Our room, a private with two twin beds--it costs $10 more than the bunks so we sprang for it (I wouldn't next time, but it was my first hostel stay and I had heard about folks being loud and other not being able to sleep), didn't have hot water. I let the shower run for five minutes and then finally jumped in and out real quick after rinsing the grime off. Janetta did the same. We were not happy.
We went to the front desk and they insisted that we just had to run the taps (the sink and the shower) at the same time for 5 minutes and it would heat up. It didn't work. We tried again the next day, it still didn't work. From that day on, Janetta and I walked upstairs to shower. I love hot water.
So, Monday was our first full day in Beijing and Janetta and I had planned our day with hitting some of the major sites near the hostel. Leo's Hostel is located 10 minutes walking distance from Tienanmen Square--and therefore Mao's Tomb and 15 minutes to the Forbidden City's South Entrance (the one with the huge portrait of Mao)--so we decided to strike out in that direction and take photos of the square, the portrait and the outside of the tomb (no cameras allowed inside and it's closed on Mondays). The north end of the square was blocked off, we later found out some dignitary was touring Beijing that day and had the central part (the main attraction) of The Forbidden City blocked off as well as the portion of Tienanmen Square. So, our touring was slowed because of whoever it was, but we made our way across the square and up to the entrance of the Forbidden City.
Before entering the Palace Museum, we watched some Chinese military drills. It was pretty amusing since they were practicing on a rec area--there were volleyball nets and a basketball hoop--and a couple of the guys weren't in uniform but were still marching around the square in formation. Several Chinese tourists asked Janetta and me to take photos with them, why they wanted photos with White tourists I won't understand. So, we spent some time hopping around taking photos with random people and eventually made it into the Palace Museum.
The Palace grounds are really impressive, just the size of the place. It really is a small city. But, after a while, all the buildings start looking the same. Janetta and I made our way through the Forbidden City pretty quickly, with only a few minor foot traffic jams because of the dignitary having areas blocked off while s/he walked through. The garden was nice, but not really that expansive and we decided to push on with our day--but first I had to exchange some more money.
We walked from the north end of the Forbidden City around the western edge to the place on the map that was marked as a Bank of China, but there was no bank. This meant we had to ask a couple different people for directions. Turns out one of the side streets wasn't marked on the map so we had just turned half a block early. I got the money exchanged and we were on our way to find food then press on to the Temple of Heaven (a Taoist temple used to pray to Heaven for a good harvest). The lunch was much better than the one in Qingdao and our waiter was really attentive to my vegan needs, even double checking that it was ok that Janetta ordered meat. When we gave him a tip he didn't know what to do, but his boss just told him to take the money and say thank you (or at least, I heard her say "shey shey" and gesture in a way that would mean that to me). We had figured out tipping isn't the norm, but we really wanted to let him know we appreciated his work.
On to the Temple of Heaven. Another expansive grounds with buildings that all seemed pretty much the same, but they were different from the Palace so that was nice. There was more greenery and it was really refreshing to be surrounded by trees and grass as opposed to the tall, grey buildings of Incheon. Beijing is built out, much like L.A., but Korea builds up like NYC, so Beijing had a much more open feel to it that Janetta and I both enjoyed. But back to the Temple...
The Temple has four gates; North, South, East and West, we entered from the South and took a route that lead us to the West Gate then up to the North Gate, down through the center a bit to see the Temple and animal sacrificial areas, out to the East and down back to the South Gate where we could catch our bus back to the hostel.
We took a wrong turn and missed the East Gate, but were too tired to care and walked back to the South Gate to get the bus back and sit down for a bit. On our walk out towards the East Gate, we were passed by several older men (looked 70 so they must have been 80) running, shirtless through the park around the TofH. They were all ripped. Then one middle aged guy comes jogging up with a pained expression on his face, about 20m behind the bigger group. Figure that one out.
The Temple of Heaven was worth seeing, but I wasn't floored by anything other than the amount of power the kings and emperors were. Look at the pyramids in Egypt and Central America, that took so many lives and people to put together. Same with the Great Wall, thousands of people died building it and are probably buried in it. Versailles was built and drained the treasury then the people in nation in which it was built starved. So, when Janetta and I were walking through the FC and the TofH, we just kept commenting on how it was so typical of people in power to build 1)a fancy house and 2) a fancy place to worship. The irony kicks in when you read that the temple on the west side of the grounds for the ToH was for abstaining from luxury.
We hoped on the bus back to the hostel and waited for it to drop us across the street from where it picked us up. This did not happen. We went up a different street than we had come down and up the opposite side of the square. No big deal, maybe it turns around at the north end of Tienanman and that's the loop? Nope. Hmm. It's got to turn around somewhere. So, we sat and waited for that "somewhere" to become apparent. We were both tired and a little hungry, and Janetta kept us awake by asking questions and making observations. Well, mostly kept us awake, I did doze off a couple of times.
Finally, we passed several posh looking buildings (the 5th Ave or Rodeo Drive of Beijing) and decided we should just get off the bus since it seemed it wouldn't be turning around anytime soon. The traffic was terrible, we weren't moving. We had been in the same spot for fifteen minutes. We had passed metro stations, so we decided to try our luck on the subway. We pulled out our little printed map and noticed the silk market that Janetta had wanted to see was right around where we were. We had passed a building labeled "The Silk Street Market" but thought it couldn't be the market we were looking for since the rest of the place was so upper class. But, it was the market on the map, and with traffic as bad as it was we figured there wouldn't be any harm in checking it out while traffic cleared.
We swung into a Starbucks so I could get a soy chai latte pick me up, since it was only 6 or 7 and I was crashing hard. That and I love any excuse to get a chai latte.
We trekked back to where the silk market was and went inside. There was no silk. Just booth after booth of knock off (some good, some bad) brand clothing and cheap looking souvenirs, five stories of it. All the sales people were about our age and spoke enough English, Spanish and Russian to try and talk you into their "shops" and trash talk you or threaten you if you didn't buy something. I got called crazy several times and when I tried to give a top back to the saleswoman, she threw it on my shoulder every time I set it down. Eventually, I tried setting it on a different shop area so she would have to pick it up, but she just screamed, "That's not my shop, I'm calling the police!" So I picked it up and threw it into her shop and walked away. Then, she chased me down and took an additional 100 yuan off of her last price. I bought the shirt for a tenth of the starting price (600 yuan down to 60 yuan). That place is not for the thin skinned.
I don't remember anything else happening that night. We just chilled at the hostel and went to a bar in a hostel across the street with a few people.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Chickety China, Part 2: 5 hour delay and no hot water
Upon our arrival to Qingdao,
Janetta and I asked which bus would take us to the train station, waited for Albert (our new South African acquaintance) and walked to the bus stop. Albert and Janetta needed change for the bus, so we went to the convenience stores near buy and made the store owners a bit upset by cleaning out their small bills. Qingdao is not a place I would recommend visiting. The only thing to do there is tour the Tsingtao brewery. The city is huge, but dusty and kind of boring. It feels a lot more like a small town than a big city in that it's got no real entertainment or cafes in which to pass the time. How do I know this if I was just going to take a train out?
Albert got the last spot on the bus that came by (argh) and the bus pulled away before Janetta and I could try to squeeze on. We got on the next bus and met up with Albert at the train station, he had planned on taking the night train into Beijing but the window attendant on the west side of the train station just gave him the soonest ticket out of Qingdao to Beijing (the joys of language barriers). I'd printed up the train schedule and underlined the train Janetta and I wanted (it was the same one Albert had a ticket for), the 11am train. The attendant gave us tickets for the 5pm. When we tried pointing to the 12, 2, and 4 trains she just pointed at the 5pm. A man behind us, helped us clarify the matter and told us all other trains were sold out. WTF? It had been mere minutes since Albert had purchased his ticket. Janetta and I were kind of miffed, especially since I'd checked a couple different sites to see if I could book the tickets in advance and had had no luck. Albert hadn't even wanted to leave Qingdao that early.
Whatever, we made the best of it. There was a coffee shop (over priced, yes) in the train station, so we settled down at the 'SPR Coffee' with a coffee (me) and a Tsingtao (Janetta) and started to plan a bit about how we had to shift our schedule and where to look for food in this dusty, large port city. We had another drink and asked the young Chinese guy (who spoke English) working the register if we could leave our stuff in the store room since there weren't any lockers in the station--yes, a blind leap of faith on our part. The owner/manager/boss was an older, middle-aged woman and she kept asking us to sit down and relax (that was the extent of her English). They agreed and Janetta and I walked off, a little less weighed down, to find a place to eat.
The plaza of the East side of the train station looks out onto an intersection with 5ish spokes, and we just started walking down the closest one. We wondered for a couple blocks and found a restaurant that looked a little pricey, so we went across the street to the restaurant advertising cheaper prices. I whipped out my Vegan Passport and turned to the page with the Chinese translation of what vegans do and do not eat. We should have looked around the restaurant first, there was an awesome looking lunch buffet for only a few Yuan but it was hidden behind a divider wall. Instead, we just pointed at what looked good (the server showed me the veggie section of the menu--OMG a veggie section!). We ended up with super oily potatoes and peppers for me and deep fried pork bits for Janetta. We decided to take our time at the next restaurant we visited, despite the servers habits of hovering over us like we should know the menu and be ready to order.
After eating our slightly disappointing lunch, we walked around the block. There were shops with all kinds of awesome looking fruit- one had Dragonfruit, which I have yet to try fresh. The craziest thing about this area were the clotheslines going from lamp post to street sign to whatever else. Businesses were using these street clothing lines to dry sheets and towels and residents were drying clothing.
We went back to SPR and found the folks sitting and eating, the guy rushed to the back room and promptly brought us our bags (everything still inside, see, people can be trusted sometimes) and asked us to sit down. We were given some water (hot, all water is boiled in China since it's not safe otherwise) to sip on while we waited for our train to board at 5pm.
I was surprised to find out that Google did work on the computer at the coffee shop, and it was a good thing too because I had to email our hostel to let them know there was a delay in our arrival time.
The train was full (but no standing seats on this one, more on that in the entry on the train ride back)
so we sat, read, napped and looked at the packaged food for sale in the "cafe." My favorite name was Jew's Ear Juice, but we saw things ranging from Trail Mix to Duck Tongue to Fried Tofu strips. It was a nice ride through the Chinese countryside.
We got into Beijing at 11:30pm, it was a long day. With some help from an English speaking Chinese man, Janetta and I got a cab from the Beijing South Train Station to Leo's Hostel. We checked in and looked forward to a hot shower and a place to sleep.
Janetta and I asked which bus would take us to the train station, waited for Albert (our new South African acquaintance) and walked to the bus stop. Albert and Janetta needed change for the bus, so we went to the convenience stores near buy and made the store owners a bit upset by cleaning out their small bills. Qingdao is not a place I would recommend visiting. The only thing to do there is tour the Tsingtao brewery. The city is huge, but dusty and kind of boring. It feels a lot more like a small town than a big city in that it's got no real entertainment or cafes in which to pass the time. How do I know this if I was just going to take a train out?Albert got the last spot on the bus that came by (argh) and the bus pulled away before Janetta and I could try to squeeze on. We got on the next bus and met up with Albert at the train station, he had planned on taking the night train into Beijing but the window attendant on the west side of the train station just gave him the soonest ticket out of Qingdao to Beijing (the joys of language barriers). I'd printed up the train schedule and underlined the train Janetta and I wanted (it was the same one Albert had a ticket for), the 11am train. The attendant gave us tickets for the 5pm. When we tried pointing to the 12, 2, and 4 trains she just pointed at the 5pm. A man behind us, helped us clarify the matter and told us all other trains were sold out. WTF? It had been mere minutes since Albert had purchased his ticket. Janetta and I were kind of miffed, especially since I'd checked a couple different sites to see if I could book the tickets in advance and had had no luck. Albert hadn't even wanted to leave Qingdao that early.
Whatever, we made the best of it. There was a coffee shop (over priced, yes) in the train station, so we settled down at the 'SPR Coffee' with a coffee (me) and a Tsingtao (Janetta) and started to plan a bit about how we had to shift our schedule and where to look for food in this dusty, large port city. We had another drink and asked the young Chinese guy (who spoke English) working the register if we could leave our stuff in the store room since there weren't any lockers in the station--yes, a blind leap of faith on our part. The owner/manager/boss was an older, middle-aged woman and she kept asking us to sit down and relax (that was the extent of her English). They agreed and Janetta and I walked off, a little less weighed down, to find a place to eat.
The plaza of the East side of the train station looks out onto an intersection with 5ish spokes, and we just started walking down the closest one. We wondered for a couple blocks and found a restaurant that looked a little pricey, so we went across the street to the restaurant advertising cheaper prices. I whipped out my Vegan Passport and turned to the page with the Chinese translation of what vegans do and do not eat. We should have looked around the restaurant first, there was an awesome looking lunch buffet for only a few Yuan but it was hidden behind a divider wall. Instead, we just pointed at what looked good (the server showed me the veggie section of the menu--OMG a veggie section!). We ended up with super oily potatoes and peppers for me and deep fried pork bits for Janetta. We decided to take our time at the next restaurant we visited, despite the servers habits of hovering over us like we should know the menu and be ready to order.
After eating our slightly disappointing lunch, we walked around the block. There were shops with all kinds of awesome looking fruit- one had Dragonfruit, which I have yet to try fresh. The craziest thing about this area were the clotheslines going from lamp post to street sign to whatever else. Businesses were using these street clothing lines to dry sheets and towels and residents were drying clothing.
We went back to SPR and found the folks sitting and eating, the guy rushed to the back room and promptly brought us our bags (everything still inside, see, people can be trusted sometimes) and asked us to sit down. We were given some water (hot, all water is boiled in China since it's not safe otherwise) to sip on while we waited for our train to board at 5pm.
I was surprised to find out that Google did work on the computer at the coffee shop, and it was a good thing too because I had to email our hostel to let them know there was a delay in our arrival time.
The train was full (but no standing seats on this one, more on that in the entry on the train ride back)
so we sat, read, napped and looked at the packaged food for sale in the "cafe." My favorite name was Jew's Ear Juice, but we saw things ranging from Trail Mix to Duck Tongue to Fried Tofu strips. It was a nice ride through the Chinese countryside.We got into Beijing at 11:30pm, it was a long day. With some help from an English speaking Chinese man, Janetta and I got a cab from the Beijing South Train Station to Leo's Hostel. We checked in and looked forward to a hot shower and a place to sleep.
Chickety China, Part 1: On the Boat to China
September 18th: Departure Day
A beautiful, crisp, blue-skied, autumn Saturday in Korea! The weather had just changed to something I've been craving, and now I had to leave. Oh well, on the bright side, today was a travel day, so I was going to spend most of it walking to the bus and on the boat. I finished packing (yes, the day I leave and I'm still packing), and double checked the gas and hot water were off and all the electronics were unplugged, then went downstairs to do meet up with Janetta to begin our journey to Beijing.
We had a short Metro ride from Bupyeong to Dongincheon, and the plan was to catch one of the two buses that would take us to the Incheon International Port. We had a bit of difficulty tracking down which exit from the Dongincheon Underground Market (read: Dongincheon Labyrinth) would take us to the correct bus stop, but we eventually found our way and flagged down a young Korean man (most high school and uni students have some English skills and we had a tiny bit of Korean knowledge) to help us figure out if we were on the right side of the road--we weren't. It was back under the street to cross over to the correct side--Asia loves underground crosswalks, which would be awesome if the streets were in a grid and the crossings went directly across the street every time. We followed the folks with suitcases and eventually found the port.
Walking up to the main building of the port, Janetta pointed out that tons of people were moving things out of suitcases and into boxes then leaving the suitcases in stacks off to the side. It was pretty crazy. We passed a couple of older men (probably nearing 90) carrying stacks of boxes coming to three times their size on their backs secured with straps made of packing tape. Sadly, we couldn't get a good picture of this impressive looking display, but we did get some photos of the cargo swapping action.
Then it was time to queue. We stood in a "line" (read: a mob that split off at different windows) for about an hour to get our actual tickets and room assignments. After the madness of defensive queuing (pushing and line cutting aren't uncommon in Korea and are regular practice in China), we had to get Janetta a re-entry visa since South Africans are only issued single entry visas, even if it's a year-long work visa, unless multi-entry is requested; Americans are automatically granted multi-entry for work visas as far as I understand it.
So, it was more waiting. This time, we were able to sit in a hallway that wasn't crowded and munch on some Asian pear slices. The visa process didn't take much time, so that helped. At this point, Janetta hadn't eaten in quite a while (she had to take a bus for about an hour to meet me at the Metro station near my house and had only had some grapes for breakfast at 9ish--it was about 2pm by the time the visa was processed and we had our tickets), so we headed to E Mart and McDonalds.
I had heard on Alien's Day Out, a blog by a vegan in Korea, that E Mart had Purely Decadent Soy Ice Cream. It's true! Calorie counting be damned, I had me (well, I shared with Janetta) a pint of Chocolate Brownie Almond and it was delicious! We bought some snackage for the ferry and Janetta ate at McDonald's.
We got on the ferry and explored a bit, it was like having a 3 star hotel on the water, things were clean but not fancy. The ferry also had a restaurant, bar, karaoke room and duty free shop. We were rooming with two young Chinese women (we paid to get a 4 sleeper instead of the room o'bunks--First Class, baby!) there was a mini-fridge with complimentary bottled water and a nice little table in the room. It was nice to have space to walk around and the option to sleep if we wanted. I recommend the ferry to those on a budget and with a little more time (it takes 15 hours to get from Incheon to Qingdao).
Janetta and I met another South African teaching English in Korea, Albert, he was also on his way to Beijing via train from Qingdao. Albert lives on one of the Islands to the west of Incheon and is planning to move to France to live with his girlfriend. This was just the first English teacher we met on our epic journey of epicness.
We got to Qingdao intact.
A beautiful, crisp, blue-skied, autumn Saturday in Korea! The weather had just changed to something I've been craving, and now I had to leave. Oh well, on the bright side, today was a travel day, so I was going to spend most of it walking to the bus and on the boat. I finished packing (yes, the day I leave and I'm still packing), and double checked the gas and hot water were off and all the electronics were unplugged, then went downstairs to do meet up with Janetta to begin our journey to Beijing.
We had a short Metro ride from Bupyeong to Dongincheon, and the plan was to catch one of the two buses that would take us to the Incheon International Port. We had a bit of difficulty tracking down which exit from the Dongincheon Underground Market (read: Dongincheon Labyrinth) would take us to the correct bus stop, but we eventually found our way and flagged down a young Korean man (most high school and uni students have some English skills and we had a tiny bit of Korean knowledge) to help us figure out if we were on the right side of the road--we weren't. It was back under the street to cross over to the correct side--Asia loves underground crosswalks, which would be awesome if the streets were in a grid and the crossings went directly across the street every time. We followed the folks with suitcases and eventually found the port.
Walking up to the main building of the port, Janetta pointed out that tons of people were moving things out of suitcases and into boxes then leaving the suitcases in stacks off to the side. It was pretty crazy. We passed a couple of older men (probably nearing 90) carrying stacks of boxes coming to three times their size on their backs secured with straps made of packing tape. Sadly, we couldn't get a good picture of this impressive looking display, but we did get some photos of the cargo swapping action.
Then it was time to queue. We stood in a "line" (read: a mob that split off at different windows) for about an hour to get our actual tickets and room assignments. After the madness of defensive queuing (pushing and line cutting aren't uncommon in Korea and are regular practice in China), we had to get Janetta a re-entry visa since South Africans are only issued single entry visas, even if it's a year-long work visa, unless multi-entry is requested; Americans are automatically granted multi-entry for work visas as far as I understand it.
So, it was more waiting. This time, we were able to sit in a hallway that wasn't crowded and munch on some Asian pear slices. The visa process didn't take much time, so that helped. At this point, Janetta hadn't eaten in quite a while (she had to take a bus for about an hour to meet me at the Metro station near my house and had only had some grapes for breakfast at 9ish--it was about 2pm by the time the visa was processed and we had our tickets), so we headed to E Mart and McDonalds.
I had heard on Alien's Day Out, a blog by a vegan in Korea, that E Mart had Purely Decadent Soy Ice Cream. It's true! Calorie counting be damned, I had me (well, I shared with Janetta) a pint of Chocolate Brownie Almond and it was delicious! We bought some snackage for the ferry and Janetta ate at McDonald's.
We got on the ferry and explored a bit, it was like having a 3 star hotel on the water, things were clean but not fancy. The ferry also had a restaurant, bar, karaoke room and duty free shop. We were rooming with two young Chinese women (we paid to get a 4 sleeper instead of the room o'bunks--First Class, baby!) there was a mini-fridge with complimentary bottled water and a nice little table in the room. It was nice to have space to walk around and the option to sleep if we wanted. I recommend the ferry to those on a budget and with a little more time (it takes 15 hours to get from Incheon to Qingdao).
Janetta and I met another South African teaching English in Korea, Albert, he was also on his way to Beijing via train from Qingdao. Albert lives on one of the Islands to the west of Incheon and is planning to move to France to live with his girlfriend. This was just the first English teacher we met on our epic journey of epicness.
We got to Qingdao intact.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
WWETD?
No, not ET. Eckhart Tolle. I'm having problems living in "the now" here. Especially when my "now" includes sitting a a desk with no real requirements of me until 2pm. That's my Thursdays. I have to show up at 10am, but don't do anything until 2pm when my classes start, then I'm here til 6pm. Fine and dandy that it's only 4 hours of real work, but I'm restless and could be doing so much more with my time (violin, fitness stuff, sleeping, site seeing etc). I love that I can just chat with folks for those hours, but then I get distracted with looking at the price of apartments in Los Angeles. And I find things like a duplex in Topanga Canyon that's $1500/month (2bd/2ba...so I was thinking with a roommate) and while I said I'd never live away from folks again, it would be kind of amazing since it's only 7ish miles from Santa Monica. I could bike that, even when the hills. And then I could go home to a nice, quiet place with my kitties safe from cars, and listen to the toads and silence of being walking distance from a state park. Or the studio (with study/den) in Los Feliz that's only $900/mo and has awesome tiles in the bathroom and is super close to things I like as far as city stuff and Griffith Park. Ah, fantasyland.
It's difficult to not just think "___ more months, just ____ more months." Though, with Chuseok coming up, I'm thinking "China in a few days!" So, that helps.
It is just another office job, so my brain's kind of restless. :P
I'll stop the blabbing and start looking at what to do in China.
~Sarah
It's difficult to not just think "___ more months, just ____ more months." Though, with Chuseok coming up, I'm thinking "China in a few days!" So, that helps.
It is just another office job, so my brain's kind of restless. :P
I'll stop the blabbing and start looking at what to do in China.
~Sarah
Disappearing from the Forbidden Network
I'll be going to Beijing for the Chuseok vacation. China blocks Google, and therefore Blogger and Gmail. I'm not sure about Yahoo, so you may be able to get a hold of me there. Facebook is also blocked. So, I'll pretty much be out of touch from Saturday at noon until Saturday the 25th (my birthday!) at noon--this is all Korean time, so add 8 hours and make them Friday for Los Angeles.
I'll be staying at Leo's Hostel, it was recommended by Lonely Planet and had decent reviews on Hostelworld.com. I would have preferred one of the other hostels with higher ratings, but the more affordable ones were all booked up. Let's hope this one is as good as the awesome reviews and not as damp as the negative reviews say it is.
I'll probably post again before I leave, but wanted to give a heads up.
Sarah
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Why is the first class of the semester the best?
Because 'Capture the Flag' counts as a good activity. Yes! I love my Tuesday/Thursday Intermediate class, it's mostly kids who had me last semester and they were pretty well behaved today. 'Greedy Pig' changed his name to 'Greedy Horse.' I still have a pair of twins, King and Evan, who I can tell apart up close and am working on being able to tell apart from a distance. Evan is a melodramatic actor at times, but doesn't do it when it disrupts class. King is a bit more chatty when there are other things we need to do, but Evan keeps him in check. Jack, the son of one of my adult students, got a bruise under his eye during the game today--I hope his mom isn't upset. Jack's sister, Bella, had me for one class at the end of last semester and told her mom she was sad she wasn't in my class--she picked out a headband for me which matches one of hers. ^_^ Even the shyer girls were running around and laughing during Capture the Flag, which is nice since there were two new girls who weren't speaking up much in the ball toss get-to-know-you game.
My last Beginner 2 class, on the other hand, was really chatty and rude. They wouldn't let anyone have the floor. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. Maybe bribe them to be good with a "gold star" system. I had to move one kid to a different seat and we had to stop the ball toss game because I couldn't hear anything the kids were saying, so we went to the sitting and reciting mode. Ugh. I hate being that teacher. My co-teacher and I were discussing strategies and he was suggesting assigned seats and kicking three time offenders out of class. Then he asked if I was hit in American schools, when I said no he asked how we were controlled. >.< This class is going to test my abilities and patience. Since I only have them one class a day, two times a week, and I'm not linked to the public schools they each attend, I don't have the power of really doing anything.
Today was an overall beautiful day. I feel so loved, thanks to the video from Eric and co., the knowledge that my lovely Aunt Evelyn and my dear friends Jeremy and Kyle are sending me packages, and someone made me and the lacto-ovo veggie at work lunch! I hope I can keep this positive attitude the rest of the semester, and my life.
~Sarah
My last Beginner 2 class, on the other hand, was really chatty and rude. They wouldn't let anyone have the floor. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. Maybe bribe them to be good with a "gold star" system. I had to move one kid to a different seat and we had to stop the ball toss game because I couldn't hear anything the kids were saying, so we went to the sitting and reciting mode. Ugh. I hate being that teacher. My co-teacher and I were discussing strategies and he was suggesting assigned seats and kicking three time offenders out of class. Then he asked if I was hit in American schools, when I said no he asked how we were controlled. >.< This class is going to test my abilities and patience. Since I only have them one class a day, two times a week, and I'm not linked to the public schools they each attend, I don't have the power of really doing anything.
Today was an overall beautiful day. I feel so loved, thanks to the video from Eric and co., the knowledge that my lovely Aunt Evelyn and my dear friends Jeremy and Kyle are sending me packages, and someone made me and the lacto-ovo veggie at work lunch! I hope I can keep this positive attitude the rest of the semester, and my life.
~Sarah
Monday, September 6, 2010
Can't stop smiling
I tried posting this video earlier, but I don't see it when I look at the blog. If it posts twice, I'll take down this post. Eric and a bunch of UUs made this awesome video and sent it to me. I missed out on Young Adult UU camp this year, and I was pretty vocal (in type) on Facebook about it. Now I feel the warm fuzzies.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Knock, Knock.
At 12:30am this morning I was awakened by my door buzzer going off (it's very loud and sing-song-y), I was very confused and was going to ignore whoever it was when I looked at the little screen on the wall and saw it was the police. I stumbled around, half awake trying to get my barrings and figure out why they were outside my door at 12:30 in the morning. I got dressed and (as I'm a curious, law-abiding person) checked on what they were after. They only knew a few words of English, they were, "Do you speak Korean?" "A man," and "falling." After a few seconds of me looking confused and them not knowing what else to say, they went on their way.
I went back to sleep trying to figure out what this meant. If someone had fallen, it'd be simple enough to find the body, and they couldn't be knocking on every apartment on all fifteen floors.
This morning, I asked my co-workers and they suggested the guy who previously lived in my apartment--the one who left me a crutch, a shot of Johnny Walker Red, lots of dirty things (tissues, bandages, cotton swabs, walls with mysterious brown markings I will say was curry or chocolate for my own sanity), and other such nonsense--was who the cops were after. Turns out, Paul (the previous occupant of the room) was in a bar fight and that's how he broke his leg. This bar fight was against a group of Korean Americans who (this is all told from the point of view of those who were friends with Paul) ganged up on him and pushed him down the stairs, breaking his leg. Paul filed a law suit. The group filed a law suit. The cops knock on my door at 12:30am asking about a man falling.
Yay.
Why 12:30am? Surely there are more convenient times for police business.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
So much for the Philippines
The tentative trip to the Philippines has fallen threw due to ticket prices being 730,000 won. Now I'm looking at traveling around Korea and taking a quick trip to Japan by ferry when I reach Busan. I just have to work out where to stay. I'm thinking about braving the Couch Surfing experience and staying at temples, but I have to do more research. Either way, I'm excited for a week off! My goal: finish the lesson plans before the break.
This morning the wind and rain from a typhoon woke me up. The wind coming in through my vents and the open part of the building sounded like a tea kettle, angry thumping and a vibrating phone. Traffic was pretty bad, but I made it to work on time (since I don't have a morning class on Thursdays, start time's a little more flexible). Don't worry, I'm not in the middle of a storm, just getting lots of wind and rain from being on the edge of it.
I slept in, so I didn't get my 30 Day Shred workout in before school, but I made a tasty tofu scramble for lunch and a smoothie for breakfast. Good start to the day and there is still time to throw in that 20 minutes of working out.
I'm not going to continue with my private tutoring, I'm apparently not being paid much for it and I really don't have the time. In addition to it being grounds for deportation if any official folks find out. I just don't want to risk it. The kids are great and the parents are nice, but I could be practicing violin in that time.
~Veggie/Sarah
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