Pretty Things (pretty random things)

As promised, here are some shots from the clothes I bought 2 weekends ago in Seoul. (or was it three now? I guess it's 3. Time flies.)

The pink shirt has white polka dots, and the sleeves are really ruffly. I'm not huge on ruffles, but Korea seems to be. The bottoms are somewhere between a skirt and shorts. They're dressy and considered very pretty by Korean standards. It's like "please wear shorts to school". I will take it. Best $45 I've ever spent. The shirt was something like $35. I know... expensive. Normally I wouldn't spend half that much on myself, but I try to look really good for school. They seem to like to show me off -- so I need to look good when they do this. Give them something to show around. Hahaha.

The dress is a simple A line that has a sparkly clasp in the sash. It fits me really nicely. Stripes are extremely popular here. I haven't worn the dress to work yet. I am waiting for a day when I know there will be people. Why wear it on a normal day and risk it getting dirty? (its being white - it screams "spill kimchi on me!")

I saw these on my way out of a Lotte Mart, and had to have them. They were on sale, 30% off, but ha, they were still expensive.

The inside says "A well-bred woman is / worth. the fairest / crown that's made of purest gold." [  / indicates a line break]

About a week ago I found these yellow socks while shopping in Daiso and had to buy them.

They make my day. Nothing funnier than mustache socks. I can't frown and look at them at the same time.

Now for some Engrish.

From an umbrella store. While the large print pink text is perfectly good English, the newsprint type black is a hilarious mix of things.
"While the best major leagye te / head for the playoffs, the Mets / ready for the blame game."
Skipping down some to the next full-ish paragraph. "as wella a series of books and articles by / and abou justices, has placed the court in an unusually bright / spotlight as the new term opens."
It's non sequitur clippings all jumbled together. :D

From a photo frame.
"Magic Circus / the children was diverted by the circus / We took the children to the circus."

And now for something completely different.

Welcome to JP - where practically everyone is growing vegetables. The corn here was taller than me by the 4th of July.

Ever wonder what happens to lemon slices outside? Me either.
I have taken to throwing all my compostable trash out the window across the way to the field. (it's an empty lot with nothing but weeds growing, and a collection of trash inside (umbrella, styrofoam etc). I don't litter. I simply help enrich the ground. You never know, someone might turn it into a garden someday - and my compost might just help them out. But I digress.. I was throwing the lemon from my lemonade out, but it didn't quite make it. It sat there, below, in the parking lot for over a month. It became a blackened ring. But it's since been washed away in the monsoon rains.

This cat has been hanging out on the wall that separates the parking lot from the field (into which my compost goes). I don't think it is stray because of how clean and well fed it looks. I guess it lives nearby.

Funny story.
So the day I took the picture of that cat, I actually went outside to throw out some trash and get a closer look at the lemon ring on the pavement. Right? So I crossed the street and this black car lurched around the corner. I made sure to be out of the way, and was standing in my building's parking, edging toward the lemon. That's when I notice the cat. And I also notice the black car pulled over to park in the street right across from my building. The driver got out and he started smoking a cigarette. He was kind of watching me a bit. I didn't want him watching me poke a crusty lemon, so I started talking to the cat. I was grateful the cat was there. I didn't stay there very long. I went inside and back up to my room, and actually decided to look out the window right away to see if the man was still there. He wasn't, him and his car were gone.
That sure was a quick cig. I think he pulled over to watch me, honestly.

This pretty kitty was taking a nap right on the sidewalk. In the evening sunlight, I didn't see it until it lifted its head up to look at me. Its stripes definitely were camouflage. Cats kind of do their own thing here, and ignore people, or avoid them altogether. There are a ton of stray cats here too. It's kind of sad.

A lot of days here, you can stare directly at the sun like this! The haze was so thick it was like its own cloud, minus all the cloudy lines.

A lit up church sign. There are crosses all over the place. But I still don't know about church-going here, since these are all Korean speaking churches. The churches with English services are all in the bigger cities.

As I was making dinner tonight, I realized that it was pouring buckets outside and the sun was shining. So I stopped to look for the rainbow and was greatly rewarded.

Today was a Monday. And a very humid one - so bad they actually had the air con on in the teacher's office. I came home with a headache. So when I bought some groceries, I also bought these:

Angel In Us coffee and a KicKer bar.
Angel in us is a chain coffee store - a bit like Starbucks. The bottle has "the world best coffee" written on it, so you know it is tasty. It's actually the first bottled coffee brand I ever bought in Korea. It's pretty good.
I bought the KicKer bar because it looked so much like KitKat I had to see for myself.
I was not disappointed.
It is one bar, approximately 5 inches long, almost an inch wide and just shy of 3/4in tall, and it's a darker chocolate than a kitkat. It's like a bigger and darker kitkat. Oh my! I'm definitely sold.

Penultimate (or two weekends ago)

Not last weekend, but the one before that, I went to Seoul with my boyfriend. His aunts live there and it was time we visit them again. They're extremely nice and kind, very giving. We didn't get there til around 9pm. And they took us out shopping - because I wanted to get a bathing suit. I also bought a dress and a dressy top and a kind of skort. It was a little expensive, but well worth it I think. (the bathing suit was actually a really good price)

I haven't actually taken pictures of the clothes yet. Ha. But I took pictures of what we did the rest of the weekend. J took me to the Seoul Museum of Art to see the Gauguin exhibit, and then we went to the castle near there. I digress.

This is us, finishing our iced coffees before going inside. 

This is Minho from SHINEE who joined us. (j bought me these socks the night before during our shopping excursion)

I can't really show you much since pictures were prohibited. 

The exhibit is called Gauguin and After. They put modern works amidst works of Gauguin to show what he's inspired. The concept was rather interesting. You would view a bunch of Gauguin, and read about his life during that period, and then move to a room with some modern art. To be honest, I didn't understand most of the modern art pieces (especially how Gauguin had any influence). The strangest one was a video of a performance. A guy had sassy attitude women of color and drag queens tsk, head waggle, chomp gum &etc into mics like a choir and he orchestrated it with Wii batons. I didn't really understand it. 

Regardless, I love looking at art. 

A tree outside the museum. It is so awesome and gnarly.

 An art installation outside the museum. It's cool and all but... I can't help but think of Slenderman. The figures (there's more than this one) stand here and there in the little wood.

This is at the entrance to the museum. 

We wandered from there, with no real plans. 

And got to see the guard wander through with.. the flag I think it was. I am not sure why. They were in period dress and carrying glaives. 

Flags and glaives. 

From there we ended up here. 

The ticket reads Deoksugung Palace (덕수궁). These guys were awesome actors. 

Oh yeah, before I go any further, I forgot. Before going in Deoksugung, J and I gawked a the new city hall building. 

The building with the flag is city hall, the old building. The building directly behind it that looks space-age and glass and is an interesting shape - that is the new city hall. 

The day was almost as hot as Satan's armpit, so the

first thing we did was get iced tea.

J probably doesn't like this picture, but I like it. He makes this face when it comes to food.

After watching the ducks in the lily pond that you can't really see behind J, we went walking. 

Here's another shot of my legs. Either I really like my socks or I like my legs. You can decide and have a laugh.

One of my favorite things to do is look at the ceilings in palaces and old buildings. They really loved to decorate everything so ornately. (temples too!)

So I guess when Asia opened up to Western trade, there was a push to build the European styled palace you see back there. The point was to display Korea's modernity, and avoid colonization. 

The western style building even has a big green lawn with a fountain and reminds me of something out of Jane Austen. 

The back of the throne room building. 

The front. Yup. J would walk on the king's path. For some reason I don't have a picture of the inside, but it has very high ceilings with a big hanging ceiling thing around the throne. I wish I knew what that thing was called.

Formosa tree in bloom. 

Oldest, old and new all in one. (well okay i guess you can't really see the older city hall, but you can imagine it right there)

I leave you with a picture of J in front of a bell and a.... I forget the Korean name.. it's a machine of war - rocket launched arrows. One spark and you can shoot 100 arrows at once! 

Dynamic Life Korea? They weren't kidding.

Hello. I realize I went from weekly to biweekly here.
When I was in orientation for this job, they told me Korea changed its national motto. It used to be "land of the morning calm" and now it's "dynamic life, Korea". That means life is changing, a lot. I live in one of the most "rural" areas of the country, and my school is super rural... and yet we still have a lot of the "bali bali" "hurry hurry" lifestyle. If you thought your 6 year old had no patience.... my 7, 8, 9 year olds have none to speak of. But I digress.

I took pictures from the weekend but haven't had the time to upload them. So here is a picture I just took.

Today my school had a field trip to this high school that focuses on skills, one of which is cooking. So the kids all made cookies. I made some too. :D But these cookies I'm holding were cookies the students gave me. Aww. One is a panda and the other is a girl's head. Aww. My 5th graders like me. Maybe it's because I let them watch Mr. Bean. But it's like this - we have a deal. They behave, and we can watch 3-5 minutes of Mr. Bean. (sadly i can't trust the other grades to behave even with that kind of deal. my kids beg like none other, so if they were bad, they'd whine and cry and beg and plead for Mr. Bean... and I'd have to listen to it until "byebye time". what's worse is the kids that really want something will stick around after class to continue begging. There are only 5 minutes between class periods, so getting kids out the door on time is EVERYTHING. Because I have 5 minutes to pick up previous stuff and set up for the next class, or to run to another classroom with my stuff. (sorry i'm digressing))

I love field trips. It provides a natural environment to speak English. And the best part is, the kids don't fight me. They have no idea they're "learning". They pretty much have to speak English to me most of the time anyway but on field trips they often have more things to tell me or show me. Or as we do something, it gets explaining.

Anyway I have things to do, and sleep needs to be attained. I'm trying to always get 7 hrs of sleep. It's so hard.

Tired

Today I could feel the coming rain. Last week I was told that the monsoon season came a week early, as it rained cats and dogs and then some one Wednesday ago. Today as I was leaving school I asked the 4th grade teacher if it would rain later. She said she didn't think, at least not soon, and that it has been a dry rainy season. It wasn't windy then, but the wind picked up as we drove home. I walked home in the most delightful strong wind. It's been so hot and sticky lately that any moving air is a blessing, even if it means that rain is sure to come.
Right now I'm listening to it pour. I've lit a few candles and turned the lights off so I can have the window open to listen to the rain. These little gnat type bugs come in if the light is on. They squeeze right through my screen.

Last week I was home only long enough to sleep. Monday, Wednesday and Friday were dance class. Tuesday was my 100 day "anniversary" with J. Thursday was a special orchestral and choral concert put on for "English teachers, educators and mixed nationality families" held by the province's office of education. It was "strongly encouraged" that we all attend. J couldn't go because he had work to catch up on.

 This is Tian, me and Tevyn. We were waiting for the concert. Tevyn is a talk scholar, like Tian is. And he goes to dance class too. He's actually a very good dancer.

 This is the infamous Khoi. He's Khoi, singer of wrong lyrics, dirty phrase in foreign language collecting, social butterfly who knows at least a thousand people - or they know him.

Me and Tian - my friendship pirate. We have adventures together. Jongsoo gets jealous, but hey, girl time is sacred.

Here are a few shots from the concert.

This lady was awesome. I love this kind of instrument.. I wish I knew the Korean name for it.

Kids sang Lemon Tree and did a little dance. Cute, but well.. after teaching elementary - they lose their cuteness.

The orchestra did a medley of Beatles songs, and then it wouldn't be a Korean performance without a fan dance.

That's last week in a nutshell.

A line of music

I'm listening to an old Korean song, the kind with the quavery old lady voice and the bouncy beat. It's being played outside my school on the speakers they set up yesterday. There's a big tent in the middle of the school ground (not sure what you'd call it since we don't have them in America - it's the big rectangle sand lot every Korean (and probably Asian) school has for holding all kinds of outdoor events. the students typically play soccer or baseball out there. sometimes they shoot bottle rockets). Around the big tent are about a dozen white and blue plastic tents like you'd see at a fair or wedding. I'm not sure what all they have out there because I haven't been out there.
This is all because today is Sosu's Apricot Festival.
The 4th grade teacher told me about it on Tuesday or Wednesday. Sosu has a lot of ornamental apricot trees, and this is their yearly festival which they decided to name after the trees. There are no apricots [fruit], sadly.
Because of this the students and their homeroom teachers went to Cheongju for the festival? I'm not sure. All I know is they are going to have a singing contest there. I really wish I could go! But I have a Regional Professional Development Meeting that I have to go to instead. Oh well. I like the meetings too.

This morning I walked under a big.... Is there an English word for this?

That is a special kind of "fork lift" (?) for people moving into apartment buildings. You put your stuff on this pallet and the machine lifts it up to the top. I guess they tie the top of the "ladder" to your window and there you have it. No heavy bags up and down stairs. It's a scary convenience. I had the pleasure of walking under it this morning - in that small gap between the vehicle and the wall there. I hope it doesn't constitute as a ladder! Haha!

What have I been doing this last week? Work. Yes. Well. Actually last week was a 4 day weekend. Thursday was a holiday and Friday was a school holiday, so it looked pretty promising. Except Jongsoo and Khoi both still had school Friday, and Tian had a trip with her mentor teacher. So I ended up staying home writing lesson plans, which was good because I had a lot of things to prepare for this week. I've reached that point where I feel like we've played all the games there are - even though this isn't true. I just need inspiration. I also had an open class looming over my head (it was Monday, the 10th). I was really nervous about being watched by other people because when I am alone - the kids are quite disrespectful and speak in a lot of Korean. To top this off - because they told me my open class was a Monday, I had a choice of only 2 grades - grade 1 or grade 3. *headdesk* Grade 3 is the most unruly and disrespectful of them all. I picked grade 1 - because I'm not stupid. But even so, grade 1 has its difficulties with the kids rushing through the work and demanding stickers like cheeky little things (so impatient! they're all so very impatient). I wasn't sure how well they would do with the principal, vice principal and other teachers watching. I hoped they would do well with my using only English.
Actually - prayers were answered and the 3 first graders were angels. They waited, listened, and though they looked a little bored, they were great. It was interesting. I could see where they were still lacking in knowledge because they actually had to wait to go from one letter to the next. I think I can re-tailor lessons better now to review the trouble spots. Interestingly enough, I find my boys can remember how to write the letters the best.
The rest of the weekend I spent with friends in JP. I actually ended up doing lesson planning on Sunday too. Fun fun. ><'

Everything else this week was just classes and preparations. Oh and dance class. We're learning a 2ne1 song... I don't know the name of it. It's like... industrial pop? It's somewhere between rap, hip hop and pop and it has industrial elements. It's hard but fun. Oh and painful. My legs are so sore!

Anyway. There you have it. This weekend I'm going clothes shopping with Tian. We need school worthy summer clothes. Did I mention tank tops are not socially acceptible in Korea? Thick or thin strap - you don't show those sexy sexy shoulders! Cover up!

Lazy Saturday

Oh how I've missed this!

Today, I slept until 10am. I couldn't sleep any longer - my body is too used to getting up at 7am (actually it likes 6:30 for some odd reason). Not wanting to get up yet, I watched Korean dramas while laying in bed. I think I could get used to this! (except i am supposed to go to korean classes on saturday mornings at 10am... i didn't go today because i'm lazy and busy and haven't studied. if i had studied all this time, i could be a much better korean speaker!)

I've been slowly picking up things while eating the best of all breakfasts - cookies. One custard, one choco-fish and a flaky, apple-pie crisp facsimile, and drinking real American coffee (the foldger's tea bag instant coffee. trust me - it is the best coffee i've had at home this whole time (my mom sent it to me. she's awesome)). I laugh because it's a first-world problem - being accustomed to cheap (ish), delicious drip brew coffee.

Here's my new favorite thing here though. Del Monte mango juice!

It's best mixed with sprite (and if you're of the inclination - soju - to be honest soju tastes horrid... if you must ever consume it, do yourself a favor and mix it in something to disguise its flavor).