Mickey Mouse Yogurt

 Wow these weeks are flying by faster and faster every time I post! While I wait here in my apartment for the fridge maintenance man to arrive, I will update you on how everything is going here! Firstly, yes my brand new fridge that was installed in the first week of moving into my apartment has already decided to rebel against "the man" and be an oven instead of a fridge. Now I'm not one to judge, you can do whatever makes you happy, but when the water inside my fridge is warmer than my morning coffee I have to take a stand for my rights. I am looking forward to having an awkward-language-barriered moment soon! I wonder if I should play some crazy music just to make it more uncomfortable? Maybe some screamo...or show tunes...or just play the "Bill Nye" version of Gangnam Style on repeat to make him feel more at home? We will see what I'm feeling when he gets here.

Overall update: I am really feeling completely at ease here. At work I have really gotten a hang of the schedule and the way things work. My students are all used to me and my teaching style now (for better or for worse, they are not scared of me anymore). The other teachers are so kind and I am looking forward to spending the next 11 months with them! Getting around the area has been really easy to learn as well! I have ridden buses, subways, and taxis on my own and have not gotten lost (yet..). I met another teacher last night who said she did not have any support system when she first arrived so it took her a little longer to get used to traveling on her own. Thank you Katrina, Amanda, and Shanna for really helping me get used to things here! Living on my own has been nice as well--update- nice little Korean maintenance man just arrived, I used my limit of Korean "Hello, yes, no, friday, thank you"---I love just coming back from a long day of work and doing my own thing, having my own space. Ive gotten used to hanging up laundry to dry and listening to loud Korean conversations from outside my window. My neighbors are all pretty non-existent. The only reason I know someone lives next to me is because he smokes and the smell seeps into my bathroom sometimes. Over the past few weeks I have gone up to the smaller rooftop to sit out in the sun and read. I get a lot of stares from people walking by, because Koreans hide from the sun. Being pale here is seen as beautiful. I must look like some sort of freak of nature sitting out soaking up the rays. ---quick update--through a very broken English/Korean conversation I have just been informed by the maintenance man that I will not have a fridge/freezer until Monday...Oh goodness...---well, time to go with the flow!

So now, time for an update on my super cute Korean students. Friday was a "sports field trip"! Not knowing what that really meant, we all piled onto the buses and drove to Ilsan, about 20 minutes away. Most of the kids were wearing their Little America sweat suits (more pictures later). One of my students however was donning a different sweatshirt-- this is dedicated to the San Diego Saads!

Padres sweatshirt!

 We pulled up to the park and were greeted by lots of people in safari hats and khaki outfits. It was difficult to figure out the theme of the park really. There were several live animals (a monkey, some pigs, and some parrots/other birds) around the area and then walking through the area we saw bonsai tree displays, giant fish statues, and then a water park area?

"Stay Healthy, Beydakol Theme Park"

 After setting up camp at a picnic area, we brought the students to the sports complex area. This consisted of a soccer field sized area with soccer balls, goals, and other games for the kids to play with. After a week of school and being stuck in the bus for an ungodly 20 minutes, we opened the door to heaven and the kids screamed and ran like they haven't been given the opportunity to do so for their entire lives. The teachers just stood the the side and let the chaos ensue.

After running around for a solid 15 minutes, the gym teacher, Bear (yes. His name is Bear) showed up to lead some more organized forms of exercise. The students were broken up into two teams (blue and pink) and thus the Korean theme park Olympics was born.

The first game involved foam rectangles with a blue side and a yellow side. The Blue team had 30 seconds to flip over as many of the rectangles to the blue side as they could. Then the pink team had the same time to flip them all back to yellow. After each taking their turn, Bear had both teams out in the field together flipping over rectangles like they've never flipped rectangles before.

Other games included running and bike relays, and three-legged races. After the first few games I started to see the competition really taking its toll on the teachers rather than the students! Some of the Korean teachers got really into the games trying to get their classes to beat other teacher's classes. It was funny to see them getting all worked up when the kids were just happy to run around like banshees. The final game involved students crawling in giant foam tubes like hamsters. Keep in mind these are kindergarteners, so they should know how to crawl pretty well, however this required some higher gross-motor-skills that some students just haven't quite developed. While some students could crawl quickly without any problems others worked through several strategies during their turns in the foam hamster wheel. Here are a few of my favorites:

Ricky decided a bear crawl would be the best strategy.

This gentleman could stand up and run instead

and he just kept running, good thing the fence was there!

He started flat on his stomach pulling with his arms..

Bear teacher adding some problem solving opportunities

The sports day ended with a tie! I had the pink team all cheering "Go Pink Team!" when Bear teacher looked around and said "pink?". Apparently he had been calling it the blue and red team the whole time. It's OK Bear, gym teachers have different standards for certification.

By the time the sports day activities had finished the kids were hot, sweaty, thirsty, and hungry messes. We walked them back to the picnic area and they enjoyed their kimbap and plethora of unhealthy Korean snacks they had packed to share between them. I sat with Jay, who had yet another Korean genius invention that the rest of the world needs to incorporate into daily life.

 Field trip days are always fun but tiring! We get back to school to get ready for Elementary classes. Every month Elementary has something called "Best of the Best" where a student from each class is chosen to receive an award for completing some sort of task. This month the students had to write a movie report on a Wallace and Gromit cartoon. I enjoyed watching the cartoons as well as reading some of the reports from the eyes of Korean students!

The afternoon went by pretty quickly with the breaks between classes to celebrate the students who won "Best of the Best". One of my classes finished their pen pal letters to a class in America of another Hood graduate! They are all excited to hear back from students over there. I am interested to see what they learn and what discussions stem from the differences in their educational experiences. Its incredible the amount of stress that is put on students here. Even my young elementary school students feel the effects of the pressure from parents, teachers, and schools to do their best every day. Not only to these students go to multiple schools but they also participate in extracurricular activities and study for endless hours after school and on the weekends. When I ask them what they do on their free time, 95% of the time I hear "I study" or "do homework". It is sad, because they are still kids and need to have some fun in their lives, but that is just the culture over here! I therefore do my part for these kids and try to make my classroom as much of a stress-free and accepting environment as possible. Hence lots of games, singing, listening to music, and just talking about anything and everything!

After work on Friday, Katrina, Seol and I headed to Bupyeong to meet up with one of their friends Rich for dinner. While waiting for a table, a man dressed up as Mickey Mouse stopped and handed me an entrance ticket to a night club nearby. He then handed Rich a small, warm, yogurt drink. While we were trying to work out the connection between the two, Mickey Mouse skipped off to continue handing out random items to people along the street. Only in Korea. After a night of delicious food, drinks, and darts, I curled up in bed ready for a quiet next few days. Next weekend a group of us are going hiking to see the leaves change, which should be beautiful! It is going to be a long and crowded trip to get there and back, but it will be worth it! Of course, it will be blogged, don't worry. 

Until next time!

xoxo

Korean Word of the Post (This one's for you mum!) : 찻잔 [chat-jan] = teacup

Annnd Now They're Singing....

Happy weekend everyone! It is time to update you on my trip yesterday to the Wine and Traditional Music Festival in Yeongdong in north Chungcheong Provence. The strange school week ended (only a three day week broken up by various holidays), and after being reminded that "my voice sounds funny" by all of my students multiple times because of a cold, it was time to have a relaxing wine tasting adventure! Wine cures colds right? It's fruit...

Shanna, Katrina, her mum (Kandi) and I met at 5:00am, yes it was still dark, and hopped in a taxi to Hongdae Station. When we arrived there were two "Adventure Korea" buses waiting to pick up travelers heading out on two separate trips. One bus was going farming...and the other was our bus! We set off on our way, stopping twice to pick up more wine-tasters from various stations around Seoul. Driving to Yeongdong allowed me to see a completely different part of Korea. There were trees and mountains EVERYWHERE, which I definitely do not get to see everyday in the city. It was beautiful! The festival itself was set up in different areas around this town. Our first stop, naturally, was the wine tasting tent. 

Kandi spending her last day with her daughter :)

Walking into this ginormous tent we were greeted with about 20 wine tasting booths each pouring their selection of dry red, sweet red, and white wines. Some booths even had liquor (like a cognac booth that we were pulled to by our event guide, Max). Anyways, we made our ways down the booths each one, finding some we loved and some we...didn't love too much.

Not only could you drink the wine but you could also soak your feet in it! Apparently if you soak your feet in wine mixed with hot water three times a week, you will get a "smokin' french bikini body" according to Max. While I am a tad skeptical of the results, it felt really good!

We were wandering from table to table when we heard music and looked down to the end of the tent where there was a wedding! Hey, perfect wedding venue right? Wine for your guests no matter what type of wine they like! Some people were obviously feeling the effects of the wine after a while...

Over indulged a bit

 Along with weddings, the wine tasting tent also offered a way for us to win prizes! We were listening to a very excited man on a microphone yelling something when suddenly a group of Korean audience members ran up on stage. Not ones to be left out of something like this, Shanna and I also ran up with them. Who knows what we had just agreed to join by doing so. We saw a huge blow up orb with about 40 small foam balls being blown around the inside. The purpose of the game we had just joined was to grab as many of the the small foam balls inside the large one and throw them on the ground by our feet. The one who ended up with the most, wins. Pretty simple right? Well I made it through a few rounds but it was much more difficult than I thought! I did get a bag of grape juice as a consolation prize- score! While I sad back down, Shanna kept going through the rounds until she made it to the final! And after a valiant effort on her part she ended up with second place, which got her a free bottle of wine and some grape jam! Not too shabby right? We were so proud of her :)

After going through the wine tent we ventured off to see other parts of the festival. There were several tents with food, trinkets, and other items for sale. We also watched a few rounds of a traditional Korean wrestling match between two young boys. The spectators got really into the match, cheering for their favorite wrestler. We left the fight and kept wandering to find the strangest rickshaw-like carts pulling people around. At first we thought they were being pulled by little kids, but then we realized that they were machines attached to the carts that walked when you pushed or pulled the lever in front of the seat! It was a bit creepy the way these carts were stumbling around the square. 

The group was then taken to another area of the festival which was all about traditional music called Samulnori (사물놀이) as well as the Korean folk song Arirang (아 리랑). We could play the drums and string instruments as well as win a wooden flute (sogeum), which I did! Granted I won because I beat the guy giving them out in a game of rock-scissors-paper, but who says that doesn't take some skill? 

Nearing the end of our day, we walked around the traditional music area of the festival on our own looking at the way they made their janggu (or traditional two sided drum) and other instruments. Then we got to see a female drumming group, which was incredible! The precision and choreography of their drumming was amazing to watch and hear. 

Around 4:30 we were told to meet back on the bus. This is when the real adventure started. As this was a wine-tasting trip, several members of our group were feeling the effects of the alcohol, resulting in loud conversations about god-knows-what, and impromptu karaoke sessions (explanation of the title of this post). These girls were not exactly American Idol worthy and the entire bus was quiet except for their attempts to sing bohemian rhapsody and backstreet boys. After a while of trying to block out the sound, I realized it had gone eerily quiet. Shanna tapped me and pointed back to their seat...I have photograph evidence of this but for their privacy I will not post it. Basically one girl had curled up in the fetal position while the other used her wine-bottle-box as a head rest and was holding it like a teddy bear. We had a quiet rest of the journey...or so we thought...

It took us about an hour and a half to reach the rest stop around 6:00pm, then another 40 minutes to reach the first drop off point (6:40pm). That's when traffic started to get really bad. We did not get to the Express Bus Terminal (the second drop off point) until around 7:45 and then still had to go to our stop at Hongnae station. After about an hour and a half of lurching, stopping, and getting no where, the driver began to speak to us in Korean. The 10 of us left in the bus looked around and realized that both our guides had gotten off a the last stop, meaning there was no translator with us. One girl tried the best she could and told us the bus driver thought it would be best to get off at the stop wherever we were at that time because of traffic. We all would rather do anything than sit on that bus for any longer so we hopped off. 

We then realized that this was going to be a bit more complicated than expected. We were off a different stop than usual so we wandered around trying to look for the right stop then just decided to work the subway systems to weave our way back home. For some reason, this particular night, every resident of Seoul and their mothers were in the subway stations going our direction. The subway started off as a bit crowded then gradually became a human sardine can where I couldn't move without pushing someone over and starting a domino effect. Each stop, when we thought we could not possible fit anyone else in the train car, more people squeezed on causing a combination of moans/screams/and grunts from member already inside. Here is your photo evidence!

After about 6 stops it was our turn to push ourselves off. Squeezing through we FINALLY made it back to our bus stop around 10:00pm. That is a 7 and a half hour trip back home from a place that was really only about 2 and a half hours away. Yikes Seoul traffic! So besides the trip home, the day was lovely! Got to taste some delicious wine, learn about traditional Korean music, and spend it all with good friends. We also got to see the Seoul Fireworks Festival from the bus which was a nice added bonus of the evening. Here are some extra random photos for you to enjoy :)

Now it is time to head into a full 5 day week at school. No more crazy excursions for me for a few weeks, so I get to rest and relax. Hopefully I will get over this cold/cough so I sound like my old self again! Teaching my kindergarteners a Halloween song while sounding like a pubescent boy does not bode well for our performance at the end of the month!

Korean phrase of the post: 아이고 내 발이야! "ah-e-ko nae bal-e-ya"- Ouch! That's my foot!

xoxo

Dancing For the Mayor

What a fun last few days! Chuseok festivities are winding down and now we are back to business at school. The past few days have been quite eventful so I thought I would fill you in on some of the details. Firstly, Saturday and Sunday I did not do anything blog worthy. Stayed outside enjoying the weather as much as possible, but most of Bucheon was shut down because of the holidays. Monday, Shanna and I ventured to Bupyeong underground market which is only a couple subway stops from us. She made me lead the way through the buses and subway so that I could learn how to do it on my own (what a good teacher!). We made it there safely, and began to navigate our way through this huge maze of endless clothing, make up, phone, shoes, and accessories stores that line the halls. I wish we had a map of the entire place because it must look like a bowl of spaghetti based on the way I felt as we wandered through. If you saw my last photo update on Facebook you would have seen some great t-shirts and sweatshirts I found with slightly-incorrect English on them (people call is "hanglish" here. A mix of hangul, the korean alpaabet, and English). If you aren't on Facebook, here is a little taste of what I saw...

I completely understand if you are as excited as I was about these shirts. These as well as the rest of them we found were like little nuggets of gold in a sea of faux brand name, knock-offs, and polyester! Found a few things to add to my wardrobe though...one may or may not be a sweatshirt with a pocket that has a mustache and top hat...its fine...moving on...

So that was Monday! Tuesday we were back at school for an awkward day full of classes with only 1 or 2 students in them (aka game day) and that brings us to Wednesday. As I think I've mentioned before, this Wednesday I signed up to go on an organized trip through a program called Adventure Korea. This program comes up with fun things to go, places to go, and people to meet for groups of foreigners in the area. They have a whole website that is constantly updated with new, for the lack of a better word, "adventures" for you to sign up for. I decided to use my second day off this week to go to Gongju which is an ancient capital city of Seoul. The day began with me taking a taxi at 5:30 in the morning to the Hongdae station located right near the Hongik University campus. My taxi driver dropped me off on a corner of a street, unable to tell me exactly where the subway was...so I began wandering around the side streets running into young Korean students who were just ending their festivities from the evening (this observation was based on the number of people being carried and those who decided to fall asleep on the side of the street). After walking around without finding signs for the subway station I needed, I ran into a convenience store to scare a poor little Korean man behind the counter by speaking English so early in the morning. He pointed the complete opposite direction of where I had been walking. After following his guidance I found the station (yay!) and staked out a spot to wait for the Adventure Korea bus.

Once the bus came I met a few of the others who signed up for the trip. There was a small group who had all met through their public school orientation the year before (again, I was the bambi in the group). There were girls from Scotland, Ireland, England, and Canada, and then a guy from Minnesota. The whole bus was eventually filled with more people whose nationalities ranged from American to Italian. Our guide provided by Adventure Korea, Max, was a hilarious little Korean man who just said cliche English phrases in a super excited voice to get us "pumped up". He was great! Our first stop was the Gongju National Museum which had artifacts excavated from the region. It was here we found out that we would have a full out camera crew following us around all day...weird...more about that later.

The poor interpreter, Mrs. Kim, really tried her best to keep 40 something English speakers engaged and focused on looking at old pottery...it was difficult. I stuck with her as others in the group began to wander the museum, and she actually had a lot of insight into the artifacts, but just had trouble communicating it exactly how she wanted to. Very little was translated into English, so I had her explain a lot of the signs and purposes of things. We all felt that we got the speed-tour of the museum. There was not much time to slowly walk around and see each item, not that we could read the explanations anyways. One highlight of the museum was actually the informational video explaining the museum and history of the Baekje empire. At one point during the film the word "onry" was used. As the English teachers cringed and shook their heads, the Koreans in watching the video did not seem to notice the "hangrish" that had just occurred in an official museum video!

We then got taken to the ancient Songsan-ri tombs and the Royal Tomb of King Muryeong. While the tombs were actually just recreations, they were still cool to walk into and see what they might have looked like. In one area that showed relics and jewels found in the tombs we saw a bright neon eraser...which after some debate, we decided was not found in the ancient tomb. 

ancient eraser found in a tomb

One of the coolest pieces in the museum! The Buddha is made out of string and gold beads!

After the museum legs kicked in it was lunch time! We headed to the Baekje festival area and were let loose for an hour to find food! We found 파전 (pa-jeon) which is basically a Korean pancake with veggies and seafood usually (Ours had octopus tentacles- only in Korea!) We were then scooped up on the bus again to go chestnut picking! It was around this time that I began to feel a bit under the weather. With body aches and an intense headache, I was not feeling up to any intense chestnut adventure (as they tend to be, you know). I sucked it up and tricked myself into thinking that I felt 100% which semi-worked! 

Anyways, for chestnut picking we were given a small bag...and that's it. Hiking up the side of a mountain, we found lots of porcupine-spiked-extremely-painful-when-you-touch-them chestnut shells. After getting a quick lesson of how exactly to extract the chestnuts (flash to Harry Potter trying to replant a mandrake...sorry to the non-potter fans out there) we were released on the mountain side to get picking! I got kind of good at it eventually. As I gathered I wondered what in the world I was going to do with a bag full of chestnuts when I got home... 

 The camera crew walked around the photographed/video taped us attempting to not get spiked to death by chestnuts. I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine and turned my camera on one of them- he played along haha

After chestnut picking it was back to the Baekje festival but in a new part with traditional costumes, crafts, and food making areas. The entire group was given hanbok shirts to wear throughout the day. These only increased the stares from Koreans who were also attending the festival, which we all loved of course...We were given about an hour of free time, during which a group of us who felt like we had been awake for 5 days straight found some seats at the Jindallae hwajeon (진달래 화전), or yummy pancake, station and rested there until it was time to meet up again as a group.

The final event for the day was actually being a part of the Baekje festival parade! We were given a banner to hold and everything! A tad embarrassing, but when will I ever get this experience again right? Anyways, after waiting for a while for the parade to get going we begin walking down the main street of the town, waving to the parade-watchers on the sidewalks. Feeling like celebrities, cheered and waved all the way to the main stage. That's when we got the news...

Apparently we had been given the "opportunity" to perform Gangnam Style in front of the mayor of the town, other officials, and hundreds of Koreans watching the parade. Now I know what you're thinking, "there is no way you did that", "you're making this up to make your blog become famous and make millions of dollars", "you've got to be pulling on my leg"- Well foreseeing this lack of belief from my adoring friends and family I've captured the entire experience on video. Here you have it! The brave souls of the Adventure Korea group giving an unrehearsed, impromptu performance of Gangnam Style to the town of Gongju!

One of the most surreal yet simultaneously embarrassing moments of my life. We all were in complete disbelief that it actually happened! Apparently it will be on the news? I am still looking through various Korean news sights to find the footage for you all. I will keep you updated! After that life-changing Gangnam Style experience, we headed back to the bus to return home after a long and exhausting day. When we finished the parade it was only 7:30pm but we all agreed it felt more like 1 in the morning. The last obstacle for me was navigating the subway and bus systems to get back to my apartment on my own! With some help from another "Adventurer" I made it back to the subway near my apartment, then found the correct bus and bus stop to get back around 11:30! By the time I got back my whole body hurt and I felt like I had been hit over the head with a bag full of...chestnuts...After taking some nyquil I immediately passed out hoping to feel better then next day!

Overall, my first solo journey was a complete success! I got a bag full of chestnuts, a free bottle of Makkoli (rice wine..which I gave to my program director this morning at school...he then asked if I wanted to have any right then...rain check Solomon! haha), AND we were given the hanbok shirts as souvenirs! Met a lot of new friends who I hope to meet up with on more trips throughout my year here!

I brought my chestnuts to school today as well, because honestly...what was I going to do with a pound an a half of chestnuts...and the school cook boiled them for the teachers' afternoon snack! They are absolutely delicious! I took the rest home with me so now I have snacks to last me for a few weeks :) For now I am going to try to rest, get my voice back (as I currently sound like a 12 year old boy going through puberty) and recover from this cold asap. Saturday some of the other teachers and I are headed on a trip to a wine festival, for which I obviously need to be a the top of my game mentally and physically to enjoy some delicious wine! As you know, a blog update and pictures will obviously follow along soon after.

Miss you all! xoxo

Korean word of the post: 놀라움! (nor-ra-oom) "surprise!"

xoxo