Well, where do I start? I did not go to church last week. I was planning on going to Busan later in the day with some other foreign teachers, so I figured I would learn to ride the bus from people that have been here a long time. False. We took taxis:-) There were a lot of people I hadn't met yet so it was cool to be able to socialize with a LOT of westerners, some that have been here over a year. We went to this German beer hall and it was so funny to see all the Korean servers wearing lederhosen. There was a band from Bulgaria, I think, and that was almost as funny:-) They did have sausages and sauerkraut but I wouldn't call those sausages bratwurst! Maybe hot dogs, ha but they had plenty of fried food that was delicious! I must say, I have missed french fries (yeah you can find them here no problem but I haven't yet)! We had such a good time and watching the extremely drunk old Korean men dance with their coats like it's a lady/dance on the benches and be told over and over to get down/get really excited and sing along when the band sang popular Korean songs was really awesome! We continued on to another place in Busan called the Basement. It's a bar for westerners and it made me feel like I was back in America at a bar that a few Koreans were also visiting. I definitely had a dance off with a Korean guy. He definitely won! It was pretty hilarious! He had some sweet moves. We played dominoes and other people were playing connect 4. Overall, it was an awesome place with a super chill atmosphere! I met this cute Korean couple and sat with them for a little bit but had to leave before we exchanged contact info. A few of us went to another western bar and there were a bunch of foreigners (I'm assuming foreign teachers!) there as well! We were all celebrating Lunar New Year's aka celebrating having Monday off! I made some more Korean friends there but this time we did get each other's facebooks! Korean friends are a good idea whilst in Korea! The DJ there was supreme. We made our way back to our little myeon and as soon as I got home I remembered that I opened a tab at the Basement......and forgot to close it/get my card back. Nooo! I was bummed mostly because that meant I had to go BACK on my day off and I still didn't know how to do the whole bus thing!! I chickened out on Monday and decided I would be better off asking someone to go with me and help me out.
Thankfully, a new friend showed me the bus route. Talk about a crash course in Korean public transit! I had to take a taxi to the bus stop, bus to Busan, and 2 subway rides to get to the area! I never ever ever would have been able to do that on my own! We were both hungry and saw an ad for a restaurant called Pumpkins with a tag line, "Tasty Story." HA! We knew we had to go there! This place was pretty great. The tables each had couches as chairs and they still had Christmas decorations up ha. And EVERYTHING was pumpkin! We got this beef and veggie dish that was served in the pumpkin and had some sort of red sauce and melted cheese all over it. It was delicious, actually! Alright so we went to get my card and it was no problem to get it back, but a huge relief! We make it back to the bus station and there are so many people waiting for the last buses of the night. We decided to hop on the extremely full bus that was about to leave. By extremely full, I mean we stood at the VERY front of the bus the entire ride. I was standing right on the top of the step by the door ha. It was like a roller coaster ride! I think it's pretty common to stand on the buses like that. The funniest part came when we pulled up to our stop and there was a car with their hazards on right in the way of the bus! Wow, that made our driver mad. He starts honking like crazy and the car moved up just a little. So we get out and then as the bus driver is leaving, he starts letting the guy HAVE it!! He was just screaming at the driver of the car and I was just laughing so hard as we were walking away. I mean the car wasn't in the way at this point, the bus driver just wanted to make his anger known:-)
My first class of the day is with Sally, Sunny, Sue and a new arrival, Subin. Yes, Subin. I have several really fun stories from this class! I forgot about this last post but I just have to tell this story. Subin started coming to our class last week and was pretty shy her first class. I could tell she understood but she was kind of quiet. So at the end of her first class we were playing a game where the girls had to walk around a table and grab the flashcard when they heard it read (the story was being played on CD-the flashcards were strewn about a small table). Sally and Subin were the only ones that wanted to play and they seemed to be getting a little competitive. All of a sudden, one of the words on a certain flashcard was read and Subin scanned the table, spying it at the opposite end before Sally saw it. Subin literally dove onto the table and snatched the card!! Welcome to the class, Subin!! It was shocking and hysterical! I mean you just have to picture this reserved little girl who has barely spoken a word the entire class diving across a table like she was in full attack mode. It was awesome.
A few days ago in that same class, we were reading a story called Where is the Green Sheep?" It's pretty cute and one of the activities was drawing your favorite sheep from the story. First they each picked their favorites; Subin's was the blue sheep, Sue's was the red and Sunny and Sally had like 3 each haha. Everybody finished some cute drawings (except Sally who at this point had 10 favorites....) and I admired everybody's work. Then Sue handed me hers.
At first I wasn't sure what it was exactly until she gave me the simple explanation, "The blue sheep is dead." HAHA If you will notice, the red sheep is visiting the grave of the blue sheep and thinking about him as well. I laughed and laughed! I'm not sure if that somehow exposes evil feelings she has towards Subin (Subin had the blue sheep) but it was just hilarious. Sue was pretty quiet when we first started classes and always had this perplexed look on her face but she has really opened up. She is very smart, speaks a lot of English and talks a lot now! It's very cute. Thursday and Friday we were learning about crocodiles and alligators and she kept saying they were from Africa. When I asked if they had ever seen one, she pipes up, "NO, I don't go to Africa many times." hahaha thank you for many laughs, Sue. I feel you need to see how cute she is so
you can really appreciate her spunk:
Not the best picture of her but still :-)
The rest of our Korean teachers started at MBC OSS on Tuesday. I was excited to have Donna back (Dan ah actually) and it was exciting to meet the new ones. However, I am a little confused. I said something to one named Sally and she told me in very broken English that she doesn't actually speak English......um...isn't this an English academy? Ha so, yeah I'm not sure how that works at all. Actually, during class last week Jeniffer had to come in to my class and ask how to pronounce a couple words she was teaching. Hahaha, I guess that's how it works.
You know I will always have a story about my dear Fred:-) I was teaching colors this week to Fred and Aidan and that always ends in fun stories. Let me take you back to last year when I was in Cambodia. They had an English class every weeknight and the other interns and I sat in on it a couple times. One little girl, Thao always provided us with hilarious stories. Once, the teacher asked the class of girls, "Are you a boy?" And Thao, who I don't think had been paying that much attention, says very loudly, "YES I DO!" Another time, he asked, "How are you doing today?" Her answer, "Today is MONDAY!" She was always very severe with her pronunciation and the shape of her mouth when she said the most ridiculous things, and this story was one of mine and Karen's favorites. They were going over colors and silver was next. Of course, Thao wasn't paying that much attention so as everyone else says it correctly, she screws up her mouth and says, "FIIIILVEEEERRR." It was pretty amazing!! So that is a story Karen and I always bring up and laugh over even a year later. Well, how wonderful was it when Fred made a similar mistake this week! They were doing fine and then we got to purple and as he repeated me, he said, "FEEEERVEEER" almost as intense as Thao's filver!! Fred gives me so much joy:-) He knows it's purple now, but that memory will never leave me! I love language bloopers. I think I'm in the right business to hear many more of those! Oh actually I have another Fred story! I wanted them to be able to spell the colors too so we had been working on that. I made this little sheet with colored pictures and they had to spell the colors. We got to red, and all of a sudden Fred yells, "FRED!!" And I go over to see he added an f to "red" and was so amused that he can spell his name using "red!" I think he giggled for a good 2 minutes over that! So did I! Now every time he spells red, he goes F...r...e...d. Hehe
I decided I probably needed to wash some clothes or I would be going to work in interestingly smelling clothes. Joey had used the complicated washing machine once before so he showed me a few buttons to push. I was trying to wait til I had a clothes drying rack but I knew it would be a while til I decided to go back to Lotte Mart and get one! So I washed the much needed underwear and when they were done I had to think quick. I need a drying method. Whoever lived here before me put these little hooks up all around in very random spots. I also have a cord from the AC unit where I have my Cambodia flag tied. SO for a couple days, I had underwear and socks hanging up all over my apartment. Don't worry, I won't post the pictures:-) This week I wanted to wash my towels, but I felt like they should be washed with warm water. I had to improvise, so I just pushed random buttons and made sure it was with warm water. I had no idea what I was doing, but now they are clean! This is what I was working with:
The rest of our Korean teachers started at MBC OSS on Tuesday. I was excited to have Donna back (Dan ah actually) and it was exciting to meet the new ones. However, I am a little confused. I said something to one named Sally and she told me in very broken English that she doesn't actually speak English......um...isn't this an English academy? Ha so, yeah I'm not sure how that works at all. Actually, during class last week Jeniffer had to come in to my class and ask how to pronounce a couple words she was teaching. Hahaha, I guess that's how it works.
You know I will always have a story about my dear Fred:-) I was teaching colors this week to Fred and Aidan and that always ends in fun stories. Let me take you back to last year when I was in Cambodia. They had an English class every weeknight and the other interns and I sat in on it a couple times. One little girl, Thao always provided us with hilarious stories. Once, the teacher asked the class of girls, "Are you a boy?" And Thao, who I don't think had been paying that much attention, says very loudly, "YES I DO!" Another time, he asked, "How are you doing today?" Her answer, "Today is MONDAY!" She was always very severe with her pronunciation and the shape of her mouth when she said the most ridiculous things, and this story was one of mine and Karen's favorites. They were going over colors and silver was next. Of course, Thao wasn't paying that much attention so as everyone else says it correctly, she screws up her mouth and says, "FIIIILVEEEERRR." It was pretty amazing!! So that is a story Karen and I always bring up and laugh over even a year later. Well, how wonderful was it when Fred made a similar mistake this week! They were doing fine and then we got to purple and as he repeated me, he said, "FEEEERVEEER" almost as intense as Thao's filver!! Fred gives me so much joy:-) He knows it's purple now, but that memory will never leave me! I love language bloopers. I think I'm in the right business to hear many more of those! Oh actually I have another Fred story! I wanted them to be able to spell the colors too so we had been working on that. I made this little sheet with colored pictures and they had to spell the colors. We got to red, and all of a sudden Fred yells, "FRED!!" And I go over to see he added an f to "red" and was so amused that he can spell his name using "red!" I think he giggled for a good 2 minutes over that! So did I! Now every time he spells red, he goes F...r...e...d. Hehe
I decided I probably needed to wash some clothes or I would be going to work in interestingly smelling clothes. Joey had used the complicated washing machine once before so he showed me a few buttons to push. I was trying to wait til I had a clothes drying rack but I knew it would be a while til I decided to go back to Lotte Mart and get one! So I washed the much needed underwear and when they were done I had to think quick. I need a drying method. Whoever lived here before me put these little hooks up all around in very random spots. I also have a cord from the AC unit where I have my Cambodia flag tied. SO for a couple days, I had underwear and socks hanging up all over my apartment. Don't worry, I won't post the pictures:-) This week I wanted to wash my towels, but I felt like they should be washed with warm water. I had to improvise, so I just pushed random buttons and made sure it was with warm water. I had no idea what I was doing, but now they are clean! This is what I was working with:
NOT easy! I was just thankful my towels made it out alive.
Thursday night, I was walking back home after work and was waiting at the light to be able to cross. I had my headphones in and was in my own little world and then this young Korean lady pushing a stroller said, "Excuse me" and started talking to me in English. She said she taught English before she was married and she also said she wanted to be friends. YES! She lives basically across the street from MBC OSS and asked if I wanted to come over Friday for tea or coffee. I was so exhausted on Friday and not feeling great but figured tea would help and I probably wouldn't be there long. I really wanted to go over there and get to know her too. So when I get there she asks if I was hungry and I knew she wanted to make dinner for me. I was a bit hungry, too:-) Her daughter and I played and she cooked dinner and halfway taught me how to make it. Her daughter is 3 years old in Korean but I was thinking she looked awful young. Later she told me her daughter is 18 months old. Ha so, 3 years old or 18 months. Either one! Funny. The dinner was delicious and she packed up some kimchi and rice cakes for me to take home. She was so excited to have me over and I was really glad to have met this new friend named Tina! Her husband called to say he was off work and coming home, and she told me he was really nervous to meet me. He was pretty shy to try and talk to me and she kept throwing him under the bus, telling me "he can't watch your eyes, he's too shy and nervous!" ha and she would laugh at him when he attempted to speak English. Hehe Well then I told them it was my one month anniversary that day and he said he wanted to throw me a party...right then!! I was really enjoying myself but I was still tired and had to get up early Saturday for kindergarten orientation. But friends are important. So they broke out their soju and some type of plum syrup mixer and had some cheese and seaweed side dishes. We had such a good time just getting to know each other and hanging out. Tina was very clear, I can call her for anything I need or want! She's so sweet and her daughter is a bundle of fun! She's a real goofball and reminded me of my niece Isabelle. Here's Tina:
she's funny and very generous and helpful! I think she's gonna help me learn Korean. Yay! It was interesting when her husband came home; Tina and Eh Da (I have no idea how to Americanize her name so that'll be her daughter's name for now ha) both bowed and greeted him super formally. I knew that was a greeting here I just didn't realize even wives greet their husbands that way! Good culture lesson. I tried to get some funny videos of Eh Da but couldn't quite get the perfect video, so here's a picture.
This doesn't quite do her cuteness justice but it's ok for now.
Wow, this may be the longest post yet! And I'm not even finished yet. I truly feel bad for anyone still reading! But....I'm going to keep writing:-) I am ALMOST done!! Saturday, Joey and I were to be introduced to parents at the Korean kindergarten's orientation. I feel like Monica is a proud mom who likes to show off her new kids. I'll take it:-) She called us up, said things about us in Korean that I hope were nice then handed us the microphone! Joey rambled about a few things and then handed it to me and I was so awkward ha. I was thinking, "I'm standing up here after you said who knows what about me and I don't speak Korea so...what am I supposed to do with this microphone?!" She had told Joey to say hello in Korean so I just said "Annyeong haseyo!" and handed the mike back to Monica and laughed very nervously as they giggled. Haha it was just weird and I felt sick and wanted to skype with friends back home! We had lunch with several kindergarten teachers and then Monica and Charlie went over some financial stuff with us. They told us how they were gonna save us money in spite of this new tax law and Monica also has ideas for us to teach an extra class or two to make a lot more money. Yes! She said she wants us to be millionaires, lol. I like where her head is at! As we were discussing all this, I brought up vacation time to see if I could have an extra day or two off, since summer vacation is about 4 days :-(
Good news:
I am going back to Cambodia at the end of July!! Yes, it's only for a week and that's a longer wait than I previously thought. But what really matters here is that I am going back:-) I am super stoked. I can't wait!!
Ohhh my gosh this post is way too long! It took me all day to get through it. I hope you didn't have such a hard time reading as I did writing haha I don't even know if I included everything I had hoped I would. I'm just tired now and don't feel like doing anything else with this:-) So I will leave you now and will sleep soundly. Hopefully this cold will go away so I can teach like a madwoman, aka, like myself.
Looking forward to her first payday (Feb 25, wooo!),
Min Chi
Thursday night, I was walking back home after work and was waiting at the light to be able to cross. I had my headphones in and was in my own little world and then this young Korean lady pushing a stroller said, "Excuse me" and started talking to me in English. She said she taught English before she was married and she also said she wanted to be friends. YES! She lives basically across the street from MBC OSS and asked if I wanted to come over Friday for tea or coffee. I was so exhausted on Friday and not feeling great but figured tea would help and I probably wouldn't be there long. I really wanted to go over there and get to know her too. So when I get there she asks if I was hungry and I knew she wanted to make dinner for me. I was a bit hungry, too:-) Her daughter and I played and she cooked dinner and halfway taught me how to make it. Her daughter is 3 years old in Korean but I was thinking she looked awful young. Later she told me her daughter is 18 months old. Ha so, 3 years old or 18 months. Either one! Funny. The dinner was delicious and she packed up some kimchi and rice cakes for me to take home. She was so excited to have me over and I was really glad to have met this new friend named Tina! Her husband called to say he was off work and coming home, and she told me he was really nervous to meet me. He was pretty shy to try and talk to me and she kept throwing him under the bus, telling me "he can't watch your eyes, he's too shy and nervous!" ha and she would laugh at him when he attempted to speak English. Hehe Well then I told them it was my one month anniversary that day and he said he wanted to throw me a party...right then!! I was really enjoying myself but I was still tired and had to get up early Saturday for kindergarten orientation. But friends are important. So they broke out their soju and some type of plum syrup mixer and had some cheese and seaweed side dishes. We had such a good time just getting to know each other and hanging out. Tina was very clear, I can call her for anything I need or want! She's so sweet and her daughter is a bundle of fun! She's a real goofball and reminded me of my niece Isabelle. Here's Tina:
she's funny and very generous and helpful! I think she's gonna help me learn Korean. Yay! It was interesting when her husband came home; Tina and Eh Da (I have no idea how to Americanize her name so that'll be her daughter's name for now ha) both bowed and greeted him super formally. I knew that was a greeting here I just didn't realize even wives greet their husbands that way! Good culture lesson. I tried to get some funny videos of Eh Da but couldn't quite get the perfect video, so here's a picture.
This doesn't quite do her cuteness justice but it's ok for now.
Wow, this may be the longest post yet! And I'm not even finished yet. I truly feel bad for anyone still reading! But....I'm going to keep writing:-) I am ALMOST done!! Saturday, Joey and I were to be introduced to parents at the Korean kindergarten's orientation. I feel like Monica is a proud mom who likes to show off her new kids. I'll take it:-) She called us up, said things about us in Korean that I hope were nice then handed us the microphone! Joey rambled about a few things and then handed it to me and I was so awkward ha. I was thinking, "I'm standing up here after you said who knows what about me and I don't speak Korea so...what am I supposed to do with this microphone?!" She had told Joey to say hello in Korean so I just said "Annyeong haseyo!" and handed the mike back to Monica and laughed very nervously as they giggled. Haha it was just weird and I felt sick and wanted to skype with friends back home! We had lunch with several kindergarten teachers and then Monica and Charlie went over some financial stuff with us. They told us how they were gonna save us money in spite of this new tax law and Monica also has ideas for us to teach an extra class or two to make a lot more money. Yes! She said she wants us to be millionaires, lol. I like where her head is at! As we were discussing all this, I brought up vacation time to see if I could have an extra day or two off, since summer vacation is about 4 days :-(
Good news:
I am going back to Cambodia at the end of July!! Yes, it's only for a week and that's a longer wait than I previously thought. But what really matters here is that I am going back:-) I am super stoked. I can't wait!!
Ohhh my gosh this post is way too long! It took me all day to get through it. I hope you didn't have such a hard time reading as I did writing haha I don't even know if I included everything I had hoped I would. I'm just tired now and don't feel like doing anything else with this:-) So I will leave you now and will sleep soundly. Hopefully this cold will go away so I can teach like a madwoman, aka, like myself.
Looking forward to her first payday (Feb 25, wooo!),
Min Chi
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