Rainy day

It was a raining day in Seoul. Of course it made me homesick for Arizona where it hardly ever rains. My kids were a little mopey today because of the weater, which personally was good for me!!!!!! Quiet days every once in a while are good for me!!!!!!! So I had to run errands today and luckily I had my umbrella, but on my way home, it was only sprinkling and I didn't think it was nessicary to pull my umbrella out of my purse. This Ajumma, ran up to me and opened her umrella and held it over my head. I tried telling her, that I didn't need it, and I tried to go into my purse to get my umbrella, but she just grabed my arm and started pushing me forward while holding her umbrella over my head. It was so nice, but I felt bad, because she was walking in the rain, while holding her umbrella over my head. Then she started speaking in Korean to me and I only knew how to say "I don't speak Korean," of course I know more Korean than that, but not enough to have any sort of conversation with her. She just kept pushing me forward at a quick pace. This little old lady was in good shape, because I was starting to huff and puff up the hill to my apartment.

There are two types of Ajummas in Korea. The first is like the one I met tonight. Extremely friendly and welcomes you to their country. They will smile at you in the street and hold your hand to say hello. The other type is mean and unfriendly. They will stare you down with these mean eyes that say "Get OUT of MY COUNTRY!" I swear its 70 percent type one and only 30 percent type two, but that thirty percent can make you feel a little uncomfortable.

My brain is fried!!!!

I am mentally exhausted!!!! I teach all day, and then I try to go out all night. I really want to make the most of my time here and experience everything I can. For the first time in my life I feel like an over acheiver. But I am probably just at par with everyone else, in the world. I have never worked so hard in life, but I feel very satisfied at the end of each day.

Thursday night Sok Hyun(Martin) invited me to get out of Seoul and visit him at his University in Yongin. He attends Myoung Ji university, and they were having there yearly spring festival. It took me over 2 hours by bus to get there, but it was well worth it. The festival was basically a concert. There was a professional breakdancing group called "Da boys", a famous comedy act called gecens concert or something like that, and then Kim Jang Hoon ( a very famous singer). All of the performances were amazing. Even though the comedy act was all in Korean, I still found it extremely funny. Also, I would just laugh whenever anyone else laughed. Sok Hyun tried to translate as best as he could, but it was difficult. The singer Kim Jang Hoon was really entertaining. He drank beer and soju on stage and then began pouring the alcohol into peoples mouths. I had to work the next day, so we left the concert a little early and headed over to the Soju tents. I think I was the only foreigner on campus, so everyone was really staring at me. This does not bother Sok Hyun at all, unlike H (it really makes H uncomfortable when people look at us). I met one of Sok Hyuns friends at the soju tent. She was this teeney tiny girl and she was very cute and nice. We drank a little and ate a little, we also got free peaches as a service, because I am a foreigner. Usually in Korea, I either get free stuff because I am or a foreigner or I totally get screwed over. Overall though I think its pretty balanced. Sok Hyun walked me to the bus at about 11:30 for my long trip back to the city. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up right before I was supposed to get up. I was pretty lucky for that!!!!!! It was one of the best things I have done in Korea. I am truly lucky to have met Sok Hyun.

Some randomness

Yesterday I went to a one year olds birthday. Well I guess it was actually her second birthday, because you are one the day you are born. Anyway, the first birthday here in Korea is a really big deal. The parents throw a huge party and there is a lot of food and drinks. The parents that hosted this party are good friends with Tim, so that is why I was able to go. The party was held at a beautiful resturant, probably one of the nicest restuarants I have ever been too. There was candles everywhere, all you can drink wine, a delicious dinner, a photographer and a video camera technician. I think this would have been the wedding reception of my dreams, but no this was a party to celebrate a one year old girl. The most interesting part of this party is one tradition where they put the child on a table with a bag of money, a pencil, rice, a ribbon and new this year, a computer mouse. (Technology changes all tradions eventually) The money represents wealth, a penicil is brains, the rice is to never be hungry, the ribbon is a long life, and the computer mouse represents being good with computers. The little girl picked money and then threw it down and picked up a pencil. The party was great and I had a great time. H drove all the way from Daegu to see me and it took him six hours to get there because of traffic. He was going to pick me up from the party but, instead I met him in Daebang. We weren't able to see each other for two weeks and so I was happy to spend time with him.

Childrens Day

Childrens day is a National Holiday. At first I just thought that students got a day off of school, but actually everyone gets a day off. I am not complaining though because that meant that I get a day off too. But the day before the actual holiday, my school celebrated with a huge party. We played games, ate Mc Rib sandwiches (do you remember these from McDonalds?), ice cream and watched a movie. It was a great day to go to work becuase I got paid to watch my kids have fun.

Do his parents know what this shirt means? I want one too!!!!!

MOVIE TIME: MI3

I went to the movies for the second time in six months, and decided you should all know about it. Going to the movies is different in Korea. When you buy your tickets, you pick your seats. Kinda like if you were going to a baseball game. The movie theatres are always packed so you have to wait a while to buy tickets. Tim and I ended up having to see the 12:50am showing. Thats right it was almost one in the morning. Our seats were pretty good though. Actually I don't think you can get bad seats. The movie theatres are better (more leg room and the stadium seating is steeper). AT the theatre you can get popcorn or dried SQUID. Tim and I went with the popcorn, but the dried squid is actually quite popular. I think I will try it eventually.

This sign says don't bring in your own cola or squid!!!!!!

Field trip

These past two weeks, I have been so busy. I want to write about everything I have done, but it actually takes a lot of time to write these blogs and add pictures. My mom told me she wants to hear more about my students. So I will tell you about our field trip. Our school went to the HeoJun memorial museum and I can tell you was not excited. My boss told me it was a museum about a doctor. I don't have a degree in child studies, but I was pretty sure my six year old kids would be bored out of their minds. I was dreading this field trip. My school loaded us up on 8 mini vans to travel about twenty minutes to this "museum". I only had one of my students (harry) with me, so I was giving him a lot of my attention. When we arrived outside of the museum, I was running around trying to get my class together. We formed 8 lines (there are 8 classes) outside and we got a wiff of a horrible smell. I went ahead and took of my kids plugging their noses, because it was so cute. But they were complaining a lot about the smell. Once we entered the museum, I was immediately surprised by how nice it was. There was a lot of information about this doctor and even more suprisingly, they had everything in English and Korea, so I was able to explain things to my kids. (My students are almost fluent, so they were able to understand everything I told them). It was funny to hear me talk to my kids about acupucture and medicince and then to hear Jennifer say "whats this?" and have her kids "A book." Jennifers kids are first year students so they know only very basic English. So the museum was a waste for them. But my students got so information out of it, and its a museum that I would definately reccomend.
My super cute kindies. I love them even if they are little terrors sometimes.

Lantern festival

My week started out really great on Sunday. Sara (my co-worker and neighbor) cooked a western style breakfast. This is a specialty because breakfast here in Korea is the same as dinner or lunch. For Sara to prepare omlets, potatoes and coffee is really a special treat. Of course I was 15 minutes late, first of all becuase I was on Liz time and second because H called to tell me he was canceling plans AGAIN! After breakfast we headed to Insadong for the festival. The weather was perfect and the people were so friendly. They had a little kids preforming dances


on stage, both tradional and hip hop.
Jen and I got to try on tradional Korean clothing (we are doing tradional Korean faces), we made laterns, I had a tradional water painting made just for me (which they ended up giving to me as a present), and we ate delicious Korean food. Jen's mom was with us and she was fascinated by the fact that everyone wanted to take pictures of Jen and I. I think we had atleast five T.V stations follow us and numerous people asking to take our pictures. We just told her mom, that we are local celeberties, its our little joke. By mid afternoon, the place was packed. It was a sea of black hair and we just blended in with the crowd, well not blended but mixed in. At about 6:30 we decided to look for seats for the latern parade. We got some really great seats and sat behind these ajummas (little old ladies). At first they seemed really unfriendly, and kept staring at us. But then started handing us food and kept making a motion for us to eat. We were so shocked, but it was such a kind jesture, and we ate the snacks. After we were waiting for about 20 minutes, a van pulled up infront of us and parked. We were pissed!! I don't feel like I am really enthnocentric, but I know back home, that this area would have been taped off at the beggining of the day if there was going to be an electric truck parked during the parade. The Ajummas really let the driver have it. They even strted hitting him, not hard of course. This was an all day event and we finally left after 9pm, poor Jen's mom was so tired, it was only her second day in Korea. The subway ride home was actually quite entertaining with Neil and I throwing around your mom jokes. Jen tried to jump in, but she kept saying "my mom", instead of "your mom". It was so funny. Ah I am going to miss Neil when he leaves our school next month.


Just wanted to add this picture because garbage cans are few and far between and then they are usually overly packed like this one. I find this really interesting, because Koreans are neat freaks, yet Korea is not what I would call a clean country and thats coming from me!!!!!