I Should be Writing Lesson Plans

Today is the last Wednesday in the Summer semester, so I only have my adult conversation class and one (2 hour long for the special class) kids class. I have a nice two hour gap between the two. Instead of writing my lesson plans here (I couldn't concentrate here yesterday, so I took the book home and didn't bring them back) I'll catch up on blogging.

This weekend was fun, but exhausting. On Saturday, I got to have a 4 hour long Skype chat with Eric (got some important Deep Space Nine watching in, I can't let my shows stop). After that sitting around and relaxing, I went to Pirhana 3D with a group of teachers. It was not worth the money, but lived up to my expectations of a terribly acted B horror movie (though it was much more gory than I expected). Despite everyone's discussion on how gross the movie was, the group was hungry (I wasn't really hungry as I had eaten beforehand). What did they decide to get after watching people being torn apart and raw muscle being exposed? Bul-gogi (cow meat, you cook it on a grill at your table). I was going to sit and talk while they ate, but the smell of the restaurant made me a little sick to my stomach, so I went across the street to see what the coffee shop I had seen was all about.

The coffee shop was closed, but there were signs for something more amazing--The Batman Bar. As I walked up the stairs to this place of *hopefully* wonder and cheesy Adam West videos, I past posters for different Batman movies that had bottles of soju (Korean spirit, tastes like vodka but isn't as strong) and beer worked into them. When I walked into the place, I thought I had gotten the wrong door. I couldn't here Joker's laugh or any "Ka-pow!"ing. I was seated and I ordered a (bottled >.<) Hoegarden (one of the few good imported beers here). The bar was quiet and there was some sport on a big screen. I was disappointed, but happy I saw what it was all about. The best part of the place was the walk up and the sign in the bathroom depicting how to use a toilet.

I walked back over to the restaurant, noted a Star Wars bar was just down the way (I'll check it out later and report back), and joined the teachers for walking around the maze that is Bupyeong's club/bars/love motel/shopping area. We had two new teachers with us, one South African (John) and one Canadian (Todd). After Todd and one of the teachers who has been here a while (Ashley) decided to call it a night, the rest of us walked back into the maddness and got coffee at Starbucks. It was John's first time ever at a Starbucks. He took pictures. ^_^

Sunday, it rained. A lot. But, I got myself out of bed, did the 30 Day Shred level 1 workout and headed into Seoul to by some flax seed and beans in Itaewon's Foreign Food Market. I decided on taking the subway since in the rain, the bus ride is 2hours instead of just 1 and the subway is about 1.5 hours. I got into Itaewon and followed the directions I had from the post in Alien's Day Out (a wonderful blog by a vegan of Korean decent who's lived all over the place and is currently in Seoul and writing about her experience). It was a little odd walking into a place called Foreign Food Market and seeing Kraft, Hunts and Progresso labels. Some of the stuff was Costco brand, and market up I'm sure as there are Costcos in Korea, but most of it was just stuff you couldn't find anywhere else. I was in heaven. The spices! Oh, the spices. I had to limit myself to what I came for as my budget is ever tightening until September 10th--the first pay day. I ended up being 14,500 won short of the 39,500 total, but the owner of the shop just said I could pay him next time I shopped there. I had offered to put stuff back, but he told me to take it. And, of course, I'll be back.

Then I had to rush home because I was meeting with Janetta (a South African teacher with GEC) to talk about our plans to go to China over Chuseok (a week long vacation in September to celebrate the harvest--like our Thanksgiving). Of course, I got on the wrong Line 1 out of Seoul and had to back track to the station where I could get on the right one. I was late by 40 minutes and walked all around the Starbucks looking for Janetta but couldn't find her, I check the other Starbucks near by (I was surprised to find two). I couldn't find her so I went home to try Skyping her cell phone. Turns out, she left her cell in Suwon at a friend's house and need to go get it this coming weekend. So, I quickly changed from my "I'm just out running errands" clothes to "I'm slightly dressed better because I'm going to a concert later" clothing, chugged a smoothie (with 2 Tbsp of my freshly ground flax seeds--yay Omega-3s), and went back to Starbucks to have another go of looking for Janetta.

I found her at the first Starbucks I had looked in, chatting with another foreigner about the whole mishap on her end (turns out she was late too, by about 45 min). We had just enough time to explain what happened to each other, laugh and head out to meet the other teachers to go to a Korean pop concert (the GEC hagwon teachers, not including those of us in hagwon positions outside of the main GEC building, had free tickets).

The concert wasn't my cup of tea, the music was just short of being *N SYNC or Backstreet Boys goodness and the dancing was not always on. There were 20 groups total, each doing two songs. The governor of Incheon was there and gave some sort of speech-intro thing that I didn't understand. I ended up leaving just as things were getting a little closer to what I was expecting. but I was tired from staying up until 3am finishing the last episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender and waking up to run errands in Seoul. I followed some people who had joined our group out of the stadium and to the subway station and made friends with Junghee, he's studying English and wants to learn Spanish so he can move to South America.

I crashed after setting some of my newly purchased kidney beans to soak.

On Monday, I got up and did the 30 day Shred and hopped on Skype to catch up with Derussa. Then it was off to school to supervise the special "experience" lessons of the week, aka make sure the kids didn't get face paint everywhere. After school, I went home and ate quickly before meeting with the mother whose kids I'm tutoring privately at 7 on Mondays and Wednesdays. I hope I can keep up with my schedule.

I got 10ish hours of sleep last night and feel more energetic today than I have in a while. So, here's to hoping I don't collapse after today (Wednesday)'s lesson. I have Korean study group (an acquaintance, Boram, is teaching us Korean for 10,000 won a lesson).

Blessings!

Sarah

Just another day or so

I'll update soon, I promise. I've wanted to sit down and write for a while, but I am either busy or tired from being busy. Bare with me just a little longer.

Quick updates:

-Making long range plans for my classes

-I took on a private tutoring job (which I have to keep on the DL as it violates my contract)

-I like Korea so far and wish I had more vacation time to explore it, weekend trips are in my future

-I'm homesick when I hear certain songs or read about parties and events

-Planning a trip to the Philippines for September, Thailand for December and Cambodia for February

- Being vegan here is tricky, but not impossible.

~Sarah

I have a freezer after all!

I have been craving banana shakes and smoothies something fierce recently, but there was one hitch--I didn't have a way to freeze the bananas. I thought I had a mini fridge that was supposed to have a tiny freezer compartment. I had found a small door to what would have been the compartment in a cabinet while cleaning the apartment, but it didn't fit in the mini fridge.

Turns out, the freezer is under the fridge and the door was broken so all I saw was the wood panel door opening to what looked to be a metal box with no handle or markings indicating it was a freezer. The apartment handyman fixed the door and after I removed the very freezer-burnt dead animal slices left by the previous tenant, I'm on my way to banana soft serve!

I'm not sure if it's because I'm a foreigner or just policy in Korea, but to replace the lights above my bed (which have been flickering and not really working) I had to pay for the bulbs.

Oh, to know Korean. There's a study group tonight. I'm going to check it out and see if it helps me at all.

Sarah

Eagle Loves You

Today, my Beginner 2 classes (that is, kids who have taken the "Starter" level and one semester of "Beginner" level English) were playing a mixture of pictionary and charades, everyone had a good time. Then we moved on to 'Telephone.' The first class made silly sentences like "I'm a sausage." That got a laugh, but it was nothing compared to the riot that occurred in my second class.

In my second class, the sentences were going pretty smoothly, they weren't getting lost in the string of players. Then Eagle, a pretty *ahem* lively student (I really like him, he participates when the activities intrigue him but I have to talk him into putting the air soft gun away every class), started a sentence that made the students around him throw there hands up in the air, grab their faces and hair, laugh uncontrollably and one student (Tiger) ran into a wall to avoid passing it along to the girl next to him.

Every student giggled, covered their face or tried to spell the sentence instead of saying it.

The sentence? "I love you."

Top: Traditional hanok nestled in between modern buildings.

Center: Me at the entrance to the palace

Bottom: Profile on Germany at my Elementary School. Notice the beer in the hands of the 7 or 8 year old child... They got the details down.

Starbucks is a lovely place...well, it has free internet, soy milk and coffee

Here are some pics from a while back:

The temporary housing:

I'm in Starbucks in Bupyeong, I'm glad I have my ARC because you need the number off of it to use the free wi-fi here. I made a friend who is going to take me to a veggie dinner tonight! Her name's Erika and she's been teaching here for five weeks and was in China for 10 months before that. She's from Pennsylvania and has family out here in Korea, but doesn't speak Korean yet. We're *hopefully* going to be gym buddies and I'm going to look into taking a Korean class with her in Seoul Tu, Thur, every other Friday. Yay social life!

Note on the pictures:

The shower was just on the wall, there's a drain on the floor of the bathroom under the sink, you just shower in the bathroom. Odd thing was the towel bar was on the inside of the bathroom, so you had to be careful not to get your towel wet when showering. The toilet seat was up when I got there, they cleaned the bathroom--at least that was a plus side to the temp housing over the apartment, that and the free internet.

More photos to come!

Can has ARC, internetz tomorrow!

I just got my ARC a little earlier than expected! Now to get a cell phone and a social life! Internet getting installed tomorrow morning!

Pushing back anxieties that I'm acting weird and bothering the other teachers is getting difficult. I'm feeling awkward today. I message folks to see who to hang out with and see if anything's going on. Let's see if anyone nibbles.

I'm not that strange. I'm not that strange. I only put my foot in my mouth occasionally. Everything is ok.

It's Friday! I'm quite excited about not needing to work tomorrow, just because it means my time is free for other things.

Sarah

Waiting on the ARC

I'm still waiting on my Alien Registration Card. This means no phone, internet (except at work and what I can steal--which isn't much) and no bank account. I should have this magical piece of identification on Wednesday the 25th, and pay day is September 10th. I imagine pay day will be something in slow motion with rainbows, glitter, and small woodland creatures helping me shop for things like food, decorations for the apartment, kitchen stuff and classroom thing-a-ma-bobs. Of course, this will all be accompanied by skipping while "What A Wonderful World" plays everywhere I go.

There's a throat thing going around the apartment building, at least around the English teachers. I've been downing 'Throat Coat' tea and Mucenex D along with the Follow Your Heart Cold and Sinus Spray (read: horseradish essence) like nobody's business.

I need to get a picture of the bathrooms at work, they are the modernized hole-in-the-ground, squat over it style. I don't mind them. What perplexes me more is that the woman's bathroom has smelled like Cheetohs for the last few days.

-Sarah

Getting Lost in Seoul

On Saturday, I flipped through my guidebook, picked a place with historical buildings, grabbed spending money and headed downstairs to hop on the express bus to Seoul. I had prepared for a long trek, as the other teachers had talked about how it gets old after doing it every weekend. Coming from L.A., an hour on public transit isn't that bad and I was in Seoul before I knew it. I got off a stop early, but found a coffee shop and figured out the best way to get to the district which had the stuff to look at.

I wandered around trying to find the metro and bumped into a tourist, named Blaine, originally from Canada who had been teaching in China for the last 8 years. I asked where he was headed and we ended up taking the train together to Bukchon where there were traditional houses nested in with all the modern shops (and *ahem* smells) of Seoul. As we talked, he seemed kind of awkward and not much of a "oops, we found a palace that's over 1000 years old, let's go in!" and more of a "I'm super awkward and might kill you in one of these alleys" kind of companion and I decided we should part ways. I left him in the Hanok (traditional houses) neighborhood. The houses were pretty awesome (again, pictures to follow as soon as my laptop has internet) and walking through the narrow streets of the Bukchon Hanok reminded me of walking through the alleys of Venice Beach with all the craftsmen houses.

I wandered into a museum of Korean Buddhist art, which said it was open, but there was no attendant. I eventually found someone and paid for a ticket, and looked through the small collection of tapestries, carvings and sculptures from centuries ago. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the collection, but it's pretty much your standard Buddhist art, though some of the buddhas had pedo-staches.

Since I was right across the street from the Changdeokgung Palace, I decided to explore and try to get into the Secret Garden before it closed. I didn't make it to the Secret Garden, but did see some pretty gorgeous landscaping and architecture. I'll write a blog on the palace with pictures and information.

After walking the palace grounds, I noticed I was hungry and decided to hit up Itaewon (the foreigner area of Seoul) for some familiar food at restaurants known to have veggie friendly cuisine. I went to Buddha's Belly, a Thai restaurant, and got some delicious spring rolls and mixed veggies (sadly on white rice). Looking for a place with good beer on tap can be difficult here, but Itaewon caters to foreigners and across the way from Buddha's Belly, there's a pub and a sports bar with some decent beer. 3 Alleys Pub and Sam Ryan's are owned by the same person, but 3 Alleys is more the older expats and Sam Ryan's is the younger. I spent the rest of the night drinking beer with a couple of guys from the Air Force, arguing about vegetarianism, Israel-Palestine and other things. I kicked out of the pub around 11pm and hoped on the train back home.

Trains in Seoul only run until mid-night, even on a Saturday. My train stopped about halfway to Bupyeong. I was super tired and confused, found a group of foreigners and asked if they knew what was going on. They said they'd be caught in the situation before and usually took a cab home from the station. Not really wanting to pay late night cab fare (pretty much whatever the driver wants to charge) I looked for someone else to get information from. I bumped into two English teachers from Seattle, one of whom spoke enough Korean to find us a bus that dropped me back off right by my house.

The entire ride back to Incheon, we were noticing that there were lines of bus 88's running from the station about every 2 minutes. Why would this train stop at midnight if so many people still used it? Is it really better to have the buses going later? Trains have dedicated tracks and don't have to wait on traffic.

It was raining when I got home and a pretty much collapsed, exhausted on my bed so I could wake up and finish putting my apartment together the next day.

Going back to Seoul next Saturday to see more of it.

~Sarah/Veggie

New Apartment

I moved into the apartment I'll actually be living in for the year. It's a nice place in a good location--near a metro stop and several bus lines pass by regularly and a large mega-store a 15 min walk or 5 min bus ride away. The person who lived there before me was a smoker, so I'm spending time trying to air out the apartment and get the smoker film off the surfaces. He apparently left in a hurry, as there were several pairs of socks, a couple pairs of shoes, dishes (which I'm grateful for other than the dirty ones in the sink), a large cup full of lighters and batteries, a change cup full of won and random coins from other Asian countries, cleaning products and bedspreads.

I hear from other teacher that the guy was generous, but it's difficult not to dislike someone who "spent his last two weeks drunk because he knew he was leaving" and then "was cleaning for four hours the day before he left." I'm remembering to breath and felt better after the floor was no longer sticky. I threw out so many things because I don't know anything about second hand shops here and doubt any of the teachers would need bedspreads, a crutch or shoes in this guy's size. I need to clean the kitchen and bathroom still as well as scrub the walls to try and get the smoke smell out.

I'm just taking it a day at a time right now and looking forward to the day everything levels out and I can start doing more.

Off to teach a class!

Pictures as soon as I get internet in the house.

~Sarah

Arriving, moving and teaching

I got into Incheon last night around 6pm, and was ready to collapse into a heap. While waiting to go through immigration I noticed something odd--community reading glasses attached to the desk by the forms. I was amused and then went back to being tired.

I got picked up by a driver who spoke a few words of English, so I was still in the dark as to what was going on and what was expected of me on my first day (let alone the second, which is when my contract started). We got to the Seo-gu Global Education Center (GEC) and waited for the person with the key to my temporary housing (I didn't know it was temporary at the time, so I was freaking out inside my head when I saw that it was nothing like the pictures). Julie, one of the people I had interviewed with, took me to dinner and gave me a rough overview of the next few days--I move into my actual apartment on Wednesday or Thursday depending on class schedules.

Still a little in the dark as to what I was expected to do on my first official day of work, I was dropped at the dorms and started looking for someone to help me figure out the internet situation. I met some cool folks from various places (Canada, Illinois and Tucson). I was less worried now that I had a way to contact folks and people who are willing to show me around the area I'm temporarily housed. I'm nervous about figuring out the buses and subway system, but I'll latch onto someone who lives in the same apartment building and make it work.

This morning I got to meet the teachers at the public school I'm working in, they hire teachers through the GEC, but I'm not working in the hagwon (privately owned schools). They're all pretty chill as far as I can tell, a couple folks from California, so that was nice. I share the GEC public school teaching office with two Aussies, both are pretty nice guys in their 30s.

I taught my first class this morning at 10am, it's an adult class of beginners. A whopping two people showed up today and I was told one more will be joining in later. The students have English names and the book reminds me of the kind of lessons I received in the foreign language classes. The books for the kids anger me a little since they drill minimal pairs (rhyming), which isn't the best way to become conversationally fluent. I'm looking forward to my Friday kindy class, which starts September 10th (which just happens to be pay day).

Pictures to follow.

~Sarah