozy room with a big couch and pillows and they put on a DVD that you choose on a huge screen TV.  I love it.. you get to leave your house but still be lazy.

Other than that, I really missed the 4th of July!  Definitely my favorite holiday... I wish I could have been BBQing with my friends instead of working all day. Boo hoo.

That's about it!

How to get to Muuido:

-Take the Korail airport line from either Seoul Station, Hongik University or Digital Media City station
-Once at the airport, go to departure terminal (3rd floor), exit at gate 5
-Take bus 222 to reach the Jamjinnaru ferry terminal (the ferry runs every 15-30 mins) and you can literally see Muuido from the Incheon side and visa versa
-Buy a ticket at the hut to the right and board the ferry
-Once on the other side, there are buses waiting right at the terminal.. there aren't usually numbers but just ask the driver if it goes to Hangaggae Beach
-To rent the hut, just walk towards hanaggae beach and you'll see a building selling the minbok huts for 30,000 won.. they give you a key and you just head to the beach.  But be warned.. I didn't come across any showers while I was there.. just public bathrooms with toilets/sinks

Highlight Reel

Well I suppose since I haven't written anything since January, which means I have about 4 and a half months to write about.. but i'm not going to do that.. because it would probably be boring.   So I'll just give some highlights that way this blog doesn't fall apart.  And when I say highlights I mean... anything I can remember...


March was a fun month with St. Patricks Day and everything.  My birthday was at the end of the month and that was pretty much a week long celebration.  Definitely the best birthday I've ever had.   The 30th was on a Wednesday so I had a long day at work... after work, the guys took me to Coco City Chicken (our favorite neighborhood Hof) for chicken and beer.  From there, Eva (my co-teacher) and her friend Song picked me up and took me clubbing!  We went to a booking club in Yoensinnae.. the hip part of Eunpyeong (my "gu").  It was a lot of fun and also an interesting experience.   For one, it was a wed. night, so most of the people at the club were between the ages of 40 and 60.  The idea of a booking club is you go with your same-sex friends to meet members of the opposite sex.  The girls get a table with a couple of beers and a fruit platter or whatever food you want.  Boys get even better food and lots of booze.  Then, the waiters take the girls away one by one away from their friends and bring them to the boys' tables.   The way they pair people is based on attractiveness.  It's a good way to find out if you're ugly or not, that's for sure.  I suppose it's an alright way to meet people, but considering my Korean conversation skills are limited to about 3 phrases (Did you eat? What is your name? and What beer/food/sports do you like?), meeting people got old after a couple of rounds.  Also, being a jersey girl, it makes me weary to drink alcohol of the tables of strange men.  It was definitely a cool experience and I had SO much fun with Eva and Song.  We danced the night way and even saw a boy-band perform at the club.  Overall, a good night!

Eva, Song and I having some drinks before our night out

That weekend, all of my friends came to town and we had a blast.  Friday night was filled with BBQ and norabang (kharaoke).  Saturday was amazing!  Johanna and Matt and I spent all morning eating candy and watching the hangover (to accompany ours).  They finally got me out of bed on the pretense that we were going "hiking" in Gangnam... (which, by the way, is the downtown area of the city.  Why did I believe that?)  We got to the "hiking area" and after all of my other friends had told me that had to bail on dinner, they were all there to surprise me !!  We had a picnic filled with wine, brie, cake and snacks.  Actually, we wound up having to put the wine away because the park was on an ancient burial site... but anyway, I've never been so happy.  I have the best friends ever!

Party hats and everything

After the amazing picnic, we headed to Big Rock Brewery in Gangnam for dinner and some good beer.  A whole bunch of people came from all over and I had an amazing time.  From there we went to some other bars and then headed to "Noise Basement," which is one of the biggest hip hop clubs in Seoul.  I'm glad I went for the experience but boy, I will never go back if I can help it.  There were thousands of people crammed in like sardines... I've never seen anything like it!   Overall, it was the best birthday ever.. We ended the night at Pomato, eating dongkass and laughing about everything that happened.

i still don't get it.

April was a good month.  I attended a beer olympics tournament, where my team, Colombia, put out a less than stellar performance.

 I can't really remember the order of events for the rest of the past couple of months.  I went hiking a few times..  here's some pictures from hiking in Dong Song

At hawk rock in Dong Song

The girls sitting outside a war bunker

An ominous view of Dong Song from above

We also hit up Samaksan in Chuncheon..

Matt at the summit

The gorges at the start of the hike

My friends and I also checked out a "Trick Art" museum here in Seoul.  It sounded much cooler on the website than it actually was.

Johanna has my head on a spoon! Oh No!

I'm getting eaten by a monster!

Another weekend we spent on the East Coast.  MJ lives in Gangneung, a pretty city on the beach... a bunch of people from Matt's orientation got together and rented some minboks at Hajodae beach, about 40 minutes north of Gangneung. What a great weekend!  I love the beaches here.  All one of them that I've been to.

A not-so-good shot of the beach.  This pic def does not do it justice.

Sparklers at night

Fireworks!

Beach volleyball

One lazy sunday night in Chuncheon, Matt, Carla, Andy and I had a BBQ next to a creek by her house.  It was such a good night.  The girls cut up peppers, zucchini, onions and things while the boys grilled sam gyp sal, galbi and duck! mmm

Also, it was Children's Day/Buddha's birthday in the beginning of May.  I got a couple of days off.  Buddha's birthday was on a Tuesday so we made sure to pay homage at a temple in Gangnam.  It was beautiful!

traditional dancers

Also, at some other point in time (I have no concept of when), Matt and I went to Goseokjung, which is supposed to be the birth place of the Korean Robin Hood.  It's in Cheorwon, not too far from where he lives.  It's really a beautiful spot!

Hantan River

Here I am! In front of a waterfall.

Here's that Robin Hood character I was talking about

There's also a small amusement park at Goseokjung.  Matt and I tried out the viking and we, along with all the middle school students on the ride, got off not feeling too well

Down by the Hantan River

Also, for the past couple of months, my friends up in Cheorwon have been putting together a salsa performance.  They've been working SO hard on it.  Last weekend I went up there to watch their show. It was a variety show at the Wasu-ri cultural center.  They were one of many performances.  There were child ballerinas, traditional Korean dancers, and my favorite was something that is hard to describe.  It was a group of grandmothers that were playing large Korean drums while also performing a dance routine.  They dressed in sequin outfits and actually stripped off portions of their clothing at certain points.  Seriously one of the best things I've ever seen.

Also, Matt got a scooter!! Woo hoo!  We spent sunday evening exploring the outskirts of Dong Song.  So beautiful out there!  It really makes you feel like you are in East Asia, riding on a motorbike through valleys and rice padis.  I'm really happy for him.  Especially because he lives in a rural area, it'll be fun to have transportation besides the bus, which often stops early evening and doesn't run constantly.  There is so much cool stuff to see up in Cheorwon that's only possible with a personal vehicle.  I'm excited to check out the DMZ on an upcoming visit!

And that's all she wrote!  Of course, plenty more stuff happened but I have to keep some mystery from my readers.  I'll try to update more frequently so there aren't any more sporadic blogs like this.

Oh and just in case anyone was wondering,  I DO still have a job.   I know it might not seem that way, but I do still go to work monday through friday.  Kids are doing well!  Got a new classroom with windows that I'm pretty psyched about.  I've got a nice view of Bukhan mountain right out the window!  I feel very lucky! :)

Leonardo da Kimchi

I apologize to all of my loyal fans for not updating in so long!  The whole month of January went by and I felt like nothing happened...so I didn't write.  The most notable thing that happened was that it was so. so. cold.  It was the coldest January in Korea for 30 years. It didn't get above -10C for the entire month.  There were mornings I'd wake up and it would be -17C.  No joke.  Actually, Seoul isn't even the coldest part of Korea.  Some of my friends live in Cheorwon which is nestled in the mountains near the DMZ.  There were days that it was colder there than in Siberia.  I wish i was kidding.  Needless to say, I spent most of the month snuggled under my electric blanket with a glass (...bottle) of wine.  You should have seen my recycling bin each week. 

Stuff that DID happen:

When they're causing my early-onset wrinkles, my students are, of course, cracking me up.  They say funny stuff every day.  I should start writing it down, huh?  Here's a few I can remember off the top of my head...

-Here is the story of Cinderella told by one of my students (this one i DID write down. It was THAT good):

   Cinderella doesn't have mom, so not really mom come.  Not really mom

has two daughters.  Not really mom and her daughters go to dancing
party, but cinderella can't go to the dancing party.  But  witch helps
Cinderella.  So cinderella go to the dancing party.  And Prince and
Cinderella marry. So happy.

- We were studying Italian artists and one of them was Leonardo daVinci.  One of my witty guys blurts out: "Leonardo Da Kimchi!!"*

*If you don't know what Kimchi is, this probably isn't funny.  It's the national dish of Korea.. fermented cabbage with red pepper paste..they literally eat it with every single meal and it's everyone's favorite food

-On one of Andrew's tests, the answer was "parachute" and some kid clearly got confused and wrote his answer as "Putagraper"

-My kids were drawing pictures of stuff and one of my girls calls me over and goes "Teacher.... mermaid have arms?"  I look down and it's a drawing of a mermaid with NO arms.

-Here's a video of my Pre-K class singing and dancing to "Party in My Tummy.." They got camera shy and couldn't remember the words but it's still funny to watch them all.   They're just goofing off the whole time. Only one girl (Sadie) keeps up dancing the whole time.  The chubby girl all the way on the right (Chloe) is hilarious... she just stands there moving her arm a little bit. She tries so hard!  And best of all, check out the boy and the girl on the left... about a minute in, he grabs her ass.  He's like.... 5.  Pervert.

 

After being here for almost 6 months, my work does feel more fulfilling.  I have seen a lot of kids improve a ton.  I'm especially proud of my pre-K class (seen above).   They came in knowing nothing (hence, PreK) and they've improved a lot!  They soak new information up like little sponges.  I'm really proud of them and it's really fulfilling seeing how far they've come.  I also feel like I've become a better teacher (which NEEDED to happen because I came in disliking children and having NO idea what I was doing).  We've done some really cool projects in my Pre-K class.  We studied "the hungry caterpillar" (the other benefit of teaching youngins is that I get to revisit all the things I loved during my childhood).  In the hungry caterpillar, he goes through each day and eats 1 apple, 2 oranges, 3 pears, etc. So we read the book and then, they made their own "hungry caterpillar" books.... but instead of hungry caterpillar, it was "hungry John," "hungry felix" or "hungry Layla."  They had to draw themselves on the cover. Then on each page they had to draw a number and foods. 1 orange, 2 cakes, 3 apples, 4 kimchis, etc.  Whatever foods they wanted to draw.  Actually, Chloe, the adorable chubby girl, did it all correctly until the end...  1 apple, 2 cakes, 3 ice creams...and then...... 7 houses.  She clearly misunderstood the assignment.   We also studied Goodnight Moon.  We read the book and then they made their own Goodnight Moon Books.  I made the template but left blanks for them to fill in with words and drawings. For example, there's a page in the book about "the cow jumping over the moon," but where the cow would be, I put a big blank circle, so they could pick whatever animal they wanted to jump over the moon and fill in the blank.  So they could do "a snake jumping over the moon" or "a monkey jumping over the moon."  Or instead of "the big green room," they could color the walls and fill in the blank with whatever color they chose.  It came out really cute!  And I must say, I was pretty proud of them.  I love seeing how far they've come since they first got here and didn't even know their names.  Now, they can fill in the blanks with numbers, animals, and colors.  Plus, they're so friggin small and adorable!

On another note, we had a week off for Chinese New Year.  I went to the Philippines and it. was. awesome. I'm obsessed and want to go back.  NOW.  We only had a week we stuck in Boracay which was amazing.  It's one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. 

I want to go back NOW.

Here's my friend Andrew snoozing under his mosquito net.  Why can't I ever go on a vacation to a place that doesn't require a mosquito net?

My friend Johanna and I relaxing on bean bag chairs on the beach.  Genius!

Johanna with a lobster... it's rainbow!

Happy Hour on the beach.

Here I am!

JoJo and I making a sand gingerbread man.  It was a hit!  People walking by took pictures of it.

So yeah, I'm pretty much ready for vacation again!  Or at least for the winter to be over.  I'm really looking forward to the spring/summer!  MudFest, Jisan Rock Fest, Any kind of Fest, biking, hiking, running outside on the Bulgwan-chi! Eating outside! Drinking outside! Road trips! The beach! Buddha's birthday! Cherry Blossoms! Trips to Jeju! Bunjee Jumping!  It will be awesome. And the thought of these things are the only thing getting me through the winter!

Why People Like Salsa Dancing

I apologize for not having written in a while... I could say I was busy or something, but that would just be lying.  With every day that the temperature drops another degree, I get less and less funny, and I really didn't want to bore anyone.  That, and my internet has been shoddy for the past couple of weeks, so it was just too much trouble.

Anyway, after I recovered from the plague,  life went back to normal.  Work was fine,  I continued to not go to the gym, and resumed my habit of drinking too much on the weekends.  Last weekend was MJ's birthday so we went on a big ski trip to Yongpyeong ski resort on the east coast...  I didn't ski because I didn't want to give up my one advantage during games of "never have i ever," but everyone else who skiied/snowboarded had a good time.  It was my first ever visit to a ski village.. it was cool even for a non-skiier! I liked the atmosphere.  I spent saturday night there, and  then sunday night, I stopped in Chuncheon since I didn't have to be at work till 130 the next day.  I had my first DVD Room experience.  Its a place just filled with rooms that have tv's and couches in them.. you pick out a dvd and watch it in such rooms.  It's a cool idea.. like your person movie theater.. you can even bring your own snacks.  A lot of highschool kids use it as a place to... be alone.. which is kinda weird.  But we really just wanted to watch lord of the rings.

Obviously, this weekend was Christmas.  Of course I missed my family and friends from home, but for being in Korea, Christmas was amazing- filled with good food, amazing friends, presents, cookies and lots of wine!  I had to work on Christmas Eve till 8:30, which was a bummer.  It would have been really nice if we had off.. or if they let us out early... but that was not the case.  We finished our work early in all of my classes so we played Christmas bingo.  I would say it was fun, but... i really just wanted to be outta there.  Once work was over, it was all uphill from there! Steve arrived as I got out of work and we headed to Jongno Tower... we went to the bar that's on the 33rd floor.. it had a beautiful view and we had a lot of fun.  Saturday, I headed to Cheorwon (by the DMZ) to see my friends.  MJ and the girls had been cooking and decorating all week to get ready for christmas...  it was really cute.  We had a really good dinner, opened presents and stockings and just hung out listening to christmas music.  MJ got me the best present EVER... an electric blanket! My life is going to change completely.  Before moving here, I really had no idea that Korea was in the Arctic circle. Apparently it is.  Who knew?


Something funny actually happening in school last week.  Our lesson was about "Why People like Salsa Dancing."  I was excited that it was going to be a fun lesson.. i got clips of different types of salsa dances and whatever.  So the kids get to class and I'm talking all about salsa, and we're reading this article in the book about it... but the kids can NOT stop laughing.  It was a class of 10 year old boys, actually.  They were in hysterics and whispering amongst themselves... finally I asked what was so funny.  I should have guessed.... there is only one topic that can make a 10 year old boy laugh uncontrollably.  One finally told me: "teacher! In korean, salsa is 'water poopoo.'"  So essentially, I was standing in front of the class teaching a lesson about "Why People Like diarrhea," saying things like "People like diarrhea because it makes them happy."  If I cared about what 10 year old thought about me, I 'd be mortified.  WHyy would the book do that to me?! I honestly couldn't even be mad at the kids cus.. come on, its funny.

Other than that, not too much is going on.  Starting tomorrow, I'm definitely going to start exercising... gotta get ready for the Philippines!  And next week is new years! I can't wait!

Asian Work Ethic

Alright, so I found a MAJOR draw back of working in an Asian country: The work ethic.  I thought we were work-a-holics in America?  Nah-uh.

We had our first snowfall in Seoul last Sunday.  It was beautiful.  Not only did it bring beauty to the otherwise seedy looking Itaewon- it also brought me the flu.  I was feeling run down on Monday, but  took it for the usual monday-blues and powered through.  By tuesday night I had a 101.5 fever, chills and body aches-yet ZERO sick days.  I showed up to work everyday- but of course, not without comments from students- "teacher, you look very bad!" and "teacher, no makeup?!" It isn't that my school is particularly cruel  to its employees- they actually treat us really well- It's just a cultural thing.  In Korea, even when you're sick, you get out of bed, shower if you can manage it (I couldn't), bundle up and come to work, dammit!  It didn't help that this was a particularly stressful week for everyone at school to begin with, because we merged with another school.  We all moved classrooms, got new classes (it was a new term) and got a new boss.  Everyone was having computer problems, printer problems projector problems, you name it.. so it was really no time for me to complain because the staff already had so much on their hands.  To add to my awesome situation, I lost my wallet last weekend.  And lost internet in my apartment.  It really seemed like everything was going wrong.. and then friday I got a surprise package from my mom... she sent our favorite christmas cd! John Denver & the Muppets.  Corny? Yes.  Did it make me almost cry tears of joy to hear "twelve days of christmas" in miss piggy's voice coming out of my computer speakers? Definitely.  

Needless to say, I spent the weekend unconscious, recovering from the week-o'-hell.  My apartment still looks like a bio-hazard zone and I'm still exhausted but I no longer feel like I'm going to collapse any second, so that's good! 

I really can't believe it's the beginning of December.  I have a LOT to look forward to- MJ's birthday (skiing!), Christmas, New Years.... all the fun stuff.  I'm excited and so lucky that I have amazing friends to share it with.  Thanksgiving was tough in terms of homesickness...  I wish I was home with my family, even though they weren't even doing anything too big and barely anyone was around.  I guess I was homesick for something that doesn't even exist anymore- big family dinners at my grandparents' house, with everyone there...grandpa drinking coffee, the guys watching football in the den, the girls in the kitchen  emptying cranberry sauce from a can and stealing the skin off the turkey before the guys can carve it up.. with the Andrew Sisters and Johnny Cash on the stereo.  But I guess considering I'm in Korea, it wasn't so bad- I went with 2 of my co-workers to On the Border.. there's one in Seoul! We ate more than is humanly possible, and then ate some more.  It was a good night.

Like I said.. there's a lot to look forward to!  End of december activities... and then Alex & Beth, 2 of my friends from college, are heading to Korea to start their contracts! I'm excited to have them here.. they're still waiting to hear about their placements, but hopefully we'll be close.

I'm going to curl up in bed with a book.. it's too cold to type any longer!

Toodles!

November thus far- hiking, Chuncheon & corn dogs

Wow, I've barely updated for all of November.   It is weird that it's already almost thanksgiving because Halloween feels like it was yesterday.  This month has really flown by and I can't believe I've been here for more than two months.  I think I'm starting to get the hang out of things.. I ordered a futon online, so everyone must come visit!  It'll be nice to have a place for people to sit other than the floor when they come over.  Also, I Just figured out how to download movies from a torrent, so that's going to change my life for the better.  Before this, the only shows that streamed well online were the daily show and south park.  Not a bad selection, just very limited.

November went in like a lamb and is going out like a lion.  The beginning of the month was beautiful and the sun was still warm.  Everyday that passes, it gets colder and colder.  If this is only November weather, I am NOT looking forward to January and February.  The first weekend of this month, I went hiking up Bukhansan Mountain in Seoul with my co-worker.  The mountain is actually in my district (Eunpyeong) and was 3 subway stops away, so it was easy to get to.  Since it was one of the last nice weekends, the trail was very crowded, and middle-aged Koreans don't have much patience for others when they get into hiking mode.  They push you out of the way if you're going to slow, so you never need to worry about holding anyone up.

Andrew looking off into the distance

The hike was really fun but I wasn't prepared for how intense it would be.  It was very steep, and towards the top, you literally needed to use a rope to pull yourself up the smooth rock.  Let's just say, I was sore until about Thursday.  What sucked the most is that once we got to the top, it was so cloudy that we had absolutely no view.  Normally, you can see all of Seoul from the top of the mountain... but all we could see was clouds.  Kind of a bummer!  But it was definitely worth it, since now it will be way too cold to do anything like that. 

The following weekend, I got out of Seoul and went to another city called Chuncheon to visit some friends.  It's about an hour bus ride from Eastern Seoul and it is the capital of Gangwan-do (the state to the East of Seoul that is generally more rural).  I got there on Saturday night and basically just went out to a bar that night.. nothing too interesting.  The next day, we went for a long walk around Chuncheon, from my friend's apartment to the downtown area.  I saw his school- a huge, public, all-boys middle school.  Can you imagine the hormones in that place?  We also went to "ttakgalbi street" which was pretty cool- it was just filled with everything that had to do with ttakgalbi, from restaurants to huge plastic chicken statues.  I had a lot of fun in Chuncheon and it was nice to get a break from the big city.  They're famous for their ttakgalbi, which is an amazing Korean dish made up of spicy chicken, rice cakes, and some other shit.  Definitely had it for both dinner on saturday night aaand lunch on Sunday.   I really enjoyed myself.  It was a nice, relaxing weekend.


This weekend, I had really hyped up.  We got tickets to see the Flaming Lips and I had been excited forever.  I met MJ in Hongdae at 1:30 for a haircut.  She looked great when we left.  Me, not so much.  I got highlights and am wayy too blonde.  I sort of look like a playboy bunny.  Or Pam Anderson.  Not a good look, really.  Anyway, the Flaming Lips tickets said that the concert started at 7.  But would you ever go to a concert at 7? Most concerts that say they start at 7 or 8 have at least 2 opening bands, set up time, etc.. so the main act doesn't wind up going on until 10 or 11.  9 at the earliest.  So, we planned on getting there at 8 (which we still thought was pretty early).  It turned out the concert literally started at 7.  On the dot.  We arrived shortly after 8 and missed almost the entire concert.  We saw 4 songs.  FOUR.  I'm still so pissed about it.  Who doesn't have an opening band?? Who ends their concert at NINE O CLOCK?? Ugh.  On the brightside, the 4 songs we saw were amaaaazing.  They ended with Do you realize?? which was beautiful... there was confetti eeeverywhere.  It was awesome.  I'll post pictures once I upload them.

We decided to go out after the concert, since it was literally 9 PM and the night was still young.  I was with MJ, Johanna, and my friend from college, Megan.  MJ and I had met these 3 guys when we were frantically running around looking for the concert venue, since we couldn't find it and were already so late.  These guys also missed the concert, so since we had a shared resentment for the band/our lives, and they came out with us after the show.  We had a really good time.. we went out in Hongdae to one of the various Ho Bars then to a place called "Garage" that was literally a garage.. so that was kind of cool.  I left with my girlfriends to go home at around 2 and stopped to eat at a stand on the street selling various Korean fried things and corn dogs.  Only then did it occur to us that we spend every weekend talking endlessly about how we wish we could meet a group of hot, awesome guys that want to hang out with us.  After all that talk, our dream was finally coming true-we met 3 hot, awesome guys.... and then ditched them to go eat corn dogs on the street.  WHAT is wrong with us??



That pretty much sums it up.  My school is under construction and is a TOTAL mess right now.  We merged with another school (I work at CDI April Institute, which is elementary school.  We merged with CDI, which is the same school but for the older kids).   They're moving into our building so they're pretty much gutting the inside of the building.  They're moving walls, making new classrooms, putting up new wallpaper, etc etc.  The end of November should be interesting, with 13 new foreign teachers and 500 extra kids running around.  I'm teaching a new class for Pre-K, so my students will be like... 4 and 5 year olds.  Do they even have motor skills at that age? I really don't know how I'm going to keep their attention for an hour.  Or how we're going to do ANYTHING because they don't speak any english and have the attention span of fruit flies.  It's going to be teaching the ABC's and phonics using a lot of songs and games and stuff  The school prepares us really well- they provide all the materials and I went to a training session about it.  I DO get to use puppets, which I'm excited about.  There's Kenny the Cat.. and some others, but I can't remember their names.  I have to use the puppet to show "the cat is thirsty" and "the cat is sleepy."  I think it'll be easier to act like a total goofball when I have a sockpuppet on my hand.

I'm exhausted.  Another lazy Sunday.  Already excited for next weekend.

Ta-ta !

Halloween weekend

Last weekend was awesome.  I know how fanatical some people get about halloween, but it's never really been my thing.  I'm more of a fourth-of-july kind of gal.  But this Halloween was a blast.  We didn't have a huge party in school because parents would have complained that the kids were missing a lesson (isn't that sad?) but we were able to do a mini-celebration the last 15 minutes of class.  In all my classes, we played halloween bingo, then I showed them Michael Jackson's Thriller video.  It was perfect.  I actually scared the crap out of my beginner class, which was kind of adorable.

Vampire Freddy

A bunch of the teachers

My beginner class... look at Max all the way on the right hahah

Jessica and Monnica

Seed 2 class

I bolted out of work on friday to catch a bus to Skocho, which is on the eastern coast of Korea.  I met 2 friends at the bus stop in Seoul and realized we had about an hour and a half to wait for the bus.  We did some hat shopping, and voila!  I had a cowgirl halloween costume.  We got to Sokcho at about 2 in the morning (woof) and since I hadn't seen my girlfriends in a week, we obviously stayed up until about 5 giggling.  Which made waking up at 7 really interesting... and by interesting, i mean really fucking terrible.  But, we bundled up, chugged some coffee, ate some carbs, and headed over to Soraksan National Park.  It's known for having some of the prettiest mountains in Korea.  This reputation was fairly earned.  The mountains were unbelievably beautiful and it didn't hurt that all the leaves were shades of red, orange and yellow.  We had an intense hike but spent some time at the top hanging out sharing snacks with middle-aged Korean men.  I've never really been an avid hiker, but I think I've been fully converted into a fanatic.  Hiking is fun!  Especially when you do it Korean-style and drink beer at the top.

MJ and I at the top

Our new Korean friends

  

We went to a Halloween party on Saturday night in Sokcho and people had some really awesome costumes!  Without a "party city" around, people got really creative.  There was Medusa, a gingerbread man, a kim bap roll, zoro, the droogs, a pregnent belly dancing ajumma... you name it. 

Other than that, I really like my school.  I feel like I got really lucky.  When I put in my placement request, I actually requested to be in a city other than seoul, teaching high school students.  So, of course, they put my in Seoul teaching elementary school.  But I really love it.  The area I live in is amazing.. its not in the center of seoul so it's pretty and not so crowded.. but I live close enough to all the fun stuff.  My branch is awesome.. it's small but the people are great.  I went out last night with the Koreans from school.. they're SO funny.  I had a really good time.  I really couldn't imagine being anywhere else!