Hey Hun - Will You Hold My Purse? ...All Day?



So we've learned quite a bit about how the Koreans do the love thing over here. We came when everyone was getting ready for "White Day" (March 14th). The Koreans split Valentines day into two separate holidays - one where the guy gets the girl a gift and the other is when the girl gets a guy a gift. "Valentines Day" is still celebrated on February 14th and the girls get guys presents, and "White Day" is a month later. Its all very commercial as in the U.S. but the "couple" feeling penetrates not only the springtime in Korea. They have couples matching underwear sold everywhere (including subway stations), couple phone charms (phone charms are VERY popular...more detail about phone charms later), matching outfits (we've seen a few couples on the street completely matching), etc.

Another interesting thing we've learned about dating is that usually only a few months after dating couples get a ring with each other. This is not like a wedding ring or anything - just a symbol you are taken...but coming from our culture it seems like a pretty big step to take after only a few months!

There is a trend I would definitely not complain about if it eventually caught fire in the States: men holding women's purses. On our trip to Insadong with some of our Korean friends, we noticed some of our Korean male friends holding/carrying their girlfriends purse. And not just while she put her coat on or even went to the bathroom - the ENTIRE time. After that we started noticing that a lot of guys carry their girlfriends purse. Large, small; plain, sequined - you name it, they carry it.

On Saturday with our Korean friends we got into a conversation about what we look for in a prospective partner. All personality traits aside, we dug into physical attributes being curious as to what makes an attractive Korean, or an attractive Westerner in our personal opinions. One of the women in our class mentioned "thin ankles" and the guys "voice" as being the most important physical attributes. Ankles? Really? Some of the other Korean women were also a bit intrigued by this so I'm guessing it's more of an interesting personal preference than anything cultural, but still worth sharing!

All this "couple" business is interesting, considering we heard that the divorce rate in Korea now surpasses the divorce rate in the States (which I thought would be hard to do). I haven't looked this stat up myself, so if you are interested I would wiki-google it :P

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My Korean is coming along quite well - I can read and am starting to get the sentence structure. One of the first weekends here I bought a used book at an English book store on how to teach myself Korean. I was able to apply my knowledge at school one day when my kids were making paper airplanes out of their homework assignment. After a few "hey - please don't do that" and "no airplanes you guys!" with no response I finally just said "비행기 아니!" (pee-ehn-gee ahn-ee!) which means "No airplane!" My kids stopped DEAD in their tracks and silence fell over the room as they just started at me. At first I thought it was because I said something that DIDN'T mean what I wanted it to (haha) but eventually my smartest kid (Joshua) just said "Meghan-Teacher...Korean?" And I said, no but that I was trying to learn. Then they all burst out laughing and spend the rest of the class teaching me random words in Korean. Highlights included grandfather, eyeball and red hat - clearly the vocab I'm needing at this point in time. It was really cool to see them try to translate between Korean and English in order to teach me so I'm counting that class as well spent.

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Friday night we headed down to Suji to visit Tyler and friends. It was a lot of fun and I ended up going out with some of them dancing. I met English-speaking people from all over - a Kiwi (New Zealand person), an Aussie, a couple Brits, a handful of Canadians and people from across the U.S. as well. It's not uncommon here to stay out all night since the bars and clubs are open till 4am or later so we danced the night away and then I took the subway home when it started running again at 5:30am. When I got off at my subway stop to go home, the sun was rising and the markets were beginning to open.


A few random things:

I met a woman in my Korean class who swing dances and so she's going to email me this week about going dancing and possibly taking lessons here in Seoul. I'm really excited because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to find it here. YES!

I was sitting in a coffee shop waiting for Rach to get off work and I was asked to be interviewed by a few University students. They were doing a project about interviewing foreigners and had to ask me questions in English, etc. I felt pretty cool :D

We made another great haul of furniture/toys Sunday night after our adventure in Olympic Park - Rach will update you all on that adventure later.

Here is a video of Amy - probably the most adorable little girl I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know. I hope you enjoy it! (*also available on Webshots HERE )

Subway Fights, Silkworm Larvae, And Cultural Sights...All Part Of A Day's Work

As I had previously mentioned, the group of Koreans we practice English with had decided that once a month we would do something touristy so that the foreigners could see the city and they could get some more practice speaking. They decided that for our March (and first) trip, we would go to the Gyeongbokgung Palace. The palace was built in 1395, three years after the Joseon Dynasty was founded and it served as the Dynasty’s main palace. It was reduced to ashes in 1592 by the Japanese and finally rebuilt in 1867. The Japanese destroyed 90% of the palace in 1915 during their occupation, claiming to need the land for an exhibition. The palace didn’t start getting restored again until 1990 and was just finished in 2007.

There were 6 foreigners and roughly 18 Koreans on the trip, so we split into groups of 1 western to every 3 Koreans. The place was absolutely huge! It was difficult to keep all the buildings straight and even figure out what they were used for, especially because many of them looked exactly the same. The place actually reminded me a lot of the Forbidden City in China (at least from what I remember of it after seeing it 7 years ago). The style of buildings and layout was fairly similar, although the Forbidden City is much larger. My group was very beginner students which made communicating much more difficult, but we had a lot of fun trying to guess what each other were trying to say!

The National Folk Museum of Korea is also near the palace so we spent a little bit of time there. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much time after wandering through the palace so we were unable to see a lot of it. We did try our hand at a traditional game (you throw sticks at a little metal cup thing) and saw some artifacts from the Dynasty. Afterwards, we all wandered over to Insa-dong which is a nearby area. On the way we had a typical Korean street-food snack of silk worm larvae. We wandered through an open-air craft market that was on a store-lined street. Meg and I will definitely be returning to this area to do some shopping once we get paid!

On the way home, Meg and I witnessed our first subway fight which was a slightly nerve wracking experience since we had no clue what the fight was about and it took place literally 3 feet in front of where we were sitting. To our knowledge, an older man was talking to an older lady about something and then all of a sudden second older man was yelling at the first and a younger guy jumped in as well. The older lady as well as the lady who was with the second older man got involved somehow (we think they were just trying to calm people down?) and it honestly looked as if punches were going to be thrown. There was a little bit of pushing and shoving, a lot of yelling, and had a punch been thrown Meg or I could have easily ended up with a Korean on our lap and possibly a black eye (which would have been fun to explain at work the next day). While we never felt unsafe, it was just odd to witness a brawl like that, while riding public transportation at 8 pm on a Sunday night, between older people, and have NO IDEA what it was about.

Teaching at a school where everyone is licensed results in some interesting observations about being a teacher in Korea versus America. For example, the Korean teaching style is based around rote memorization. These kids are expected to memorize lists of words and phrases with no context and then spit them back out. Most of them can spit them back out at you, but since they simply memorized them they can’t apply the words or phrases into any different contexts. At any rate, another huge difference is the idea that it is unacceptable to be different and thus, parents don’t want to admit when their child may have a learning problem. Special education is nonexistent over here (as it is in Europe). Many of the teachers have had a child in their classroom who would be receiving services for something in the states (Autism, learning disability, ADHD, etc) but here they are viewed and taught the same way as everyone else. In fact, some moms have secretly gotten their child tested and diagnosed without telling the father because they want to be able to help their child but it is viewed as unacceptable to be diagnosed. As a teacher, it blows my mind that a parent wouldn’t want to do everything they could to determine what makes their child act the way they do and what can help make life easier for them.

Yesterday Meg and I stopped by our cell phone shops to charge up our phones. Since we got pre-paid plans we have to go add more money every month. Meg and I have different providers, so we stopped at hers (LG) first. Well, LG shops are all over the place so we walked into the one nearest the subway and Meg handed over her phone, some money and said “charge.” The lady took it and started typing away and then handed the phone and money back saying something in Korean. Meg and I looked at her blankly and she started apologizing to us for not knowing English! She then proceed to walk us about 10 minutes down the way to a LG shop where Meg could charge her phone and stood there while they charged it! Meg and I were simply amazed at her willingness to go out of her way and the fact that she kept saying how bad she felt that she couldn’t explain in English! Where in America do you ever witness something like that?! And for the record, we still have no idea why Meg couldn’t charge her phone at the first shop.

Today I went on my first field trip with my babies! CIS organizes a field trip for the kindergarten students roughly every month and I was excited to see what these trips entailed. Today’s trip was to Lotte World (the Disney World of Seoul). Lotte World is actually really close to where Meg and I live and has both and outdoor and indoor part. We were visiting the indoor part today (think Camp Snoopy…sorry, Nickelodeon Land or whatever it is now) to ride on a ride and make pizza. So anyway, we rode on a little monorail thing that takes you on a loop around the entire indoor park. My kids absolutely ate it up! They thought it was the most exciting thing ever, which was good since it took us more time to walk to the ride than to actually ride the ride (3-year-olds are very slow at going up stairs!) Then all the students crammed into a big room filled with tables to make pizza. Each table had 3 or 4 kids at it and they worked together to roll the dough and spread it on the pan, cut the toppings (green pepper, onion, ham, and corn) and spread the toppings and cheese out. While the pizzas were cooking we all went to wash our hands (a nightmare seeing as there are roughly 12 classes of 12 kids with 2 or 3 adults per class and only one small bathroom). On our way back from the bathroom, I witnessed the strangest part of a Korean field trip. Each child got individual pictures taken by professional photographers. Oh yeah, did I mention that we had not 1 but 3 photographers following us around all day? It was very strange, almost like our own mini-paparazzi. All in all the day was very fun and I consider the field trip a success since I didn’t lose any kids or have any criers.

Well, another Friday has come around and I am sure we will have some good stories to share come Monday! It will be hard to top last weekend’s escapades, but as usual, we will try our best!

1 Month Down... 11 To Go!



New PICTURES!

So this past week was pretty eventful! We are getting used to everyday being an adventure and life is pretty darn good!

Last week our water heater/floor heater dial thing started flashing red - not the best sign in the world - and our floor heat and water heat went out. Since our dial is completely in Korean we had no idea what this flashing light was alerting us to. In need of some hot water for our showers we did what anyone would do - call our new Korean friend/neighbor Mark who we randomly met in a restaurant a few weeks before saying "we have an emergency." Haha. So Mark comes over and looks at our light and tells us we need to reset something-or-another. He browses our apartment but finally just asked us if we had our landlords phone number. Ha - ummm no. BUT he lives right above us. To make a long story short, Mark was pretty much a lifesaver because the reset button (or valve or whatever) is in our neighbors apartment, so the landlord had to go and reset it himself. Our landlord and landlady seem very very nice, but communication with them would be almost impossible without a translator. So...thanks Mark!

Then Rach and I decided to get a Costco membership to buy bulk food to cook at home more and hopefully save a little money that way. Unfortunately, Costco is a pain to get to but we decided it would be worth it. We went right after work, and neither of us had really thought ahead to bring extra cash with us, but we figured a place as large as Costco would take credit cards. Wrong. We had just enough money to buy our membership card. 4 subway transfers and 2 bus rides later all we had to show for our trip was a plastic card. The evening was not entirely lost, however, because across the street at a different mart I bought the newest addition to our happy little Korean family - my fish! I named him gimbap (Korean sushi) and I love him.

Thursday evening Rach and I met up with Rach's older brother Dan's friend from highschool/college Domingo. Domingo lived in Korea until he was 9 years old, and then lived in the States until after college. He has been back in Seoul for about 14 months. He lives in a pretty cool part of town called Hongdae which is famous for its clubbing/young people nightlife on the weekend and in general a more liberal/artsy place of the city. There we met him and his girlfriend and went out to dinner. We had a traditional Korean meal where you grill meat and veggies on a grill at your table. After dinner they took us out for coffee and cheesecake at a nice cafe. We were enjoying our green tea lattes and green tea mochas when Domingo's girlfriend answers a phone call, flips the phone toward me and says "this is my friend." They were video chatting. On her cell phone. So the friend waves at me - I'm still stunned thinking it was a video she had taken on her phone before and was replaying so I kinda wave back with probably a very confused expression on my face. Maybe this exists on cell phones in the States, but Rach and I had never seen it before so we were surprised they could do that!

There are lots and lots of coffee shops here - and some are ridiculously large. We found out this is because since most Koreans live with their parents until they are married, a lot of them use coffee shops as a place to hang out and go on dates. One of our Korean friends named Bin is 32 (not sure if that is in Korean years or regular years) and he still lives at home. Domingo also lives at home and he is in his late 20's.

Saturday we had our Korean lessons, and our Korean tutors took us out to lunch! They brought us to a trendy organic restaurant where there have been Korean celebrity sitings! It was very delicious and spending time with them outside of lessons was really nice. We made plans to go to the bathhouse on Thursday with them which will be interesting...if you don't know anything about the bath houses I suggest you google it. We will be getting a full scrub down and massage :D

One of the most hilarious experiences of my life happened on Saturday night. We were at dinner with the group of Koreans when Rach asked me to find the bathroom with her. We found it and all was well until Rach came out of the stall and she's like "the flusher won't work!" This toilet was one of the fancy ones that has like a bajillion buttons on the side (all labeled in Korean of course) so I just start pressing a bunch of them with my foot to see if any of them would flush it. All of the sudden a robotic rod unfolded from the back of the toilet and extended (like a mechanical arm) to the middle of the bowl! We were so perplexed by this (because it looked like something out of a futuristic robot movie) that we just stared at the whole process in awe. All of the sudden this thing starts SHOOTING a stream of water at us with a length range of about 3 feet! Water allllll over our face and clothes. We scream. We shut the door. The water keeps running. We start laughing. We laugh so hard we can't even breathe. A random Korean lady walks into the bathroom. I want her to stop the water so I guide her to the stall and open the door. SHE thinks I am letting her know its available so she walks RIGHT into the stream of water, yelps and runs away. Rachel and I feel bad but start laughing harder. Then WE run away. Once we get back to our table we laugh for another 5 mins straight. It was really really funny. So now we know that the robot toilet is in fact, a badai.

After that awesome dinner experience, a few of us went out to a Korean style bar. At these bars its custom to order like appetizer food with your drinks, so we ordered squid with garlic and chicken anus. That's right, anus. ACTUALLY it turned out it's the part of a chicken's digestive system called the sand pocket. I don't know much about a chicken's anatomy but I decided not to ask questions and just try it. Rach and Tyler and I all decided it was a bit chewy, but not bad.

Rach will be updating you next time on our Sunday. We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace and Insadong which was really fun!

The Fastest 4 Weeks Of My Life

Meg and I were talking the other night and it dawned on us that this weekend will be our one month anniversary of arriving in Korea! That just blows me away as these past 4 weeks have literally been the fastest of my life. Looking back on where my life was 4 months ago when I made the decision to come to Korea, I couldn't be happier about where I am now! Both of us have agreed that we made a fantastic choice and one that we in no way regret!

That being said, Meg and I had a really big weekend last week! The week was ultra stressful on my end (I had 6 weeks of lesson plans due for all three of my classes by Monday) so I was worried I was going to be stuck inside all weekend. However, I am certainly glad that I decided to pull some late nights leading up to Friday so that some fun could be had!

We started off Saturday by treating ourselves to Caribou! We knew their was one nearby, so we went on an adventure to find it. It was about a 20 minute walk from the Gangnam (area where we work) subway stop and was sooooo worth it! We also officially started taking Korean lessons. As Meg mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we met a great group of Koreans through an old high school friend. They have set up a pretty sweet exchange program with some other westerners. Some of them have paired up and spend two hours one-on-one teaching Korean. Then, a large group of Koreans go out to dinner and buy drinks and food for about five or six westerners in exchange for speaking English with them over dinner. So anyway, Meg and I both have our own Korean teacher...for free! It will be so nice to get some basic Korean under our belts...although I already wish they spoke something simpler like Spanish here! There are lots of similar sounds in Korean and the fact that they use characters makes learning the language quite difficult as you can imagine! The girls are really nice, they are taking us out to lunch this weekend because apparently there is some Korean food we haven't had yet that is a must! Some of the Koreans have also decided that once a month they are going to take us to a touristy place around the city. This gives them more practice with their English and we are excited because we get the best tour guides around! This weekend they are taking us to the blue house (Korea's white house) and a palace in Seoul.

Since Meg's birthday was during the week, we also used Saturday night as an excuse to celebrate some more. We invited some of our co-workers to meet up with us after dinner and we drank rice wine with our Korean/Western friends. Meg and I had our first experience of getting kicked off the subway (it stops running at midnight) and since our line is a loop it just stops at 12 wherever it may be and a Korean voice tells you to leave(or something along those lines). We were pretty excited because we were able to navigate home by bus from where we were! Guess we have become everyday city people!

On Sunday we attempted our first touristy visits! We visited the Selleung/Jeongneung Tombs and the Bongeunsa Temple, both of which are just a couple subway stops away from us. King Seongjong, Queen Jeonghyeon and King Jungjong are buried here, all of who were part of the Joseon Dynasty in the 1400/1500s. The site itself is right smack in the middle of the city, which created very interesting pictures. Unfortunately, the area is still very brown but it was still fun to get out among some trees and open spaces!

From here, we hopped one stop over on the subway to go to the Bongeunsa Temple, which is a Buddhist Temple right across from the Coex Mall. Again, the temple is located right in the middle of the city so the juxtaposition between the temple buildings and skyscrapers was very interesting. We saw a monk playing the Sharma drum and ringing a gong, as well as a prayer ceremony going on in the main temple. We also saw the Mireukdaebul, which is the largest statue of Buddha in Korea. It is 23 meters high and took 10 years to build. The temple was really interesting to see and Meg and I are both excited to try to go to some outside of the city and possibly even do an overnight stay at one! More pictures can be seen HERE on webshots!

Yesterday, Meg and I finally made a home-cooked meal (which we have been saying we were going to do for the past 2 weeks!) It wasn't much- grilled cheese and raman- but considering what we have to work with we were pretty proud! Plus, raman is actually a staple food here. Honestly, it is served in restaurants. It is basically as cheap as it is in America...but WAY better quality. Gourmet raman if you will. Meg and I also have gotten our washing machine to function. When we first tried to use it, it never completed the rinse cycle which seemed odd since it was brand-new. It took a little bit of time, but we finally realized that you have to unhook the hose on the side of the machine so that the water can drain all over the bathroom floor. Of course, we would have figured this out faster had the manual not been entirely in Korean. At least in America directions come in two languages...here you may get some Japanese as well but that is about it. Meg actually brought the manual to work to get the buttons translated! We also learned that the washing machine has its own set of water faucets that need to be turned on (just like the floors need to be turned on if you want hot water!)

Culturally, we have learned something very interesting from one of the guys who meets with us for dinner on Saturdays. I was talking to him about education in Korea versus America and we got on the topic of standing out at what you are good at. While we strive to be individuals in America and want to be recognized as being the best, standing out in Korea is frowned upon. In fact, standing out is associated with being egotistical. In fact, another western teacher at my school had mentioned (as a compliment) to some parents at conferences that their student was a leader in the classroom. The mom became very concerned and asked the teacher what they could do at home to stop this behavior. This is probably one of the biggest cultural differences that we have learned about thus far.

I was also told that men here often try to date school teachers because they have such great job security here in Korea. Apparently, once you are in you are in for life. School teachers here have to pass a very hard test and thus have really good pension and job security. I found this funny since everyone in America associates marrying a teacher with having a lower household income. So I guess I need to become a teacher here and the guys will line up!

My 23rd ...er... "24th" Birthday!

As we've explained in previous posts, birthdays work a little different in Korea. Everyone turns a year older at the lunar new year, which basically means you are considered a year or two older in Korea than you actually are. For example, I turned "24" on the lunar new year of this year since I was born in '86. I turned "24" again on my actual birthday which was this past Tuesday. Its a bit strange to get used to calling myself "24" but I suppose then when I return to the States I'll feel pretty young again (:

I'm feeling much better after my terrible case of strep I had this past weekend. Monday was pretty good, Tuesday I felt good, and then Wed I got a cold. Figures. All part of the experience I suppose?

Tuesday at work was like any other day until the very end when the foreign staff was about to head home for the day. People were just hanging out on 2nd floor and so I figured someone had failed to alert me of a staff meeting (which has been known to happen) and so I remained oblivious for another couple mins while people came down to 2nd floor. Then the lights started flashing (still clueless) and I thought "thats rather unnecessary" since we weren't being loud or roudy haha. THEN they started singing "happy birthday" and brought out a gorgeous cake with lit candles for me. At this point I clued into that they were singing to ME and I was pretty thrilled that people I have only been working with 2 weeks would do something so nice! They then sang the korean version of happy birthday and I made a wish and got to take my cake home.

Rach explained the rest of the night - but I just want to say thanks so Lauren and Jenny for writing me cards and thanks to Rach for getting me the ice cream cake, some sweet Irish gel gems for my window, and of course, 100% full-blooded American MILK DUDS.

Last night Rach and I went out for mexican food. It was really good - lots of cheese (which they don't really have much of here) so we were in heaven! Then we stopped at one of the largest bookstores in Seoul to try to find some childrens books in Korean. I got "The Giving Tree" and also the 2nd Harry Potter. I got Harry Potter because in Spain I got the 1st book in Spanish, so I hope to get the entire series with each book in a different language. I also got a cute poster with the korean letters on it for my room to help me learn my alphabet. Pretty sure the market age for this poster is about 4 but hey...I'm 4 when it comes to speaking Korean! Actually...no I'm much worse than the 4 year olds. Sad. Haha.

My kids remain adorable. New pics posted HERE (starting on page 3)so check them out!

I'm looking forward to the weekend to rest/explore and perhaps do some "touristy" stuff since we haven't really had the chance to yet.

I wish I could count how many times I've said "banana" this week in phonics class. They like to say "bow-nana" for some reason. Hmm.

Only In Korea Can You Enjoy A 37 Cent Cup Of Coffee While Updating Your Blog...

In some ways I feel like nothing has happened since my last post, in other ways I feel like there are so many details I will bore you all to tears! The teaching experience has been unlike anything I have ever seen or done before. My teaching arsenal of tricks and techniques is basically useless with my students since they don't understand the English. For example, it is nearly impossible to discipline the kids because they don't understand terms such as "take a break" and "put your head down" and they don't understand when you explain rules. This is very frustrating for me and the kids. The kids literally don't understand the English so it is not their fault, but I still need to try to maintain control and set rules for the year.

For example, one of the first things I taught my ESL K students to say was 'May I got to the bathroom?' However, all 9 of them have now started asking about 3 or 4 times during the hour and twenty minute class if they can go to the bathroom. I have tried several times explaining to them that you can only go once during class but this concept is completely lost on them. It also took me ten minutes to get these students to understand what "put away your colored pencils" entails. My babies are even worse. I had to repeat one boy's name 20 times before he registered that it was his the other day. I have taught them the word 'stop' and the sign for it, but they don't actually get what 'stop' means, they just like to say it and hold their hand out.

Needless to say, I have been talking, repeating myself, and yelling over screaming CONSTANTLY for the past week and a half. My voice is pretty much shot which makes teaching quite painful and difficult. I am seen progress however. Every morning during circle time with my babies I ask them individually, 'what is your name?' Last week they would either say nothing or simply say their name. Well, the goal from the start is sentences so I would try to get them to repeat 'My name is___." Most of them nodded agreement or just stare blankly. However, today, for the first time, all 12 of them said my name is! Some still needed me to say it first but then repeated it back! It is very small, but based on where my babies started, this is HUGE!

I am actually enjoying my grade 3 boys as well (even though they are at that stage where they hate girls!) They are able to hold conversations with me and even though the class is long, we have fun. My biggest challenge with these boys is explaining vocabulary to them. Of course, some of the words they are expected to know are ridiculous! Every week they have 30 vocabulary words and have to write a sentence using each word. I correct the sentences and they re-write any that were grammatically incorrect or didn't use the word properly. Then on Friday they take a spelling test on the 30 words and have to write sentences for 10 of the words. I checked the first batch of sentences on Monday and some were pretty funny. For example (the vocab word is perhaps), "Perhaps it is love." Or my favorite (the vocab word is snuffled, as in, a dog snuffled his nose in the garbage) "I snuffled my toe." The boy was very confused when I told him you stub your toe, not snuf your toe!

Here is a non-teaching, school related story that is pretty hilarious. At CIS we have a love-hate relationship with our copier. It is really, really, old (i.e. doesn't even make double sided copies) and it is hit or miss on if it will work. Anyway, yesterday the western staff was excited to learn that our copier had been upgraded (i.e. traded in for a refurbished, slightly newer copier). At any rate our excitement didn't last long as the copier only worked for about an hour today. And the only language settings on the copier are Korean and....French. Honestly, Korean and French. I can see the use of the Korean setting but French? In a school where over half the staff is dedicated to teaching English and speaks English? At any rate, I will probably be able to include a section on office skills on my resume and add "using a French copier" to my skills at the end of this experience!

Enough about school though! Yesterday was Meg's birthday and I did my best to make it a fun experience even though we were across the world! We went out to eat with the couple that lives near us at a really good, cheap neighborhood restaurant. We had grilled steak with onions and of course, kimchi. I had also picked up a cake for Meg after work. The cakes are ridiculous here! They are super elaborate and packaged nicely too! They even give you candles with the cake and in the case of ice cream cakes throw it on dry ice! I picked up one from Baskin Robbins for Meg since she loves ice cream cake. It turned out to be cranberry and was delicious!!

An interesting cultural thing to note. Beauty is everything here. A mom at our school refuses to get her child glasses because it will "change the shape of her face and make her ugly". Instead, she is insisting that her child just sit closer to the board. Likewise, the Korean staff members are very interested in being pretty and are very blunt about looks. I was told by almost every member on the Korean staff that I looked "not pretty" the other day when I came in with a cold. Another one of our western teachers brought her sister in when she was here to visit and was told by a Korean staff member that her sister is much prettier than her.

We also wanted to inform everyone that it has been about 50 degrees here everyday for the past week and a half or so. We have been wearing spring coats and sunshine! I am almost even ready to bust out my flip flops! We haven't seen a speck of snow since arriving and barely need our winter coats anymore as it rarely even gets below 32 at night.

Also, we have an address here that mail can be delivered to! It takes about 8 days from the states and you have to put 3 first class stamps on the envelope. We don't want to post our address here, so if you would like it, contact one of us and we will gladly share it! (Cuz lets be honest, we love mail! Especially in English and not Korean!)

<---- mini fruit:D

I started this post BEFORE I got extremely sick...

THURSDAY:

So I have a free period for prep at work, but I already did most of what I need to do for tomorrow so why not give the ole blog an update?!

The beginning of the school year was this past Monday, and it. was. chaos. Since Froebel is expanding from 1 floor to 3 floors the first couple days were a frantic search for textbooks, materials, trying to figure out where to be and when, etc. Its settled down a BIT but its still kinda crazy here. The Korean teachers work long, long hours - regularly too but especially because of the expansion - and are constantly running around during the day. If you can manage to find one standing long enough to ask a question they are usually pretty helpful though which is nice...considering I don't know where any of my books or random materials are for my afternoon classes still... haha

The morning (9:30-2:30) is kindergarten and on 2nd floor we have 5 classes of between 5-10 "6" year olds. The kids stay in the same classroom, and the teachers rotate to each class to teach their specific subject(s). This is different than CIS (Rach's school) in that Rach has to teach the same class all the different subjects - which is more like American kindergarten. I didn't know this until we were talking at dinner and thought it was an interesting difference.

The afternoon is kinda like an after school program and its much more laid back because the kids in a class are like 6 or less usually and they come and go separate rather than ALL 5 classes of kids coming at the same time on shuttle buses in the morning.

My afternoon classes are phonics (actually really fun - just basically teaching ABC's and pronunciation), cooking (not really "cooking" but yesterday we assembled snowmen out of bananas, pretzels and chocolate!), gift (which is hard to explain but if you check out this website you can read about Froebel's gifts http://www.froebelgifts.com/), and my last afternoon class is conversation which I only have on Fridays so I don't really know what that is like yet. I only have each class 2 or 3 times a week as opposed to having everything every day which is really nice when it comes to prep work.

The kids are RIDICULOUSLY cute as you probably saw in the pictures I've posted. Here is Monica from my class at lunch eating with her practice chopsticks (soooo cute each kid has a pair since they can't use chopsticks very well yet... I'm thinking about getting a pair for Meema when she comes to visit hahaha)

And here is a cute little kid from the younger kids group (age "5"). I co-teach drama with another teacher for the "5" year old kids and teach my own drama class for the "6" year olds. We were playing with egg shakers today :p

Tuesday was my first class with the "5" year olds and I was pretty excited since they are pretty much the most adorable thing I have ever seen. I got to drama class and introduced myself very slowly to them ("Helloooooo myyyyy naaaaaaaaaaammmmeeeee is Meeeeeghaaannn") haha. Anyway, I go around the table and sit next to this super cute little girl. I turn to say hello to her when I noticed she had gotten up, picked up her chair, walked allll the way around the table (as far away from me as possible), put her chair down, sat down and then GLARED at me. The look was seriously sinister for a cute girl of only 3 years old! I didn't know what I had done to warrant such hatred so I was a bit concerned. I was talking about this experience to another one of my western coworkers and he pointed out to me that kids that young are having their first real experience outside of the home. They have never been to school before and all the sudden seeing someone who looks completely different from them (light hair, blue eyes, etc) can be pretty intense.

The other day during lunch my kids were talking about me but I didn't know it because they were speaking in Korean. That's usually not allowed but its lunch and they need to get to know each other a little so I just let it slide (not to mention I wouldn't be able to eat since I'd constantly be telling them "English please!"). My co teacher comes in and tells me that the kids are commenting on how I have blue eyes they were wondering why. Sometimes they call me monster (although all in fun) haha.

Everything written up to this point was written on Thursday. Then Friday happened.

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FRIDAY:

Friday morning I woke up around 6am with a sore throat and terrible headache. I tried to go back to sleep, but it just wasn't working very well. Then, around 7:15am my grandma (Meema for future reference) calls me on my cell phone. Usually I would be thrilled to have the chance to talk to her on the phone a world away for the first time, but since I was feeling like I had just been hit by a bus I wasn't as happy as I should have been, sorry Meema! (We already worked it out, so don't worry everyone haha)

Friday afternoon went by alright - I was actually feeling pretty darn good around 11 that morning and thought it might have been some sort of fluke, me feeling lousy. But then after lunch - WHAM. Bus again. This time I not only had the sore throat and the headache but I was starting to get the chills and a little nauseated as well. Determined NOT to have to go home early my 1st real week on the job I stuck it out, but by the end of kindergarten I was really starting to lose it. I had about an hour and a half break between my afternoon class and my last afternoon class and I pretty much rolled up in the fetal position in a corner of the office. Everyone was really really nice and offered me their coats for blankets and just generally concerned. They even told me to nap and they would come wake me up when my last class started.

Cut to Friday night. We have pretty much no food or much to drink in our apartment and at this point I can barely get up and walk around let alone go to the store. I brought a thermometer from home thinking it might come in handy once or twice and so I checked my temp. 103 F. I'm feeling pretty homesick and just general awful, but then my phone rang and both my mom and Meema called me which made me feel a lot better with the homesick part.

Saturday morning my fever broke which was nice but I was still feeling terrible. Then in the afternoon it started to rise again so I called our recruiter (Sharon) to take me to the hospital. Once I get there they take my blood pressure and it was pretty low and I was fairly dehydrated so they hooked me up to a little wheel-around IV and had me sit with that for about an hour and a half. Meanwhile I get diagnosed with strep when the doctor pulls out the wooden stick and tells me to say "ah" - looks down my throat, makes a grimacing face and starts shaking his head saying "ooo, ooof." Yeah. I get it. It suuuuckks. Haha. My entire afternoon visit to the hospital only cost me w116,000 (about $75) BUT once I get my foreign registration card I can get that cost reduced 50% with the medical insurance paid for by Froebel School. Unbelievable.

So I get my meds and come home. My diet for the weekend has consisted of yogurt and chocolate milk. I had a half bowl of hot noodles as well. It is now Sunday night with no fever or headaches - just my sore throat (although only half as bad as it was). All in all it was a crappy way to spend my 2nd weekend...but hopefully (crossed fingers) I got all that sickness out of the way early and I won't have to worry about it. I guess my hospital experience was inevitable and in a way, I'm sort of glad I had it.

How To Furnish An Apartment For w50,000 (Roughly $32)

So, as you are aware our apartment came with very little as far as furniture goes. We were provided one bed, a small nightstand, a mini-fridge, two tables and 4 chairs, and some cooking supplies. However, as we have told you, it is very easy to find fairly nice furniture on the street and it is a common practice to take this furniture (especially among poor English teachers). Meg and I have now furnished our apartment rather nicely, due to the generosity of the Koreans who are throwing away furniture. Last week we were able to find 2 small tables, a chest and a bookshelf. This past weekend we located another bookshelf as well as a smaller chest. This picture gives you an idea of some of the stuff you can find on the side of the road (yes, that is an IBM laptop).

Anyway, as Meg mentioned, this past weekend my bed arrived. For w50,000 (which was a movers fee) we received the bed, TV and a vanity and stool set. So we were feeling pretty good about our current furnishings. Here is my new room and the bookshelf that Meg found for her "dresser".














Well, low and behold, Monday evenings are apparently great furniture hunting nights. On our way to dinner Meg and I had stopped at the market by our place to buy some fresh strawberries from our favorite fruit seller (honestly, you can't describe this guy. He just has an amazing voice for selling fruit). We came across a medium fridge/freezer (think larger than mini but smaller than normal). We kinda took a look at, but seeing as it was 9:15pm, moved right along to dinner. Throughout dinner, Meg could not get the fridge out of her head. She became convinced that it would revolutionize our apartment, so we decided to go back and take a closer look. Upon closer inspection, Meg decided that we must have it. Keep in mind, that the fridge is located roughly 4 blocks from out apartment, and we must go through previous mentioned fruit market to get home. As we were contemplating how to get the fridge home, Meg discovered a TV stand with wheels next to the fridge. We proceeded to load the fridge on the TV stand and Meg began to "wheel" it down the alleyway (I was taking pictures and laughing to hard to help). The alleyway is very uneven so our progress was slow. By this point, almost the entire fruit market was laughing at us, especially the guys who had sold us fruit earlier. Thank goodness we couldn't understand what comments they were making about us!

About 1/2 a block down the alley, and pretty much smack in the middle of the fruit market, one of the wheels broke off. So here we stand, 2 Americans in the middle of the fruit market with a fridge on a TV stand and a handful of Koreans laughing at us (did I mention we were in heels and teaching clothes?) As we stood there puzzling over what to do next, a Korean with a motorcycle with a basket on the back, stopped beside us. Next thing we know, he is putting our fridge on his basket and telling Meg to run beside him.

As Meg takes off down the street, the Korean fruit seller tries to tell me that I need to take the TV stand (with a missing wheel) back to where we found it. I started dragging it down the alley (again, in my heels and dress pants) but after about 4 feet he motioned for me to stop. I don't know if it was because I was making a racket or I just looked pitiful. Needless to say, no one in that fruit market will ever forget us.

I returned home to find the Korean motorcycle man leaving and the fridge in our entry way. We have plugged it in and all seems to be fine (although we will be taking some bleach to it!). I tried to make this as detailed as possible to give you an image of this episode, but honestly, I don't think anything but a video would have done this situation justice. Unfortunately, I was to slow. Next time we take a fridge though, I will make sure to get it on video for you all.

Class Pictures!

Updated photos of my class HERE if you are interested in meeting them!

Their names are Asha, Kevin, Eric, Jon, Kirim, Joshua and Monica :p


** also I added a link on the side bar to our webshots so you can access all of the albums with one link if you would like**

Our First Weekend :D

Click HERE for Updated Photos!

So our first weekend here went by very fast but it was really fun!

Friday night after work I met Rach and some of her coworkers at a subway station near their work. Since my school isnt really by the subway, I was planning on taking a taxi the short distance to meet them, when a guy at my school asked if I wanted a ride there on his little mo-ped scooter bike thing. Now, from what I have seen of these motor bikes is that they are nuts. There are no rules, meaning they can go through traffic whenever they please and go between the sidewalk and huge busses. So of coures, I said I'd love to! It was a very interesting experience, since I have only traveled by bus or subway. He darted in between cars at stoplights, surpassed long lines of cars in traffic and that with the open air, tall buildings and hustle and bustle made me feel so alive! (Dont worry mom, I was wearing a helmet haha). Anyway, I kinda wish I had a little scooter now.

On Saturday afternoon we went to Itaewon (the place where a lot of foreigners hang out, has a lot of good diverse food from all over the world, etc) to get our cell phones because we heard it was a good place to get second-hand phones for a good price. We both ended up finding phones we really like for decently cheap so we were very excited!

Then later on Saturday we met up with Tyler Stokes who we both went to Eastview with to grab dinner and meet some of his Korean friends. It was SUCH a blast! It was so much fun to catch up with Tyler (he has been here a year and a half) and also be able to make friends with young Koreans. We ended up getting everyones phone numbers (partially because we were so excited we even HAD phones) and so that we could meet up with them again, practice English/Korean by texting etc. I haven't met a group of people that friendly in a long time. Then language barrier was minimal because they all spoke English decently well - but it was pretty entertaining trying to figure out how to communicate certain things with them. This is why Rach and I taught all the Koreans air quotes.

For all of you who don't know what I'm talking about, its when you make quotation marks with both of your hands in the air while saying something kinda sarcastic. The way Tyler explained it to the Koreans was that if you put a word you are saying in air quotes, the words meaning is put in the context of "kinda but not really." So ... I (Meghan) am a "teacher." Get it? Anyway, the Koreans had an absolute blast with it and so we used air quotes for pretty much everything for the rest of the night which was hilarious.

The Korean women also commented on how curly our eyelashes were. They were astonished when they asked me if I used an eyelash curler and I said no. Apparently most Koreans eyelashes go straight with no curl at all. This explains a super scary heavy duty looking eyelash curler Rach saw in a store the other day. Interesting.

After we ate dinner, we went to another place to have some rice wine and some more little snacks and to chat. That was a lot of fun and we were teaching the Koreans some English words and they were teaching us Korean words and just general questions about each other cultures. It was a really fascinating experience really that we hope to repeat in the near future!

After that some of us went to a place down the street to karaoke (nora-bong)! Rach and I decided to start easy with some Nsync, Bye Bye Bye. We pretty much rocked it. Then some of our new Korean friends sang songs in both English and Korean. The songs were (as you can imagine) pretty entertaining! The karaoke here is when you rent out a small room for you and a few friends, so its less intimidating than singing in front of an entire cafe or bar. And it gives you permission to just do ridiculous and funny things while singing (as you can see from our pictures hahahah). Tyler and I rocked a few duets and then it was time for the money-maker. Rach and I rapped Kanye "Stronger." I know you all wish you could have seen that, and we explained to the Koreans they were very lucky to witness such a spectacle of greatness (;

Rach and I have a new favorite food: rice cakes. They are not the quaker oat rice cakes you may be thinking of...they are almost like sugar covered styrophome cylinders. Anyway...they are pretty tasty and dirt cheap!

Today Rach's bed arrived! We met the driver in his blue truck at the subway station and then had to try to give him directions to our apartment (which we are not even super familiar with the area and we had to guide him there when he spoke no English and we don't even know simple words in Korean). We made it ok though and we got her bed, a vanity, a television, a ton of extra blankets and some hangers.

After that we went to the Coex mall to meet up with Tyler and John Hokkanen (Rach and I had his dad for 9th grade honors English) and two other guys Tyler knew. We went to the aquarium which was really really cool and took a long time to get through there was so much stuff!

Now we are making lesson plans and preparing for our first "real" day of school tomorrow. Wish us luck! I think I might know what I'm doing but I'm not too worried about it. Everything will fall into place so I'm not stressing myself out TOO much :P