HwangSung Park

With winter camp over, I have a little more free time on my hands. I have been taking walks around my hood to enjoy the warmish weather we have been having. Anyways, here are some pictures from a park near me. For whatever reason, the trees are all crooked and I don't know why, but I thought they'd make some neat pictures.

 I leave for Thailand this weekend and I CAN'T WAIT. Expect a much more exciting set of pictures upon my return.

It's been really cute running into my students around town. They are so shocked to see me. I imagine I would have been shocked to see a teacher during vacation too!

This made me laugh.

This giant imposing building is a kindergarten! 

This looks like a white egret and some kind of plover. Cute!

Pretty snowflake pattern in the ice.

Winter Camp Complete

It was such a success. My first awkward day quickly made way for a very fun and coherent camp. The theme worked out really well. I asked the students which class was their favourite and a bunch said the animal class! Yay my class :)

Anyways, Monday's class was a sustainability class, so they got to make robots out of recyclables. It was a huge success in each age group. They got so into it! I extended that project to Tuesday and had them present their robots. One little grade three bebe named his "Trash Robot" which was actually excellent use of the new vocabulary. Anyways he thought this was the funniest thing in the world and laughed hysterically whenever he said it. Trash robot can fight and clean, in case you were curious. The same boy and his friend also thought it was hilarious to fake shoot me the entire class (cute killing, not mean). My retaliation was to stick my icey hands down the backs of their shirts. My mother used to do that to my brother and me. Turns out it's pretty hilarious being the cold handed adult. Anyways, I have a picture of them shooting me and it's adorable.

Today, last day, they made posters of their teams' countries. Also really cute and successful. So I'm feeling pretty awesome! A few brought in little presents for me, like tangerines, which was adorable and made me feel loved.

The paper says: My name is Roro.
He can jump!

This robot is a kangaroo! The baby
is removable. So awesome.

I can't figure out how to rotate this.

The drawings on the bottom are
the girls in the group. They all
had the same characters in their
passports. SO CUTE. Broke
my heart throwing it away but
I can't really keep it. As I type this
I realize I could have used it to
decorate my apartment and now
I am sad.

Anecdote. There are saunas here when you can go and sit in hot tubs and steam rooms and relax. They're popular because our apartments/showers are all so cold. So anyways I went to one with some friends the other day. As I was getting ready to go, this super old lady sitting on the floor tapped my leg. She motioned to her back, so I thought Oh no my wet hair maybe dripped on her, so I dried my hair. She shook her head and motioned for me to crouch down next to her. She then proceeded to tenderly dab my back dry. I must have missed a spot. It was such a surreal moment of human kindness. She was so old that when she left she walked in the 90 degree angle that many of the over worked elderly have here.

Disaster

I ordered this delicious and amazing cashew curry sauce online. Right as I was ready to add it to my veggies, disaster happened. Not only was it horrible to clean, but I had to smell the deliciousness while I tidied up.

:(

Mitzvah of the month

Today I bought a bus ticket that cost  about 4.60$ (I will just make all the prices into dollars for simplicity sake). I gave her a 5$. Accidentally, she gave me  40cents plus the 5$ in change. When I returned the 5 and mimed that it was too much, she was SUPER grateful. I feel like a hundred bucks right now. Small deeds can make people so happy. But as Phoebe in friends noted, there are no selfless acts because I felt really awesome afterwards and am now bragging about it.

Good thing I feel like a hundred bucks cause I just spent about that on a shopping bonanza. I finally went to the big city of Daegu for browsing. Between cabs, buses, trains and the actual shopping, I definitely feel a little over splurged. BUT I bought super cute boots (for only 40$!) and a beautiful ring. For once it was easy to find boots for my short legs!! I'm really loving being average sized. Anyways, the ring was from a super adorable shop and will now be my Korean reminder for all days.

Korea ring!

I realized I hadn't taken any day-to-day photos in a while so here are also a few snap shots around. Particularly interesting are the first two: they are taken about 10 m from each other. I think they really highlight the disparity between old times poor Korea, and current Dynamic Korea.

Not much here except a few decrepit houses....

Ten meters later, BAM:
shiny new apartment building.

Canola oil and spam - a beautiful gift if I've ever seen one.

Restaurants here often have a cartoon picture of the animal
they serve. Cute pigs and cows smile from BBQs, even
smiling kimbaps (sushi rolls) are seen. These happy clams
can't wait to be eaten!

Potatoes do not come pre-washed.

Cool plastic bottle angel in Daegu. 

Winter Camp is going well

Happy New Year! I survived my first third of being in Korea. Time has flown. I can see how people stay here for years, it's just so easy. Some days I think I would love to stay, but then I would just be coasting along easily, and I think in the long run I need more of a challenge. And a career!

I am teaching an "around the world" theme at winter camp. I got the basic premise off of Waygook, the website with teaching materials. I have a very different style than the original maker though, so I am redoing almost everything haha. Kind of wish I'd just made my own from scratch, but what can you do. He did have the ingenious idea of making "passports" for the students. They get a stamp (aka I draw a little picture) in their passports for attendance and prizes.

Anyways, today I decided not to teach a "sports" class cause what do I know about sports, and instead taught an animal class. It was so awesome. The kids seemed pretty interested too because animals are awesome. I taught them different "types" of animals - insects, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, aand fish. A part of my soul died every time I said that yes, a spider was an insect. But really I can't go on about all the invertebrates cause that's just cruel. Oh well. In a few years they can correct themselves when they learn  it all in science class. I just realized they will think I'm dumb when this happens. Bummer.

On a happier note, I had them play an animal guessing game thing where they had to make their fellow team members guess the animal pictured behind them. This was hilarious. For dog, they all barked insanely. For koala, a girl kept pointing to her stomach and saying "BABY! BABY" over and over again hahaha. My favourite was the sloth. The clues given were "It lives in trees! It is very slow! Anne wants to hug one!" She remembered that from my bucket list class long ago! I was so proud.

Last week we had a gorgeous snowfall, so here's a few pics. Nothing compared to Montreal of course! Speaking of Montreal, I showed my kiddos some pictures of the snowstorm today. There were two gasps: the initial gasp, and then the realization that the buried object was a car gasp.

Random interesting cultural difference. Here, wedding photos are done months before a wedding. They are done in various different outfits too. My teacher getting married took photos in 4 white dresses, 1 hanbok (Korean dress), and 1 casual outfit! And she won't marry in any of those dresses!! Super weird. I wonder if the pictures are used to decorate the wedding? I'll let you know when I go!!

I made the students have homework last
Friday: make a snow angel!

School yard

Pretty lights out

Kiwis here come in two varieties: regular and
"golden"

I cat sit for a friend this weekend. This cat is
a feral kitten and here she is about to attack
me. She's cute but ouch.