Seoul Searching

4th of July

2010-07-04T07:30:00.001-07:00

This weekend myself and 18 other people (Fulbrighters, friends of friends, and 1 Korean) went to a pension in Daejeon to have a very American 4th of July. Seth and I planned the event together and the whole weekend went surprisingly smoothly. The pension itself was really nice, minus being a little small. The area the pension was located in was beautiful. The only negative part about the weekend was the weather, but it could have been worse. We spent the whole weekend playing games, drinking, grilling, noraebanging, watching World Cup games, and just enjoying each others company since this will have been the last time some of us see each other for a very long time. The best part of the weekend was when all of us saying a very rousing (and for some of my friends, very drunk) rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at midnight on the 4th of July. Only in Korea...

1 Year Anniversary

2010-07-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary from when I first stepped foot in Korea. I literally can not believe it has been a year already. I've been excited about going home for months, but it wasn't until today that it actually hit me how close the end is. It feels like yesterday that I was arriving in Chuncheon for orientation with 70 other strangers, speaking no Korean, not being able to use chopsticks, and just being terrified about the year ahead of me. When I look back and read my blog posts from the first couple of weeks, or even months, I realize how much I have learned and the number of unforgettable experiences and relationships I have gained over the past year. Right now Korea feels more like home than America does. As one ETA said recently, I have stopped traveling and Korea has become my home. At this point I can not imagine what living in the US is going to be like. Coming to Korea is the first thing I have done in my life solely by myself and it makes me very sad that my life here has to end. In a funny change of events, I actually scared to go home now. I'm scared that this will end up being one of the best experiences in my life. I don't feel like I'm ready to say that yet. I'm scared that things will be boring and that I will feel like I'm settling by just living at home. I'm scared that all of the time and effort and everything that I have put into this past year will have been for nothing...that I will have nothing to show for it and that no one will really care about it. It's going to be difficult going home because I know that after the first time I see my friends again, they won't really care to hear about all of my stories from Korea. I'm afraid of having to start every sentence with "Well, when I was in Korea..." It's only been one year but I almost feel like it is all that I know now.
The only thing that is making me feel better about having to leave is the fact that I can always come back. I'm hoping that once I get back to America I will feel that I made the right decision not to stay longer. Only time will tell.

World Cup

2010-06-22T02:43:00.000-07:00

The best way to describe the World Cup atmosphere in Korea is to imagine that the entire United States population was Philly fans all rooting for the World Series game. Now mind you, I haven't seen any burning couches in the street yet, but the pride in the team is comparable. It has been a great experience watching the World Cup games here, and I think it's an experience a lot of people don't get to have. Every store you go into is selling Korean paraphernalia and every thing you buy is a special World Cup edition. For the first World Cup game, I watched the game at my friend Kate's new apartment with a couple of her students. I missed half of the game because my host family and I had gone to see Mama Mia (which was entirely in Korea...ABBA songs included...but that's another story). For the second game, I dressed up in my Red Devils gear and met my Fulbright friends for grilled meat and beer and then headed to the local university stadium where they were playing the game on a big screen. Watching the game there was amazing. There had to have been at least a thousand people there, all wearing red shirts and red devil horns and shouting "De-Han-Min-Guk" (Korea in Korean) over and over again. Unfortunately we lost the game, but it was still a great time. The third game is tonight at 3:30am and from what I've heard pretty much everyone who is a Red Devils fan (my host family included) will be up at 3:30am watching the game. I still haven't decided whether or not I can do that and still function at school tomorrow.
Here are some pictures from the first two games:

Tammy decked out in her Red Devil gear. In case you were wondering, Korea used to be spelled Corea until the Japanese ruled the country and changed it to a "K" because K comes after J in the alphabet...or so my host mom told me.

Going to the Mama Mia show.

My friend Cait and I at the university stadium for game 2.

Daniel, Laura, and Caitlyn

Sooo many people.

Da-bin, Marina and Laura at the grilled meat restaurant.

Cait, Kate, me and Young-jae (Kate's host brother)

Cornelius, Laura and Cait

Kelly and I

Cornelius and Dan

Stadium

Dancing Ajummas

2010-06-22T02:29:00.000-07:00

One of the more interesting/weird things I have seen in Korea is the method for campaigning for local government office. Imagine my surprise when one morning at 8am, while I was in the car on the way to the bus terminal with my host mom and we approached the big intersection near my house to find about 20 ajummas dressed in matching neon outfits dancing choreographed dances to very loud Korean music on each corner of the intersection. They not only had matching neon shirts on, but white gloves, white pants, white visors (an ajumma clothing staple), etc. The sight was by far the weirdest and most horrifying thing I have ever seen at 8am. After some questioning I learned that these women were helping a politician campaign for a local position. That morning was the first day that they were allowed to campaign. Over the next couple of days a bazillion large posters featuring faces of old Korean men (and occasionally a woman) began appearing all over the place. Ajummas came out in droves to dance and bow to passing cars on street corners. Apparently this method of campaigning is relatively new. I know my surprise is not just a cultural difference, because my whole host family thinks it is strange. While the whole thing is mildly entertaining, I still can't seem to get my head around the reasoning behind the dancing ajummas. As I said to one of my friends...How do you decide who is the person you vote for? Do you vote for the person who can convince the most ajummas to wear ridiculous outfits and dance on the street corners for you?
Very bizarre.

Bowing ajummas.

Dancing ajummas.

The best banner for a politician I've ever seen.

DMZ

2010-06-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago Seth and I were able to go to the DMZ (de-militarized zone) that is the border between North and South Korea. It was something I had wanted to do since I came to Korea, so I'm glad I was able to go before I had to leave. I was worried that due to the latest political tensions between the North and South that we wouldn't be able to go or our tour would be limited, but luckily everything worked out.
The tour was led by the USO in Seoul. We took 2 buses with a bunch of other foreigners to the Camp Bonifas army base right outside of the DMZ. There we received a briefing by an army soldier and also met our army tour guide who happened to be from Pennsylvania like me. During our briefing we learned about the history of the DMZ and small scuffles between the North and South Korean army along the DMZ line.
The DMZ is a very interesting place and I think its unlike any other place in the world. There is an actual line that divides Korea, but there is also an area around the line that is off limits to people. Because this area has been basically untouched by people for years, the wildlife in the DMZ area is very unique. There is even a rumor that a tiger lives somewhere in the DMZ. Another interesting thing about the DMZ is that a town of South Korean people actually live in the DMZ. Their town is called Freedom Village in English and the people who live there are exempt from taxes and from the military service. The people in the village farm to make money. New people are not allowed to come to the village, and only women are allowed to marry into the village. The people in the village have a strict curfew and are not allowed out of their homes after a certain time at night. They also have to keep their windows and doors locked after that time as well. Another interesting thing about the DMZ is the fake city on the North Korean side that Kim Jong Il had built in order to make it seem that the North is more prosperous than it actually is. No one lives in this fake city, and rarely are people ever seen walking around there.
I'll explain the rest of my experience using some of the pictures I took.

DMZ briefing with Seth and 3 Fulbright friends

our army tour guides

South Korean soldier

on our bus with our tour guide

Seth and I in front of the DMZ. The blue buildings are halfway in the North and halfway in the South. The tall concrete building in the back is in North Korea.

The blue buildings are used for diplomatic talks between the North, South and other involved countries.

The horizontal cement line connecting the middle of the two blue buildings is the actual line that separates North and South Korea.

If you look closely you can see a North Korean soldier looking at us through his binoculars.

"The Bridge of No Return"
After the armistice was reached, POWs from the North and South were lined up on either side of this bridge and told they could cross to their respective sides but were never allowed to come back.

Inside the blue building. The microphones down the middle of the table mark the DMZ line and also record everything that goes on in the building 24 hrs a day.

We were told not to go too close to the guards because they were allowed to use their black belt skills on us if they felt threatened.

I'm in NORTH KOREA!!!

Tour guide explaining the uses for the blue building.

A bottle of North Korean soju I bought as a souvenir.

Dorasan station is the last station in South Korea on the railroad that connects the two Koreas.

You can see the blue sign says to "Pyeongyang". The railroad is used to transport cargo between North and South Korea.

DMZ

Holding my North Korean currency I bought at Camp Bonifas.

2010-06-10T04:18:00.001-07:00

One of the more interesting articles I've read about North Korea.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/asia/10koreans.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Anmyeon-do Pension

2010-05-30T03:02:00.000-07:00

This Saturday and Sunday I traveled to small island off the west coast called Anmyeon-do with my host family. As per usual I didn't know what to expect but the weekend ended up being pretty fun. Saturday afternoon we drove the 2 1/2 hrs to the island. When we got there we went to the beach for a couple of hours where we played in the sand, found seashells and watched a drunken group of ajummas and ajashis play a horrendous game of kickball.
Once the sun started to go down we headed to our "pension". A pension in Korea is like a weekend house that you can rent. Sometimes you can rent a whole pension (like my friends and I have done for 4th of July weekend) and sometimes you can just rent one room like my host family did. Our room ended up being very cute and it was even better because there was a big bed for me to sleep in and a big screen TV where I was able to watch some Discovery channel shows.
We had samgyeopsal for dinner on our little porch outside and then hung around watching TV/reading for a while. I was a little worried when it was only 7pm and I had heard no plans of leaving the pension again that night. Luckily though my host mom and dad decided to go for a drive. I chose to join them instead of watching terrible Korean TV with Tammy. We ended up going to the famous beach on the island to walk around. It was low tide when we got there and apparently the tides there were very extreme because the water had gone out about 1/4 of a mile from where it had been when we had driven past earlier in the day. It was really cool to see because all of the rocks and things that were under water before we exposed. We watched some people night fishing, shot off some fireworks, and then went to an outdoor bar/restaurant at the famous hotel at that beach to listen to some singers and watch a bunch of drunken old people dance hilariously with each other.
This morning we woke up early and went to the arboretum that was close to our pension. We spent a while there walking around and taking pictures of everything. It was pretty nice but we were all tired and there weren't that many impressive things to see.
Next we went back to the famous beach from the night before, but down at the other end. At the other end of the beach is an island that you can walk to during low tide. The beach around the island is also a prime spot for digging up clams and hermit crabs to eat later. My host family and I spent a while digging up clams that my host mom brought home and I can only assume will show up later this week in one of our meals.
After digging for clams we went to get sushi for lunch. We ended up at a really cool sushi restaurant where you pick the live fish you want to eat and they kill it and cut it up and then serve it to you fresh. As horrible as that may sound, it was delicious and a cool experience. To make lunch even better we had the best makgeoli I've had yet and my host mom and I got a little drunk together. Needless to say we both passed out on the long car ride home.
So surprisingly this weekend went very well. I wasn't expecting to have as much fun as I did, and it is probably the last trip I'll be taking with just my host family so it was a good bonding opportunity.
Here are some pictures from the weekend.

2010-05-26T00:28:00.000-07:00

I used these articles for discussion in my teachers class and thought I would share them with you because I thought they were very interesting.

"Girl starved to death while parents raised virtual child in online game"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/05/korean-girl-starved-online-game

"In South Korea, All Life is Mobile"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/technology/25iht-mobile.html

"Game-Obsessed Korea Attempts to Save Itself"
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/04/117_63927.html

Buddha's Birthday

2010-05-24T05:58:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was Buddha's 2554th birthday! I had Friday off from school (woo hoo!) so I traveled down to Busan early in the morning. It was a bit of a fiasco trying to get there because I hadn't realized so many people would be traveling that day and almost all of the bus & KTX tickets were sold out. I ended up finding some though and got to Busan in the afternoon. I had lunch with Seth's host family and then met up with some friends at Haeundae beach. Last time I went there was in September and at that time we were pretty much the only people on the beach. This time was the complete opposite and a bizarre experience because the beach was FILLED with foreigners. I felt like I was at the Jersey shore, not in Korea. And let me just say that after not being large groups of white people for almost a year now, we are quite an ugly and fat bunch of people...or at least the white people in Busan are. I'm anxious to see if I feel the same way when I go back home. I'm already expecting to because Korean people as a whole (or at least the young people) are thin, mostly attractive if not beautiful and dressed very well most of the time.
Friday night my friends and I went to the most famous temple in Busan, Beomeosa temple, to see the decorations that were put up for Buddha's birthday. It was just as pretty as I'd hoped it would be. I really love the Buddhist lanterns here. After the temple we went out to dinner and had some drinks at a beach before we all went to be relatively early. Saturday the weather was horrible so Seth and I mostly hung around our motel area. We met up with our friends again for some Shabu Shabu (one of my favorite meals here even though it is technically Japanese). After dinner we went to Beer Mart which is a pretty cool place for us since the alcohol selection here is pitiful and small. Beer Mart is a type of bar where you go and choose whatever bottles of imported beer you want from the coolers as well as some snacks and give it to the worker. They then bring your drinks to the table in a bucket of ice. We also went to another favorite Busan bar of mine that we call "Bamboo Bar" because the entire inside is made out of bamboo/wood/wicker. It's got a really good atmosphere and the other patrons there are usually cool. We ended up meeting a Korean guy who spoke very good English who had biked from South Africa up to Egypt with his friend. He'd also been to more places in America than I have been, as well as South America. Pretty amazing guy.
Here are some pictures from the weekend:

2010-05-18T07:45:00.000-07:00

As my time here is winding down, I've been doing a lot of reflecting on my Korean life and thinking about my return back to the states. I thought I do what I do best and make a list to express why I am very much looking forward to coming home.

Things I am not going to miss about my Korean life:
1. The morning routine in my homestay. Every morning I am awoken long before my alarm goes off to my host mom banging pots and pans in the kitchen and doing god knows what while listening to the English radio station at full volume because the volume dial is broken. I wake up and step outside my room to even louder music (usually some weird American song that I would never expect my host mom to be listening to, like Beyonce or Justin Bieber) and all of the lights in the house turned on and my host mom asking me, "How is your condition?" (a favorite English phrase of Koreans). I shower and get ready and then come to the table to eat my cereal. By this time my host mom has probably been screaming in Korean to my host sister in the other room to "Come quickly!" or "Eat rice!". Usually this continues through most of my meal until my sister comes in and asks me 1000 questions. Did I mention that my host mom cooks breakfast for about an hour and somehow magically they always have the same thing which usually doesn't involve cooking? I still haven't figure out what she does all morning.
2. Having students scream "Way-gook-ee" (foreigner) every morning when I come through the school yard. Seriously student...I've been at your school for like 8 freakin' months. If you haven't noticed the random blonde-haired white person who is there everyday by now, then you've got a problem.
3. Being stared at by ajummas on the street. I don't mind being looked at or having every other person I pass say "Hello" to me, but having old Korean women stare me down with the evil eye drives me crazy. They always have a disgusted look on their face and stare me down for very long periods of time. Sometimes it bothers me so much I want to hit them in the face.
4. Ajummas cutting in line. I don't know at what point in Korean women's lives they forgot the rules of social decency, but ajummas are notorious for cutting in line in front of you. My host mom is guilty of this as well. There will be a line 10 people long and ajummas will just walk to the front of the line and put down their things or try to order their food as if they didn't see the other people standing there.
5. Korean food.
6. Korean alcohol.
7. Having to always tell my host family where I am or what I'm doing or who I am going somewhere with.
8. Being bombarded with questions the minute I walk in the door after being at school and class from 9am-9pm.
9. Not ever having food in the house. One cultural difference between Americans and Koreans is that in America, you always have a pantry stocked with food and snacks and canned goods. In Korea my host family only buys food for the very immediate future. My host mom buys our dinner the same day that we have it. If I come home from school I can't go into the closet and pull out a snack or find leftovers in the fridge. I always have to cook something if I want something to eat.
10. Not having any place that is actually my own. I miss having a place to come home to and relax in after a stressful day at work.
11. Having to explain things 5 times before someone understands what I am asking or what I am trying to say.
12. Not being able to easily recognize signs or recognize foods in the grocery store.
13. Not having a TV.
14. Trying to get dressed in the bathroom after I have taken a shower and there is water all over everything and the bathroom is 100 degrees because there is so air vent or window.

These are just some of the things that have been getting to me more as of lately. Now that there is an end in sight to this year, its been more difficult to have patience with the things I previously had patience for.

While there are many things I can't wait to get away from here, leaving is going to be very difficult. There are so many things I love about Korea and so many people here that have become very important to me. The prospect of never seeing my host family again after this year is over is one I can't even comprehend at the moment. I know that this is not going to be the last time that I am in Korea, so I hope that I will get to see them again. But I do realize there is the possibility I won't and that's very sad and very strange to me. How do you just leave the people who have been there for you and with whom you have shared so many things with for a whole year? I'm sure my leaving will be as hard if not harder for my host family, especially Tammy. I know how badly she wishes she had a sister to play with all of the time. I thought leaving my friends would be the hardest part, but at least I know I have a better chance of seeing them again back in the states.
Leaving Korea is one thing, but coming back to America and readjusting to American life is a whole other thing in itself. There are so many questions I have been thinking about.

Is it going to feel like Korea was just a dream or is getting back into my life at home going to difficult? What am I going to miss about Korea? What things about my life at home am I going to view differently when I get there? Have I changed as a person at all? Will I be able to talk about anything other than this past year? How long are my friends going to put up with that? What will it be like to not have anyone around who can relate to my experiences this past year? Will it be strange to understand everything everyone says around me? Will I regret coming home? Will I be able to keep in touch with my Fulbright friends? Will I ever find a job? What kind of job do I even want anymore?

As much as I can't wait to come home, I'm not sure if I'm ready for another big life change.

2010-05-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

I forgot to add this video to my post about sports day. This video is the entire student body performing their communist/military style warm up. It was really weird to see. Apparently all of the schools in Korea do this before their sports day. I specifically remember when I went on the overnight trip during orientation with the KEY Club (Korean English Yard) that when it was time to go swimming all of the Americans jumped into the river without hesitation. All of the Korean kids stood by the side and watched us kind of strangely and we wondered why they weren't coming in. A few moments later they all got into lines and did a group warm up/exercise routine. At the time I thought it was extremely weird, but I've since learned that Koreans looove stretching and do it before any sort of physical activity. Recently Seth and I were in a subway station waiting for our train to arrive when an old Korean woman who was standing in front of us (obviously wearing hiking gear...did I mention ajummas wear hiking gear everywhere?) started doing leg swings and lunges while waiting for the train as if no one else were around. Very strange.
Anyway, please enjoy this video.

ETA Homecoming Prom

2010-05-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, thanks to the wonderful planning skills of an ETA friend and a Korean friend who we met while at orientation at KNU, we had the first ever ETA Homecoming Prom. As you may remember I spent the first 6 weeks of my year in Korea at Kangwon National University for orientation. Those 6 weeks were some of the best (and worst) times in Korea and I think a lot of us miss the college-y feel of orientation. Since very few of us have had the opportunity to go back to KNU or to see our Korean friends there, our 2 friends decided to plan a prom.
I got there on Friday with Seth, the 2 planners and another ETA friend. Everyone else arrived right before the prom started on Saturday so the 5 of us were in charge of buying everything, setting up and decorating. My Korean friend was able to get one of the university cafeterias for us to use for our dance, so we spent about 3 or 4 hours decorating the place. For 4 guys and 1 girl decorating, the place ended up looking pretty good. I even painted a mural type thing for people to take their "prom pictures" in front of.
The prom itself was a lot of fun. We had maybe 30 people there. We played beer pong and flip cup which was a nice change since we never have the facilities to do so here. We had a DJ, a balloon drop and a pinata filled with small Soju bottles as well. Afterwards we went to our favorite Chuncheon bar, the Milwaukee Bucks.
Here are some photos from the night:

Tongue Twisters

2010-05-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

As one of my lessons for my 5th grade advanced students, we practiced pronunciation by playing a Tongue Twister relay game. I timed each team to see which team could say the tongue twisters the fastest. Here are two videos of the students doing their tongue twisters. I was actually pretty impressed with how well they did.

Sports Day

2010-04-30T03:06:00.000-07:00

Today was Sports Day at my school. Coming into today, I had no idea what Sports Day involved or what I was going to have to do. As it turned out, I didn't have to anything except enjoy the beautiful weather, be treated like a celebrity by my kids, meet some parents, run a lap around the track, and eat lots of food. It was the most fun I've had at school yet. It was great seeing my kids outside of the classroom, especially the ones that have behavior problems in my class. Everywhere I went groups of my little kids would crowd around me shouting "hello" and random things in Korean and English. My friend Kate came to hang out for the second half of the day which was fun because I had someone to make comments with about what was going on, and seeing my kids' reactions to her were great: "Teacha, friend?" "Oh so beautiful!" "Wo-a, weh-gook-in!". One highlight of my day was winning a gigantic candy that looks like a Korean battleship by throwing a dart at a magnetic spinning board. My kids went crazy when they saw I had won. I was also dragged around the track by one my kids during one of their relay races. Here are some photos and a video from the day...

3rd graders

warm-ups

opening ceremony

Tammy and friends

Tammy and her girlfriends

5th grade boys

my cute 3rd graders

candy game I later won

1st grade relay race

host family

selling fake guns on school grounds is always a good idea

gym teacher...this guy is awesome

drinking beer in an elementary school hallway

Kate came to visit!

my prize I won

2010-04-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

My third grade students learned different words associated with birthdays, so we had a balloon race where students had to grab the picture of whatever word I said.

2010-04-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

My sixth graders are writing their pen pal letters again and I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite things I've read in the ones that are finished so far.

“My favorite holiday is Sunday because play game and play with my friend.”

“Over winter vacation I maked snowman.”

“My favorite star is No Hong Chul. Sorry, I don’t know the volleyball team name. Korea had the Korea war about 60 years ago. So Korea is south Korea and north Korea. I want to get a dog as a pet.”

“I love you. That’s okay I’m a girl!”

“I don’t like school because there are so many scary teacher.”

“Cheongju is sunny and warm. What a nice day for playing computer game. You are younger than me. But I study English not well. You need understand. Ok?”

“P.S. Questions your ask:
1. I do in my free time is sleep.
2. I don’t have brothers, but I have sisters.
3. I like exciting.”

“You can email me at shymom01@....”

"I don't have any pet. Before I have dog and fishes. but dog went other house and fishes are dead. I were very sad."

"Over winter vacation I went to dork do." (this is supposed to be Dok Island...do is Korean for island)

"I very x3 like Coke."

"I like pet it is a dog cat."

"I is learn English!"

"I am handsome man."

I love my job :)

My Life in Comics

2010-03-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

So I found out about this through another Fulbrighter, and had to share it with you. I can't even begin to explain how perfectly these cartoons sum up my life. I've chosen the best cartoons to share/explain to you on here, but this is the website in case you're interested in seeing more:

ROKetship

Putting your arms across your chest in the shape of an "x" is the universal symbol in Korea for "no". Even though I know how to say "no" and "stop" and "I don't want any" in Korean, I still use the "x" symbol all of the time. Korean's use it too and I'm not really sure where it originated from. Anyway, I'm 100% sure I'll still be doing it when I get back home so I apologize ahead of time.

I am lucky if I am able to find toilet paper in a bathroom. On those occasions that I do find it, its usually outside of the stall, so you have to guess how much you need.

Every fast food restaurant I go to has at least 3 trashcans labeled different things in Korean. From what I understand, one is for regular trash, one is for food waste, and one is for paper and/or plastic. I still haven't figured out which is which in Korean which makes the end of my meals kind of stressful. I've been yelled at a number of times for just throwing everything into one can.

While the taxis here are cheap and numerous, the drivers themselves are really scary. Most taxis have at least one television in them, if not 3 or 4 for each of the passengers, and the drivers are ALWAYS watching them while they zip in and out of cars and buses. Taxi drivers are also interesting/scary for me as a foreigner because they always want to talk to me. Most of them ask me basic questions in Korean, but a few of them try to use every English word they have ever learned. I had one driver list every American president he knew and then asked us to give a thumbs up or down as to whether we liked him.

At least once a day a big truck with speakers comes rolling through my apartment complex blaring a man's voice screaming something in Korean. Sometimes they are telling you to come out and buy things, other times I have no idea. There is also an apartment-wide speaker system in my building and occasionally a man will start yelling on the speaker about god only knows what....very communist.

Shopping for clothes in Korea is very awkward because the stores are very small, they have about 10 people unnecessarily working there, and their customer service is too impeccable. At any point while shopping for clothes I always have at least one person following me around the store. They don't say anything, they just follow creepily behind me. It's really uncomfortable and usually makes me leave the store as quickly as possible.

I don't know any of my students' names for this reason.

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This situation is very true. There aren't that many foreigners in Korea. I could easily go a week without seeing another white person. So when I do see another foreigner, its very obvious that we both stand out and that we both speak English. However, there is no definite rule about whether or not you should say hello. If I saw another white person on the street in America I wouldn't say hello, so I don't know why I feel the need to do so here.

Chivalry is dead in Korea. I'm not sure if it ever existed, but it definitely doesn't exist anymore. There have been times where I was carrying a lot of bags through a door somewhere and some Korean man pushed past me, almost knocking me over in the process. I realize it shouldn't bother me as much as it does because its simply a difference in culture, but there have been many a times where I wish I knew how to yell at people in Korean so that I could put these selfish Korean men in their places.

There are a bazillion mini hospitals all over Korea. There are at least 3 within walking distance from my apartment alone. Outside of these little hospitals you are pretty much guaranteed to see someone looking like this in only their hospital gown, with an IV and holding a cigarette. Seems pretty counterproductive to me...

Arm socks are a staple clothing item for any Korean woman over the age of 60, especially those who spend their days sitting on the sidewalk selling the weeds for you to cook for dinner that they pulled from the side of some highway.

As an English teacher I pretty much have to act out everything I say, especially for my 3rd grade students. If I want students to sit down, I mime sitting down. If I want students to play a game that involves racing from the back of the classroom to the board, I have to show them how to run. I feel sorry for my American students because I'm sure I'm going to end up doing the same to them. At least they can't say I'm not animated.

I'm sure I've mentioned the "couples outfits" phenomenon in Korea but in case you've forgotten, a lot of younger Korean couples think its really cute and not at all strange to dress is complete matching outfits, from the weird animal hats down to their shoes. They even sell matching couples underwear in a lot of stores, which I can imagine would be really awkward when things got intimate. To each his own...

Trying to time my laundry with when I need to wear certain things is difficult and really annoying, especially since my host mom insists on doing my laundry for me (not that I'd have any idea how to use the singing washing machine that is all in Korean). I have to strategically put things in my hamper just in case my host mom decides to wash my clothes while I'm at school. You wanted to go to the gym? Oh, sorry, I washed your gym outfit and its going sit in the washing machine for two days and then take four days to dry on the drying rack.

Also, I used this article for my teachers' class last week. I thought you might find it interesting. Ironically enough, as I was preparing questions to go with the article my host sister came into my room and tried to give me a pill to "make me taller". Perfect timing.

South Korea Stretches Standards For Sucess

Life Update

2010-03-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

An update on my life during the past couple of weeks...

School:
Well, the second semester started 4 weeks ago and so far it's been a lot better than last semester. I have an bangin new desk next to the copier and laminating machine (I have a minor obsession with laminating things). I have a heater only a couple feet away which means no gloves and no jacket when I'm working on lesson. My schedule is awesome this time around;I'm teaching 9am-11:30am and then have free periods until 3:10. This semester I'm teaching 3rd and 5th graders, along with the usual advanced classes and teachers' classes. My third graders are the cutest things in the entire world. I want to hug them all. Their English is very poor and in some cases non-existent, but they're a lot of fun and it gives me a chance to use more of my Korean in class. One third grade boy says to me at the end of every class, "Thank you for teaching me!" and my heart melts every time. I have a new co-teacher who teaches third grade with me. She's younger and her English is really good, but I can't decide whether or not she likes me. I'm hoping her reservedness is because she's afraid of me because I'm a foreigner (like the majority of people are), and not because she just doesn't like me. I'm making little breakthroughs with her everyday though. Yesterday she told me I'm a really good teacher and today she gave me a vitamin packet because I'm sick. My fifth grade classes are the same as before. It's nice this semester because I know all of my students already. Actually it's nice just having an idea of what's going on in general at school. I finally know the routine and know what to expect...for the most part.
I've been spending a lot of time helping my co-teachers rework the English curriculum workbooks (they were absolutely horrible and the activities made no sense) which I'm actually enjoying. I was talking to Seth earlier and he mentioned having a job where I help schools create better English curriculums, and I thought that was a great idea. Maybe someday down the road I can end up working in a job like that. I really do love teaching English as a foreign language, and I don't think the end of my year in Korea is going to be the end of that for me. I'm considering getting my Master's Degree is ESL and/or teaching English overseas during my summer vacations from regular teaching. There's so many things I want to do...
This semester I'm also teaching the evening teachers' class again for extra pay. This time the teachers are beginners, so it should be really different from the last class where we were having conversations in English about relations between North and South Korea. But at the very least I'll get to practice my Korean more.
Speaking of practicing Korean, I've been studying Korean with my host mom twice a week and I also just signed up for a free Korean language class at a local university 2 nights a week for 2 hours each. I'm excited for it. I realize that I'm leaving in 4 months and may never have the chance to use my Korean skills again, but its kind of become a hobby of mine. For my pride's sake, I'd like to leave here with at least a decent knowledge of the language.

HOME:
I've been back home with the host family for about 5 weeks now. It's been a little difficult readjusting to living with a family after traveling around Asia and Korea with Seth for 2 months straight. The biggest difference is that I feel like they are my family now, and therefore my constant cheeriness and "oh, it's okay" attitude have dissipated. When Tammy is annoying me I find it a lot more difficult to hide it now. I know that she's noticed because she's been apologizing a lot more which makes me feel bad, but I just don't have the patience to entertain her every single night. Don't get me wrong, I still love them just as much as I did before; I just don't feel the need to act like as much of a guest in their house as I used to.
Recently I've been cooking more for my family. They surprisingly really like my American food. I've made spaghetti and garlic bread, chicken and steamed vegetables, and their favorite: burritos and quesadillas. I was lucky enough to randomly find a packet of taco mix for sale in a Mexican restaurant in Busan. I've never seen Taco mix here so of course I had to buy it. My host sister has asked for quesadillas everyday since I made them. Her friend and Math teacher who were over when I was cooking even tried them and loved them.

In other news, I've been going to the gym at least 3 times week. Sadly, part of my motivation to go is so that I can watch TV while I use the treadmill or elliptical...best 45 minutes of my day. I've also started going to Hanji class again. I'm in the middle of making my best piece yet and I'll post a picture next week once I finish. The rest of my free time is spent job searching and watching online episodes of Lost (except I think I'm getting to the part where things start to get weird and don't make any sense, so we'll see how long that lasts).

Last night my host family decided to play a trick on me. There is constant confusion at dinner time when I ask what we are eating because "dog", "duck" and "deok" (Korean food) all sound the same when spoken by Koreans. So I always have my host mom spell what it is. [Sidenote: Koreans eat dog meat.] So last night, my host sister tells me that we are eating "dog/duck/deok". I say "dog?" and she says "yes". I ask her to spell it and she says "D O G". I didn't believe her so I asked my host mom and she assured me that we were in fact going to be eating dog. Well, I had a panic attack for about 20 minutes while dinner was being prepared because I couldn't think of a polite way to tell my host family I couldn't eat dog. So I sat down at the table and my host mom and sister kept asking me if it looked good. I literally almost cried looking at the meat on the table. Then the two of them started cracking up and told me that it was actually duck, not dog. I'm really not sure why I'm so morally opposed to eating one animal over the other but regardless, I was really relieved.

HERE IS A RANDOM LIST OF SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT KOREA (That I haven't mentioned before):

1. Universal Health Care: I thought this would be the appropriate time to explain the beauty of Korean universal health care. I'm obviously don't know much about it except what I've experienced, so my opinion may be biased or mistaken. Regardless, Korean universal health care is awesome. I've gotten sick on a regular basis here this winter, so I've had a number of experiences lately with doctors and medicine. First of all, I can go to any clinic around me and they will see me without any questions. The clinics are always empty, so I've never had to wait more than 2 minutes to see the doctor. Most of the time, I'm in and out of the clinic in 5-10 minutes with prescription in hand, and the doctor's visit costs me about $3.00. Then I walk downstairs in the same building to the pharmacy, where the pharmacy tech fills my prescription in about one minute. My prescription has never cost more than $5.00 (and that includes the times they've given me about a weeks worth of 6 or 7 different pills). The one time my prescription did cost about $5.00, my host mom said "Oh my god! So expensive!" So overall, it only takes me about 10-15 mins and less than $10 to see the doctor AND get prescriptions for my cold. Amazing.

2. Public Transportation: Public transportation here is also amazing. I'm attributing part of that to the fact that it's a very small country. However, getting around anywhere in the country is painless. Inter-city buses have large comfortable seats that recline and have leg rests. Taxis start at less than $2. All of the bus stops in my city have electronic TV-type things that show the exact number of minutes before each bus is arriving. And the Seoul subway is by far the best subway system I've ever been on.

3. Glasses Shops: If you come to Korea, you must buy Asian style glasses...I think it's a law or something. Let me tell you the short story of my recent glasses shopping experience. Went to the glasses shop. Looked at a whole table of frames that were like $10. Picked out a pair of glasses. Gave the woman behind the counter my old glasses. She told me to come back in 5 minutes while she scanned my old glasses and cut my new lenses for me. I came back in five minutes, paid about $40 and went on my way with my new glasses. It turned out that the prescription was a little off so I went back the next day with my contact box. She told me to wait 5 minutes, cut me new lenses and sent me away free of charge. Best shopping experience ever.

4. Hair Salons: Because a haircut costs me $7.00.

5. Washing Machines: All electronics in Korea have to make some kind of noise or play some kind of song...even washing machines. My host family's washing machine plays a little tune each time a cycle is done. And since my host mom is never NOT doing laundry, I hear the music in my sleep.

3rd Grade Songs

2010-03-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

Here are two videos from my 3rd grade classes this week. My co-teacher taught them a song to practice saying "Hello", "My name is..." and "Goodbye". They are saying "Hello Zeeto Hello" because Zeeto is an alien cartoon in their textbooks...kind of weird. Anyway, enjoy!

2010-02-22T00:06:00.000-08:00

Today Seth and I and two friends went food shopping after class. After finishing shopping, we walked out of the food store to see this kid standing there. As an American my first reaction was to be frightened. Luckily people aren't allowed to own guns in Korea. But seriously, what is this kid thinking? "Oh, I'll just go loiter outside of the food store with my rifle and handgun and see if I can frighten any foreigners today."??

English Winter Camp

2010-02-21T23:53:00.000-08:00

(this post is a little belated)
After coming home from many days of vacation, I had to teach an English winter camp for three days at my school. I had about thirty wonderful students for four hours each day. My class was so much better than my regular classes because all of the students wanted to be there, and almost all of them had above average English skills. I barely had to repeat anything or have my co-teacher translate anything...it was heaven. I planned the schedule and material of the camp and decided to follow a winter theme for it. One day we learned about winter activities and winter clothing/body parts. Another day we learned about Hannukah and Kwanzaa (both of which none of my students or co-teachers had heard of). The final day we learned about American New Year's traditions and about writing resolutions. My favorite parts of the camp were watching Snow Day in English while drinking hot chocolate with my students (there were no subtitles but my students loved the movie anyway) and playing my Jeopardy game on the last day. Here are some pictures from the camp...

playing the dreidel game

making Kwanzaa mats

hello from daegu

2010-02-16T04:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've kind of taken a hiatus from writing here (in case anyone still actually reads this thing). Its partially because I've been really busy the past two months and partially because those weird little Korean daily happenings just aren't as amusing to me as they used to be. I just take it for granted that I'm going to have weird things happen to me or have weird interactions with people everyday.
Right now I'm living in a different city in Southeastern Korea and taking a Korean language class for 3 weeks at Daegu University. I, along with about 8 other Fulbrighters, are living in the dorms at the university. I have class Monday through Friday for four hours a day. For the most part I really like my class. I started out my classes on an off note when I got placed into a class that was higher than my level. The first 15 minutes of class involved the other Japanese students grilling me with questions in Korean about where I came from, my boyfriend, my family, etc. I wanted to cry by the end of the first hour because I was so lost. Luckily my teacher knew I was out of my league and helped me switch to a class one level lower that one of my ETA friends was in. My new class is really interesting because among the 20 students in my class there are 8 different countries represented: Congo, Rwanda, Japan, China, Vietnam, Mongolia, USA, and UK. It's really interesting because at any point during class, people are speaking a number of different languages to each other. It's neat that our common language is Korean, so a lot of times that's how we have to speak with each other. During one of our breaks I was talking to the Chinese guy beside me and the Japanese guy behind me. I could speak to the Chinese and Japanese guys in English (with a little Korean mixed in) because they had studied it before. But the Japanese guy also spoke Chinese so he would speak to the Chinese guy in Chinese. When the Chinese guy didn't understand what I was saying, he would ask the Japanese guy in Chinese who would then explain it further to me in English. It's been a really unique experience. My Chinese table partner said to me on the first day of class "Tomorrow I will bring you China." I wasn't sure if he was talking about dishes or the country so he drew me a picture of a teapot and sure enough, the next day he brought me a Chinese teapot with a bunch of Chinese candy. It was really sweet.
My teachers are pretty good...one is better than the other. My one teacher has a very nasal-y Korean voice and yells everything she says, so that gets old really quickly. The other one is really funny and tells us really funny things about Korean people (such as what used to happen on the wedding night during a traditional Korean marriage). The best part about my class has been how much more I'm able to understand. I'm able to read almost entire passages and conversations in Korean and understand almost all of it. Reading and listening is much easier than speaking though, so I have a lot of trouble when it comes to putting what I know into an intelligible sentence. But I guess I have to put things in perspective and realize that I've come a long way for only living here for 6 months.
This past weekend was the lunar new year, or in Korean "Seol Nal". It's a really big family holiday in Korea and a lot of places close down for the weekend. On Seol Nal, everyone eats a certain type of Korean food ((I forget the name) and then they magically become one year older. I don't really understand the whole tradition, I just know that everyone turns a year older on that day. I decided to skip the host family's gathering at grandma's house, so I and a bunch of my friends met up in Seoul for the weekend for drinks and Western food.
Not much else new going on. This coming weekend my friends and I are trying to go skiing somewhere. I only have one more week of class and then its back to teaching in Cheongju until July.

just a naked Friday afternoon...

2010-02-05T07:56:00.000-08:00

Today I went to a jimjilbang with my friend Kate. In case you don't remember, a jimjilbang is a giant spa that has sauna rooms, hot tubs and pools, cafes, sleeping areas, massage parlors, game rooms, etc. Many Korean people go there with their friends and family for a day of relaxation, sweating and nudity. I'd gone to the jimjilbang once before to sleep after a night of drinking (can't really come rolling into my host family's apartment at 3am) but only took part in the hot sauna rooms. The other part of the jimjilbang experience is the hot tubs/pools separated by gender. This part of the experience involves getting completely naked and parading around the changing room with everything hanging out for all of Korea to see. Anyway, one of my goals during my stay in Korea was to go partake in the naked part of the jimjilbang since it's something I would never in a million years picture myself doing. Today I decided to suck it up, strip down, and join the old naked Korean women in the hot tubs. Surprisingly, it wasn't as traumatizing of an experience as I would have thought. Of course Kate and I got stared at, but there wasn't any pointing or anything for once (who would've thought I'd get pointed at less when I'm naked?). I wish I could have taken a (censored) picture of what the hot tub room looked like. One part of the room held all of the different hot tubs/pools where kids were playing and older women were relaxing. The second part of the room was a bunch of mirrors with stools in front of them and buckets where a bunch of women were just scrubbing themselves down. Quite the sight to see. The most interesting part about the naked jimjilbang experience is that anywhere else you go in Korea, women are very conservative and covered up. Its hard to reconcile the two different extremes.

Anyway, I can now check off "spend an afternoon with a bunch of naked Koreans" off of my to do list...

Penang, Ao Nang, Islands

2010-01-22T00:55:00.001-08:00

Penang
Penang is an island off the coast of Northwestern Malaysia. We only stayed in Penang for about 24 hours, so there’s not much to say about. There were some cool historic buildings and lots of white people, and I broke my Nikon for the 2nd time so I was unable to use it for the rest of my trip.

The Beaches
The next phase of our trip was the relaxing, beach phase. After visiting some very big and busy cities, we wanted to relax, sleep, and get really freakin tan. Unfortunately, we didn’t plan this part of the trip as well so we were left scrambling trying to figure out how we were going to get from the Phuket airport to a beach area that was on the other side of the bay. Boats and cars were not an option, so we were forced to take a 4 hour bus ride to our destination of Krabitown. Buses in Asia for the most part have been and awesome, cheap and convenient means of transportation. Our 4 hour bus ride to Krabitown was the exception to that rule. I don’t know any other way to describe it except that it was the bus ride from hell. It all started out okay. Seth and I got the last two seats in the back of the bus that were unfortunately next to the smelly bathroom. But a smelly bathroom is tolerable. Then the Thai techno music started playing. It wasn’t your low volume background kind of music either…the music was BLASTING and to top it off, the big mystery box behind our two seats turned out to be a gigantic base that thumped along with the techno music. What really surprised me was the no one else on the bus seemed at all phased by this. I was beginning to think this party bus must be the standard in Thai buses. While we’re complaining about the rave that has apparently started on our bus, the bus keeps stopping along the road and picking up more and more people off the side of the road. When Seth and I got on the bus to begin with, the seats were all completely full, so the new passengers all had to stand in the aisle. Eventually, after many, many stops, the bus was so full you could barely move. A woman and her daughter were sitting on top of the base that was still booming behind us. Another older women ended up sitting on the base right next to Seth and puking in a bag. After 4 hours of this, we eventually made it to our station (mind you, it’s about 9pm right now and we’d been traveling since around 11am) and then had to figure out how to get the beach area called Ao Nang, where we wanted to stay the night. Luckily for us, there were two English-speaking Russian guys about our age who happened to get off the stop with us and were heading to Ao Nang as well. We shared a ride in the back of an open-air van/truck thing and ended up bonding with the two guys. One was a stock-broker (picture Arnold Swartzeneger saying it) and the other sold internet lines to other countries (or something like that). We ended up going out with the guys for dinner and drinks once we got to Ao Nang and had a really great time talking to them about Moscow, where they both live, and talking about places we’ve traveled to so far. Unfortunately, we didn’t end up running into them again.
Ao Nang ended up being a super-touristy town with lots of shopping and decent restaurants, but a pretty shitty beach. We decided to only stay the night in Ao Nang and instead take a long tail boat the next day to a nearby beach called Ton Sai. I had heard about Ton Sai before my trip from a friend who had visited there before. It ended up being a really neat place to stay. The beach wasn’t outstanding at all, but the atmosphere of the place and the little bungalows and huts that people stayed in made it worthwhile visiting. The best way to describe the beach is a hippie haven. There were lots of outdoor bars with mats and hammocks to hang out on, Bob Marley and Dylan music playing, some “magic cookies” advertised at one place, and lots of dudes with dredlocks. We stayed in a little hut for two nights there, and probably would have stayed another if I hadn’t had a cockroach crawl on me in bed during the second night.
One day, we paid only the equivalent of $15 each to take an all-day, long tail boat tour of 4 islands around Ao Nang. We spent an hour or two at each of the four islands, and went snorkeling at two of them. The first set of islands we went to were our favorite. The water was crystal clear and the sand was white. The first islands were unique because during low tide you could walk between the three of them on a sand bar. There was also awesome snorkeling all around the islands and we were able to see some beautiful fish and coral. Later in the week we went back to the first set of islands and spent the whole afternoon there.
The rest of the time in Ao Nang was kind of ruined because I got sun poisoning and some sort of stomach bug at the same time. I spent a day laying in the hotel room doing nothing and couldn’t eat a real meal for like two days. But it passed right in time to go to Lao Liang.
Lao Liang was the part of our trip that I was most looking forward to, and it lived up to all my expectations. Lao Liang is a little island in the middle of nowhere that is uninhabited except by this company that runs a little sort of mini tent resort. The tent resort is set on a kind of small white sandy beach surrounded by high limestone cliffs and facing crystal clear, blue water. Getting to the island was kind of a pain in the ass, but it was well worth it. Besides the workers, there were only maybe 10-15 other people on the island with us. We stayed in this large two room tents facing the ocean that had actual mattresses in them. All of our meals were taken care of for us, and the bathrooms were actually really nice. Almost everything on the island is made from natural materials found on the island. There are hammocks and mats all over the place for people to lounge on. They had snorkeling gear and kayaks that you could rent as well. The first night we had a delicious seafood BBQ and drinks on the beach while looking at stars. Since we’re in the middle of nowhere, the number of stars we saw were stunning. I don’t think I would ever want to go back to any of the places I’ve already visited, but this island was one place I could definitely see myself going back to.

2010-01-11T19:20:00.000-08:00

Melacca

The second stop on our South East Asian adventure was at a small, quiet, laid-back city called Melacca. Melacca is interesting because it was ruled by the Portuguese and the Dutch at different times in history, so a lot of the architecture has a European feel to it.
We only stayed in Melacca for about 24 hours, but it was nice break from the noisy, fast-paced, big city atmosphere of Singapore. We spent most of the day on Friday (after wandering around for a while looking for a place to stay) walking around Chinatown and up and down a small river lined with little houses that looked like it belonged in Europe somewhere. We had an awesome Malaysian lunch consisting of laksa (seafood, buttery noodle soup) and stingray (my new favorite sea food!) at a little café, ate some Malaysian pineapple tarts, and walked through a number of Buddhist temples. In the evening we had a couple beers outside at a small restaurant along the river and ate dinner at an Indian restaurant. I’ve never eaten Indian food before and I’ve discovered one of my new favorite things: roti. Most of the other food is a little too spicy for me, but I’ve already had roti a few more times on this trip because it’s sooo good.
Friday morning we explored a few more things in the city, including an old Portuguese fort and a museum. For lunch we ate another famous Malay dish called chicken and rice balls, which of course was amazing. I’m pretty sure I’m going to come home from this trip weighing 200 lbs. It’s a really nice change from Korea, eating all of this new and unique food, because Koreans eat pretty much the same thing at every meal. It’s also been really nice to be able to speak to people in English and to see people of many different cultures.

Kuala Lumpur

After spending 24 hours in laid-back Melacca, we took a bus to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. We had intended to stay in KL for 5 days, but after 3 days realized we had seen pretty much everything we had wanted to see. Some of the more notable things to see in KL are the Jamie Mosque, Merdeka Square, Petaling Street and of course, the Petronas Towers. After a couple of days of the typical sightseeing adventures and feeling exhausted from walking around for hours on end (I’m kind of a baby when it comes to that much walking) we decided that we had seen enough of KL and it was time to move on to the second phase of our vacation: the beaches. But before we traveled to the beach, I really wanted to go to the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary that I had found out about online before our trip. According to the things I had read, the sanctuary was home to elephants that had either been orphaned or had been attacked by people or another animal. At the sanctuary you were supposed to able to feed, ride and bathe with the elephants. The sanctuary was one of the things on the trip that I REALLY wanted to do, but I knew getting there was going to be a little difficult since it was 2 hours outside of KL. Seth and I decided to make it into an adventure by renting a car and driving ourselves out to the sanctuary. We had a lot of trouble finding a place that rented cars, but at around 9 o’clock on the morning of our trip, we were able to find one. We picked up our car and Seth drove the two hours out to the sanctuary. For the first time in our trip, everything went exactly as it was supposed to and we had no trouble getting there (side note: people in Malaysia drive on the opposite side of the road which made the trip that much more interesting). We arrived at the sanctuary, had a quick lunch, watched a 30 minute video about elephant relocation that didn’t explain much about the actually sanctuary itself, and went with a bunch of other tourists to see the elephants. The whole experience with the elephants was really amazing. It was more touristy that I had hoped it would be, but we were still able to feed baby elephants peanuts, feed the old elephants (one was 72 years old!) fruit by actually putting our hands in their mouths, take a quick ride on and elephant, and swim with 2 babies and an old elephant. The swimming activity was by far the best part. They led the elephants into a nearby river. Seth, the other tourists and I all lined up on a dock where we took turns climbing onto the big elephant. After we climbed onto him he would take a few steps out into the river and then fall over sideways with everyone on his back. After you fell of the big elephant, you swam over to where the baby elephants were rolling around and playing in the water. There you could touch them and wash them with a brush, and just watch them roll around ungraciously in the river.
We then drove the 2 hours back home and quickly got ready to go out to dinner. We had made a reservation for that night at a place called the Sky Bar for after-dinner drinks. We had an awesome hand-made pizza dinner overlooking a park and then made our way to the Sky Bar. The appeal of the Sky Bar is not only its swanky interior that consists of cushioned lounges surrounding a pool, but the perfect view of the Petronas towers from each cushioned cubby. The Petronas towers are by far the most beautiful modern buildings I have ever seen, especially at night. They almost don’t look real. The Sky Bar was also really beautiful and was the perfect ending to our time in KL.

Singapore: Three Days of Watching the Bus You Want Drive By

2010-01-11T19:19:00.001-08:00

Our first stop on our 23 day adventure through Southeast Asia was Singapore. Our stay in Singapore was unique because we were fortunate enough to have an old friend of Seth’s (who lives in the US but is home visiting his family in Singapore) and his girlfriend (who is also Singaporian but living in the states) give us the grand tour for 2 days. They were both really friendly and made excellent tour guides since they lived in Singapore until college. Honestly, If we didn’t have them to show us around, I’m not we would have seen half of what we did. Seth and I didn’t have much success navigating the public transportation. More on that later…
Singapore is a melting pot of South Eastern Asia cultures and it’s very apparent when you walk around the city, especially after spending 6 months in a very homogeneous country. It was really refreshing to see people who looked and dressed differently from each other. Singapore is mostly a mix of Chinese, Malay and Indian people, but there are some other groups mixed in as well. Seth’s friend YS is sixth or seventh generation Chinese living in Singapore. He explained that people like him don’t identify with Chinese culture as much as they do with Singapore culture. Recently there has been an influx of Chinese to the country which has caused some tensions between the Singapore-Chinese and Chinese. YS also explained that when the British came to Singapore, they brought with them their Indian servants ,which is why there are so many Indians in the country. In Singapore there are different areas where large groups of each of these ethnicities reside (Arab Street, Little India, Chinatown, etc) each with its own unique cultural flavor. Little India was my favorite by far. It’s very colorful and very different from any place I have seen so far in my life.
The official language of Singapore is English, although people speak a variety of other languages. It was nice to be able to communicate with random people again, even if their English is difficult to understand. At one point our trip we ended up in a taxi with 2 Vietnamese people who were speaking in English to the taxi driver and even though they were speaking English, Seth and I could barely understand a word they were saying.
One of the more interesting things we were able to experience because of our tour guides was Singapore public housing. Their public housing is different than anything I have ever seen. Its unique because the different developments are self-sustaining. High rise buildings are set up around the perimeter of a town square area. Within the town square is pretty much anything you could ever need to get by in life: food stores, bakeries, computer stores, furniture stores, restaurants, banks, a post office, etc. YS’s girlfriend’s family lives in one of these public housing complexes and explained that most people don’t need to leave their complex to go shopping at all. They took us to two different developments where we walked around and tried a bunch of delicious foods (including an actual ice cream sandwich where they put a block of ice cream on a slice of white bread…apparently it’s a favorite of kids). It was interesting to get to see a side of Singapore that most tourists don’t get to see.
One famous landmark in Singapore is the Singapore Flyer. I believe it is (or was) the tallest flyer in the world. It looks like a giant Ferris wheel that takes about a half hour to complete a rotation. Instead of individual chairs, there are giant pods where 10-20 people can sit and stand and look out the windows. The Singapore Flyer was one of the main things I wanted to experience in Singapore since I’ve never been on anything like that before. Wednesday evening we decided to go and ride the Flyer. Our excursion ended up being a huge disaster (as were most of our attempts at public transportation). We missed our bus stop by miles, ended up at a popular shopping district that was nice to walk around, went and got 2 beers at a trendy bar where the beers ended up costing over $15 each (oops!), took the subway to what we thought was the flyer and ended up in some construction area with hundreds of men from Bangladesh who were loading into the backs of trucks after their shift, took at taxi with a really nice Vietnamese couple who made the same mistake we did, and just made the final ride on the Flyer. After exiting the Flyer at around 11:00 (mind you, at this point we hadn’t eaten dinner) we attempted to find a bus that would take us back to our hotel. After about an hour of wandering and waiting we gave in and took a taxi home. As you can imagine, neither of us were in the best of moods by the time we got home that night.
Thursday night, also New Year’s Eve, didn’t start off that much more successful. At this point we had run out of Singaporian dollars so we needed to find a place to exchange money. After missing a few buses and getting on the wrong bus, we eventually found a stand where we could change money. Our next stop was at an ocean-side restaurant to get a famous Singapore dish called chili crab. We ended up missing our bus stop and riding the bus 30 minutes out of our way but eventually got to our restaurant. We ordered our food (which was DELICIOUS by the way) and when it came time to pay, realized that we didn’t have enough Singapore dollars or enough US dollars to cover the bill. Luckily, the wait staff was really nice and let us pay in part Singapore, part US money. After dinner, with only about 20 minutes to spare until midnight, we rushed downtown to see some fireworks at 12am.
Some other interesting places we went included:
- Sentosa Island which is like a mini island theme park and very touristy, minus one beach area we found.
-Buddha Tooth Relic Temple which is a temple that opened in 2007 that supposedly houses one of Buddha’s teeth. However, the tooth was tested recently and it was discovered that it’s not a human tooth. The temple was really beautiful though, and is the only temple I’ve ever been in that has AC and an elevator .
-Hawker centers which are centers with little tiny booths that sell a wide variety of delicious S.E. Asian foods. Surrounding and in between these stands are little tables for people to eat at. The hawker centers are awesome for two reasons; the food is super cheap and the food is really delicious since each stand specializes in only a few things.
So to sum up our 3 days in Singapore, we spent a lot of time waiting for buses, getting on the wrong buses, and rushing around. But minus those temporary moments of frustration, I had a really great time, saw a lot of unique things, and ate some delicious food.

2009-12-27T20:08:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm off on my 23 day adventure through Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. I'll try to post blogs and pictures as often as I can along my trip. We have a lot of fun things planned during our trip including going to an elephant sanctuary, sleeping in tents on a island, and eating tons of delicious food. We'll be following a path somewhat similar to this one:

Miss you all! <3

Christmas & enemas

2009-12-22T05:24:00.001-08:00

I keep meaning to update this thing, but whenever it comes time for me to actually write, it just seems like too much work. I'll give you the overview of what's gone on recently.

Last week was my final full week of school before vacation, so I did Christmas lessons in all of my classes. I began the lesson by showing the students a short powerpoint about Christmas traditions in America. The first thing I taught them about was that many Americans cut down real trees for Christmas. I showed them pictures of people cutting down trees, a xmas tree farm, and how people put the trees on the tops of their cars when they drive home. All my students kept saying "chincha!?" which means "really?" in Korean. Then I showed them pictures of the some of the more extreme exterior decorations that people do. They were absolutely amazed. I got a lot of "wow"s and "Teacher, your house?". Finally, I showed them a YouTube clip of one of the houses that has their lights change to xmas music (don't worry, I explained that most people don't go to that extreme). The kids loved it, but the funniest part was that the song that was playing in the clip was The Carol of the Bells, and every class said how scary the music was. My co-teachers asked if it was Halloween music. I guess I never thought about it before, but the song is pretty creepy.
After learning some xmas vocabulary and playing a game, I had my 5th graders make xmas cards and my 4th graders complete a letter to Santa. The xmas cards were my favorite part of the lesson. I gave the students options on what to write on the outside of their card, and told them what to copy on the inside of the card. I had a slide up on the TV that said "Christmas Card Front" and "Christmas Card Inside" above what they were supposed to write. Not surprisingly, at least 5 of my students actually wrote those words on their cards. I also had "your name" in the place where students should write their names and had a few write "your name" inside their cards...but my favorite was when one student wrote "your mom" instead. I think he was confused about where he was supposed to address the card, so he was unknowingly being a smart ass. The best thing about the cards was how into making them the students got. They were told to bring paper to class to make the cards, and many of them brought whole bags of things to use. There were a lot of origami Santas and stickers and one student even brought in a pine branch that he glued pieces of to his card! I think the boys were more into it than the girls in some classes. One thing to mention about my students is that there are an unusually high number of them who are very artistically and creatively talented. I don't know if its a Korean thing, but I was amazed at some of the cards these kids designed.

Student making a Christmas card

This past weekend I went to go and visit Seth in Busan. I had a really great time, but of course it went by way too quickly. We did some shopping in an area called Nampo-dong that has a lot of upscale stores. In the middle of Nampo-dong is a street market where you can buy cheap sunglasses, bags, scarves, etc. We also went to the fish market that is famous in Korea. It's called Jalgalchi, or something along those lines. The market is pretty much as Korean as you can get. If anyone visits me, I will definitely be taking you here. All along the street are old Korean women vendors selling all different kinds of fish, stingrays, crabs, things in shells, eels, octopus, etc. At every stand you can watch the old women hack up the fish into tiny pieces. We also got to see the fisherman unloading the crates of fish right off the boats, which was kind of neat. Saturday evening we went to Seth's homestay to have dinner with his host family. At the end of dinner, Seth's host dad asked if we wanted to go to a nearby Christian university that had many xmas lights. I didn't really know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a smaller, walk-around version of the old Core Creek Park light show, sans the moving pieces. Minus the fact that it was absolutely freezing, it was nice to get a little piece of Christmas here since nothing about Korea has been able to put me in the Christmas spirit.

Jalgalchi Fish Market

unloading the fish off the boats

Harbor

I <3 Busan

watching some 3D video at the light show

Me, Seth and his youngest host brother

Christmas lights at the Christian University

Christmas in Korea is definitely a much smaller holiday that in America. My Aunt Barbara sent this to me in an email, and I thought it pretty accurately describes Korean Christmas from what I've been able to witness so far...

"There are more Christians in South Korea (the Republic of Korea) than in other Asian countries such as China and Japan, so Christmas is a celebrated more widely. (Christians make up about 25-30% of the population.) However, the other 70% of people in South Korea are mostly Buddhist, so Christmas isn't an important festival (and not really celebrated by Buddhist people in South Korea).
Unlike Japan, Christmas is an official holiday - so people do have the day of work and school! But they go back on the 26th (Boxing Day). There's a longer official winter break in the New Year.
Churches are decorated with lights and many have a bright red neon cross on top (all the year!) so that goes very well with the Christmas lights! Most churches will have a service on Christmas day. Going to Church for Christmas is becoming more popular, even among non Christians.
Department stores put on big displays of decorations. There's also an amazing display of lights in the capital city, Seoul. The lights are all over the city centre including the bridges over the Han River.
Some people (especially Christians and westerns who live in South Korea) will have decorations at home including a Christmas tree.
Presents are exchanged and a popular present is money! Gift actually gifts is becoming more popular, but giving money is still very common. Korean's don't usually have birthday or anniversary celebrations. The main gift and money giving time is during Korean New Year (which is at the same time as Chinese New Year).
Santa Claus can also be seen around Korea but he might be wearing red or blue!
A popular Christmas food is a Christmas Cake, but it's often a sponge cake covered in cream brought from a local bakery! Or you might even have an ice cream cake from a shop like 'Baskin Robbins'!"

I've seen the Christmas cakes on display outside Baskin' Robbins...kind of hoping my family gets one since they're in the shapes of really cute snowman, penguins and polar bears.

My host family, even though they are Buddhist, have a mini Christmas celebration. We have a small xmas tree in our apartment and Tammy and I decorated the living room with paper chains. We are going to open our gifts xmas eve morning because that night we are going to grandma's house near Seoul and staying there until Saturday morning. As per usual, no one has given me any hint as to what we will be doing there, but Tammy did mention going out to dinner and noraebang when I asked her a few weeks ago. Nothing like some Korean karaoke to put you in the Christmas spirit.

Going off on a different tangent...I had an interesting day today. Today was my last day of school and I knew I had no classes but that I had to come in for some sort of closing ceremony (Koreans love their ceremonies, almost as much as they love their banners). Co-teach told me to come to school at 9:30am. I figured I'd be at school maybe an hour at the most and then I could come home and go back to sleep. I got to school promptly at 9:30 only to be told by my co-teacher that the meeting had been moved to 12. Thanks co-teach...ever heard of the phone? I asked her what I was supposed to do until then and she said "Just relax." So 2 1/2 hour later I'm sitting in my ice box of an office watching my third episode of Law and Order SVU on the computer when co-teach comes and tells me we are going to Pizza Hut for lunch with all of the English teachers. We ended up spending like an hour and a half at Pizza Hut where I found out that the meeting had been moved to 1:30. After lunch my teacher and I go to the teachers office for the meeting at 1:30 and find out that it was moved to 2:00! At this point I'm wondering if I'm ever going to go home. Co-teach then suggested that we go say goodbye to the principal since I won't see him for over 2 months. I don't know if I've told you about my principal, but hes a very intimidating Korean man who has been nothing but kind to me since I arrived at his school. He speaks very very little English, so we usually just sit in awkward silence when we are alone together. But he likes me because I give him gifts all of the time. Anyway, we go to see the principal and I tell him "Merry Christmas...blahblahblah." He then starts talking to my co-teach in Korean and the only things I understand are the words "tomorrow" and "I will call". Moments later in the hallway I found out from co-teach that the principal was saying that tomorrow him and I are going to go to lunch together by ourselves, and that he will call my cell phone tomorrow to tell me when. Ummmm WHAT?!? Does this man honestly think we can have an entire lunch together when neither of us speak each others' languages? So I'm currently terrified out of my mind about this meeting. My host mom says that she thinks he will bring his daughter or something and I'm praying that she's right. I am really flattered that he asked me to lunch, but I'd like him a lot more if he hadn't. At least it should make for a good blog entry.
Soooo after my minor panic attack, my co-teach also told me that the principal said I could leave and that I didn't have to attend the day's meeting. So I pretty much went to school to watch SVU, eat Pizza Hut and be forced into a very uncomfortable lunch date with my principal. Awesome.
This evening I met some of my former students from my teachers class at their English study group they started. It was so nice seeing them again, even though only three were able to attend. We spent a while catching up and talking about winter vacation plans. The group of them are using a textbook created by the English radio network that they all listen to daily (sidenote: my host mom also listens to this show at full volume at 6:30am 3 feet away from my bedroom door...I HATE that show). Today's topic of conversation from the textbook: constipation. I kid you not. They all memorized a whole short article about it. At the end of the article are the key vocabulary words from the text. Here are the words that I had to read aloud and have them repeat after me: constipation, digestive system, feces, stool, poo, bowel movement, uncomfortable sensation, fiber-rich food, dietary changes, laxatives, metabolism, relieve, enema. I mean, I don't know about you but enemas and bowel movements are definitely a part of my daily conversation in America. After each teacher said the memorized article aloud, we then had a conversation about constipation. I tried to explain to them that they should probably avoid asking someone in America if they were ever constipated.

My life here never ceases to amaze me...

In other news, my winter vacation has officially begun!! I don't have to return to my ice box of a school until March 2nd, with the exception of my 3 day English camp at the end of January. Here is what my winter vacation looks like:

Dec 29-Jan 20: traveling to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand with Seth
Jan 25-27: English camp
Jan 28-Feb 5: Busan to help Seth with his English camp
Feb 5-Feb 28: Korean Language Class at Daegu University where I will be living in the International dorm and taking Korean classes for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week

The best part about my 2 month vacation is that we continue being paid by our schools the entire time.

It's going to be a beautiful, beautiful two months.

reason #483

2009-12-08T23:42:00.000-08:00

Reason #483 why I love my life:
These are 4 of my students who are also Tammy's best friends. They were supposed to be studying for their finals tomorrow, but instead they decided to videotape themselves singing a Korean pop song. I could hear them yelling from my room but I didn't know what they were doing until they all came running in and showed me this video. Its super cute, but the funniest part is the end when the little 12 year gives the camera the middle finger. Tammy was taping, so its kind of all over the place. Please enjoy!

Soju! Mekju! Makali!

2009-12-03T05:21:00.000-08:00

Two things happened in school today that I thought were worth mentioning.

In my one class I had today, I was bent over two girls helping them with their worksheets. I must have had some stray hairs hanging out down because both of the girls grabbed strands of my hair and pulled them out of my head. They then continued to hold them up to the light and play with them on their desk after I left them. I was told that this happens sometimes in Korea, because people here only have dark hair so they aren't used to seeing blonde hair. But it was really strange once I actually saw kids do it. Kind of creepy.

The other thing that happened today was that 3 of my classes were canceled and all of the students got to go home early so that the teachers and some parents could play kickball, volleyball and dodgeball together. It was a lot of fun and pretty hilarious/pathetic. 95% of the women who played with us either ducked or screamed when the ball came towards them. Most of the games were played by the few men we have at our school. It was kind of frustrating for me at times because I actually want to play and know that I can at least hold my own if I'm given the chance. As per usual, I didn't know what was going on half the time...still unsure of who won the games. I was the most confused during dodgeball because apparently Korean dodgeball is very different than the American version. There is only one ball used and you only get out if you're hit by the ball, not if your ball gets caught. They also have this crazy rule where once you're out, instead of sitting down you go behind the opposing team and you can hit them from behind with the ball if it comes to you. The game wasn't as fast paced as our version, but the extra rule makes it so much fun. Again though, the guys pretty much dominated the game. After the tournaments we all congregated in the school cafeteria where, of course, there was beer and Soju and Makali and kimchi waiting for us. At the end of our mini meal, there was still a lot of alcohol left over, so I grabbed a bottle of beer, Soju and Makali for my host dad, since the way to his heart is through alcohol. I lined them all up on the kitchen table when I got home for him to see when he came in the door. I was laying in bed and heard him come in. Suddenly I heard him gasp and say, "Soju! Mekju! Makali! Ohhhh yeahhhh." Probably the greatest thing I've ever heard him say.

2009-11-26T03:01:00.000-08:00

Check out this website: http://blackoutkorea.blogspot.com/ These pictures are hilarious (and tragic) and are a very common occurrence in Korea. I have a few pictures of my own I could probably add to this website. There has been a number of times where my friends and I were just leaving to go to the bar and we see guys either passed out or puking already from drinking so much. Koreans also have this amazing ability to sleep ANYWHERE. Every time I take a bus, within 5 minutes of leaving everyone on the bus is passed out. I think its starting to rub off on me. I now pass out anytime I'm on a bus, and often in cars. My host family and I went to dinner the other night to a restaurant that was only 10 minutes away, and I managed to fall asleep on the ride there.

Tonight I had my 2nd to last English teachers class. This class has become the highlight of my school day. All of the teachers are so kind and funny and caring. We've really become like a little family. I'm very sad that the class is ending and that I won't be seeing the women anymore. Anyway, tonight I had all 20 students together since my guy co-teacher had something to do tonight. I planned a Thanksgiving lesson and Thanksgiving dinner with my class. Each person was responsible for bringing in one dish to share. I made awesome mashed potatoes (recipe courtesy of Seth). The class was a lot of fun, and the food was even better. But the best part of class was when I had each person take a turn to say something they were thankful for. The majority of the students ended up saying that they were thankful for this class because they bonded a lot with each other and because they really enjoyed having me as a teacher. It was really difficult not to cry when they told me this. It just felt really good to have people appreciate me and all of the work I put into each of the lessons. Then it came my turn to share what I was thankful for and I said that I was thankful for Fulbright and the opportunity to spend a year in Korea because I've learned a lot about myself, met some really amazing people, and done a lot of things already I never thought I would ever do (i.e. eating live octopus and seeing the Great Wall). As I was saying this I realized how thankful I really was and almost started crying again. I'm such a cornball.

In other news, I'm off to Seoul tomorrow to have Thanksgiving dinner at the US Ambassador's house with all of the other ETAs. Sooo excited!

Thanksgiving Lessons

2009-11-25T01:37:00.001-08:00

This week I'm teaching my students about the history of Thanksgiving and I'm having the 4th graders make hand turkeys. On their turkeys they have to write one thing they are thankful for. My favorites so far are:
"I am thankful for my body." - Not quite sure what that means, but kind of weird.
"I am thankful for my ball." - It's the simple things in life...
"I am thankful for kimchi." - You are sooo Korean.
"I am thankful for... NAME" - This student copied my example from the board. He didn't realize that he was supposed to finish the sentence and write his name. I still put it up on the wall with the other turkeys. :)

raw fish, booze & noraebang...on a monday

2009-11-25T01:20:00.000-08:00

This past Monday I was invited (last minute of course) to go to dinner with my 2 co-teachers, my one co-teachers boyfriend, the male PE teacher, and 3 other female teachers, all of whom I eat lunch with everyday. We ended up meeting a raw fish restaurant near my school. The dinner was mostly delicious. I tried a lot of weird looking raw seafood, half of which I don't know what it was. I even voluntarily ate the live octopus again! The company was a lot of fun; the PE teacher is especially hilarious. He's a younger guy and we always have really funny broken English conversations over lunch. I think he enjoys practicing his English and hitting on me at the same time. At one point during dinner he serenaded me with "You Are So Beautiful". I guess in the states it would border on sexual harassment, but I think its really funny and I'm 99% sure he's just doing it to be silly. Towards the end of dinner & drinks I heard the word "noraebang" being tossed around. I started to get worried because the only times I've been to noraebang (karaoke) was at the end of a long night at many different bars, and it was only 7pm and none of us had had a lot to drink. To make a long story short, everyone, with the exception of my co-teacher, went to noraebang together for a couple hours. It ended up being a lot of fun and a great bonding experience for all of us. I sang some old school Britney Spears, NSYNC and "Twist and Shout" (a crowd favorite) and the other teachers sang a bunch of k-pop. My usually annoying co-teacher was the best noraebang-er out of everyone. Her and her boyfriend sang duets the entire time and even had dance moves to all of the songs. PE teacher had an amazing voice as well and he would jump up on the couches and dance up on the older Korean teachers whenever he sang. At the end of the night I had a really funny conversation (in broken English of course) with the PE teacher. It went something like this.
PE teacher: The past 2 weeks I just stay at home and drink alone.
Me: Why would you do that?
PE teacher: Because my heart is broken. (fake crying)
Me: Awww. What happened?
PE teacher: One-way love. I love a girl but she does not like me.
Me: Awww so sad. What is her name?
PE teacher: (pause) Her name......is Cassidy.
He was only joking of course, and all of us died when he said this. Fun night.

The story of my life...

2009-11-21T18:45:00.001-08:00

This morning I had plans to go out to lunch and shopping with my host mom and host sister. I was really looking forward to it because we don't do stuff like that often, especially just the girls. 5 minutes before we are supposed to leave, as I'm sitting in my nice clothes waiting for my host mom to get ready, she comes into my room and says "How about we go to San Seong first." (San Seong is the fortress we go hiking at some times that is a 2 hour time commitment) Ummm excuse me host mom? I'm pretty sure hiking and lunch/shopping are not in the same activities category. I stared at her for minute and for the first time since I've been here, flat out told her "no". No I am not going hiking in the freezing cold. I hate hiking and I especially hate hiking when its taking the place of one of my favorite things to do: shopping.
Still not sure what we're going to end up doing because shes currently yelling at my host sister because she had the same exact reaction I did.
Just had to share because this is the story of my life in Korea.

UPDATE: We ended up going shopping in the end (thank god). Shopping was an experience in itself. I don't know if its a Korean thing or that my host mom is just weird, but she has no sense of appropriate social rules. For example, she doesn't ever follow the rule of standing in a line. If there is a line at the cash register, she just walks up to the front and butts in front of everyone. I always try to point it out to her that there is a line, but she always tells me I'm wrong. Lately I've just given up and let her go and get yelled at by people. Another interesting moment was when we were at the pizza place getting lunch. Host mom wanted to order a shrimp pizza and couldn't understand why I didn't want to order it. She told me to just take the shrimp off, and I tried explaining that the whole pizza is still going to taste like shrimp. The whole day was filled with moments where I wanted to kill her and then 10 seconds later she would do something cute and I would like her again. For example, I cooked dinner that night for the family. I made them penne and meatballs and homemade garlic bread. Host mom knew I was making dinner but ended up missing it because she stayed at her mom's house for a very long time. I was a little annoyed at her since I took the time to cook mostly for her. But later on in the night I hear her say to host dad "Yeobo (honey), come and look at me!" I peek my head out my bedroom door and there she is parading around in her new boots and mini skirt she bought while we were shopping with the biggest smile on her face. It was sooo adorable. As with everything here, just when I think I'm tired of it all, something happens that makes me realize how glad I am that I'm here.

Beijing photos

2009-11-15T07:48:00.000-08:00

Guard in Tianenmen Square

Beijing street market

Beijing airport

Tianenment Square

My tour group

Tianenmen Square

Entrance to the Forbidden City

all of these white stone is jade

Live scorpions

yummy

At the Empress's garden

In my rickshaw

Some of the very poor areas we saw.

At the sacrificial temple.

TV screen at "The Place"

In order to get to our boat tour, we had to take the steps up through this dragon.

On our boat tour of the mountains...we were freezing!

on our boat

Host mom and I

On the Great Wall

BEIJING

2009-11-15T06:34:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write a post about my recent trip to Beijing, but the task seemed pretty daunting and I don't really know where to start with my story. I'll do my best...

Last weekend I went on a 4 day trip to Beijing with my host mom and host sister. I was fortunate to be allowed to take Friday and Monday off from school for this trip. The idea for this trip originated when I told my host mom a while ago that I've always wanted to go to the Great Wall, and that I hoped I would be able to go while I was in Korea. She had mentioned that she had always wanted to go to, and the next thing you know we were looking at tour packages online. If it were up to me, I would have never chosen to go on a group tour, let alone a Korean group tour, but she was willing to do the work, and the price was very cheap. She took care of booking a tour that included going to the Great Wall of China. I was a little bit wary about going on a tour that would be given in Korean, with a bunch of other Koreans, but I figured it would be an interesting experience. I also found out after we made our tour plans that the reason the tour was so cheap was because it was one of those time share-type deals where you have to listen to people sell you things for part of the trip. But again, I figured it might be entertaining.

I definitely got what I asked for out of the trip. At the very least, I have some interesting stories. I would say about 75% of the trip was really good and it was a great opportunity to bond with my host family and to see some incredible and historic sites. 25% of the trip was hell and I wanted to rip my hair out or run away with one of the many groups of white English-speakers that I saw.

Before I tell you about what we actually did on the tour (because we did A LOT), let me describe to you some of the people in my Korean tour group. First there was an old woman, who I was told was over 80 years old. It turns out she owns a big building in the most popular shopping district in Seoul...so needless to say, she was loaded. She was the only one to buy something at every shady tourist trap they took us to (and not cheap things). She also flew first class by herself there and back. Then there was a man who wore a light gray tracksuit and purple tinted glasses the entire time, who was the spitting imagine of Kim Jung Il. I tried to get a picture of him inconspicuously, but without any success. The most interesting member of our tour group happened (unfortunately) to be my bus partner. She was a middle-aged Korean woman who weighed about 90lbs and had a short manly haircut. From the moment I saw her I knew she wasn't normal. She was traveling alone, which was unusual. She never smiled and had big dark sunglasses on in the airport. She never took her big dark sunglasses off the entire trip, even though it was cloudy and foggy the entire time. She even wore them at night on the bus. She also liked to randomly punch me or grab my shoulder and say something to me in Korean, and then proceeded to stare at me intently like she actually expected me to answer her. She seemed miserable the entire trip, minus a brief break in character where she bought me a sweet potato from the side of the road.
The other people on the tour were all very kind, and enjoyed using the few English phrases they knew on me.

Now let me give you a rundown of my schedule during the 4 day trip. I'm pretty sure that this trip was the busiest 4 days of my entire life. Everyday we got up at 5:30 am for breakfast and didn't return home to our hotel until 9:30 at night. Here was my itinerary for the trip:
FRIDAY:
1. Chinese shopping district modeled after a traditional shopping street
2. Tianenmen Square- My favorite part of the trip. It was really surreal being there and incredible to see such an iconic building in person.
3. Walk through the Forbidden City- Also surreal. The city is gigantic and the buildings are beautiful.
4. Homeless people- There are many many homeless people and beggars around the touristy areas in Beijing. If there is one word I could use to describe the people of Beijing, it would be "shady". I was a little afraid of some of these beggars because they were pretty aggressive. However, at one point during our touring, a little boy who was only about 4 or 5 years old and covered in dirt came up to me and started pulling on my sweater and asking for money. It was one of the sadder things I've seen in life and I'm still upset about it now. I didn't give him any money because I knew it would go to whoever was making him do it, but I felt horrible afterwards. I wanted to bring him home with me.
5. Wangfujing- Upscale shopping area. Behind the expensive stores there was a traditional market area. We were told by our tour guide that the market was famous for the weird food they sold, such as scorpions. When my host mom told me this, I immediately wanted to go and try them. I really enjoy trying weird food, just so that I'm able to say, "One time I ate __(insert weird food name here)__." We found the food stands with scorpions and sea horses for sale. The scorpions were impaled on skewers and were all still moving. Luckily, the men cooked the scorpions on a grill and put some spicy powder on them. I was able to talk my host mom into trying them with me, and surprisingly they weren't horrible. I almost bought a sea horse too, but they're too cute and I felt like I would be sent to hell for eating one.
6. Chinese circus- The last tourist stop of our day was at a very ghetto and very shady Chinese Circus. It was very obviously a tourist trap. I'm pretty sure the children in the show are forced into labor, and I would also aim to guess that the music for the show was played on a shotty CD player backstage. At least the kids were actually good at what they did though.
7. Hotel- One of the better aspects of the tour was that we were able to stay in a 5 star hotel. I shared a room with my host family which I think ended up being a good bonding experience. The hotel room was beautiful and we had a real shower, comfortable beds, and CNN. We also had American breakfast that I was thrilled with, but the Koreans were upset about. I secretly got some satisfaction that the tables had been turned on my host family for that brief instance.

SATURDAY
1. Empress's Garden- Early in the morning we went to a garden that was built by an Empress when she ruled over China. The garden was eerily beautiful since the morning fog was there and the garden was built around a giant man-made pond. One thing to mention about this trip, specifically at these gardens, is that I was constantly being asked/forced to be in pictures with complete strangers. This has happened once or twice in Korea, but it happened at least six or seven times on my trip. It was kind of surprising since there were foreigners everywhere, but I just chalked it up to the fact that most of the foreigners were old and ex-hippies which mean they aren't looking too hot nowadays. Normally I don't mind the attention, and I usually think its pretty funny. However, I think it may have freaked out my host mom and sister, as well as the other Koreans in my group a little.
2. Pillow shop- The first shady place that they took us to was a place that sells Latex pillows and mattresses. As per usual, I didn't understand what my host mom meant when she said we were going to the Latex shopping center. What ended up happening was that they led us through the pillow factory into a tiny room where they tried to sell us Latex pillows and mattresses for 20 minutes in Korean. I fell asleep right away (Sidenote: I took about 30 naps throughout the trip. Every time we got back on the bus I fell asleep.)
3. Rickshaw Ride- The next stop on the tour was to experience a ride in a Chinese rickshaw. We got off the bus and were led down a sketchy side alley where we were met by a bunch of run-down, toothless men with rickshaws that were attached to broken bikes. Since I was the third wheel in my family the whole trip, I had to sit in my own rickshaw. We rode around in a line through the back streets of Beijing for about an hour. Never in my life have I felt like a bigger douche-bag. I was sitting with a blanket on my lap with my nice winter coat on and my Nikon around my neck while we were riding past people who lived in the tiniest of houses (some of which could have been described as garages) all of which were fallen apart. I wish I could've gotten better pictures of the area, because I have never seen anything like it before. It was very sad. I kept thinking that if I took one of these people to the US and showed them my house, they would have a heart attack. I'm slowly learning just how fortunate I have been in life.
4. Lunch at a restaurant owned by North Koreans
5. Art Show
6. Tried to be sold Chinese medicine
7. Sacrificial Temple- Beautiful, like every other temple I've been to.
8. Chinese Ballet- One of my other favorite parts of the trip. Unlike the circus, this was a real performance with amazing special effects and at one point, a real waterfall flowing down the entire stage. It was a combination of ballet, modern dance, and acrobatics and it told an ancient Chinese legend about a Queen and King who fell in love. It was absolutely amazing and beautiful.
9. Chinese food dinner- The only Chinese food we ate the entire time :(
10. The Place- Before going to bed, we stopped at a shopping area called "The Place". The interesting thing about this place was the gigantic IMAX-like TV screen that was hanging from the ceiling outside. I've never seen anything like it.

SUNDAY:
1. Boat tour of the mountains- We drove about an hour and a half to a deserted tourist village in the mountains where we ended up taking a boat ride on a peaceful river through the mountains. It was very serene and extremely cold. It was nice to see another side of Beijing besides the inner city, very busy touristy areas.
2. The Great Wall- This was the best part and the biggest disappointment of the trip. The whole reason the idea for the trip even came up was because I had said I wanted to go to the Great Wall. We ended up going and the Wall itself was incredible, but we were only allowed to spend 30 minutes there. It was barely enough time to walk up and back on one small portion of the Wall. I was very disappointed and almost cried when they made me leave. I definitely need to go back there at some point in my life and hike along the wall for a day.
3-6. Many hours of being sold shit- It was at this point in the trip that I lost my patience and was absolutely miserable. Besides being tired and having spent 3 days with a bunch of Koreans, I then had to sit through about 6 hours of people trying to sell me things I don't want or need in Korean. I think it was the worst I've felt since leaving the US, and I got very homesick. Luckily, as per usual, it only lasted a short while, and I felt much better by the end of the night.
7. Foot massage- The final stop of our Korean tour of Beijing was a massage parlor that I think is specifically geared towards tourist groups. The whole placed looked kind of dirty, but once again I figured it would be interesting so I went along with it. We ended up getting pretty good foot massages...unfortunately, mine was given to me by a guy who was probably not much older than me who I'm pretty sure has never touched a young white female. He looked absolutely scared/excited out of his mind. He smiled at me creepily the entire time and apparently told my host mom that his heart was beating fast when he massaged my leg. Super creepy...but maybe he'll always remember that young white girl with the old Korean men and women who he got touch.

That was my Korean tour. My overall perception of Beijing was that it was foggy, overcrowded, beautiful, shady, polluted, and the most foreign place I have ever been to. My friends here have a joke that South Korea is the opposite of Jamaica...I'm not really sure how it came about, but I definitely agreed. However, I've since learned that Beijing is the TRUE opposite of Jamaica.

So would I ever go on a group tour ever again? Hell no...especially not a Korean group tour. While it was nice not having to worry about transportation or how to get anywhere or what to see, and it was also nice being able to see so many things in such a short amount of time, it was not worth it. 99% of the time I had no idea what was going on or where we were going to next, since the itinerary changed constantly. My host mom's explanations of things usually only confused me more. One of my least favorite part was only being allowed 30 minutes in almost every place we went to. My favorite part about traveling is being able to take pictures, and on this trip I was constantly being rushed everywhere and running to catch up with the group, which was not conducive for picture taking. I also only ate Chinese food once (shitty Chinese food) the whole time we were in China which was disappointing.

Someone once told that all you have at the end of life are your stories, so at the very least I can say I've gained some good stories from this experience. My host mom is already talking about our next trip together in the spring, so let's hope I can talk my way out of a Korean tour of wherever we go to.

*I'll post my pictures very soon!

Halloween weekend

2009-11-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I traveled around a large part of Korea. Friday I went to Busan to visit Seth and meet his host family. Friday night we all went out to dinner and then went back to their apartment and carved pumpkins with the two boys. The both did an amazing job, and the parents seemed to enjoy it as well. None of them had ever carved pumpkins before so I'm sure it was an interesting experience for them. The host dad took one of the pumpkins into his bedroom with him so he could sleep with it glowing in his room haha. Saturday was the littlest brother's birthday party so we hung around the apartment for a little while and watched the kids. Saturday we had plans to meet our friends in a town called Gwangju for a Halloween party. We took an almost 4 hour bus ride there Saturday afternoon. Our Halloween party was organized by our friend Dave, who has a friend who manages a coffee shop in the town. His friend allowed us to throw a costume party in his coffee shop after it closed. Almost everyone got dressed up and we played some games at the shop. I dressed up as my friend Cornelius. In case you haven't noticed him in my past pictures, hes the one who is always dressed in a suit and occasionally a bow tie. He's known for his ridiculous outfit choices, so I asked him to let me borrow his clothes as a costume. One of my guy friends had the same idea, so there ended up being 2 Corneliuses at the party. Sidenote: my English classroom, for some reasons unbeknown to me, has a costume closet full of adult-size costumes. I raided the closet and brought a bunch of the costumes with me to Gwangju for my friends to wear (hence the full-on Batman and Santa and Superman costumes). Needless to say, a bunch of white people dressed up in costumes roaming the streets together was not something you usually see on an average Saturday night in Korea. Everyone we passed either yelled out something in English, stopped and gawked, or asked for pictures. I can only imagine what our taxi driver thought when me, Batman, Superman and a clown climbed into his cab.
Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Jan-hee and Seth. Jan-hee is without a doubt the cutest little kid I have ever met. I'm adopting/stealing him and bringing him home with me.

Huan-hee working on his Homer Simpson pumpkin.

When one of the knives broke, Seth's host dad decided to be innovative and broke out the power tools.

Seth and his adorable host family

finished pumpkins

clown & Cornelius

Lauren dressed up as old Korean woman...I can't even tell you how dead on her costume is.

Batman roaming the streets of Gwangju

3 Corneliuses

flip cup team

Chelsey, an angel, Ursula and Waldo

Halloween at school

2009-11-02T06:25:00.000-08:00

Finally, I was actually allowed some creative freedom this week in my lessons since it was Halloween. I love Halloween and its such a strange and fun American tradition that I really wanted to go all out with my students. The more I explained Halloween to different people throughout the week, the more I realized how bizarre the holiday really is, especially since EVERYONE gets into it at home. For my lessons this week I did a variety of Halloween themed games and activities, my favorite of which was having the students work in teams to dress up their classmates in Halloween costumes made out of newspaper. The students all got really into it and worked really well together. I'm still not sure what most of the costumes were supposed to be, but it was hilarious seeing my little kids completely covered from head to toe in newspaper. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the week.

many of my students wear masks to school everyday

Halloween decorations in my classroom

This week I also decided to bring in pumpkins for my one teachers class so that they could have the experience of carving them. None of them had ever done it before, and afterwards they thanked me and said they appreciated having that experience and that they wouldn't forget it. It's fun being able to share these kinds of things with other people and to know that from now on, I will always be remembered as the person who taught them that thing or shared something new with them. For Tammy and my teachers, I will always be the American who helped them carve their first Halloween pumpkin.

Dirt Pudding & Live Octopus

2009-10-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was excpetionally good. Seth came to Cheongju, as well as my friend Josh. Friday night the two visitors and most of the Cheongju ETAs went to a wine party downtown that we had heard about from one of Kate's students (who is in h.s. by the way). None of us knew what to expect since nothing here is ever what you think it will be like. I am happy to say that for the first time, the wine party was exactly what it was supposed to be: free wine, good snacks, a nice atmosphere and new people to talk to. The party was hosted by Kate's student's English tutor who brought her middle-aged women students to talk to us. They were all very nice and everyone had a really nice time. We spent the evening on the terrace of a wine restauarant which was awesome since there are very few wine restaurants that I've seen in Korea...if any. Me and Kate with her student Da-bin (aka Mickey) Saturday I spent the day with Seth planning our winter vacation trip. I originally wanted to go to Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, but we decided Indonesia was too big and too spread out to travel around during our limited time outside of Korea. I think we've decided to spend New Years in Singapore and then travel North through Malaysia and Thailand, stopping in various cities and at various islands along the way, and ending in Bangkok. It will save us a lot of money since we can travel by bus and train with the exception of our flights into and out of Korea. I'm now really really excited for traveling...it can't come soon enough. I'm also going to Beijing in 2 weeks for 4 days with my host mom and sister to see the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square. Saturday night Seth came over to my host family's apartment for dinner. We carved pumpkins with my host mom and host sister, both of whom had never carved a pumpkin before. It was really cute and neat to share that experience with them. Seth and I also made dirt pudding with Tammy, which of course she loved since she loves anything chocolate (she eats her French Toast I make her with chocolate syrup). Let me jump back a little bit. While sitting with my host dad at the dinner table, the topic of sushi came up. A semi-common type of sushi here is live octopus. They literally take a live octopus and using kitchen scissors, cut off little pieces of the tentacles which are then eaten right away. The thing about these tentacles is that they continue moving for one or two hours after they are cut off. I've heard about this food from other Koreans and ETAs who have been served it, but I was able to avoid eating it...until Saturday night. Now fast forward to Saturday night...I guess Seth had mentioned that he liked the live octopus sushi and I mentioned that I had never eaten it. While the rest of us were busy eating our dirt pudding, my dad slipped out to go to the mart. He came back with a package of live octopus. While we are still eating our pudding, my host mom puts down the plate of live octopus that is still squirming...scratch that...not only squirming but trying to escape from the plate. I decided to try it because well, when else am I ever going to have the chance to eat something like that. Much to my surprise, it really wasn't bad! The weirdest part was having the octopus tentacles suck onto your tongue or your cheek if you didn't immediately chew it to death...literally. So anyway, that may take the cake for being the weirdest culinary experience in my life so far. Seth and the host fam with our pumpkins Tammy's Lisa Simpson pumpkin pathetic looking Spongebob pumpkin crushing oreos dirt pudding Eating octopus and dirt pudding...my host mom is in the midst of explaining what dirt pudding is to my host dad...quite the cultural exchange going on.

Octopus sushi

San Seong in the fall

Gyeongju Conference

2009-10-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago I attended an ETA conference in the southern part of Korea in an area called Gyeongju. There's really not a whole lot to do in Gyeongju, but we were put up in a nice hotel for 4 days with all of our friends we hadn't seen in August, so it was a pretty great weekend. The weekend consisted of lots of group meetings about various teaching topics, exchanging of teaching idea, motor biking around the hotel area, riding swan boats, playing frisbee in the backyard of the hotel, sleeping a lot, drinking a little too much, and eating delicious food.

Riding one of the mini motor bikes around the hotel area.

Kate and Kelly on their mini quad

too bad these bikes only went like 10 mph

safety first!

Swan boats

Inside the swan boat.

All of the rice fields turn bright yellow/orange in the fall which makes Korea even more beautiful than it already was.

teachers field trip

2009-10-22T02:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my school's birthday, which meant no school for students. OF COURSE teachers don't get off that easy. We had to go on a mandatory field trip with the other teachers in our grade. My two co-teachers and I went with the fifth grade teachers and the principal (big surprise...no one knew he was coming with us until that morning) to Daejeon to go and see Donghaksa temple. Donghaksa is the Korean temple where all of the women monks stayed. There are still some women monks living there. In typical Korean fashion, most of our day was actually spent eating and drinking, and we only spent a total of 10 minutes at the actual temple. Also in typical fashion, I really didn't know what was going on most of the time. I was able to bond a little with my co-teachers though and the scenery was beautiful so it wasn't too bad of a time. No one got drunk and tried to punch through a bus window like has happened in past years...not sure if I'm happy or sad about that. It might have made the day a little more exciting.

Me and the co-teachers (Min-hi and Min-ah) outside the Western-style restaurant we went to for lunch.

The delicious spaghetti, pork cutlet and steak meal I had at the restuarant

Donghaksa temple

beautiful trees

me and the principal...he later bought me necklace on the walk down from the temple :)

Hines Ward & North Korea

2009-10-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

Today I had to take a group faculty photo for the graduation album. None of the other teachers wanted to stand next to me because they said I have a small face. This is actually a compliment. I get comments all the time about how thin or how small my face is. This is because most Korean women hate their round faces and always wish they were thin. I find this really amusing because I think all of the women who tell me this are absolutely beautiful. I kind of secretly wish I was Asian.

Today in my one teachers' class I was talking about American football, which they knew absolutely nothing about. I started naming famous quarterbacks hoping it would spark some sort of recognition. I wasn't getting anywhere so I gave up, until one of the teachers (who knows nothing about football) asked me if I knew Hines Ward (he is part Korean). I thought the Walko's and McGlynns would really enjoy that little tidbit. A lot of the Koreans I've spoken too also know the Phillies because one of the players is Korean. What a small world.

I had another of those moments today where I thought to myself, "Wow. Is this really my life right now?" I was in my evening teachers class, which is my favorite of all of the classes I teach. They are the nicest group of people, and we have some pretty interesting and eye opening discussions in those classes. Today I had the teachers read an article on Korean military service. For those of you who don't know, all Korean men are required by law to serve in the military for 2 years. Most of them do it in their 20's. I am absolutely fascinated by this and I try to ask as many Korean guys my age about their experiences as possible, without being rude. I just can't imagine growing up knowing that you have to dedicate 2 years of your life to the military, especially since its done during what are supposed to be some of the best years of your life. Anyway, I had the teachers read an article about it and then split them up into two debate teams. One team wanted to reduce the required time spent in the army, and the other team wanted to keep it the same. We ended up having a really intense debate about the topic. They started talking about their feelings on the threat North Korea poses, and about their brothers' and sons' negative experiences in the military. I thought to myself: Wow. I mean who knows what will happen with North Korea in the future. Regardless of what happens, I will always have this memory of sitting in a classroom in South Korea with these intelligent women discussing (in English) about politics with North Korea. It was a pretty amazing feeling.
After the discussion I asked the women to tell me how they really felt about mandatory military service since I made them argue certain sides, and every single one of them said that they hated the idea. They wish their service could be voluntary like America's. They the shared some of the things their male relatives told them about their experiences in the military, and it sounds really depressing. I think of some of the really sweet Korean guys I've met here and I can't imagine them in an army uniform carrying weapons and doing monotonous exercises everyday for two years. It's crazy.

Sometimes I can't believe this is actually my life.

2009-10-08T06:22:00.000-07:00

My day consisted of...

Teaching my first teachers class about the Super Bowl, NFL, MLB, Neshaminy Sports, the Philly Phanatic, tailgating and Neshaminy football.

During my second teacher's class, I asked the teachers "What is one thing you wish you had done when you were younger?" One female teacher responded, "I wish I had drank more."

Cooking chicken fingers (using crushed up crackers instead of bread crumbs...actually really good), fettuccine alfredo, and steamed broccoli for my host family.

Teaching my host sister how to play the Rummikube game I bought her for Chuseok.

2009-10-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

Funny things from class:

I've started having my advanced 5th and 6th graders journal for 10 minutes everyday. The only rule is that they are constantly writing in English the whole time. The are allowed to write about anything they want. Most of the kids write about their days or what they played during recess time. This is what one boy wrote.

"All plants need sunlight and soil in order to survive. However, sunlight and soil are not enogh to grow carnivorous plants. The must eat tiny animals. Sundew plants have sticky leaves that move quickly to trap fly."

I think I have a genius on my hands.

In another class, I had the students create their own bands and write what instruments they would include, how many people would be in their band, and what their number one song would be called. This was one 5th grader's response.

NAME OF BAND: I Kill You For the Music
INSTRUMENTS: sexphone <---- we just learned the word "saxophone"
#1 SONG: Boober

Another thing I find really funny is the conversation I have whenever people ask me where I'm from. The typical conversation goes like this...

"Where are you from?"
"Pennyslvania. Do you know Philadelphia?"
(usually a vague look of familiarity)
"What is famous there?"
"Do you know the Liberty Bell?"
(blank stare)
"You know, the big bell with the crack in it. L-I-B-E-R-T-Y-B-E-L-L?"
(another blank stare)
"The woman who sewed the first American flag lived in Philadelphia."
(slight nod)
"Do you know the movie Rocky?"
(enthusiastic nod) followed by "Sylvester Stallone." (or some variation of his name)
"Do you know the part where he runs up the steps and pumps his fists in triumph?" (usually said while acting out the running up the steps and fist pumps)
"Yes! Yes!"
"Well, those steps are in Philadelphia."
"Ahhhhhh."

2009-10-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

my latest Hanji project

If I hear "traditional Korean" one more time...

2009-10-04T03:43:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Well, I'm back from my really long and draining and fun and insightful and at times hell-ish Chuseok weekend with the family. Let me start by saying that I would normally not want to spend that much consecutive time with my real family over the holidays (no offense mom and dad), let alone a Korean family with whom I can only barely communicate. All in all it was a really fun time and the entire family is really nice and funny (I have yet to meet a Korean who I don't like) and very welcoming towards me. After two days however, I was ready to come home or at least have internet or a working phone (left the phone charger at home). We arrived at my host dad's mother's house Thursday night and a couple of relatives came over for dinner, including my two boy host cousins, Mun Shik and Won Shik, who are a year older and a year younger than me. They were my saving graces this weekend. They are really really nice and their English wasn't too bad. Friday afternoon they came over to pick up Tammy, me, and another girl cousin to go to a Traditional Korean Folk Village nearby. It was beautiful and we saw a couple of performances, including a Salmunori music group. Just when I thought we were going to leave the village we ended up walking not through an exit, but through an entrance to an amusement park that for some reason is connected to the village. We ended up spending like two hours going on all of the rides at the park. I love anything that lets me feel like a little kid again. Saturday was Chuseok, so we all woke up early, put on our Hanboks and after the men performed the ritual bowing to the ancestors, we ate the pounds of delicious Korean food my host mom and aunts had prepared the day before. In the afternoon my host cousins and family went to Suwon castle, which was built during the Joseun Dynasty (spelling?) when the King was trying to move the capital to Suwon. The only negative part about visiting the castle was that, as usual, I had no idea where we were actually going to. My host mom only mentioned something "cultural" so I mistakenly wore nice shoes with small heels and had to walk around in them for 4 or 5 hours. Typical. This morning the whole family went to a local park where we played badminton, ate cotton candy and cocoons (I did not partake in the cocoon eating), and rode bikes.
Needless to say, I am completely mentally and physically exhausted from the weekend. There were about 2 hours this afternoon where I just wanted to cry because all I wanted to do was go "home" and lay in my comfy bed. Sleeping on a wooden floor with only a thin mat, hard pillow, and shitty blanket for three days will make anyone miserable, regardless of how much fun the days were. There was also a moment when I was laying on my hard, uncomfortable mat last night where I thought to myself, "Am I really laying here in some strangers apartment in the middle of South Korea while my family and friends are halfway around the world? What the f*** was I thinking?" I have these moments a lot, but they're quickly overturned when I think, "Holy sh*t, I'm in South Korea for a year and I have the opportunity to have all of these awesome, once in a lifetime experiences." I think I'm going to leave with a love-hate relationship for this year.
Speaking of leaving, I often think about how weird it's going to be when I do go back to America. I've been told reverse culture shock is a lot worse than initial culture shock when you come to a foreign country, and I can already see that is going to be true. On my ride home I was thinking about all of the things that will be weird to encounter again after my year here. Here's part of my mental list: carpet (I have only seen carpet in nice hotels here), wearing shoes in the house, forks and knives, dryers, obese people, having taxi drivers actually understand where I'm telling them to go the first time I say it, tipping, buying anything (Korea is SO CHEAP), not having every stranger I pass stare at me, be able to actually read signs on stores without much effort, and television.
As a random note, Mun Shik was showing me his pictures from his trip to the US two years ago and most of the pictures were of the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas and San Francisco. But there was one random photo in the midst of all of the others ones of him standing with a Hooters girl. Now that's a true American experience haha.
Speaking of American experiences, I thought I'd tell you about my cultural contributions I've made to my homestay so far. First and foremost, my host mom and sister now eat toast with jelly every morning for breakfast with me. Host dad still hasn't given in yet though. I've also introduced them to french toast, although their version is sans butter and syrup...still better than kimchi and fish for breakfast though. My host sis and I also made banana splits the other night and shes asked for them every night since. I've also introduced my host sister to a bunch of American music like Beyonce, Rhianna, Justin Timberlake, etc. However, my favorite song I've gotten her into is "Rich Girl" by Hall and Oates. She can't get enough of it. I've also introduced the family to YouTube and their favorite video so far is the Korean baby singing "Hey Jude". My host mom walks around the house singing it all the time. I've also introduced them to a bunch of games like UNO, Egyptian Rat Screw and Rummikube.

Here are some pictures from my Chuseok weekend:

PREPARING THE CHUSEOK MEAL

FOLK VILLAGE

TRADITIONAL KOREAN MUSIC PERFORMANCE

MUN SHIK, WON SHIK, YOUNG GYEONG, AND TAMMY

LITTLE GIRLS WEARING THEIR HANBOKS

WON SHIK, ME, MUN SHIK

OFFERINGS FOR THE ANCESTORS

TAMMY, ME, YOUNG GYEONG IN OUR HANBOKS

SUWON CASTLE

my classroom

2009-09-29T02:58:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of my English classroom, as well as the English play room upstairs. I have yet to see anyone actually use the play room, which consists of different shops and things. I was told by my two English teachers friends who visited me that my classrooms are really nice compared to the ones at their schools.

2009-09-25T06:21:00.000-07:00

I just came home from a really nice night out with my friend Kelly. I did some shopping on my own downtown, which is always interesting. The stores here are different from home in that most of them are very small, don't have dressing rooms, and only have like 2 or 3 of each item. Luckily for me, I'm the size of most Koreans so pretty much everything here is just my size. While doing my shopping I came upon two really funny Konglish things, one being a girls clothing store called "Pooing" and the other being a handbag that had in big bold letters "MINUTEMEN. MEATPUPPETS. DESCENDENTS. ANGST." on it. I was so tempted to buy it just for the sheer ridiculousness of it, but I decided against it. After shopping, Kelly and I had some McDonalds for dinner and then went to a coffee shop downtown called The New Yorker. It has the best chai tea I've ever tasted (and those of you who know me know that's all I ever order at coffee shops) and American style magazines, so I was in heaven. It was great just to have a laid back night and talk to one of my girl friends. I think we're going to make it a regular thing.

Not much else new here. I was sick all week, so teaching kind of sucked. I'm feeling better today though and I'm going to join an awesome gym my friend found that is literally less than a block from my apartment. You miss a lot of cool stores and things here if you don't look up when you're walking around, because often times there are things on the second and third floors of buildings. It's a weird thing to get used to, always looking up when you're walking around the streets.

If you're interested, here's a Korean song I'm currently obsessed with. It's a rapper by the name of Outsider and I think I heard he's one of the fastest rappers in the world. Wait for the middle of the song...it's insane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rk8d3yV4Sw

life is beautiful

2009-09-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

"Are you kidding me? Is this really my life?"
That's a question I've been asking myself a lot lately, and especially this past weekend. This weekend I went to visit Seth in Busan, which is the second largest city in South Korea. Seth said that the name, Busan, comes from the Korean words for "port" and "mountain" (san), and that describes the city perfectly. It's a port city with beautiful beaches that are surrounded by mountains (like all of Korea is). Seth and I stayed at a hotel on Haeundae Beach, one of the most popular beaches in Korea I believe. Before coming to Korea, Seth worked at a job where he racked up a ton of hotel points, so we were able to stay at this place for free. And since he is a platinum member of the hotel chain, we also got upgraded to a state room that was absolutely gorgeous (the room would normally cost around $500+). We had an breathtaking view of the beach, and it had a living room and a bedroom and a Western-style bathroom. Saturday, after our free continental breakfast, we spent the whole afternoon on the beach, including having a tuna kimbap (my favorite) picnic. Unfortunately we both ended up getting really sunburned. Saturday night we went to the hotel dining room for a free happy hour of wine and other drinks (thank you platinum membership). Afterward, we went to Gwangalli beach, another famous beach in Busan. Gwangalli is famous partially for the bridge that was recently built there. At night the bridge is lit up which is very beautiful. Gwangalli actually reminded me a lot of being in Sydney. While walking along the beach we came across some sort of singing performance or competition going on. It was pretty entertaining, but the best part was the group of (probably drunk) Korean moms who were singing and dancing in a large group on the beach. It was unusual to see the women let loose like that...pretty hilarious.
Anyway, the weekend was really relaxing and a great break from daily life in Korea. I had a lot of time to think about things and life in general. My experience so far here has been pretty surreal. I'm amazed at how well things have gone for me, and I feel truly lucky for what I've been given. Coming here was the best decision I have ever made for myself. I find myself stopping often and just taking everything in, and thinking to myself that despite all of the awkward moments and weird things I've experienced, I would not want to be anywhere else in the world. I think I am going to learn a lot about myself this year (I already feel like I've learned a lot) and I know it is going to make me more grateful and appreciate the smaller things in life. I already have felt that change (i.e. being really excited to use an actual Western-style shower) and I can only imagine that feeling is going to grow over the next 9 months.
Sidenote: I've officially been at homestay for over one month now. Only about 9 more to go!

Our ballin' hotel room

some more of the hotel room(s)

hotel room view by night...

...and by day.

Haeundae beach

Very sunburned at this point...

Please do not wash your feet in the bathroom sink.

In front of the bridge at Gwangalli beach

Ajima dance party

Mmmm...yummy

I love this picture.

View from the bus on the ride back to Cheongju

2009-09-15T05:40:00.001-07:00

This blog topic was inspired by a conversation I had with my host sister this evening. She asked me if students get hit in American schools and I told her no. I then asked her if she ever got hit in school. I had been warned that corporal punishment was pretty prevalent in schools, but I have yet to see any in my elementary school. My host sister told me that yes, she had been hit a number of times, and also endured some other forms of corporal punishment like wall sits and holding your hands up in the air for long periods of time. She said she not only experienced it at school but also from her tutors (one of whom is a man) and her mother when she was younger. This made me very sad. I have been able to reconcile most of the other cultural differences so far, but corporal punishment is something I can not agree with and honestly can't wrap my head around. Some of my other ETA friends have said that they have witnessed corporal punishment techniques in their schools already, but fortunately I have not. I'm not sure how I would handle it if I did. Luckily, my co-teachers already said they don't do that in their classrooms. I did a little research online about corporal punishment in Korea and most articles said that the majority of schools in the country use it. I even found a recent article about a high school boy who committed suicide after receiving harsh corporal punishment, and another about a student who killed a former teacher over a grudge he held about the punishment he had received. Check out this page of the Korea Times for more info:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/search/gsearch_result.asp?cx=000419429707569707003%3A8uxvb9suvga&cof=FORID%3A10&q=corporal+punishment#918

In other news, I started my after school teachers class today. I have about 20 English teachers from around the city as my students. I am co-teaching with a Korean American guy who is only a few years older than me. Hes very friendly and did the Peace Corps for the past two years so I can tell we'll get along well. He invited me to join him on Thursday nights at a English conversation group he attends. He and a bunch of college students and young professionals meet and have discussions in English, and then go out for drinks afterwards. I'm really excited about going and hopefully making some Korean friends. A bonus is that I'll probably learn a little Korean as well. I also started teaching my advanced classes today. I only have about 8-10 students in each of those classes which is awesome. Today my students created their own robots and wrote a paragraph describing them. My regular classes are going really well this week too. I'm playing some fun games and the students are really getting into them. My co-teachers said they are impressed.

I've started taking Hanji classes with my host mother on Mondays. Hanji is a traditional Korean paper art form. Hanji is similar to paper mache, but also involves using a razor to cut out intricate designs to be placed on whatever it is that you're making. The last two classes I spent working on a small tray/dish thing, and this week I am starting to work on a framed Hanji picture. It's relaxing and the other women there are really nice. I think they enjoy practicing their English on me. I've also started riding my family's bike for 1-2 hours everyday down by the river near my house. It's the perfect way to get some alone time and just take a mental health break from everything else that is going on here.

Here are pictures of the Hanji tray I made. I use paste to glue two layers of black Hanji paper onto the tray. Next, I cut out the flower design by hand using a razor. Then I used bleach to make the paper turn brown and antique-y looking.

Rated R family outing

2009-09-13T04:04:00.001-07:00

I went hiking again today, except this time I went with my host mom, sis, 2 girl cousins, 1 boy cousin (who has Downs Syndrome and is incredibly sweet...he keeps trying to talk to me, but unfortunately I don't understand anything he is saying), 2 aunts, and my insane grandmother. That's right...grandma went hiking with us. The hike was pretty difficult and pretty steep, but luckily the mountain wasn't that high. My extended host family is really entertaining to be around. My one aunt doesn't speak any English but instead repeats everything I say and then immediately starts laughing. The older of my cousins is incredibly smart and her English is really advanced so I spent most of my time talking to her. She asked for my email so I can only imagine what shes going to be emailing me about. However, no one compares to my host grandmother. Like I said, she is insane. She has the biggest and most infectious smile and is always yelling or laughing about something. The first ridiculous thing she did today was fart like 20 times, very loudly, throughout our hike. Instead of apologizing, she would just start cracking up. Then she chugged a beer during our hike. The funniest thing she did came when we stopped at a park on our way home. First of all, the park was pretty ridiculous in and of itself. I've told you before about the wooden totems of faces they have everywhere in Korea. Well this particular park not only had totems of faces, but also of giant penises. I'm assuming its some sort of fertility park because my mom said many women go there, and I don't think its to stare at the wooden penises. Anyway, when we saw our first phalic totem, my crazy grandmother ran up to it, started stroking it, and yelling "Namja!" (man) in Korean and laughing hysterically. I almost died. Not exactly the family outing I would have imagined.
Also, host mom says we are going back to the penis park at some point for a picnic. Can't wait.
Here are some pics from the afternoon.

Host family from let to right: cousin, sister, grandma, cousin, aunt, cousin, aunt, mom

One of these is not like the other

Host relatives at the top of the mountain

Beautiful view from the top

Host grandma stroking the totem. Dear Lord.

Giant penis totem

cultural ruminations

2009-09-12T07:24:00.000-07:00

K-Pop:
Korean pop music is the current obsession of children and teenagers throughout South Korea. Mention any of the big singers or big groups and you will instantly make a number of girls (and boys) start screaming. (Side note: mentioning one of these groups in class is a sure fire way to get your students to love you) Korean pop music, or K-pop can be best compared to the 90's pop music craze that swept through American schools. Think: NSYNC, Britney, Backstreet Boys, etc. However, K-pop is 100x's more cutesy and the groups can reach up to like 20 members. Plus, all of the members look the same, so how these kids can tell them apart is beyond me. Some of the popular bands are Big Bang, 2NE1, 2PM, Girls Generation, WonderGirls, etc. I'll give these groups credit...as cheesy as they can be, the songs are ridiculously catchy. Check out some of my favorites below...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MgAxMO1KD0&feature=fvst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxY6GcBgbeQ (this is one is completely racist but sooo catchy)

Couples T-Shirts:
Another (lame) trend in Korea is the infamous "couples t-shirts". Couples t-shirts are pretty self explanatory...they are seen when couples purchase the same exact t-shirts and wear them at the same time, while walking hand in hand. Some of the shirts are designed so that together they make one design. I guess its supposed to be cute but all I can think of is how that poor guy was coaxed into wearing that ridiculous matching outfit. No American guy I know would be caught dead wearing a couples t-shirt. Here are some examples I stole offline...

I've actually seen this one on people since I've been here.

"Weh-guk-ee":
"Weh-guk-ee" is the Korean term for foreigner. I find it funny that people call me "foreigner" way more often than they call me American. Its like your either Korean, or not Korean. I have little children scream "weh-guk-ee" at me at least 3 or 4 times a day. It usually occurs when I'm walking around town, but I've had a few experiences at school where kids poke their head into my classroom and say in surprised Korean, "Wuah! Weh-guk-ee!" (Wow! Foreigner!). Its actually kind of cute, and I love surprising them by letting them know I actually understand what they are saying.

Swine Flu:
Swine flu is a huuuuuge deal in this country. Don't even try joking about it, because everyone here takes it very seriously. I'm really surprised I haven't been quarantined yet since people are very wary of foreigners because they might carry H1N1. This past week one of my fifth grade students was diagnosed with swine flu, and the next day about 50% of the students came to school wearing masks. I also have to get my temperature checked every day when I come into school. A number of other ETAs had their school start dates postponed because of the flu. My school's upcoming picnic was canceled as well. I've tried explaining to a number of people that swine flu isn't as dangerous as people think it is because more people die from the regular flu each year, but all I get in return was a bunch of blank stares. I've been tempted every time I've been in an elevator with a bunch of Koreans to start coughing and sneezing and see how they react.

High School Students:
Korean high school students are studying machines. Korean students spend more time studying and going to class than you could ever imagine in order to improve their chances of getting into a good college. Most high school students go to school around 7 or 8 o'clock and don't come home until anywhere from 10pm-1am. My host mom has h.s. students that she tutors come to our apartment at 10:30, who are only just getting out of school. It is absolutely ridiculous. The reason for this is because there are only a few top colleges in the country, and millions of students vying for the same positions. Unlike in America, there are only 3 main top colleges known as SKY (Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University). During their senior year of high school, Korean high school students take a one-time-only entrance exam that quite possibly determines the rest of their future. The incredible weight this test has on their lives pushes students to make their lives revolve around studying and school work. I could go on and on about this topic, and maybe I will in a later post, but if you're interested check out this link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Korea . You can also check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/world/asia/27seoul.htm?_r=1 . In my teachers class this past week, I had my teachers read and discuss this article and they all said that it perfectly describes their experiences as high school students, particularly the last part that says “This school is a paradise for those who want to study and a hell for those who do not."

sang dang san seong

2009-09-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I went hiking with my Cheongju friends Kelly, Kate and Cornelius at the mountain my host family took me to last weekend. This time I was able to bring a camera, and fortunately the weather was absolutely perfect. It felt like fall for the first time and it was beautiful and clear out. The fortress we hiked around is called Sang Dang San Seong and it was built to protect Cheongju from invaders in the last dynasty. All along the fortress are guard towers that are as beautiful as the scenery around the fortress. It was a pretty amazing afternoon.

2009-09-07T03:52:00.000-07:00

I finally had a chance to read through my 5th graders responses to the All About Me worksheet I had them fill out during the first class. Here are some of my favorite responses:

My favorite animal is...
"...hen."
"...person."
"...dinosaurs."

My favorite food is...
"...break."
"...the ribs."

On weekends, I like to...
"..family is a picnic."

I also like to...
"...calendar."
"...make a cook."
"...airplane."
"...TV came and deer insect." (<-- my favorite)
"...play the girl friend."

I like English because...
"...word."
"...so funny."
"...one grade becom study English."
"...no! no! no! no! no! no!"
"...no I don't like English."
"...English are funny."
"...math and art."
"...English is beautiful."
"...my Mom says learn the English."

Looks like I have my work cut out for me.

birthday weekend

2009-09-06T03:08:00.001-07:00

This weekend was by far my favorite weekend I've spent here in Korea. Friday was my birthday and it was surprisingly great given the fact that I saw none of my friends or real family. For breakfast my host mother made me toast with jelly, cereal, eggs and fruit which was indescribably awesome. Korean breakfast just does not do it for me, so I was really excited. At school, two of my co-teachers gave me gifts. The one gave me cosmetics, and the other a bracelet and hair pin (both of which are a little gaudy, but I'll end up wearing anyway just to make them feel good). They also brought me in a cake and sang me happy birthday at the end of the day. For dinner, my host mom and sis took me to a pizza & spaghetti buffet. The buffet was pretty horrible, but the spaghetti might have been the best spaghetti I've ever had. They baked it in the oven covered with cheese like you would ziti...so good! The restaurant itself was entertaining solely because of its music selection. I love the random and inappropriate American music that Korean stores and restaurants play. For example, while eating at the buffet I heard Britney Spears' "Circus", FloRida's "Get Low", and Michael Jacksons "Will You Be There". The other day while walking around downtown I heard the Ying Yang Twin's "Whisper Song" blasting from a store...totally inappropriate, but no one knows because they don't understand the English.
Saturday I went to Daejeon to meet up with all of my close ETA friends. There ended up being a group of 18 of us by the time dinner rolled around. A smaller group of us met up for lunch at TGIFridays. It was the most I spent on a meal since I've been in Korea, but it was totally worth it. After lunch we randomly chose to go to a zoo/amusement park known as O-World or Zooland. Not sure why it has two names. O-World was a weird combination of a kind of crappy zoo and a kind of crappy amusement park. If I went to a place like this in the states I would be disappointed. However, even the most mundane things in Korea are somehow exciting so we ended up having a good time. It only cost 8,000 won to get into the park, so it was worth it. After O-World we went in search of a motel to freshen up in and to drop off our belongings at. We ended up at a motel near one of the universities in Daejeon. After cleaning ourselves up, all 18 of us went out for dakgalbi for dinner, and to two different bars. Dinner was awesome, and the first bar was a lot of fun. The locals who were there all seemed to be celebrating different things (birthdays, bachelor parties, etc) so the atmosphere was great. We ended up sitting at a big table next to a group of Korean guys who were celebrating their friends birthday who is a year older than me. When they found out that it was my birthday too, they gave me a piece of their cake. We ended up hanging out and playing games with the Korean guys for the rest of the time at that bar. I really enjoy how easy it is to meet people here since everyone is extremely friendly and kind and are usually really excited to see Americans. I ended up going home to sleep after the 2nd bar, but some of my friends went for round 3 at noraebang.
I got back to my apartment around 2 oclock this afternoon, expecting to sleep the rest of the day away since I got hardly any last night. But in typical Korean fashion, my host parents informed me that in one hour, we were going to go hike a mountain. I was feeling under the weather from the previous evening's festivities, so I almost cried when they told me this. Hiking in 90 degree heat was literally the last thing I wanted to do at the moment. My parents took me to a mountain called Sang Dang San Seong, where they go hiking every Sunday. I ended up having an awesome time, and I think the hike was one of my favorite things I've done in Korea so far. The mountain is only about a 10-15 minute drive from my apartment. The trail that we hiked on follows a wall built in the last dynasty to protect Cheongju from Japanese invasion. Its like a much much smaller version of part of the great wall (thats the best way I can describe it). It was absolutely beautiful, and the views from the wall were stunning. Unfortunately, I had left my camera at home so I wasn't able to take pictures, but I will be sure to bring it next weekend when I go back. I can't believe something so beautiful is so close to my apartment and that I get to go there every weekend. It may become my favorite place in Korea...or at least in Cheongju. In typical fashion, about halfway through our hike my host parents took a break to crack open the can of beer they had brought with them, and to eat hard boiled eggs. Interesting. Anyway, when (not if) any of you come to visit me, I will be taking you there as part of my tour.

3 of the 4 other English teachers and I celebrating my bday.

Cornelius, Meghan and Dave at TGIFridays

friends at Fridays

"An if you look to your left, you will see Americans in their natural environment, eating hamburgers and drinking MGD."
An example of the celebrity treatment we get here in Korea. While enjoying our meal, these little kids came to the window and just stared and waved at us. We felt like an exhibit at the zoo. I think we should start charging.

Me in front of O-World

The tunnel by the seal tank was not meant for tall people.

We were unable to find the Handicapped and old and FEEDLE person exhibit, although I'm sure it would have been very interesting.

Josh and I getting ready to ride the free fall ride.

It was a lot higher than it looks!

Enjoying some dakgalbi.

The other birthday boy.

Our new, cute, Korean friends.

Josh, Kelly and I

2009-09-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

My apartment building (which looks exactly like every other apartment building in the entire country). I live on the 7th floor.

My elementary school

2009-09-03T03:35:00.000-07:00

Things are still going well at school. By the time 4pm rolls around, I'm ready to pass out. I've been coming home and sleeping for an hour or two everyday after school. Yesterday I played volleyball with the other teachers...and by "played volleyball" I mean me and the male teachers played while the women teachers, still in their teachers clothes and some still in their dress shoes, ducked and ran away from the ball. I was on the vice principals team which was a little intimidating at first, but I got a couple of high fives throughout the game so I'm hoping he may like me a little now. The gym teacher on the other team, who is the only younger guy at my school, was super impressed and told me today that he wants me to be on his team from now. I'm not even any good at volleyball, I just think they were impressed that I didn't run screaming from the ball or duck when they spiked it on me (which they did a number of times...no mercy). The volleyball game is going to be a weekly occurrence this year. Yesterday I was also volunteered/coaxed into teaching two two-hour teacher classes each week, on top of the load of classes I already have. I think this program is run by the city and held at my school, so I will be getting paid extra for these four hours a week. I'll be making the equivalent of about $50 an hour...pretty awesome.

Here are some more of my favorite English names from my classes this week, most of which the students came up with themselves: Cash, Jennilaurens, George Michael, Jeff Goldblum, Blade, Bling, Homework, Fighter, Jeraple, Jeff Hardy, Fire-bad, and Money.

Here are two other random things I meant to tell you about my homestay (inspired by a friends recent update):
#1- There is no drinkable tap water in my house...or in all of Korea I believe. Instead, my family keeps big bottles of water that they run through a Brita filter in the fridge. I think my family usually only drinks about half of one of these relatively small bottles a day. I drink about 2 or 3 all by myself. I get made fun of everyday for this. Also, Koreans barely drink anything during meals (unless its alcohol), while I am getting up at least 3 or 4 times to refill my tiny shot glass of water.

#2- Our entire bathroom is the shower. My family is lucky enough to have an actual tub in our bathroom (some do not) but we have no shower curtain. In fact, the only place I have seen a shower curtain was at the Best Western and in the dorms. Instead, the entire bathroom is tiled and there is a drain in the middle of the floor. When you shower, the whole bathroom gets soaked. This problem would be easily solved with a simple shower curtain. For the life of me, I still can't figure out why Koreans have the bathroom set up this way. The freaking floor stays wet throughout the entire day, so you have to wear "bathroom slippers" in the bathroom. This only helps about half the time, because the other half of the time the bathroom slippers are also wet.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and while I would normally be sad to be away from all of my family and friends, I think tomorrow will be a really good day. My host mom is making me eggs and toast and cereal for breakfast (oh the little things in life...) and the family is taking me out to dinner. On Saturday I am going to Daejeon (the large city that is only a 40 min bus ride from where I live) to meet up with 10-15 other ETA's to celebrate my b-day. We're going to do some sightseeing during the day, and go out for drinks and dancing at night. It will be the first time we see each other since we left orientation, so I'm sure I'll be returning with a ton of hilarious homestay and teaching stories to share with you all.

That's about all for now. Miss you all!

chicken ass

2009-09-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day of teaching actual English classes. By 4pm I thought I was going to fall asleep standing up. My schedule is as follows...I don't have any classes until 10:50, but I am pretty much teaching nonstop classes from 10:50-3:50. I am teaching all of the 4th and 5th grade students, so I have 15 of those classes a week. I am also teaching a 5th grade, 6th grade and 3/4th grade advanced English classes, as well as a teacher class once a week. I only see each class once a week, so that makes getting to know my students kind of difficult. I have about 33 students in each class, so that totals over 400 students that I will see each week. In terms of lesson planning, it is nice because I only have to do about 5 different lessons a week for all of the classes. However, I think it will be kind of boring teaching the same lesson 8-15 different times each week.
Classes went pretty well. Korean classes are 100 times crazier than American ones. No raising of the hands...students just call out. I had the students pick English names today. I gave them a list of normal and funny ones to choose from if they wanted. Here are my favorites so far: Obama, Clinton, Indian Jones, Bin, Homer, Simpson (these 2 boys sat next to each other), Pancake, Homework, Evita and Maple. It was only day 1, so I'll be sure to add any other awesome English names I encounter. Another strange and kind of awesome thing about teaching here is having all of my students bow to me. I'm thinking about trying this out on my American students when I come home, but I'm not sure that it will go over too well. I also enjoy that every single student I pass yells "hi!" to me in English. I'm a mini celebrity right now, although I think that will probably wear off after a while.

Tonight I had my first faculty dinner. The highlight of my dinner (if you could call it a highlight) was when I asked my co-teacher what one of the appetizer dishes was that I was eating. Her response: "Chicken ass". I immediately burst out laughing because that was not the answer I was expecting...plus hearing this cute little Korean woman say "ass" was pretty funny. I figured there had to be some sort of miscommunication, so I made her use her cell phone dictionary to see what the correct translation was. She looked up the Korean word and guess what it said....ass. I ate chicken ass for dinner. The worst part is that I don't think it was actually ass, since chicken's don't really have asses. I'm pretty sure they meant anus. Mmmmm....delicious.

What is your blood type?

2009-08-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

One of the weirder things I've experienced in Korea so far has been the "What is your blood type?" conversation. To Koreans, asking someone their blood type is like asking what your sign is, or when your birthday is. It's completely normal and not at all creepy like it would be if someone you just met asked you in the US. I myself have been asked this at least 10 times already by people I just met (including my co-teacher's husband on the car ride to my homestay). Koreans believe that they can tell your personality based on your blood type, and I think they take it kind of seriously. Here is an explanation of the different blood type personalities I found online. I'm type B, which I actually think suits me almost to a T.

KOREAN BLOOD TYPE PERSONALITIES:
Blood Type A:
Positive Traits: Conservative, introverted, reserved, patient, punctual and inclined to be perfectionists.
Worst Traits: Obsessive, stubborn, self conscious and uptight.
Referred as ‘farmers’ in some descriptions, Type A’s are said to be considerate of others and loyal to a fault. Although they apparently don’t find it easy to like, they can also be secretive and reluctant to share their feelings. Apparently they don’t hold their liquor well, either.

Blood Type B:
Best Traits: Animal-loving, creative, flexible, individualistic, optimistic and passionate.
Worst Traits: Forgetful, irresponsible and self-centered.
Referred to as ‘hunters’, Type B’s have very independent natures and tend not to be concerned about what other people think of them. Although often described as shallow and lazy, they can be quite passionate about the things they hold dear. Patience is not their strong suit either.
Type B men have acquired a very negative reputation in Korea and are not considered by many to be good husband material. Often described as ‘players’, they are perceived as being selfish and mercurial, quick to anger and not terribly reliable. That said, their bad boy image makes them very attractive to women, but not for the long term. (Type B women do not share in this bad rep, for some unexplained reason).

Blood Type AB:
Best Traits: Cool, controlled, empathic, introverted and rational.
Worst Traits: Aloof, critical, indecisive and unforgiving.
Referred to as ‘humanists’, Type AB’s are said to be controlled more by their heads, than by their hearts. They are rational, good with money, but unpredictable. Although inclined to be distant, they prefer harmony and as such, work well with mediators. Some consider them two-faced, and therefore untrustworthy.

Blood Type O:
Best Traits: Ambitious, athletic, robust and self-confident.
Worst Traits: Arrogant, insensitive, ruthless and vain.
Referred to as ‘warriors’, Type O’s are viewed as natural leaders and are often, also, natural athletes. They tend to be outgoing, expressive and passionate, but can also bore others to death with their obsessive drive for success coupled with their absolute convictions that they are winners. This certainty that they will always win explains why they aren’t afraid to take risks or gamble. They have a strong physical presence and are unlikely to ever be overlooked.

In typical Korean Konglish style, as a reward for completing English camp, my students were given small notepads by my co-teacher with the phrase "What is your blood type?" written in big letters on the front. Only in Korea...

2009-08-25T03:03:00.000-07:00

Random anecdotes from the past few days:

*I had my first experience with a Korean medical clinic on Monday. I woke up in the middle of the night with some sort of stomach virus and pretty much hugged the toilet until my host mom woke and decided I needed to go to the clinic. I'm pretty sure I have not been that sick for many years...not fun. The clinic was an experience in itself. No one spoke a word of English the entire time, so I'm not really sure what was going on. All I know was that I was led to a table to lay down on, had an IV inserted in me, and then 2 other syringes filled with god only knows what injected into me. I was made to lay with the IV in my arm for over two hours. Luckily, I was somehow able to fall asleep on the table for most of the two hours. Maybe one of the syringes had anesthesia...who knows. It was the first time since I'd arrived in Korea that I found myself thinking, "What the f*** am I doing in this country?" I've since gotten over that, but I'm hoping that I don't get sick like that again for the rest of the year (fingers crossed).

*Yesterday at lunch my host mom said to me "Cassidy, after lunch maybe I teach you how to quilt." I said "Okay host mom", since I had nothing else planned for the rest of the day. So after lunch I am lounging on the couch, still in my PJs and glasses waiting for my host mom, when she comes out of her room with her purse and bag and says to me, "Okay! Let's go!". Welcome to the world of Korea, where what you think is going to happen usually is not what is going to happen at all. Apparently by "teach you how to quilt" my mom meant "bring you to my quilting class in some random woman's apartment with me". She gave me just enough time to throw on some normal clothes before whisking me off to some other Korean mom's apartment where I was taught how to quilt a change purse. It ended up being really fun (since I already really enjoy sewing) and I think it may become a weekly thing. I'm pretty excited about it. We will see though. I have heard about 20 different things my host mom and I are going to be doing together and most of them have not materialized yet.

*Today while walking home from downtown, I had a random woman on the sidewalk come up to me and introduce herself as "Esther". For five minutes she then begged me to teach her English in my free time and kept asking me where I lived. Super awkward. I just kept telling her "maybe" and that I was very busy. I was a little worried she was going to follow me home.

*Tomorrow is the first day of the three day English camp I am going to be teaching at at Namsung Elementary School. I met with one of the other English teachers for a short while yesterday and again today, and I still have no clue what is going on. I know that we are doing self introductions, body parts, feelings, and how to make a BLT sandwich (RANDOM!) but I was never told what I am actually teaching or what I need to know to explain. Guess I will have to wing it! I was also told to make a 5 question quiz on...anything. That's exactly what my teacher told me. Hmmm... should be an interesting three days.

Funny friend story of the day:
"We've had the homestay stories- now that we're all teaching, we should branch out into those hilarious school moments we've surely all been having. I'll begin. Today I told my students to write about themselves. Here are a few responses.

Student 1
My favorite sports is baseball. I love myself. thanks.

Student 2
English class is very boring. I think Ben teacher is very look like
obama.

Student 3
English class is like penis/ Not Fun

and my favorite, Student 4
I can play the violin. I learn 6 years. I want to play the piano. I am
Christ.

That's right, folks. The second coming is upon us, and I'm his
teacher. Talk about being at the right place at the right time."

Saturday Excursion

2009-08-22T02:35:00.001-07:00

This afternoon my host parents took me on an outing to see a lake and damn outside of Cheongju, as well as a traditional Korean folk village. It was a nice chance to spend some time with them. I also learned a whole lot about what life was like when they were growing up.

Host parents at the lake

In the mountains over to the left is the Korean version of Camp David. My host mom says she will take me there someday soon.

Statues of Korean patriots inside the folk village

Random art museum in the folk village...really liked these paintings though

Example of a commoner's house

My host mom told me that when she was little she had a "small chicken" that looked just like this (meaning small kitchen).

Buildings used to sell grains, dried fruits, etc.

A "Yeomak"...a hut built for the sole purpose of mourning. Some Koreans would mourn the loss of their parents for years at a time.

Inside the Yeomak

I thought it was really funny that inside the traditional Yeomak someone thought it was appropriate to include a modern Soju bottle.

Host dad and I

The village's guest house...I wouldn't mind staying here

These rock piles are all over the place in Korea. My host mom told me that people put rocks on top of the pile when they want to make a wish...I assume it's like the Korean version of throwing pennies in fountains.

We are going to come back and have a picnic here in the fall!

Also, here is your daily dose of funny homestay stories...

"Ok so last night I'm watching baseball with my homestay brother. He's about 15 and were both kind of tired. Gwangju is losing again so whatever. My host dad finally gets home acting completely smashed. He stripes down to his boxers (not unusual). Next he insists that my host brother and I also strip down to our boxers. We're like, this is weird but ok. I never know whats going on anyways. Now he indicates that we are to do pushups while he counts [o-ship, no less]. We start to do pushups and I'm cracking up laughing but host pops (an intimidating guy) indicates this is some serious shit. Whatever, we do our pushups. No he indicates that we are to lay on the floor. I'm sweating rather profusely by this time, and guess we are going to do situps. Not so. Instead he has me and my host brother arm wrestle. This is awkward and I try to keep it even but hes a young kid and eventually I win. In reward I get to / have to arm wrestle my host farther. So we're laying on our stomachs, only wearing boxers, arm wrestling. He makes a big deal of stretching / making strange noises. I let him win. In reward I am presented with bread and beer, and feel great. He asks me if I want to meet his parents in the country tomorrow. I say sure. He says it will be strenuous work harvesting all day in the fields, but because he knows I am strong, I will be able to "sweat a lot." Great."

"Today I went to the beach and got so sunburned that I look like an X-Man whose superpower is to look like a weirdo. I told my host mother that it really isn't a big deal, but after dinner she had me lie on the floor in the living room while she applied fresh-cut cucumber slices to my face. After she applied and removed two layers she declared that we needed a "massage upgrade" and she covered my face with some kind of pasty, gloopy cucumber mud mask and I continued to lie on the floor of the living room, unable to see, listening to some Korean drama on the television, hoping to God that my host father didn't walk in while I was in such a ridiculous position. Luckily the spa-treatment finished before pops got home."

address

2009-08-21T16:34:00.001-07:00

If any at point you would like to send me a letter or a package, here is my address at my homestay:

ATTN: Cassidy Walko
Chungcheongbuk-do Cheongju City
Hungdeok-gu Bunpyeong-dong
Jugong Apt. 701 Dong 703 Ho
361-772
South Korea

2009-08-20T04:11:00.000-07:00

Lessons I have learned so far in my homestay (most of which I had been warned about previously):

1. Saying "maybe" after everything you say or request goes a very long way. Koreans bust out the "maybes" like it is their job. For example, "Maybe later I will go and meet my ETA friend for Dunkin Donuts". This is usually a good way to test the waters when you are unsure if something is okay or not.

2. Just because someone tells you what you are going to be doing that day, does not mean that it will actually happen. In fact, it may be very far from what actually happens. Two examples: 1) This morning I told my mother that "Maybe I will go take a rest after breakfast (translation: Why am I up so freakin early when I have absolutely nothing to do today). My mom's response, "Maybe we can walk to the river so that next time you want to go on a walk you can go alone." Okay, I can put of my nap for a 10 minute walk to the river. I throw on some jeans (because all of my shorts are in the laundry) and flip flops and grab my big purse, ready for my casual stroll to the river. I later find out that in fact we are going on a 4 mile walk to and up and down the river in like 95% humidity. And of course I had to act like I was having fun the whole time. 2) My friend Kate told me a story today about how the other day she thought she was going with her co-teacher to get her cell phone and set up her bank out. Someone called the house for her to come down and meet them. She went downstairs only to find her Vice Principal and his daughter who then proceeded to take her on an hour car ride to see a temple, and then out for food. I'm pretty sure we would call that kidnapping in the US.

3. The Korean words for "very delicious", "thank you", and "it's okay" can pretty much get you through most awkward, language-barrier situations.

Also, here are some more funny anecdotes from my fellow ETA's.

"Anyway, here is a little tale from the first night of the great ETA diaspora. after eating at a western (read "western") restaurant with my vp, co-teach, head teach, hs mom and bro, and a whole host of unidentifiable others, my hs mom drove me home in her orange kia morning, and i attempted to make conversation. of course, by attempted i mean failed, and by conversation i mean hand gestures. so as i was trying to feel out her english ability, i started off with real simple statements like, "i like your car." this seemed to go over well, so the rest of the time in the car was spent talking about the car. i told her that i drive i rearry small car at home too, and that i love to drive rearry small cars. my hs mom just nodded the whole way and finally, as we pulled up to the apt complex, slammed on the brakes, turned to me, and said "small cars are good for fucking." me: wide-eyed. her (as if i didnt speak her language or something): "small cars very very good for fucking." needless to say i just nodded and left it at that. (i mean, to each his own.) but later that night, as i was asking my younger bro to spell out his name for me, he dictated it as he wrote "park sang-moon." fact: in korea, fucking is parking. (let this be a lesson to you all, especially you ___, and your saucy ideas for your unsuspecting students."

"So this morning before I went to school, my host mom decided to use Google translator to communicate with me (since no one in the family can really speak English).
She was trying to say something like, "After school, come home and eat bread and relax." Google translator said, "Come home to eat and fuck.""

사랑해요 <3

2009-08-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

I am in love with Cheongju and my host family. I really couldn't have asked for a better situation. Today was a very exciting day. I started out by meeting my principal for the first time, which was very nerve wracking. He seems like a very kind man, but he is definitely very powerful within the school. My co-teacher, host mother and I went to meet him and had tea with him for about 30 minutes. He doesn't speak any English so he mostly spoke to my host mother. The only words I could understand from their conversation were "Cassidy", "teacher", "Korean food", and "friend". I'm pretty sure they talked about me for the entire half hour, but I'm still not sure because no one bothered to translate for me. At the end of the meeting I gave the principal two gifts (a tie I bought in Korea and a bag I brought from home with Philadelphia on it) and he was really embarrassed and humbled by it...super cute. After that they took me to set up my bank account and to get a cell phone. My cell phone is by far cooler than any one I ever had in the states. It has a Korean-English dictionary and a map of all of the major subway systems in Korea including a program where you can type in your location and destination and it tells you the best subway route to take. In the afternoon my mother was going to go fish shopping with her sister, aunt and mother so they all came over to the house. As soon as they walked in and saw me, they ran over happily shouting in Korean. Grandma was the most excited to see me and proceeded to touch every part of my body, including grabbing my butt. My mother told me she said I looked like Barbie. I really hope I get to see those people again haha. Since both of my parents were gone in the afternoon, so I took my little sister down the street to buy some ice cream. Then we played UNO for a while. For dinner I met my co-teacher and 2 other English teachers for some samgyeopsal. The other teachers are soooo sweet. They are in their twenties too and speak decent English. We had some really funny conversations and ended up going out for coffee after dinner. I had a lot of fun and really hope we can become good friends throughout the year. Hopefully they felt the same way about me. When I came home from dinner, Tammy was drawing in the living so I decided to join her. She told me she wanted me to draw a picture of a lotus flower she had so I started to draw it and she and her mother were (for some reason unbeknownst to me) completely infatuated with my drawing. They both sat and watched me finish the picture and every so often would say "Waah" (Korean version of "wow"). They ended up hanging my picture up on the wall. My sister drew this picture to put on my bedroom door:

After our art session my host mom, sister and I had some quality bonding time over tea. We talked about Korean holidays and traditions and spoke a little about Buddhism. I also gave my family their gifts which they were very excited about. My host dad came home late and I've never seen a man get so excited over a baseball hat. I'll be sure to get a picture of him the first time he wears it. Tomorrow my host mom is going to teach me how to make kimbop, and she is taking me out to Baskin Robbins after dinner. I am also apparently supposed to teach Tammy how to draw...not really sure how to do that but I will try. I am also trying to meet up with one of my best ETA friends for some coffee/tea after dinner.

Tammy wearing her traditional Hanbok dress (she wears this twice a year...once for the Korean version of Thanksgiving and again for New Years)

Mrs. Bang & Tammy

My close ETA friends and I have started a google group where we are going to share our stories and make plans to meet up and to travel together. The past few days we have been sharing our most awkward and funniest moments from our homestay so far, and I feel like some of them are worth sharing with you, anonymously of course. Please enjoy.

"Okay I'll start out the little group email with my best story so far. I've told a couple of you already but I think this may top any story we heard during Orientation. First night after having dinner with my host family, my principal, and the head of the English department at my high school we go back to my homestay. I get settled in then my host brothers and I go to my school to play basketball outside. When we come back my host mom just says "shower-ha-ku-ship-oy-yo?" to which I say yes to. I grab some clothes and go into the bathroom and as I go to put my clothes in the cabinet my two host brothers run in, completely naked, and turn on the water. Meanwhile, the door is open and my host mom is asking for the clothes I played basketball in to put in the laundry. I kind of look at her and she just tells me to give her my clothes. So I take off all my clothes except my boxers and give them to her...so much for not being shirtless around your homestay family. So then....I proceed to take a shower with my two host brothers. First homestay shower turns out to be a group shower. IETC has nothing on my homestay. Then tonight I ran errands with my host brothers and when we got back the same routine happened. my host mom insisted i shower-hey-yo "katchi" the bros"

"I knew I wouldn't learn any Korean this year when I walked into my homestay and said "안녕하세요" to my host brother. He responded, "What?"
Also, my host brother sleeps in his room all day long. Literally the only times I have seen him before our first 5 second introduction have been for meals. And I have yet to see him wearing pants.
This morning I came to visit my school for the first time. Some of you may have heard that it is on top of a mountain and my host father makes his ETAs hike up to school with him. This is all true. And it's no casual stroll. It is a forty minute trek on steep, muddy, rocky inclines through the forest. Think Apocalypse Now and you'll get a good idea. So after we arrive at school drenched in sweat (keep in mind today was the first day for me to meet my principle and vice principle) my host father leads us to a shower room. That's when we get naked and shower together."

"So no one in my family really speaks any English at all, which is good for me in the long run, since I'll be forced to learn a lot of Korean. But it has kind of cut down on the humor.
But just a second ago I asked my host brother if he had an English teacher last year. He shook his head and said, "Yes. She is dead."
I couldn't get any other details, so I'll assume she was gunned downed in the streets by roving gangs."

"So I had randomly met up with Derek yesterday and tonight my host mother invited him out to dinner with us. Me and him were sitting at a table together and at another table was my mom and a group of her friends. After a little while a Korean boy walks in, talks to the women, and sits down with me and Derek. I recognize him as Jang-mu, my host brother. I introduce him to Derek. The conversation went something like this:
"Derek, this is Jang-mu. Jang-mu, this is Derek. Jang-mu is my host brother. I have another brother named Jang-ho, but this is Jang-mu. Jang-mu and I are friends."
"Nice to meet you Jang-mu" says Derek.
A few minutes pass.
"Jang-mu, how was hagwon?" I ask.
He looks at me and says, "I am not Jang-mu."
"What?" I say.
"Jang-mu is my friend. I am Jong-somethingoranother."
Apparently he was the son of one of the ladies. And I can't tell any one of these mid-pubescent Korean lads apart."

Welcome to Cheongju!

2009-08-18T00:59:00.000-07:00

The past 5 days have been kind of a blur. I’m not even sure where to start. I guess I’ll begin by giving you a brief overview of my weekend in Seoul. We arrived in Seoul Friday afternoon and unpacked our things in our hotel rooms and were allowed to take some things from our other suitcase that has been in storage since we arrived in Korea (looking into my other suitcase was comparable to Christmas morning...I forgot I even owned some of the stuff in there). We then all met at the Fulbright Building for a talk by the only American and Korean trained doctor in Korea. He was very interesting to listen to. He had grown up in Korea with missionary parents, and studied medicine in the states. He then took the Korean bar exam (part of which is in Chinese) and now runs a medical center. He is pretty much our lifeline if we encounter any sort of health problems, from diarrhea (which he spent at least 20 minutes explaining) to major car crashes. After our talk we went to the US Ambassador’s house for a pool party. The highlight of the event was definitely the food: hamburgers, hotdogs, fresh fruit, tater tots, Mexican dip and tortilla chips, all different kinds of soda, chicken nuggets, s’mores, etc. I think I ate my weight in food only because I didn’t know when I was going to see all of that food again. I also had the chance to talk to some of the people who work at the US Embassy. One man in particular who is in charge of immigrant visas was very interesting. He is from Pennsylvania, attended Penn State and knows all about Millersville. He told us an interesting story from his tour in Mauritania where he was almost stoned to death by some rallying college students.

After the pool party, my friends and I walked to city hall because we had been told the Seoul Phil Harmonic Orchestra was giving a free performance in the park. It turned out to be really spectacular. I had one of those moments while we were all sitting watching the performance together in the open air surrounded by tall city buildings at night where I thought to myself, “Wow. I can not believe that I am actually here.” I’ve had a few of those moments so far. Another one of those was on my way to my homestay, but I’ll get to that later.

Outside of the Embassy.

delicious American food

ETAs with the Ambassador and Mike Honda from CA

The stage in the park in front of city hall

Friday was also Liberation Day in South Korea so they were handing out free flags at the concert. Seth and I showing our Korean pride.

After we saw some of the orchestra’s performance, we freshened up and went out to find the bar/club district in Seoul. It ended up being kind of a disaster and we wandered around the area for a good hour before we found the district and bar to sit and drink at. Our goal that night was to go dancing at a club, and we did end up finding one called “Sexy Bikini Party”. There were no sexy bikinis but it was the craziest night club I have been to yet. Just imagine lots of people crammed onto a dance floor with green lasers and strobe lights and fog machines. We all had a really great time.

My girlfriends and I dressed up for a night on the town.

Ho Bar 4...not to be confused with....

Luxury Ho Bar (or Ho Bar I, II, III, and so on)

Saturday I went shopping with Kate in the big shopping area called Myeong-Dung. There were so many people it was hard to get around anywhere. We somehow managed to buy a few things and then ran into one of our friends from KEY Club in Chuncheon who had come to Seoul to go out with us Saturday night. He shopped with us for a while and showed us a sweet ice cream place where you can get gigantic cones for around 80 cents.

giant ice cream cones!

The crowded streets of Myeong-Dung

Saturday night we went out again with about 20 other ETAs for two of our friends birthdays. We went to a bar and then to another night club where a lot of Westerners frequent. I also met two of Seth’s Korean friends he made while he was in Korea last time who were very nice (as apparently all Koreans are).

ETA's on the streets of Seoul

The bar had pitchers of beer with dry ice in them to keep the beer cold

Sunday we went shopping in an area called Insadong to see if we could find gifts for our host families and teachers and principals. It wasn’t a very successful trip, but it was a neat street to see...many street vendors selling somewhat-touristy Korean gifts.

Some random guy we saw on the street with these squirrel/chipmunk looking things all over him.

Some of the strange dried seafood they sell on the streets...because when I'm walking around in 90 degree heat, I always get a craving for a whole dried octopus.

Kate, me and Kelly at Insadong (wearing my new Korean-style hat)

Monday was D-Day a.k.a. the day we met our co-teachers and/or principals and were whisked off to our own separate corners of South Korea. I don’t think I have ever been so nervous in my entire life. I think that day may end up being one of the most memorable days of my life. Nothing super remarkable happened, but I have never done anything like going off to some city in a country I know very little about with people I only met a few hours before to go and live with people I know absolutely nothing about besides their ages and occupations. Very intense. Anyway, it turns out that only my co-teacher came to retrieve me along with her very funny husband. My co-teacher’s name is Min Hi Son and I’m pretty sure we’re going to be good friends by the end of the year. She is very cute and speaks very good English. Min Hi, her husband (who is also an English teacher) and I had some pretty funny conversations in the car...we talked about everything from how he things Obama is sexy to blood transfusions to my marital status.

sad to be leaving everyone :(

prom picture much?

some of my handsome friends

After a 3 hour car ride that began with the husband rear-ending the car parked in front of us, we finally arrived in Cheongju. From what I can tell, Cheongju is a very quiet small city. My host family lives in a cute apartment on the seventh floor of one of the many apartment buildings in the area. The name of the apartment complex means Happy Village. I am blessed to have my own room with a pretty comfy bed and desk and air conditioning. The apartment itself is nice and I learned that my host family loves pets...they have about 100 fish and 2 turtles named Mimi and Juju (I think). My host mom does not like TV so there is no TV in the house. Normally I would be a little upset by this but I can’t exactly understand Korean television shows so I don’t think I’m missing out on anything. My host mom gave me a quick tour of the area surrounding the apartment building and so far I know that my favorite kimbop chain, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Emart, and a number of American clothing stores are all in walking distance from where I live. My elementary school, Namsung Elementary School, is also only a 5 minute walk from where I live.

I’m already in love with my host family. My host mom, Mrs. Bang is super sweet and is going out of her way to make me feel at home. She studied English Literature and is an English tutor in her home, so we speak mostly in English to each other. I have a younger Korean sister who I call Tammy (her Korean name is Tam-Hi) who is 10 years old. She is adorable and really energetic. My first night in the home we painted our toenails together and she was very excited that I let her use my nail polish. I’m going to teach her how to play UNO tonight. She also really likes to draw so I’m hoping we can do that together in the future. My host dad, Mr. So, is very quiet around me because he does not speak any English. He is also super cute and seems very kind. Mrs. Bang translates for the two of us. I’m hoping I can learn some more Korean so that we can actually communicate with each other, at least on a basic level. He does some sort of work with computers and seems to be working all of the time. Mrs. Bang and I have already talked a little about things to do on weekends together. The family likes to go hiking and to go see mountains and other natural things so I think we will be doing a lot of that, which I am excited for. I think the whole family is very excited to have me in their home. They hosted a former ETA last year, but only for one month after he had to switch out of his previous homestay.

Tammy and I

our painted toenails

I’m still not sure if it has hit me yet that I am going to be here in this home for the next 11 months. I already miss my friends from orientation, but I know I will be seeing them very soon. I think once I get a cell phone and get my internet working in my room it will be a lot easier because I won’t be completely cut off from everyone back home and around Korea.

I’m sure I could write a lot more about everything that has been going on. I wish I had a video camera to follow me around because I want to share all of the little things I’ve seen and experienced with all of you. I can only imagine the crazy and exciting things that are to come.