Kids are funny

On Friday, I was giving some of my older students speaking tests. They come into the hallway one by one and I ask them a few questions. One student, Gary, is pretty confident with his English, but must not have understood the question. Instead of telling me he didn't know, I think he thought maybe he could throw in a different English word and I wouldn't catch it. The conversation went something like this:

Me: What is the girl in the picture doing?
Gary: Brushing her teeth.
Me: Very good. What time did you eat breakfast this morning, Gary?
Gary: Chicken

adventure: kimchi museum

On Saturday, my friend Liz and I were planning on meeting my coworkers at the pool. We got off the subway and felt some raindrops.. Not wanting to waste 5,000 won ($4) on the pool if it was going to rain, we decided to go to COEX and wander around. We were clearly dressed to go to the pool, which got us a few stares, but we went anyways.

COEX is a huge underground mall, supposedly the largest in Asia. Its also the largest shopping center in Seoul. Therefore, it is extremely overwhelming. The first time I went there, I was lost for nearly an hour searching for the Apple store. This time, we just explored and then went to the Kimchi Museum.


Yes, the Kimchi Museum. An entire museum dedicated to the national favorite food. Kimchi is a pickled dish made of vegetables (typically cabbage) and covered in spicy sauce. I personally do not like kimchi.. which is unfortunate as pretty much every meal includes it as a side dish. Despite my dislike for the food in question, I figured the museum could be a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

The first room was dedicated to kimchi-inspired art. There was white crepe paper hanging from the ceiling, a few inches above my head. Not sure what the point of that was, or what someone with a higher stature than my 5 foot 5 would do, but it was interesting. The rest of the museum included figurines showing how kimchi is made, plastic models of different types of kimchi, a kimchi refrigerator exhibit, a kimchi library, and a display of the health benefits of kimchi. The last room had a guest book, asking you to "leave your messages about Kimchi." How I wished I could read Korean at that point..

This last picture just had to make it into the post.. What a happy old Korean man, healthy due to the wonderful anti-aging effects of eating kimchi all his life.

Some pics

Just thought I'd post some pics of some of my students. This is my youngest class, Oxford. They are Korean age 5 (which means they are 4 years old to us). Pretty darn cute...

Grace and Poby are really good at English.. Andy still likes to use a lot of Korean. Luckily I have Grace and Poby to help me correct him.. I hear about 10x a day "ANDY! NO Korean!... Teacher.. Andy MANY Korean"


Grace Poby

Oxford Class Andy

Busan

We had a three day weekend this weekend, and as vacation time is hard to come by, we decided to spend the weekend at the beach. I went to the city of Busan with 2 friends from orientation and 2 of their coworkers. Busan is the second biggest city in South Korea and is famous for their Haeundae beach.

After almost missing our train (the train pulled away about a minute and a half after we boarded), we arrived in Busan early Friday afternoon. We stayed at a very nice little hostel in the University area of town.

We checked in and then headed to the beach. The weather wasn't great but going to this beach was an experience in and of itself. I have never seen so many people on a beach! Thousands of umbrellas lined up down the shoreline and yellow innertubes covered the water. Trying to play in the water without getting hit by a tube was nearly impossible.

After a few hours on the beach, we followed our Lonely Planet guide to a jjimjilbang, a traditional spa/sauna. There are huge rooms of different baths and saunas, with temperatures posted at each. It seems to be a family event, and the room was full of women of all ages. (the spas are seperated by sex).

For dinner we enjoyed some traditional Korean barbecue (not really barbecue by our definition... its meat cooked at the table and eaten wrapped in

lettuce). Its probably my favorite Korean food and this was the best I've had since I've been here.

We were lucky Saturday and had perfect beach weather. We spent the day at the beach, had seafood for dinner, and met up with some other teachers from orientation. All in all it was a good weekend, though now I am exhausted and resting up for a big week. We have to do evaluations of our students this week.. and as I don't know all of my students names this should be interesting.

Random Tidbit

Within a few days of being in Seoul I noticed something I never would've expected... St. Louis Cardinals caps. At first I was so excited, wanting to run up to people and say "Oh! I'm from St. Louis!" Then I realized that street vendors sell these caps, and chances are the caps were chosen based on color and style and the wearer actually has no idea who the St. Louis Cardinals are...

Oh well... they still make me smile.

Pictures

For those of you not on Facebook, I created a Flickr account to post my pictures. The link is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41276152@N04/sets/72157621980009082/ .

Enjoy!

Sightseeing

Today I met up with my friend I met in Spain, Bobby, and a few of his friends. He has been here for about 9 months so he brought me to some of the main sightseeing places in Seoul.

We started off at the Gyeonbokgung Palace which translates as the Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven.It was a hot day, but we still had a nice time just wandering around, taking pictures. It was first constructed in 1397, then reconstructed in 1867. Over the last few decades, Seoul has pretty much been completely rebuilt and modernized and this has been done very quickly. Walking into the Palace was completely different than anything else I've seen thus far and felt like walking into the past.

After the palace, Bobby brought us to an area he had stu

mbled upon on a previous trip to Gyengbokgung. We walked up through a neighborhood called Samcheong-dong until the atmosphere completely changed. Instead of the modern, simple apartment buildings common in Seoul, we were walking throu

gh a street of traditional Korean street. Apparently this area was one of the few that wasn't completely demolished during the Korean war. It was peacefully quiet, which is nearly shocking when you are used to the loud hustle and bustle of Seoul. We found ourselves whispering because it felt wrong to talk loudly.

On the walk back to the Subway, we passed the Cheonggyecheon Stream. This stream had been covered by a street for years until about five years ago when they decided to uncover it, fix it up, and it is now a really nice part of downtown Seoul.

So that was my day... we walked around for hours but I absolutely loved it. During this past week I did little more than work and sleep so it was nice to finally get to see some of the sites in Seoul.

Finally posting..

My apologies for taking so long to post, but as most of you know, I have moved to Seoul, South Korea to teach English for a year. It'd be impossible to describe everything that has happened in the last week and a half, as its just been a whirlwind, but I'll do the best that I can.

When I first arrived, I was able to find the appropriate bus, call my boss, and meet her at the bus stop. I was very concerned as the bus driver spoke little English, but he ended up being very nice and would come back to my seat to ask me to translate things into English for him (while nice, this was a bit disconcerting as he was driving through Seoul during rush hour traffic). This was my first glimpse into being a foreigner in Seoul and since then, I've found myself being stared at regularly, and stopped at least a few times to pose for pictures with people.

My first weekend here was a bit overwhelming... it was destabilizing for me to not be able to read Korean. To direct myself from the motel to my school, I had to pick memorable buildings or any signs I could find written in the romanized alphabet as I can't recognize most signs. It led me to really want to learn the Korean alphabet which I will hopefully start doing soon. For my first few days, I stayed at a "love motel" until my apartment was available. I was expecting the worst from this, but the rooms were actually quite nice and I didn't encounter any problems.. or even any people during my stay there.

My first week consisted of shadowing a teacher at my school followed by three days of training. I am working for a company called YBM that has numerous schools all over Korea. I trained with 22 new arrivals who will all be working at different schools. It was a great chance to meet people and we learned a lot about teaching as well as a lot about Korea and how to get along here.

I have now moved into my apartment which is a cozy studio, located in Jamsil-dong (a neighborhood in the Song

pa district of Seoul.. if you are curious about the location here is a description of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songpa-gu). The lake in the picture is on my walk to the Subway and it makes living in such a huge metropolis more pleasant.

My apartment is small but has all the essentials and suits me just fine. It is my first time ever living alone so I was pretty nervous about it but I feel very safe in my building (and in Seoul in general) so I think this will be a good experience for me.

Yesterday was my first day of teaching on my own. It actually went a lot better than I expected but it was certainly overwhelming. I teach 41 classes a week, and had 8 yesterday. I arrived as soon as the doors opened to start prepping for everything. My students range in age from 4 to 11. Basically, the school serves as a kindergarten/preschool for students ages 4-6. These students come in every day from 9:30-2:30. The rest of the students come to English school after they have finished with regular school for the day.

In Korea, this is very common as higher education is extremely competitive. I've been told that many families spend half their income on their children's education. I have one student who goes from regular school, to English school for a few hours, to math school, to Tae Kwon Do... and he is 8 years old.

I have found that the kindergartners are the best students. I have one student named Poby who at four years old speaks better English than the majority of my students. They are also the most fun... I knew I was prepared to be an Kindergarten teacher when part of my lesson plan included "sing the Hokey Pokey."

Apart from teaching and training, I've started to delve into all the city has to off

er. Seoul is absolutely massive and it will take me months to just get a handle on it. My friend Rachel, who is also over here with me, and I have visited Olympic Park (where the 1988 Olympics took place), Cheonggyechon (too hard to explain, just check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonggyecheon), Lotte World (a huge amusement park/department store/hotel), and wandered around a few areas of town as well.

On Friday night, my group of friends from orientation experienced our first taste of Korean Karaoke, at a karaoke house known as a noraebong. Each group is given their own room with a big projection screen and hundreds of songs to choose from, and left to sing and dance until the sun comes up. You can probably guess this was up my alley and we had a great time.

A lot of people have asked me about the food here. There is definitely an array of different foods, ranging from very good to very strange. Bulgogi is my favorite.. it translates as Korean barbecue and you essentially cook beef and veggies at your table and then wrap it all in lettuce to eat. Another thing called Shabu shabu is a meal where they bring a boiling pot to your table and you cook vegetables, meat, and noodles at the table. The other new teachers and I basically just play the "find a restaurant with a picture menu" game. We find something that looks good and attempt to pantomime our order to the waitress.

The majority of Korean food is very spicy... which doesn't go over for someone like me. The nation's famous food is kimchi, a spicy pickled cabbage. Luckily, it is typically seen as a side dish so I can easily skip it. I have found that the majority of main dishes are appetizing but the side dishes are more likely to be hard to eat. And if the meal is a total failure, there is always the peanut butter at home that every American living in Seoul always keeps in stock.

Many seafood restaurants here also almost look like pet stores. In front they have massive tank of fish, squid, and a plethora of seafood I don't recognize. You can choose your fish before you eat it.. I know they also serve some of the seafood live but I've luckily been able to avoid that one. Today at school, I noticed that what I thought was some sort of long grain rice actually had eyes...

All in all I am doing well over here so far. There are definitely things to adjust to, and less people speak English than I expected. I have luckily found that certain motions are universal and I don't leave the house without my Lonely Planet Phrasebook. Other than that, I'm just trying to get through my first week of teaching. :)