Happy Halloween & Teacher Dinner II

Today we had a teacher hike, followed by a teacher dinner. Unlike the last one which had only grade 6 teachers, this involved staff from the whole school. The hike was basically a flat trail alone a beautiful rocky shore of volcanic rock. It was gorgeous. Dinner was fun and was a lot of crazy sea food and the older men got quite purple in the face. I sat with some of the grade 5 teachers who were a lot more willing to speak English to me. Some older man who I was told is "chief teacher" seemed to be angry at me for something, but then I seemed to be able to appease him by drinking the soju he poured me haha.

The town by the coast was super cool too. It had a whole bunch of super amazing murals. Apparently it is famous for the murals and the seafood. Speaking of seafood, I ATE JELLY FISH. It was pretty indistinguishable from the other mysterious blobby seafood so it wasn't bad! I drew the line, however, at the weird pink things that I am sure were still moving. Pictures to follow.

When we came back it was around 8 20 and to my surprise I saw a whole bunch of trick or treaters! They looked super cute, with very standard costumes (devils, grim reapers, etc) and little pumpkin candy collectors. When they saw me I was essentially swarmed by TRICKORTREATGIVEMECANDY. I finally managed to explain through the dinthat I had none, and then a bunch insisted on giving me some instead! Can you say 'this would never happen back home"? Cause really.. never.

Also the mystery box was still awesome today, as was my Halloween mask. It'll be a bummer going back to teaching lessons after such a fun class!!

These tree supports are common here and always make me
think of walking tree people

such a Korean octopus!

Possibly the coolest mural in the world.

Jelly fish!

Mysterious pink "seafood" that was still moving (right),
abalone (top) which I actually tried, and sea squirt (behind
the sauce). The abalone was way harder than I expected. It
was alright.. definitely not something I'd ever pay for.

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeen!

Busan bust

First things first: walking home today I was greeted first by a troupe of tiny taekwondo practitioners. They were so cute and mini. One had the courage to say hello, and then they all did. None were my students. A few moments later I passed a grade 6 girl of mine who gave me another cheerful hello. She's quite shy but she's one of the few athletic girls on the running team so obviously she's awesome.

Anyways, on to some updates.
This weekend I went to Busan for this amazing fireworks festival... but then there was an INSANE rainstorm and the festival was delayed until Sunday night. Boo. It was pretty sad, and horribly wet. I did get to see the Busan aquarium though, which was awesome. Sunday, the day we had to leave, was absolutely stunning weather and we had a beautiful morning on the beach. Pretty bummed though, the festival was apparently amazing. Oh well.

The reason I had to get back on Sunday was to make my Halloween mystery box. This is the box with peeled grapes and slimy noodles used to scare the kiddies. I remember touching many a peeled grape in my childhood, and thought the kids might get a mild kick out of it. So far it has been a HUGE SUCCESS. The students were almost all at least somewhat creeped out, and way more than I expected actually screamed and ran away haha! It was amazing. I was literally cracking up in the corner as they shrieked and giggled. The five holes contained : eyeballs (peeled grapes), worms (cold udon noodles), vampire heart (a squashed up persimmon), monster slimes (morning tofu.. consistency of custard), and monster toes (mini hot dogs). They all sniffed their fingers after touching too which was a hilarious sight as well. Tomorrow I am switching out the persimmon for some pumpkin guts which will be called zombie intestines. I am actually so excited for class.

I saw an idea perusing ESL sites today. I think I will make a "mailbox" where students can write me letters. If they include their name and class I will reply. It might be time consuming, but I think it would be a great way to establish a more personal connection to those who want it and, most importantly, will get them writing original thought and not just copying things off the board. I will keep you updated on this plan.

And now the real reason you follow my blog: some pictures.

Amusing fence display at the train station. One of these
things is not like the other...

My feet in the Korean Strait. So nice to smell the ocean.

I had a feeling this was not the correct name.
Wikipedia calls Spheniscus demersus the
African Penguin.. hm..

Hermit crab with a cool artificial shell!

 Mom do not push play.

Beautiful sea dragon

Preggo papa

I had no idea electric eels got this big! According to the sign
they can reach 2m! Ah!

The only benthic jelly fish. Cool right?

My mystery Halloween box!

I finally got a new toilet seat. The last one
did not fit right and was foamy. Awful. This
one is not only a perfect fit and hard plastic,
but it sure does add some pizazz.

Just in case the jack ass penguin wasn't racist
enough...

Sunday was so gorgeous I went a little
crazy running around on the beach..

Weeeeeee

Gyeongju World!

This week has been so awesome despite illness! Wednesday was an inter-school sports day and today was the grade 6 field trip to Gyeongju World which was SO MUCH FUN. It's an amusement park and actually had way more rides than Lotte World and less lineups, so it was totally awesome. It was a lot of fun to hang out with my coteacher and another teacher because when it was just the three of us (we were the only teachers who wanted to ride rides!) we spoke in English.

The students were adorable as always and a bunch gave me candy. They're starting to get curious about my Korean language skills and are amused by my vocab of "Hello," "Thank you," "Hurry," and "One two three four!"

Anyways the day started with some cuties grabbing my coteacher and my hands and dragging us running to a super awesome ride called "The Paentom." We then had a delicious lunch with the teachers that included luxuries like Starbucks and Guiness, and even "golden kiwis" which was like green kiwis but even better. There was also real food like kimbap and pork leg. I even dared my coteachers to prove that they could actually eat the INSANELY spicy green peppers and they did!
We  did some more rides in the afternoon and wrapped it all up watching a KPOP dance show.

 Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Taekwondo-ers at the sports day

Splash mountain type ride made just for me :)

"gout de ciel.
 Here's an example from a butterfly an example
 thet it can lie happy on a hard rock
An example that it can lie on this unsweetened
stone friendlessly and all alone now let my bed
 I do not care."
What a great example!!

"fire & ice.
SOME say the world will end in fire
SOME say in ice
From what those who favor fire
But it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice"
Sublime poetry at every turn in Korea.

Super sexual KPOP cover dancers. Serious gyrations in no pants
were going on in front of horny high school boys and
toddlers alike. 

KPOP cover dancing wouldn't be complete without an
awesome rendition of Gangnam Style. 

Unrelated to this post but pretty funny right?

Internal dialogue during a teachers dinner

"Ooh the floor is so squishy. How fun.

Ok sitting on the floor, no problemo I wore pants and am flexible enough. Ooh look at all the food. So many tasty side dishes.

Okay everyone's here and beginning to eat. Conversation is all in Korean so look's like I'll be observing tonight.

(Eating from the side dishes) Do I really reach that far for food? It feels so rude..
Well everyone else is reaching I guess I will too. Ooh quail egg yummy.

Just got asked if I want soft tofu. Yuck no. Oh no when I said no she looked upset. Say yes. Ok.

Oh look here's the soft tofu, it's actually a soup, not bad.

OWW this soup is BOILING. And now on my shirt. And not everyone got one! I must prove myself.. this boiling soup will be my Everest. I don't want to be that lame foreigner who only eats rice!

Oh I see, the soft tofu is the only non boiling or spicy element, it's actually quite nice. 

My back hurts. My legs are getting tingly. I think I just need to cool down.

Oh hey look a baked whole fish that we apparently are dissecting with our chopsticks. Difficulty level: expert.

My mom would die. Everyone is slurping and reaching and spilling all over each other. Funny. I like a lot of the dishes though, especially the veggies and the quail eggs. And the deep fried things of course. And this crazy soup!

Speaking of soup.. it's really warming me up.. oh wait. Is the floor heating on? That can't be right...

My legs are now numb and my back is killing me. What's up with this floor business? ...

WHY IS IT SO HOT? Am I going crazy? Everyone else is in jackets??

Ooh pajeon with peanuts. Tasty.

Oh I heard "Anne" and "Canada." Oh look everyone's looking at me. Now they're laughing. Hope it's a good thing.

I have conquered the soup. I will now lean back on the wall.. OH GOD IT'S SO HOT.

Ok don't faint.. don't faint... AH My leg is touching the floor off of my bum cushion and it's EVEN HOTTER. Back. Is. Dying.

Oh now I heard "Anne" again. They're speaking to me.. in Korean. Am I supposed to answer? What do I do? Smile. Smiiiiiillleee. Apparently I didn't eat enough rice.

Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Maple syrup-y hot drink for dessert. Hot hot hot hot.

Ahhh. Time to go. I think I will skip the after dinner tea session for today!"


I must say that was the most tiring dinner of my life. Tasty, but oh boy it was hot in that room. I have come to the conclusion that Koreans just don't feel physical things as much as I do. They're never hot in boiling weather (or in boiling rooms while eating boiling soup), they aren't cold with all the windows open at school, and they smack each other insanely hard all the time. I'm grateful they invited me but boy oh boy am I glad I was able to get out of there haha. I will now proceed to lie on my dying back for as long as possible. A lot of the older women here walk at a 45 degree angle and I am now convinced this could be prevented if chairs become a little more en vogue.

My friend bought this t-shirt...

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

MEMBERS OF CAT

FAMILIES ARE TIGERS

LIONS. LEOPARDS

CHEETAHS

AND WHATNOT

DAD LION IS FIGHTING

WITH THE HYENAS

Visiting the doctor

Visiting the doctor was probably one of the most surreal moments of being here. I figured I might have strep throat, but no one seemed to know what I was talking about at school. Either way, I figured it wouldn't hurt to see a doc and my wonderful coteacher offered to take me after school. School finished at 4 30 and I am typing this post home at 5 haha. Not likely in Canada.

So we go into what I assume is the waiting room. There are a few of us sitting on a bench, a dentist chair and a nurse. But wait, actually it is the doctors room and that man is the doctor. He wore that big circle on a headband thingy that doctors wear in old school comics. Patients would take turns in the chair while the doctor talked to them for about a minute then they'd leave. When it's my turn I am ushered into said chair and just keep looking at my coteacher confusedly. The doctor says "talk to me!" and I realize oops he speaks English. So I quickly explain my symptoms : sore throat, cold sweats, achiness... And he tells me my throat is infected. Ha thanks buddy. He also sprays my tonsils with cooling minty mist, that was a nice surprise. Then he checked out my nostrils. Unexpected. Then he says he's writing me two prescriptions. My coteacher tells him I can't have penicillin, but I can't understand anything else in their conversation. I keep asking what I am being prescribed and he just keeps telling me medicine. Finally I ask do I have a virus or bacteria? And he says bacteria. So I guess antibiotics?

Anyways the first prescription was a "pain killer" that was an injection on my upper thigh. Aka my glute. Aka my butt cheek. The second we filled out in the pharmacy downstairs. I got like a billion pills. 4 to take with breakfast, 4 with lunch, and 4 with dinner, for three days. (okay fine 36 isn't quite a billion).  They all seem a little surprised when I keep asking what they are, and if there is indeed an antibacterial involved (it doesn't help that no one seems to know the word haha). ANYWAYS the pharmacist finally understands and it turns out one pill amongst the other four is indeed and antibacterial that is not penicillin. I suppose the rest are just tylonol type anti fever things? I'll be sure not to take anything else while I'm on this weirdo cocktail. Parents I know you will ask but I have no idea which antibacterial because the prescription's in Korean.

Essentially this gif sums it up 100%
http://kikinitinkorea.tumblr.com/post/23290832389/going-to-the-doctor

Highly efficient, but I definitely felt like a car in for a tune up!

Anyways, I hope to feel better and definitely hope that tonight I will manage some sleep.

ON A MUCH MORE EXCITING NOTE. I AM A CELEBRITY. Here is the newspaper article containing Adri, my friend Twyla, and me! The student who gave it to me is very shy and didn't speak in English, but others swarmed around to look at the picture and give their opinions. They said "Your face is good!" and "This is famous newspaper!" and "Oooh soju!!" and "Teacher drinkee?" and "Famous!!!" I was pretty much as giddy as them.

Anapji Pond

I'm feeling quite under the weather tonight. Boo. Hopefully I will heal in time for this weekend when I am planning on going to Busan (one of Korea's coolest cities I've been told).

Today's thought ramblings:

This weekend I had my most excited greeting. An older man saw Adri and me walking towards him and his face LIT UP and he started joyfully screaming and waving at us. This joy-scream continued until we had walked passed him. It was weird, but awesome.

It was similar to last Friday when I heard a child crying. I thought "How will I console this little child with my lack of language skills?" As I hesitantly put my hand on her shoulder, this little kid's face exploded into a smile as she beamed up at me. Of course. Merely by looking slightly different I am totally amazing! How could I have doubted myself. She kept beaming as she slowly walked away backwards. It was so surreal.

I am really not very good with my grade 3 class. How to explain "late?" I have no idea. I will just have to look up a translation I think. (they don't know the words "supposed to"or "scheduled" or anything like that. Teaching here can sometimes be like a very long and very difficult game of Taboo)

I feel so bad when students try and talk to me and I have no clue what they are saying. Today a girl said something like "You like pill?" And I'm pretty sure she was asking if I liked the BELL. While these words seem obvious when written next to each other, it really really wasn't in the moment.

I got to cook in a friend's house with a real kitchen and SPICES this weekend. It was pretty glorious.

On my Korean nail polish it is written: "For creation of more beauty professional implement." Yes?

For one of my games today the kids had to say "Does Anne have straight hair? No she has curly hair" and I put a picture of my Mario Kart Avatar. They were very amused. I was too. Oh except for one girl who kept telling me to go to the hair store and make my hair straight. Rude.

Finally, I went to Anapji Pond this weekend. This is an artificial pond made in some ancient palace to make some ancient princess happy. I like walking around historical places like that and pretending I am said princess. I really want to try on a hanbok.

Here are some pictures!

Sunset bike ride.

This thing has a name. It's pretty.

This is Bomun Lake. An artificial lake in the touristy area.
Were some super cool parents to come visit, they could
stay at the resort looking out on to this. 

\

Anapji Pond

Look! It's Anne in Korea! Note the couple behind me.
Anapji is a popular date location I was told.

Anne is STILL in Korea!

There was this cool pond with changing colour lights
illuminating it. Very hard to capture. 

Biking in Gyeongju

Helloooo

I went for a bike ride this week. Here are some pictures of it. I don't have much to update, this week was pretty standard. The kids were cute. I ate lots of odd things. Oh actually, we did have an "open class" this week where the Principal, VP and other teachers come in and watch you teach. Because I am always teaching in front of other teachers it wasn't a big deal for me (plus the fact that I'm only here for a year) but my co teachers were very nervous. Anyways apparently the verdict is I did well! Woohoo. It's always nice to be validated!

ALSO apparently a student saw me in the newspaper! I am trying to find a copy. So funny. I imagine the caption is something like "Here are foreigners drinking our glorious makoli."

Oh I do have a story actually. Today for my psycho grade 4's (you can't blame them, it's the last period on a Friday) I did a lesson on "countries." Was a pretty big flop, but at the end I had them make up a country. A few didn't understand and just drew Korea, but most did and had some hilarious ones. Some favourites were Monsterland and DDong (I have no idea what this means. He called it "Double D Dong haha but I really don't think he meant it in the Western way. Dong means like neighbourhood or something..). They drew their country's flags, wrote how to say hello in the language (one kid even wrote symbols instead of letters, which I thought was pretty clever), and drew some people (or monsters of course). Another amusing one was "Gun Land" where he didn't fill out anything but did draw a gun hahaha. One boy did New South Korea, which I thought was really cute too.

Pretty pond by the bike route.

Apparently these are instructions on how to walk??

The rice fields are a bright yellow now, as opposed to the
lush green they were when I first got here. Sad I only took
a photo now, but there is always next summer!

I like taking pictures of flowers. Whatever these are they
also grow in my moms garden which is happy.

Highly unexpected architecture.