Cherry Blossoms

The cherry blossoms in the city are blooming and it's beautiful. I feel like it's one of those super Asian must sees. They are very delicate little flowers, white with the slightest blush of pink. The trees almost look like they are covered in snow.  The rest of the vegetation, however, is still very bleak and the city is still pretty dirty and crammed compared to cities back home, so while the flowers are beautiful there isn't the same feeling of freshness as spring back home.

Anyways, they're open super briefly, so I asked my teachers where to go see them. They recommended a street where they are all lit up at night, so go I did.  It was really pretty! They smell nice too.

It's a pretty interesting experience.. the trees bloom, then stalls selling food or trinkets pop up like  mushrooms after a rain, and massive crowds walk around. The trees are pretty, but it's a very uniquely Korean experience to just go, hang out, and take photos while jostling through a bunch of people, then leave. The most exciting sighting were some massive oysters. I haven't tried an oyster yet since my return to meat... I think I will wait until I can try one from someone else's plate before I go buying any. Here are some photos!

Blossoms in the park.

No blossoms, but just a cool shot of the tomb downtown
at sunset. Such a magical tree.

Blossoms on my walk to school.

Alright here onwards are from the street festival.

Unfortunately under these trees was a whole
bunch of traffic! We found it  odd it
was that they don't close off the streets.

This photo and the next are blurry, but I thought
they showed the cool different lighting of the
blossoms.

I like this photo. Traditional looking cherry
blossoms and then super brightly
lit modern day "love motels" is a good
summary of Korea! 

Street foooood. I ate a bunch of fried garbage, now
I don't feel too good !

Super crappy looking toys, but I imagine
kids whine until they get some.

Terrifying.

This booth reminded me of an ice show back home. All
this stuff was lighting up. 

An entire fried chicken.

Here you can see the super creepy anti-UV
face masks/hats. Also, a sock for when you want
your heels to be extra warm.

Pretty looking candy

HUGE oysters

Sadly this pretty lit up temple thingy was
next to impossible to photograph.

PS The other day a student said I looked 30. Rude.

PPS The other day some students saw me coming home and ran after me to ask if the apartment was my home. I am very fearful of visits!

Mr Pizza

Went out for some "pizza" this weekend. Korean pizza is notorious among foreigners to being quite different than North American pizza, and extremely different from Italian pizza. Being the hungry, unpicky eater that I am, I love it just as much as any pizza. The addition to corn on almost all flavours really doesn't bother me!!

Anyways this weekend I ate at "Mr Pizza" and a friend of mine recommended I try the potato gold. It was SO good. Cheesy, potatoey, bacony goodness. The "gold" crust was pretty much cheese bread. It was too good. It was exactly what one wants after a tiring weekend.

So very delicious. The white drizzle
was sour cream, and that yellow
sauce was some kind of garlic
butter sauce. Needless to say,
this is excellent for those on a diet.

 

I also had a chuckle reading the menu...

"Secret Garden

You will feel as if you are sitting on a terrace enjoying a sweet taste with leisure. Pieces of grilled chicken breast with colorful fresh vegetables in white sauce is created for all nature-loving women"

Alas, a member of our party was a male so we went with the "premium pizza that is loved by all-ages."

Not too much else to report on. Life in Korea goes on. Children call me pretty on a daily basis and I forget I am short until I hang out with foreigners. Basically, life is good. Cherry blossoms are starting to bloom so I hope to hit up one of the Gyeongju historic sites this weekend, maybe back to Anapji Pond or hiking Namsam again. GET EXCITED. 

Panty!

This video is so awkward I can hardly breathe when I watch it because I am laughing so hard. Grade 4 English. Amazing.

Also in grade 4 English the other day, my coteacher, a super sweet young man, bent over. The kids must have seen the band of his underwear because they absolutely freaked out laughing and started yelling "PANTY! PANTY! PANTY!"

It was hilarious, but I can't imagine how embarrassed the poor guy was! Bad enough having children chant at your underwear when there isn't some foreigner hanging out in your classroom! I'm hoping none of them knew that panties are usually reserved for ladies.

Needless to say, I laughed a lot that day.

PS In case you were wondering what my letter replies looked like, here's one. Yeah, I'm pretty cute.

I love me some Startbooks coffee

How do you spell my name?

A N N A

No, almost!

A N N

Very close!

Teacher ME. MEEEE. I knoW!!!!

Ok, yes?

A N N N!!!!



She was so certain.


 Next kid did manage to get it right. It's a tricky one!

Happy White Day!!

So here I am, thinking, Oh gee these poor kids growing up without much of a Halloween. How ever do they manage?

Well it turns out they do with White Day! Traditionally, White Day is a second Valentine's Day where boys are supposed to get girls presents. The lollipop Chupa Chups however somehow used their marketing skills to convince everyone that White Day is candy day and everyone should exchange lollipops! It was absolutely adorable. All the kids were thrilled to give me candy when they saw me, calling "WAIT Anne Teacher!" and pulling lollipops out of all their pockets. One boy even got down on one knee to present me with a lollipop in front of the class. When kids would ask me for candy and I would say I didn't have any (truth is I didn't have enough to give all 400 of them) they would then just give me some instead. Too cute!! I even got a little candy package in my mailbox!

So many  Chupa Chups!

Yesterday was also the beginning of the year teacher dinner. We went for BBQ pork, which is absolutely delicious and I'm pretty sure I ate an entire pig's worth. Luckily, a coteacher was able to tell me about the dinner, because here is what I got from Google translating the memo...

"Informs Yurim reunions.

A little late ㅋ ㅋ seumdwa

Urgently place has changed.

Many minutes you want to eat belly with skin God

Today at 5:00 pm

Jeju grazing belly with skin (next Hwangseong Suhyup, 10000000000000000 days near the church)

All.

Receptions combine reunions new member of the first event.

Please attend"

Very useful!

Lovely Day

My "fun" class (we haven't started the textbook lessons yet) with the grade 6's yesterday didn't turn out that well. I tried teaching them a song, but it was a little too complex and only a few sang along. Unlike last semester, however, even a kind of bad class was totally fine, and the kids were still great even if they were a little lost. Soooo today I revamped the class, and switched out the song for a game of M.A.S.H. I played that game pretty much every recess it rained in elementary, so I was not surprised by it's popularity. Big hit!! 

Cute things that happened today:

On their "get to know you" paper, I have the kids write things they like, and things they don't like. Interestingly (and kinda heart wrenching I must admit) a huge proportion don't like cheese. Cheese is probably one of the most unanimously loved ingredients back home! So crazy. Although I find myself enjoying dried mini anchovies here, so things are just crazy out East I suppose. Anyways, many kids wrote that they don't like to study. When I said I liked studying, some kids looked at me in utter disbelief. I then told them how in Canada it was different, and in high school we finish at 3:30pm, and then can go play sports. They freaked out. Here high school students stay in school until 10pm, and then head off to hagwans, or private academies. Our system seems like a life of heavenly leisure to them, poor dears. One of the many reasons I love teaching elementary is they haven't had their souls crushed by the brutal workload of later years.

After school, I saw a group of girls who had graduated. They were all in their new middle school uniforms. When they saw me they all yelled my name and ran to me for hugs. They weren't the first graduates I've seen, but they were the first to give me such a lovely reception. Made me very happy. 

Later I passed some little boys. I didn't recognize them, so they must be some of my new students. They were playing in the park by my apartment, and ran over to me and climbed over the fence to chat. They said I was beautiful and that they loved me. Very adorable, and unexpected from such young boys. I'm not complaining!

I also saw the boy who made "trash robot" during winter camp and he is just too cute.

Finally, I got my first letter of the year! It was absolutely covered in stickers and is on such adorable paper. See for yourself!! Tomorrow I teach my first grade 4 classes, I'm excited! And a little nervous!

"The Giraffe   s Life
I dream of you Maybe som eday
you will come true"

"Dear Ann teacher ^^.

Hello, Anne teacher. My name is Heo yoon ju. Nice to meet you. You are a very tall and you have yellow hair. I think many Eigirsh no. Plese teach how to Eiglrsh. I like you. You are is very kind and you are no fat. I thik 5 yard is very very very good. How about you??? When is your birthesday? My birthesday is 10.13 ^^~ I have yonger barther. My barther is 1 yard. You have a yonger barther? I want to a my older sister. You have a older sister? I have a my moter, my father, my yonger barther I am have. I love my family and me."

This may be the first and last time I am ever referred to as tall. Amazing.

Pretty tree outside my window
at school.

Tree in a very bleak intersection. 

Spring is Springing! Market and Tombs

A switch has been turned and spring is HERE. Last weekend I spent shivering in Seoul, and this weekend I literally went outside in a summer dress. It is lovely. Things aren't green yet, but there are plenty of buds on the trees.

Speaking of summer dresses, after the wedding Adri and I walked around Hwangsung park in some of our summer dresses because it was over 20 degrees out! The Koreans were all still dressed in winter attire. This includes sneakers, hiking pants, and jackets. Many women also protected themselves from the evil sunlight by wearing face/neck masks and giant visors. Adri and I stood out more than usual as we seemed dressed for completely different seasons.  I was sweating, so I really don't know how they were dealing with their outfits.

Anyways, as we walked by two middle aged women we noticed them staring. As we are now used to this, we didn't think much of it. However, they soon picked up the courage to come talk to us. Sadly, their English was limited to "hi." They were happily chatting away in Korean though, and pointed to my bare shoulders and seemed to be miming something along the lines of "you should protect your skin." I mimed that I was hot, and then pointed to the sun and stroked my arm saying "It's ok, I want a tan!" they sort of understood because they laughed and no longer were concerned. They continued chatting to us despite our attempts to show that we had no idea what they were saying. They were not deterred.  They kept chatting and then start making motions of a woman's figure. While we thought they were telling us we had nice figures, we couldn't express that we sort of understood. So, in order to really get their point across, one suddenly grabbed onto my butt and gave it a nice squeeze while complimenting it. By this point we were laughing so hard we could barely muster a "thank you" before leaving.

I continued to enjoy the hot weather by later heading downtown to the tombs. It was really beautiful, and I got in for free due to being a Gyeongju resident! Hurray! These are tombs of Shilla Royalty. We even got to go "inside" one where we could see replicas of the actual tomb, and some artifacts from tombs. It was neat.

Today was not quite as hot, but just as beautiful. There is a "5 day market" in my neighbourhood that is open every 5 days. Because this is a super random time to be open, along with a sunset closing time and the horrible coldness of winter, it's been a very long time since I have gone. Because today happened to be a Sunday, and warm, I finally went back. I bought a whole bunch of delicious veggies and some strawberries that smell and taste like heaven. Though not my first time, I took a whole bunch of photos to show you guys ! The best part was when we bought our strawberries, the vendor excitedly said "Welcome to Korea!!" and gave us some free tangerines. 

Bondeggi .. silkworm larva. Ew.

Dried fish, shrimp, krill, etc.

Here are some local plants. I had a hard time in winter
when it was only this stuff cause I have no idea
how to cook with most of it.

Pig feet!!

Kimchi kimchi

All kinds of sides. I eat this kind of food
at school all the time. Sadly, I have
no idea what any of it is called
and will probably never
eat it outside of Korea.

Candy

These are the best mushroom I've ever had (the brown
ones). Because it's spring, tons
of recognizable produce is now available
again!

You can smell them from so far.
They taste amazing!!

Dried persimmons covered in powder..

Not only are Korean children
naturally adorable, they are
dressed in outfits like this
ALL THE TIME. 

This is acorn nut jelly. The first time I had it, I was
convinced it was pure animal fat. Now I can't
eat it, even though I know it's not!

The sprouts in here were so fresh they
were actually still growing! I find sprouts
go rotten super fast so I never buy them,
but they're a very tasty staple
in Korean food.

This old lady, known here as an ajuma, was shucking
garlic gloves. The pile at her feet is garlic skin.
It looked absolutely awful. 

Seaweed really is quite popular here.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women
eat seaweed soup a lot due to health
benifits that ancient
Koreans somehow figured
out. On birthdays, people
also eat seaweed soup as
it was their "first meal" through
their mothers!

And there you have it. The five day market!