A Week in Review

So those of you who check up on my blog religiously, sorry for not updating in over a week!! I truly apologize. Even if no one is reading this, I still feel bad because I am not doing a good job at documenting my experiences here for myself. However, you are also lucky because I decided to blog despite my desire to finish reading “The Kite Runner”. I cannot put that book down!!! But I did….Hopefully I remember all that has transpired in the past week+. So in no particular order, I will just ramble off the things that I recall.

So to continue with my last post, I met up with the head of the English teachers (HOTET) and her family in front of the Mart near my apartment. This was last Sunday. She told me that her daughter wants to go to the beach. I was down for that, so we went. It was about 1.5 hours but we made it. I was expecting sand, but it was just rocks. I asked if this is what they considered the beach, but she said that it was more like a seashore. It was sooo nice; it was breathtaking. The view was amazing; the little animals living in the little pools of water between the rocks was great. There were little crabs, shellfish, and swiggly things. It was so cool. Climbing around on the rocks was fun too. I love that stuff; thank goodness I wore the right shoes that day. After some pictures there, they took me the birthplace of Buddhism in Korea, which I found interesting because they’re Catholic. I found it very fascinating though. The sites were amazing. You can look at them below (when I have time to post)!

After that, we drove through Kulbi town, which is basically a lot of dried fish tied together with some sort of leaf, I think it is. The HOTET said that it’s not completely dried, but dried enough because if it’s completely dehydrated, it would be hard to cook. It’s pretty weird….I think that’s all they eat in this town because ALL THE STORES HAVE THEM…at EVERY store front. I don’t think I could eat that.


Every day, there is a “stretching period” in school. Yes, it means what it says – the students stretch. Not only do they get up and stretch, the school shows special videos that instruct you on how to stretch. Not only are there videos, there is music. Not only is there music, there are old women showing you the moves. These aren’t your ordinary bend to the side, then over to the other side. They are ridiculous stretches. I can’t even describe it. The kids have fun with it though because they know that they look stupid doing it. I even partook in the stretching, which was accompanied by my laughing. I hope I have my camera next time so I could record it. It was the most hilarious sight. I must share it with you guys.

Another thing that happened was that one of my girl students called me sexy. I don’t think that’s appropriate for a student to call a teacher that, but I guess it’s better than a teacher calling a student “sexy”. I think these girls want to hold my hand. Eeek. (This is in reference to how the girls like to hold hands here. No lesbo. Well, maybe. The boys also like to hold hands. No homo. Well, maybe.)

I’ve also been using Mariah Carey’s “Hero” to teach listening to my 3rd (9th) grade students. I have them fill in the blanks as they’re listening to the song. There’s this part where she sings, “What you are”. I took out the “what”, so the kids have to fill that in. When I ask them what Mariah is singing, they say, “Watch”, “Whatchu” or any variation of that. I just laugh because it sounds funny from them. I explained to them that in America, we blend the sounds together and it forms a sort of “ch” sound. They understood. I was happy. There’s another part of the song where she says the word “answer”, which I also left blank. In my boys’ class, I asked what she said and this one boy said, “GANGSTER!!!” I busted out laughing, it was so funny. I said, “Gangster??” and he’s like, “Yes, gangster!” and he proceeded to shoot fake guns. Omigosh, I almost died. So funny. I love kids. On the other hand, I hate kids. I punished my first kid last week. He sits in the front and he talks SO much to his neighbor. I gave him a warning and he continued to talk. I told him to stand outside. He looked so innocent when I was punishing him, I felt bad on the inside, but I knew I had to harden up. After a while, I decided to let him back in because I didn’t want him to miss the lesson. I gave him a chair to sit in the back. He started talking to people that sat in the back row. I told him to move back. Still talking. I turned his desk around to face the back corner. After a while, I let him go back to his desk. Another boy, I punished him by pushing his desk all the way to the front of the classroom so he’s facing the chalkboard. I also took away his precious comb. I still have it. I told him he can have it back next week. He is my parrot – always repeating what I say, exactly how I say it, even when I don’t say “repeat after me”. It’s quite annoying. I also like to take away students’ phones. I’m an evil teacher!

Tuesday of last week, I had a super duper long day. I had an entire day of classes with only one free period. I was EXHAUSTED. AND it was the first session of Korean class that night. It was to begin with an opening ceremony. They like opening ceremonies here, and powerpoints that have one word per slide, and taking group photos. They also like to feed us. They provided us with these DELICIOUS sandwiches from a popular coffee shop in Korea called Angel-in-us. They also had black coffee for us, which was not as bitter as I expected; it is a tad sweet. I was actually late in arriving for the ceremony, which was to begin at 630, I believe. I took the bus there and wasn’t really sure where to get off. I got off between bus stops; I just said, “I NEED TO GET OFF!” in English, which no one understands, of course. I walked towards what I thought was the university, but it was actually a high school with the same name. I got a group of boys playing catch to help me. One of them even walked me halfway and told me which road to go down. I had a map that the coordinator emailed us and I thought it would be easy to find this place. He circled it on the map. Duh. BUT the map was labeled all wrong. I asked every passerby where this auditorium was and no one had a clue. I was roaming around for about 20 minutes to half an hour. I was super lost and confused. I was growing frustrated and wanted to go home. A guy was very nice and tracked me down after I had left him and proceeded to help me some more. Then I spotted a foreigner and knew I was near the right vicinity. He told me it was in the nearby building and I thanked the Korean guy and proceeded into the building and bought my Korean textbook. Although I was lost for quite some time, I wasn’t actually late because the organizers of the event started late, so I was even early! After the opening ceremony and photographs, we had our first class. It was very easy – we just went over the letters and the sounds. Our teacher is really great. She was very impressed by our skill, shocked! I was the first person picked on in class to read the vowel sounds and I breezed through it. She was very impressed; I did a little bow. But (almost) everyone in my class knows the sounds too, so it’s not a big deal. It’s just that our teacher doesn’t know that we already know this stuff from Korean classes during our orientation or maybe other people know it from studying on their own. Our teacher is so funny; her facial expressions make me laugh, and she always says “Joayo, joayo” good job, good job – always twice.

The next class we had was on Thursday and it was easy again, but a little harder than the first class. We went onto the complicated vowels, double consonants, and ending consonants. We practiced with tissues in front of our face to see how much huff and puff we had to give to each single, double, and ending consonants. I still don’t have it down. I’m glad she didn’t call on me this time. Our teacher was also impressed with my knowledge of some of the Korean words, but they’re easy words. Some of them are like Cantonese words and others I just memorize from seeing them just once somewhere. It’s weird. I’m trying my best! I need a larger vocabulary here or I will have a miserable time not being able to communicate effectively with the locals, which reminds me of my encounter with a local.

We had a Glee viewing party on Friday and I took the bus to my friend Sara’s apartment. We were to meet in front of her school at the stone gate. I got off the bus and the ajumma (old lady) next to me also got off at the same stop. She started talking to me (in Korean) after we got off and I told her I don’t speak Korean. She still continued to talk to me and I picked up like one word of the 300 that she spoke. I told her I was from America and that I speak English. Then at the end, she held out her pinky as if to pinky swear with me, so that’s what I did. I don’t know why, I didn’t know what else to do. I may have sworn my life over to this nice ajumma and I guess I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I don’t know what I did, but she was such a cute old lady. So, my friend’s school…it’s not like my school. My school is big, but her school is BIG. That is because it’s from Kindergarten all the way to college, so all the grade levels are on this huge campus. It was crazy. I got there super duper early so I walked around, not really knowing where to meet her. After I roamed around for a while, I decided that I should figure where the actual meeting spot is. I got a huge group of guys to help me; I think they were on their way out from classes. They all stopped on the stairs and stared at my Hangeul writing on a scrap of paper. “Foreigner?” Why yes I am, mister. Then they immediately pushed one of their pals in the front to talk to me. They pointed me into the opposite direction of where I had been roaming, so I proceeded to walk that way, but they sent another guy to help me and walk with me. I accepted this offer seeing as that I had no idea where I was going and I found the stone gate and a couple of foreigners too! I was happy that I was not gonna have to take the bus back alllll the way home. We waited for the rest of the foreigners to come and then we headed to get some pizza, my first taste of pizza in Korea. We brought the pizzas back to Sara’s place and dug in and pigged out. Then we finally watched Glee and played a Glee drinking game. There was much chatter, so I don’t really know what happened during this episode. haha. The drinking game was as follows: you have to drink every time there is a comment made about Mr. Schu’s hair, any Asian reference, any “eye-sex”, kissing, and singing. I think there were other rules, but I can’t remember them right now. Let’s just say, there was a lot of eye-sex and therefore, a lot of drinking. I was so full after 2 beers and half a small pizza, I was stuffed. After we finished watching Glee, we chatted it up a bit and then headed out to downtown. There, we went to Speakeasy, one of the foreigner bars. Stayed there for a little while, then Sonia, Jarrod, Jarrod’s friend/visitor Nick, Wil, Maggie, and I went to Bubble Bar for some dancing. We were going to leave at around 230am and Maggie and Wil actually did leave in their taxis, but while the rest of us were gonna get a taxi, we decided to go back in because there was a good song playing. I wanted to go home, but I was gonna share a taxi with Jarrod and his friend, so I reluctantly went back into the club and got home around 4am. I wasn’t that sleepy when I got home, but I knew I needed to sleep because I had a school function the next day, Saturday. It was a “club activity” and it was going to be a movie at the theatre. We were to meet at the theatre at 10:30am. There were two movies that I could choose from – Titan (an English movie) and Best Seller (a Korean movie). My co-teacher said that I should probably watch the English one so I could understand it; I agreed. I got to the theatre and I was confused as to where it was. I’ve been to this area before but I never saw a theatre. Mind you, I was expecting an Edwards or AMC, y’know, a building on its own. No, that’s not how this theatre is. It’s not only part of a building, it is in the middle of it, like a sliver. I saw movie posters and knew it was in this building somewhere. I went in and asked a guy where the theatre is and he told me to go upstairs. I did and some students said hi to me, so I asked them where the other teachers were. Their English was pretty bad, so they called their friend for me to talk to. I didn’t get much from her either, but thankfully, my co-teacher came out of the elevator to rescue me. We went to get tickets for Titan and went to the designated theatre. Turns out they gave us tickets to the Korean movie. We were going to change it for the English movie, but I told her it didn’t matter to me, so we watched the Korean movie. I was SO sleepy and I wanted to rest my eyes and listen to the movie, but that wouldn’t do me any good because I don’t understand Korean. I would HAVE TO watch the movie in order to guess what it was about. The dialogue did not matter to me. As I was watching, my eyes were getting heavy, but I fought it and stayed awake through the whole thing. I was surprised. So, during the first half of the movie, it basically consisted of the main character yelling and searching for her daughter that she always lost track of. I grew annoyed by this, maybe cuz it was the only thing I could understand. I was like, c’mon lady, just keep an eye on your kid and maybe you won’t have to waste your energy always screaming her name. By the middle of the movie, it was revealed that the daughter was dead (actually the mom’s fault) and I guess the mom was in denial and thought she was still alive. The second half of the movie grew violent; the women were abused a lot! Oh Korean men. Some people wanted to kill the main character because she knew of some murder they had committed and there has something to do with a book in there. I don’t know. From a person who didn’t understand the movie, it was OK…I give it a C. I didn’t like all the violence. So after the movie, I was REALLY tired and just wanted to crash. My co-teachers wanted to eat lunch. Sure, I’d love to eat lunch. We had lunch at this place called Lemon Table, which was decorated soooo cutely. Very brunchy. Loved it. I had a bulgogi burger was DELICIOUS. Very tender and juicy. Then we ordered drinks – I had pomegranate tea, my second one since I’ve been here. I think it’s gonna become my new favorite tea drink. It was so yummy. After that, I was even MORE ready to sleep, but my co-teachers asked me if I wanted to go to the nearby outlet for some walking and shopping. Oh yeah, I’m not THAT tired; I can totally walk around. We walked around, I tried on a couple things, didn’t buy anything. I finally got home at 3:30pm. I needed to shower and meet my friends by 530 at the YMCA. I immediately took a nap, I was that tired. Y’all know I don’t take naps. I set my alarm for 430. I didn’t wake up until 4:55 and my co-teacher said it’d take about half an hour to get to the YMCA. I decided to take my time and shower and get ready. I left my apartment around 5:15, probably got on the bus around 5:20. Didn’t arrive at YMCA til 6pm. Of course, the foreigners were not to be spotted at the YMCA. I decide to walk around by myself, went into a lot of shops and found really good cheap shopping, really bizarre sayings on shirts (e.g., Bacation time) and really small sizes. Boo. I need to go back once I get paid though (next week!). I’m going to blow my first paycheck on clothes, whatever fits me. I need more clothes here. After half an hour of walking around by myself, I decide to stop into a PC bang to get one of the foreigner’s phone numbers. Thankfully, they had e-mailed it out to everyone. The guy at the PC bang didn’t charge me for my time there (only 3 minutes and because I’m a foreigner!) and through charades, I asked where the nearest payphone was. He then offers me his cell phone. So nice! I called my friend, Austin, and it turns out he wasn’t with the group. He and his girlfriend had just arrived at the YMCA from their field trip. I totally forgot they were on a trip. I hung up and said maybe I’d run into them since downtown wasn’t that big of an area. After an hour, I finally saw the couple, but none of the other foreigners. We walked around for 5 minutes trying to find the foreigner bars just for reference and Austin gets a call from one of the gang. They were at the German Bar, which was where we were heading! After some wrong turns, we found our way to the others and reunited. I was happy to see that Okailey was out! Too bad I didn’t get there sooner! Anyways, I asked them where they had dinner and they said the First Nepali Restaurant. I knew they were gonna eat there! I even peeked into the restaurant, but was too embarrassed to walk in there to see if there were foreigners and if there weren’t, I would have to walk out. But it turns out, it would’ve been in my favor. Oh well. I got to walk around and window shop. I stayed at German Bar the entire night because there was free karaoke!!! The night before, I had danced all I could dance; I was in the singing mood this night! We sang until 1am, I think. It was REALLY fun; I like German Bar a whole lot more than Speakeasy, which I deem to be quite boring and small. Definitely going to German Bar again in the near future. Some of the others went to a club called Houze. I said I was gonna go after German Bar, but I was too tired to go. From what I’ve been told, I missed out on a great night! I don’t like missing great nights, but I’m sure there will be more to come. Jarrod told me that Houze is better than Bubble Bar and that guy LOVES Bubble Bar, so this new club must be hip. It’s not a foreigner club like Bubble Bar though. There are more locals and more K-Pop and free beer! Sounds like a good formula for a good night. I am sure I will be visiting that place soon too.

Sunday, I spent the day with Laurence. We got off to a late start – 1pm. It was sprinkling a little bit and thankfully, I carry my umbrella around everywhere. Not a usual thing for me in California. So, we shared my tiny umbrella. A guy taller than 6 feet and a girl about a foot shorter than he. Needless to say, I got wet. We made our way over to the Lotte outlet, which is basically a mall. A huge mall and there’s a Lotte Mart too, which is a market. This shopping complex has everything you would ever need. Laurence is lucky that he lives like a 10-15 minute walk from it. I would have to walk about 45 minutes to get to it, I think. But it’s definitely worth a trip because it is that great. You wanna know how great it is? There’s a freaken Red Mango in it. The second one I’ve spotted in Gwangju. The other is at U-Square, which I excitedly took a photo of when I was waiting for the bus after my Korean class on Thursday. I got a strange look from a guy standing nearby, but I didn’t care. haha. So yeah, I had Red Mango in Korea and it was really expensive. It was about 7500 won, which is roughly $7. I got a medium with 5 toppings. I had to get 5 toppings, I think. I don’t really know and I didn’t care. I just wanted some Red Mango. It was DELICIOUS. Laurence got a mango yogurt smoothie which was good too, but I was all about the frozen yogurt. Mmm yum. Gonna come back but gonna get the smaller size next time, unless I’m having a bad day. So after we walked around the mall, we went next door to the World Cup Stadium. There was a soccer game going on and we decided, what the hey, let’s just watch it. I asked how much the tickets were and the lady told me 6000. We contemplated the price and decided that it was dirt cheap so we handed her the money. After she talked to some dude for a few minutes, she told us that it would be free in 3 minutes. She handed us the money and we’re like COOL. At first, we thought she said 30 minutes, but we clarified and it was only 3. We waited, not really sure if it was okay for us to go through the gates, but we saw other people do it, and we followed. Monkey see, monkey do. There was only 15 minutes left of the game, and we think Gwangju lost. We’re not exactly sure, but it seemed to be that way. There weren’t many people there; it was rather empty, but I’m glad I got to see some of the game. I’m gonna come back for sure, maybe for a full game. After the game, we took a taxi to Gwangju Bienalle, which I think is an exhibit, museum type building. We came here because we were meeting with a vegetarian/vegan group of people for dinner. They’re strangers; we have never met them before. We got there a lot early so we went into the building and there was an exhibit of photographs. A small exhibit. We finished in like 10 minutes and we semi-split up and walked around the premises on our own. We then ran into each other where the cherry blossoms were. Gorgeous. I love cherry blossoms. They’re so beautiful. The petals that fall onto the ground are like confetti. I love it. We took some pictures and then went to the front of the Bienalle to see if the veggies were there yet. Nope. We stood there, under my umbrella, waiting, waiting, waiting. It was pathetic. I thought no one would show. I had one of the member’s phone numbers so Laurence went to the nearby payphone to give her a ring. I walked down the road a little bit to see if I saw anyone. Nope. So I walked back to the front and saw someone with an umbrella just standing around. He turned around and he was white. Yeay, foreigner! I unabashedly walked up to him and asked if he was there for dinner. He said YES! Then I talked to him for a bit and spotted Laurence walking to find to me. I yelled to him, “I found one!!” Then the 3 of us waited and a couple more showed up and we headed over to the restaurant. It was so delicious. I had a couple plates of food and a plate of fruit. I was stuffed. Several more people met us at the restaurant. They were really nice people and a couple of them were living an hour outside of Gwangju, but they have a car so they drove all the way to have dinner with us. They kind of live in the boonies, I guess. They live near Yonggwang, which is where I had my little seashore trip with the HOTET, but I think they said they live in Kulbi town. They own a dog too, a big one, which is rare in my city. They also told us newbies about the dog eating here in Korea. They have dog farms and they eat anything that is considered to be like American dogs, which are crap dogs, like Golden Retrievers or labs. I was mortified. Completely mortified. They eat the cutest doggies ever. But one of the vegetarians there made a good point, “So are lambs, they’re cute, but people still eat them.” Very true.

So today is Monday. I was having an off day today at work. It must be the Monday blues because last Monday I was also feeling this way. It could also be this gloomy weather we are having. I suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder, so gloom is no good for my wellbeing. First time was in England. I was depressed when it was raining. Now in Korea. Rain, rain, go away!!

I’m looking forward to Korean class tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t rain.