Busan, May 17-19 (Jeonju too!)

So much goes on from week to week. I am busy, being at work roughly 42 hrs a week. And when I'm not working, I'm eating, sleeping or riding in a vehicle on my way to somewhere. I spend less time in my house than anywhere else. I miss my bed!

Oh but first - crap - I had to catch up by posting pictures from Jeonju!

Okay, so the first grade teacher at my school has a grandson in first grade and he lives in Jeonju. His English is fantastic and I can talk to him like I'd talk to any 6 year old. When I was visiting, they took me to MaiSan in nearby Jinan. It was beautiful!

MaiSan from a distance. Mai San literally means "horse ear mountain". 

Actually at MaiSan, Kevin and I pose in front of this temple. The stones you see piled up in the back there were stacked by hand without any mortar or cement. Some guy did this a long time ago and people rebuild the stones if a heavy rain washes them away. 

The ceiling inside a temple. 

I was told you have to bow and pray 108 times to get your wish to come true. That seems like a whole lot of bowing. It also reminds me of Barry Woolner's phrase "cosmic bellhop" - ring a bell or do something special and your personal god snaps to to serve you. (note the sarcasm)

We climbed up the mountain side behind the temple and this is the view from there. 

It was beautiful and impressive. Definitely worth the small hike. I had a lot of fun that weekend. On the way back I bought a bubble gun for Kevin and we popped bubbles in the parking lot. A kid has to have some real fun, I think. He spends so much time in school and elective activities. He's going to grow up to be a genius, and get an amazing job I think, but for now he should be a 6 year old boy sometimes. 

Here's pictures from my "long" weekend in Busan with Jongsoo. We had a great time, but tired out from excessive walking + carrying shopping bags. (i say "long" because a 3 day weekend just doesn't cut it!)

This is outside the train station in Busan. 

It was colder than we expected so we bought these "couple shirts" with hoods. In Korea, couples do all kinds of cutesy things together. They're not so big on PDA (public display(s) of affection) but they do dress in matching outfits, wear cutesy couple matching accessories, and have couple rings.

That was... Friday night. We went to this place with a ton of street vendor carts and ate delicious things. Grilled chicken kabobs, spiral cut fried potato, freshly squeezed lemonade, and more. 

Saturday we did most of the things - shopping and beach walking.

This is just outside of Shinsegae. Supposedly this is the world's largest shopping mall? I don't know. But I do know it's very big. The Lotte version of "Trevi Plaza" is amusing to me. 

The entrance to Shinsegae. Here we bought a bunch of stuff. I got new clothes for work, and we found and bought expensive macarons. 

 We took the macarons to Haeundae beach and ate them there. They were absolutely delicious! (flavors melon, strawberry and intense chocolate)

A nice girl offered to take our picture. She took a few angles. I like this one best. 

There was no real sunshine to speak of, but it was still warm. Those people with bare skin on the left are foreigners, guaranteed. Real Koreans hate the sun and cover up every square inch of skin. 

White skin is considered beautiful here. People go to great lengths to prevent tanning - they even wear long slip on sleeves and gloves! 

When the school staff goes outside I pop my collar like everyone else - to protect my neck skin from the sun. Lol. Actually my friend at work did it for me the first time. They were all surprised to hear that I like the sun and voluntarily stand in the sunny places without sunscreen or coverings. No sun hat, sun screen or other. 

These two kids were so cute sitting and waiting for the waves to come up and get them. So much fun!

The scenery at Haeundae beach is beautiful, btw. 

Found this funny ad on the side of a building. 

Yes, that's a car parked on the side of a building.

We didn't hang out at the beach much/for long. We went to the aquarium right after this. 

This catfish was so old, he was blind, so he hung out up top awaiting feedings. He was cute.

Jongsoo enjoyed the part where you could touch and pick up some sea creatures. I was happier just taking the pictures. I've never liked touching these things. Lol!

This fish had derp written all over its face. 

An eel.. maybe a moray kind? I would have taken pictures of the names but I was being lazy. 

This is an electric eel, a very large one. It reminded me of a short anaconda, it was so thick!

Reverse or inside-out jellyfish. I forget the exact name, sorry. 

A HUGE octopus. 

I've got more pictures, but this is getting long enough and I'm not near to done. Agh!

From there, we went to Gwangalli beach where J was depressed to find his favorite burger place closed. 

But the beach was beautiful, and we eventually found some other yummy food. 

It was very pretty in the dark too. The buildings above light up and change colors, and the bridge is all lit up as well. 

The next day we pretty much just spent travelling back home. 

No time to spare

By the time I got my internet working, it was time to shower and get ready for bed. Then I spent the last half hour resizing photos and uploading them. My internet abhors uploading large file sizes - well actually my nighttime internet is slow and worse quality than it should be. Oh well.

I'd wanted to get the beach pictures up. I went to the beach 2 weekends in a row, first on the east coast and then on the west coast. Living on a peninsula has its perks!

Besides travelling on the weekends, I haven't been up to much else besides work. I'm at work over 40 hours a week. Three days a week I take the hour long ride to Chungdae for dance class. We've learned 3 songs now, and are starting number 4. Just finished Psy's Gentleman dance. It's fun, but it makes your thighs burn. ><'

Here's a picture of "non" (noh-n) - a rice paddy.

They're called "pat" when they're just dirt, and "non" when there's water in them and it's the same when the rice grass is planted. (and the rice grass is called non aegi (aegi is baby)). I think rice paddies are pretty. It also seems interesting to me how this country which is surrounded by water on 3 sides fills itself up with more water to grow rice. Sometimes I think of that story about the little dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike. There's a lot of water here in Korea. You'll notice the hazy white sky.... Yeah that is stuff in the air... I assume most of it is moisture but I wouldn't doubt there's some pollution since this country manufactures SO much. Actually - the amount of things and variety of things made here is phenomenal. But yes - Korea - land of water every darn where.

But I must dry my hair and sleep. 

Two pictures

The first grade teacher sent me these two pictures from the Osong trip.
The first is me wearing a replica wig from the Joseon dynasty. They wore these very elaborate hairstyles with huge heavy metal pins in their hair!

The next is me with the first graders. Aren't they cute? They're a little noisy sometimes, but they get along well and they generally listen to me. The thing I like most about the younger ones is they're more willing to try to talk to me, regardless of the difficulty. We don't communicate perfectly, but we get by and they don't act all put off because I don't understand them. :D

May 10th, the weekend of the 11th (part 1)

The 10th was the school outing to the Osong Beauty and Cosmetics Expo.
My first thought was "What are gradeschoolers going to get out of a makeup expo?"
The expo is outdoors in a series of huge plastic tents. The first tent we went in answered my questions. It started out with the story of Narcissus (in Korean and English! woohoo!) and then went into historical views and concepts of beauty. They had prints of famous paintings of beautiful women! Very cool.
The expo had a lot of interactive things for all ages. There were cameras that took your picture and aged you. There were places to try on products. The kids' tent had different things you could do like pick out scents and put them on a wrist band to wear, style mannequins' hair, get makeup done and such. Pretty cool.
There was even a place where they projected poetry on the walls. *_*

Waiting in line. 

Beautiful things from Korea's cultural heritage: these are hairpins worn ...probably during the Joseon dynasty... don't quote me on it.. they've been wearing these pins for at least a thousand years. They're very big and full of jewels. The aristocracy would have worn these. 

Traditional hanbok which were worn for weddings.

The poem I liked the most. 

They had a hall of photography including photographs of beautiful people. Many of these were Korean, no surprise. But I saw Yoo Ah In and HAD to take a picture. Sadly, it is blurry! And I couldn't retake the photo because my group was moving on and leaving me behind. 

This is a "spot the foreigner" photo. (she was very pretty. but yeah. everytime you see a foreign person, it's strange... and then you remember your face is strange too.. unless you're my friends jongsoo, khoi or tian... Asian faces that blend in everywhere but native English speakers). 

At first I thought these two guys were some variety of clown. It turns out they're professional beggars. The photographer guy was  telling me that beggars aren't totally looked down upon. There's some story of honor among beggars - how though they have nothing, they share what they get with all the others. It was an interesting story.. I should look it up for you all sometime. 

A selca (self-cam = self camera) picture of me in "full makeup" with the Osong Expo mascot statues in the background. It wouldn't be Korean if it didn't have adorable mascots. (i should say, "full makeup" is a term Koreans use, and it means what you'd think. Koreans take beauty and appearance very seriously, so many women constantly wear full makeup. I know when something important is going on at school because most of the teachers will be dressed up more than their pretty clothes, and have full makeup on.)

The next day I went to Jeonju with the first grade teacher. I was in Jeonju last February, and it was beautiful, but Jeonju in May is even more beautiful. All the flowers were in bloom and the trees were green! It's much more worth it to go to Jeonju in spring!

The first grade teacher has a grandson in 1st grade. His English name is Kevin. We went to visit him at his house and stayed the night (jeonju is a 3 hr trip from here). The idea is I have English conversations with him to help him improve and practice his English. The kid is a genius, as far as I'm concerned. He speaks English at high level, and the things he doesn't know he picks up pretty quickly. After meeting up with him and his parents, we went to the hanok village to get bibimbap. We came across a university's dance recital and stayed for a few performances. 

"Look at all the grandmas!" Kevin's mom exclaimed. 

After dinner, Kevin, his grandma and I walked around the hanok village a little and went to the "castle" - a remaining gate from the wall (the same wall i mentioned in an eariler post). 

I love all the colorful and ornate paintings!

Well, it's after midnight so I need to call it a night. I only stayed up because I was a little weirded out because I mixed lemon and bleach in water without thinking and realized "oh yeah, acid will release the chlorine... shoot!" and so I opened all the windows and cracked the door open. So now it's really cold in here, but hopefully if there was any gas, it's gone and I can sleep in peace. 

I think I'm fine - I didn't feel any burning when breathing. I see clearly, have no choking or coughing, or any of the other symptoms. Life lesson learned. Goodnight all!

Two Weekends Ago

So two weekends ago my boyfriend and I went to Lotte World in Seoul.
We both were sick ish, but we still went, and had a good time. It's like 3/4 indoors, so no worries about being exposed to too much outside. Of course, I'm lame and forgot to take pictures inside except for like one or two pictures... they're all outside.

Jongsoo convinced me to ride this thing. It looked terribly scary. 

It turned out to be incredibly fun. 

Lots of the buildings were this style. I forget the name of the style though!

The outside part of Lotte World has this huge castle that resembles.... Let's just be honest and admit it resembles Disney. 

One of the funnest things about Lotte World is that a good portion of the guests are wearing some sort of headband. They have various ears, cat, giraffe, fox, & etc.; frog eyes, variously sized ribbons and antennae. 

You know me, I had to get a pair, and I made my boyfriend wear some. He hates furry things, but he did it for me. <3

Unusual

The last couple weeks at school have been unusual. The schedule has been interrupted by a series of field trips, sports' day stuff, upcoming midterms and a very small camera crew which has been here since last Thursday (much to my discomfort and dismay). ((i hate cameras))

April 29th the school had a pottery field trip. That was fun. May 1st was Labor Day, so I had the day off. And just last Friday, we all went to the Osong Beauty and Cosmetics Expo. It had museum like exhibits about the history of cosmetics, and the concept of beauty from around the world. (there was a lot of english and plenty of paintings from western culture, so i could appreciate it more)

The camera crew threw off my groove. They came into our class right after we were done lecturing the 3rd grade about their total disrespect for me (the day before had been bad). In pops these two camera guys and they want us to be all cheery and fake. We were going to do listening exercises for the upcoming midterm, but no, the cameras wanted a book lesson. ><' They later filmed more fake stuff like a staff "tea time" and a very unexpected 5th grade class for me which they set up. They wanted smiles and laughs from a book lesson.. Ha. HAHA. No. Those books are dry, and the regular class is not fun and games.
 Then the next day, the camera guys took my 2nd graders away. Some photo shoot or something. I was ready to teach, but my kids did not come. My co-teacher said to just let it go.
Friday was the Osong trip. AWESOME. Pictures to come.

Over the weekend, I went to Jeonju with the 1st grade teacher. Her grandson's English is very good, and it's always nice to talk to a kid who actually was taught well. He reads and writes English on a 3rd or 4th grade level (and i'm talking like American school... not korean...). It was a long ride, and very busy, but it was a lot of fun too. The first grade teacher is like the most grandmotherly lady I've met here. I thought she was going to feed me till I popped.

Anyway things to do. Pictures to come later.

Busy

Been running around a lot lately. Not had the time to sit and write anything. I owe you a bunch of stories. But I have to run out again - meeting my friend Tian. Ciao!

Hapum

Hapum means yawn. I learned it recently.

I learned that I didn't understand my one teacher friend today. LOL. She has been saying "puropu" to me which sounds very similar to the word "fluff" (the Koreanized word, mind you). I thought maybe this was "practice" like "practice this". She taught me a bunch of words so that I can be in the teachers' sports competition. They've been practicing volleyball and badminton with this contest in mind.
But today in the car she said something to me and I heard puropu. And I heard, in Korean, "I put two in the English room." She put two puropu in the English room, and the other day I noticed there were 2 hula hoops there (and normally they're not there). Lightbulb moment.
It just goes to show that even when you think you understand - you might not understand.
So I am taking her hint and I will be practicing my hula hooping in the mornings when I don't have classes.

Speaking of classes, I signed up for a k-pop dance class that meets 3 times a week. We're learning the dance to "What's Your Name?" by 4minute. It's pretty fun. Not easy, but fun.

This week's been different. I had classes on Monday, but Tuesday more than half of the classes were cancelled because the kids had practice for sports' day. Wednesday was Labor Day for me, so I had the day off, and Thursday was Sports' Day.
Sports' Day is a day that all classes are cancelled and instead all the students participate in group sports/games. They're divided into teams and each game gets them points. They have relay races and other things. Some were funny like each lap was done on those kiddie bouncing balls. They had some teachers do it too. Amusing.
Today the kids got their prizes from sports day. 4th grade had this game called pirate roulette. It's a pirate in a barrel and you stick plastic swords in it until he pops out of the barrel - that person loses. We played a few rounds before class started.
Once I'd waited a sufficient time for the kids to be in class, I asked where the 2 missing boys were. They explained as best they could in broken English. One was in Suwon visiting his grandfather. The chattiest boy mimed "harebeoji" for me - even tho I already know it and they know "grandfather". The kids get a kick out of imitating grandma and grandpa. XD The other boy had hurt his hand either just that morning or yesterday, I couldn't tell. But they demonstrated him getting hurt and said "ouch" (which is impressive, up to this they never used that for me though i would say ouch! and follow with the korean) and made siren noises for the ambulance. "Oh, he hurt his hand and went to the hospital." "Yes, hospital."
They might be bad and rambunctious but I can't totally dislike them. They're too cute/amusing/funny and smart.

This is a picture of the English classroom.

And this is the other part of the room. It's 1 big room that really should be 2 rooms.

That red chair there - I hate it. Ugh. The kids think it's a ride and really it's a huge distraction for them. Even tho I tell them it's not allowed, they don't stop riding it around the room and crashing into stuff. ><' I've never wished for an electric buzzer thing until this chair came into my life. I'd put it on that chair.

 This is the school yard from my classroom's window. That building across the way is the gym.

And now it's bed time for me!