Thursday + the weekend!

Wow! It was a busy one for me. On Thursday I met Beth, Jenny, Andy and Meghan (other teachers) in Suwon and we ate at the Outback Steakhouse to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was very nice, but rather expensive (since it's a foreign restaurant).

On Friday it was pouring, but I started the morning with a phone call from my family! Thanksgiving dinner was held at our house this year, so my mom called me and I got to hear from a lot of my relatives, it was great! Then it was the school festival! In Korea, the school festival is an entire day of activities. The morning held athletic activities. I watched a jump rope contest, tug of war, and some basketball before heading up to the 5th floor of my school were parents were cooking. Apparently you were supposed to pay for the food, but I got a lot of free yummy Korean food. Then there was a 2 hour break from the festivities where 7 female students came into my classroom and hung out with me... it was great! They showed me their home pages and I got to look at all their photos! The afternoon held a talent show, where my students sang, danced, and put on comedic skits. There was even a magic show! It was pretty awesome. One of the girls is an opera singer, a really good opera singer, so it was very entertaining. And this year my school won a city-wide traditional drum contest, so they started off the afternoon festivities. And of course in Korean tradition, alcohol was involved. The parents brought the teachers maekli (a type of Korean rice wine) and we drank in the back of the gym (where the festival was held). It was awesome! I'll be posting pictures from it soon.

Then it was off to Seoul to celebrate Nick's birthday. We started with dinner in Sinchon (the college area) at Hippo (a french restaurant). I got escargot and red wine! It rocked! Then it was off to the clubs for Club Day ($15 entrance fee and you can go to like 7 different clubs) to dance the night away. The clubs here don't close until around 5am, so the plan was to stay out until 5am, get some food, then wait 'til the subway reopened (around 5:30am). Beth and I decided to go to her house to get some sleep instead of waiting for the subway. She only lives about 20 minutes away, so it wasn't that expensive of a cab ride. However, once we got to her house, she realized that she had left her keys and her tote bag in a locker near the clubs. So we had to go back to the subway station the locker was at, get her keys, then go back to her apartment! It was an adventure, but we made it back in time to get some sleep.

Saturday I hung out with Beth for a while. We got Dominos Pizza and watched 21 Grams. It was nice just relaxing. Then I headed back to Osan. Nathan called me while I was on the bus from Seoul to ask if I wanted to have dinner with him in Osan (he also lives in Osan), so I decided I would. We met in Osan and had dinner at a restaurant near the city hall. I had a beef curry and he had soup and kimbop. We ate and talked for a couple of hours. Throughout dinner I would look outside and see random students looking at me throught the window, it was funny! Then I went back to my apartment and watched a Korean movie (English subtitles of course). Then went to bed!


Today (Sunday), I took my friend Su Jin (geography teacher at my school) into Seoul to eat a Thanksgiving dinner with me and other foreigners (some that I knew, some that I didn't). First we went to Sinchon again to go shopping. OH, and shopping I did. They had winter boots in my size (imitation uggs), so I bought them! Plus a sweater that I could fit into! It was a very exciting shopping adventure.

Then we met Meghan and Liz at the subway stop to head to Yonsei University (where the dinner was being held). I stuffed myself full of turkey, mashed potato, stuffing, green beans and cherry pie! They also had pumpkin pie, but it's not my favorite so I didn't have any. Of course I did remember to bring wine though! We had a bottle of red wind and a bottle of white to go along with the dinner!

After dinner we decided we would head home right away. On the walk we saw women outside making Kimchi. Su Jin and I decided to watch for a few moments, and then the women offered to let me try the kimchi. It was entertaining. I was fed kimchi on the street by a woman (litterally fed, she put it in my mouth :-)). Then we were walking to the subway and I saw watches that I wanted to look at. I bought a cool pink watch for like $5. My shopko watch broke last weekend on the bus, I've been dying without a watch since my classroom doesn't have a clock. I also picked up a decoration for my cell phone (you can't have a cell phone in Korea without a decorative thing hanging off of it, I broke the other one I had). Then Su Jin and I took the subway to the train to another bus and I was home! But it was a very nice end to the weekend. Now I'm going to relax and watch a movie! Have a good one!

Another day at school

Well, today wasn't very interesting. I went to school (I start at 8:50am). I had my 4 classes of the day and a class that I teach to 6 other teachers at my school. In my 3 first grade classes, we went over worksheets on self-introductions, which was very interesting to me -- most of the boys play Starcraft, so I've gotten used to spelling craft for them. The female students all like to play Tetris... which I thought was rather interesting. In my 2nd grade class we are also working on self-introductions, though I don't give them a worksheet... they have to write it on their own. This is also very entertaining 'cause they often like to ask me for translations from the Korean word, which I can't do, so they have to act out what they are trying to say. Makes for interesting times.

My teachers class is going well. Today we went over travelling... where they have been, where they want to go, etc. It was very informational for me, as some of them have gone to places that I want to go to. Tomorrow we are discussing foods. Hopefully I learn the names in Korean for some of the foods I have been eating! I'm showing them pictures of traditional American food, like pot roast, meatloaf... more than just hamburgers!

During one of my classes a student brought me an entire plate of traditional Korean candy. I use the term candy losely, 'cause I dont really like the way it tastes. It's called Duk and it's made from rice. The ones they gave me had some sort of sweet sesame seed filling... I put a picture of it up on my photo website (just look for todays date).

It rained for most of the day. This actually sucked, I forgot to bring an umbrella to school, so I had to walk home in the rain (luckily its only about a 10 minute walk to my apartment from my school).

I had leftovers for dinner -- nothing exciting there.

Once I got home, I watched a really awesome show on one of the Korean channels (MBC-ESPN). It was an athletic type of show. Two teams, each having to do really crazy athletic things. They had to do a dance, jump-rope push-ups and some stretching contests. The thing that made it really amusing was that 1 team was a bunch of older Korean men and the other team was mostly young Korean women. You can guess who won all the of stretching contests.

Well... CSI isn't on tonight (I normally get to watch 2 hours of CSI every night... CSI Miami and CSI Las Vegas), so hopefully I get some more work done on my blog. Have a good one!

Visit from the Superintendent and dinner in Seoul

Due to government testing, all of my classes today were cancelled. In the morning I just sat in my room, with pretty much nothing to do but chat with people online. About 2 hours after me being at school, the vice principal came into my classroom to tell me that the superintendent would be visiting our school today, and that we would be having lunch with him. After this happened, my boss came in and started vacuuming my classroom (my boss is the 2nd grade lead teacher). This was very odd, I tried to tell him that I would vacuum, but he insisted that he would do it.

At around noon, the superintendent arrived at our school. One of the first things he did was come to my classroom to talk to me (yes...he spoke English)! He asked me how my apartment was and how teaching was going. He seemed very nice. Then we left for lunch (we is the superintendent, the vice principal, my boss, 4 other teachers, and myself). It seemed that only my boss really knew where we were going to eat... as my city (like every other Korean city) has a ton of restaurants. It turns out that we weren't even eating in Osan, but instead eating in Namsa (which is about a 20 minute drive from Osan). Once we arrived at the restaurant I was in shock. The restaurant was on a lake, surrounded by mountains. The scenery was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, but my boss had his. Hopefully soon I will be able to get some pictures from him so I can put them on my website. The lunch was okay, but very spicy.

After lunch we drove back to Osan. My co-teacher decided she would buy us all ice cream for desert, so at least I got yummy ice cream!

Then I went and sat in my classroom for a while. I was supposed to go to Suwon (another big city near Osan) to get a new ID card (mine got stolen...along with my wallet), but my boss never came and got me. Finally at 3:00, my boss came down to tell me I could go home. I reminded him about my ID card (he had forgotten), so we then drove to Suwon. They processed my reapplication for my ID card in about 10 minutes and we were back on our way to Osan again.

Instead of going all the way to Osan, I asked my boss if he could drop me off at Suwon Station (a subway station), instead of taking me all the way back to Osan (which the subway doesn't extend to... yet... the Osan subway station is scheduled to open sometime next year). Since I was going to Seoul, it'd be easier for me to get there if I just went from Suwon. He agreed and I was soon on my way to Seoul.

I went to the COEX mall for dinner with Beth, Liz, Jenny, Meghan, and one of the teachers at Meghan's school. Her name was Soo Jeung, but she let us call her Sue. We ate dinner at Bennigans (which is a US restaurant apparently, though I don't think we have them in the midwest). Then we went to see a movie (well...all except Beth who was going to attempt to find a winter jacket). We saw the movie If Only with Jennifer Love Hewitt. It wasn't that bad...but a tear-jerker.

By the time the movie had gotten over, it was time to head back to Osan. A quick subway ride to the bus station, a 40 minute bus ride, and a 10 minute taxi ride and I was home... and exhausted. I didn't get home until around 11 (which is late for me now... apparently I'm catching up on all the sleep I didn't get in college).

So, even though I didn't teach any classes, it still turned out to be a rather busy day!