Stay at home Thursday

It was an easy day with my 5th graders, which was good since I hadn't been feeling well yesterday. We did a song and played a game.

I was going to meet my friend Jenna, but I decided it would be better if I just took it easy and stayed at home. I'm glad I did. Jacob asked how I was doing and offered to come up and visit. So, we made tacos. They turned out pretty well. We also made quesadillas.

Dog lockers at Emart!

 What should you do if you go grocery shopping and bring your dog along? Oh yea, just put them in a locker! They have dog lockers with air holes! I think Toby would have a FIT being put inside one of those!

Cooking!

Jacob cooking

Quesadillas!

Dinner!

Teachers Field Trip

Today was another day of Heads up 7 up. I heard several times students say "that was fun", but in Korean--after we were done. So that's a good thing! After my 4 classes, and lunch (which I found out Wednesdays are "special" day--they make something other than Korean food--so lunch was curry today) I had about 30 minutes before we left for the teachers field trip.

We were going to Yangpyeong to a museum/site of a famous author. On the way, I started to feel a little bit motion sick, but thought it would go away. I napped a little bit before we got there too. Then...I woke up a little before we arrived and felt worse. We finally made it and I was afraid if I stood up I would throw up. I had told my life co-teacher that I was feeling a little sick. I finally got off the bus and she and some of the other teachers asked if I was okay. I wanted to find the bathroom. I got to the bathroom and did throw up. Part of me was thinking I was motion sick, but then I also remembered in August when I got sick it was after I ate curry too. So...I guess I'm going to stay away from curry in the future, especially if I'm going to be on a bus or have cramps. I felt mostly better afterwards, but I stayed pretty low key.

The author wrote a story about this boy and girl that fall in love and in the area they are, there are sudden rain falls, in the story, they run into a straw hut to get out of the rain. But, the girl gets sick from being in the rain and dies. Tragic. So, there is an area at the museum/park/area that has "sudden rain showers" and we got to see the showers. We also walked around-it was actually pretty warm and had a beautiful view of mountains and fall colors (much more brown than the bright colors we have in the US). Then we were off to dinner. It was interesting. Almost all the dishes featured lotus flower roots/anything from the lotus flower. Didn't help a mildly upset stomach having something unusual and different. I felt a little sick on the ride home too and tried to sleep most of the way.

I got home and did some laundry. Even though it's still pretty early, I'm just feeling drained and ready for bed.

The huts

Sudden rain showers

All the teachers watching from a safe distance after running away from the initial sudden shower

Some of the more colorful trees

Another view

A view of the mountains coming home

Another Tuesday in Hongdae

Classes were pretty good-I taught my students "Heads up, 7 Up" today. It actually tied into my lesson too--we're not just playing games! The chapter is about the future tense, so when students guessed who picked them they had to say "(name) what are you going to do?" and the replying student had to say "I'm going to sit down" or "I'm going to stay here" if they picked them or not. They really enjoyed the game.

After school I came home and took a short break. Then, it was off to Hongdae to meet Jacob for dinner. On Sunday he had asked me to go to this place called "Oodle Noodle" with him. I knew I wasn't going to be up for dinner, so I told him to give me a rain check.

We met up and went to the restaurant--we both ordered chicken pad thai. It was really good. We also got pork and cheese dumplings. After dinner we were going to get coffee/tea and I mentioned how I can only drink soy milk and not regular milk. The only place I know that has soy milk is Starbucks. We were on our way to Starbucks when we spotted another cafe and decided we'd just see what they had. I asked if they had soy milk, but it was only one kind of drink, so I got yet another juice. We sat and chatted for awhile. I was people watching and saw someone carrying a paper cup and eating the delicious street food "hoddeok" (a pancake-like dough filled with sugar and nuts and fried). I asked Jacob if he had had it before-he hadn't and if he wanted to try-he did. So off we went to find a hoddeok stall. We walked on to Hapjeong Station and I called it an early-ish night.

Dinner! Mmm

Monday, Monday

Our first class was kind of nice because they are a bit ahead of schedule. We ended up playing some games with them instead of doing any lesson. We also had our worst class today. My coteacher and I thought we'd try something new and move their desks to see if it would help them focus more or just change the atmosphere. It didn't work. I actually think it made it a little bit worse. I went to the staff meeting and didn't understand anything. My 5th grade coteacher told me she is going to ask my 'life' coteacher if I can skip those meetings.

After work, I took a little break at home and then went to Itaewon to visit my friend Jes. I play soccer with him, but he was injured a few weeks ago and went to get an MRI. They told him he would need surgery, so since he was adopted to Denmark, he's going to be going home to do the surgery and spend a few months there in therapy and for recovery. I haven't really gotten a chance to see him much so now's the time since he's leaving Wednesday!

I got a little lost in the back alleys of his neighborhood but eventually found his place. He technically lives in a different neighborhood than Itaewon, and I kind of liked the area. After I got off the main street of Itaewon and walked for about 3 minutes I came to a cute antique-y area with lots of shops that all had different chairs outside for sale. If I was going to live here permanently, I think I would buy a bunch of different chairs. Anyway, I got to his place and also got to see Edo, his roommate (adopted) from Belgium. We walked (Jes limped) to a restaurant at the end of the street. We ordered an "all you can eat" order of samgypsal and another type of pork thinly sliced. In the beginning we tried to get 3 orders of just samgypsal, but the ajuma told us we should get the all you can eat (which was a little bit more expensive). We ate our way through the regular portion and then suffered through an extra plate of samgypsal to make it worth our money. The thing I like about BBQ is that it makes dinner nice and leisurely. It takes time for the meat to cook, and because the grills are only so big you can only fit so much meat on it. Thus it's really conducive to creating conversation. We were at the restaurant for almost 2 hours (I feel like this is very typical when going to BBQ with anyone).

I called it a night after dinner. I know Jes and Edo are night owls (they go to bed when I wake up) but I have been feeling pretty exhausted lately. It was a 30 minute subway ride home.

Full Day

This morning I met Jacob in Hongdae to go to our mentor training together. We arrived earlier than expected and were leaving the station and saw a grandma trying to pull her cart up the stairs. I told him he should help her, so he asked her if she wanted help and pulled the cart up for her. Then I remembered there is a Krispy Kreme right by the department store we were at, so we went for a "Baby Mummy" donut from Krispy Kreme.

The meeting was good-long, but good. I'm really excited about our mentor program. It's going to be a really neat experience. I enjoyed meeting all the other mentors; there are 9 of us in total. We had a some ice breakers and discussion. We got pizza for lunch delivered to the meeting and finally finished around 3. After, the president of InKAS wanted to take us to coffee, so most of us went on to the Starbucks near the InKAS office and had coffee. Jacob and I tried to go to Myeongdong to do some shopping, but it was so crowded it was impossible. Instead we left and went to soccer really early. We stretched and found a ball to kick around until John arrived and then used his.

At first there were only 6 of us, but then as we played a lot of people showed up late. We ended up having 14 people, which resulted in an over crowded field. I was actually a little disappointed how soccer went. I had volunteered to do my share in goal and I was in there for 20 minutes and I finally ended up asking the guys if someone would switch with me.

Church was good--we had 5 priests (and one was a new face). After church I just came home because I was feeling pretty tired from soccer and the long day.

Baby Mummy donut!

Family Skype, Hiking, Friends

What a great day! I woke up and had a 2 hour skype session with my family--it was great seeing my Mom and Grandpa again as well as Aunt Judy and my Uncle Mark. After the long chat with them, I met my friend Kwang Min to go hiking to Bukhansan again.

We climbed 2 peaks this time. Part of it was quite challenging but it was still fun. We took a different path down and it was very gradual and easy. I had been getting concerned about coming down the mountain because it had been so difficult climbing up. It took us 3 hours from start to finish and we even took a few breaks-one where we enjoyed an apple and the view of Seoul.

After hiking we later met in Hapjeong for dinner and went to a French restaurant for a French style pizza. It was pretty good. We then went to Noksapyeong to hang out with my friend Min Kyung and her friend Bora. It was a fun evening with makgoli and side dishes that were tasty but spicy!

Hiking

View of the city below

Top of the second peak 535 meters

We started here (Left) and ended here (Right)

We added this to the wall at the makgoli place

There are so many pictures like this because everyone always comments how small my face is and then they push me to the front so my head looks bigger than theirs...and it always makes me laugh

Bora, me and Min Kyung (they're trying to make their faces look smaller)

Finally Friday!

Long day---wasn't so bad. Although the video I planned for my 5th grade class was a complete flop. Several of the students got a nice little nap. Ha, ha. So Kelly Teacher and I quick changed a powerpoint game she had and did that for the other 2 classes. My 6th grader boys really enjoyed the pictionary game I prepared for them, so that was good.

Kwang Min and I met for dinner and had kimbap and ramen. Such a simple meal but makes my tummy happy. :)

Old Inje Friend

As I've mentioned before--love Thursdays. Though one 5th grade class stands out as the "worst" to me, but even at their worst, they are still better than most of my 6th grade classes. They are so cute and happy to learn English. I have to really try and learn their names so when I have them next year as 6th graders we can have a good semester. :)

After school I went to Hongdae to meet one of my Inje friends. Her name is Yiseul and she was in my English Town (ET) group when I studied at Inje University. She lives in Suwon, which is around an hour south of Seoul. Yiseul happened to be in Seoul for a training program for her job so she contacted me and we made plans to meet. She picked out a restaurant called "Seoga and Cook" which is a kind of Korean/Western fusion restaurant. The portions were huge! We ordered a chicken fried rice and a chicken creamy pasta. We shared the plates and didn't even come close to finishing our meal. We went to go for dessert--I have heard about this new fad called a "cronut" which is a mix between a croissant and a donut. After studying the menu we went to place our order and the clerk told us they were all sold out. Boo. So we walked around to look for another cafe or dessert place. I was waiting to get my memory jogged since I spend so much time in Hongdae when we passed a crepe place I always wanted to try. So we stopped in and ordered dessert crepes. They were pretty good--you could pick your ice cream type (or without), fruit type (or without) and cake type (or without). So I got a vanilla ice cream strawberry crepe. I had a lot of fun catching up with Yiseul and seeing her again.

Our fusion dinner

Open Class Day

Well, today was a big day at school. I had my "open class" which is when the principal, vice principals and other teachers can come in during class and observe. My coteacher made it out to seem a lot more scary than it really was. My principal literally stuck his head in the room for 2 seconds and left. The vice principals both stayed for maybe 2 minutes. The class' homeroom teacher watched for maybe a total of 4 minutes and my main coteacher watched for a minute or two also. After the open class my coteacher told me there was a meeting I had to go to. So I went with her. After the meeting she told me that I didn't have to go but she wanted to show me that she has to go to these meetings with other teachers.

We had a 'staff' dinner. It was all the 12 teachers in my office plus the principal, vice principals and the main head teacher. We went for Shabu Shabu which is a soup you cook in front of you. They bring broth and boil it. Then you add vegetables (mostly mushrooms and leafy greens like cabbage) and thinly sliced beef. After you eat most of that, you add noodles. I have had shabu shabu before, but the last part they did was completely new to me. They had the remaining broth and added a cup of cooked rice and a raw egg. The egg cooked quickly and the rice soaked up the broth and it was like a creamy egg-y rice porridge. I really liked it. I found out that one of the teachers in my office is 7 months pregnant! I never knew because she usually wears flowy and loose clothing. She also is still quite tiny. It was hard to believe I didn't know!

After dinner, Kwang Min came to visit and we got ice cream at Baskin Robbins. We came back to my place and he helped me study some Korean.

Cooks

Again nothing too out of the ordinary at school today.

Around 6 I met Jacob by my Emart and we went grocery shopping because we made plans to cook dinner together. We looked for chicken breast but they didn't have any (only wings and legs) so that kind of foiled our plans. We spent the next 30 minutes or so wandering around the store and trying to come up with an idea of what to do. Jacob decided we would make pizzas with tortillas so we got mushroom, cheese, bell pepper, and garlic. (I already had onion and bacon) We came back and chopped and prepped our pizzas. They turned out pretty good. After we ate we talked for awhile.

Jacob prepping his pizza

My pizza!

Farewell Dinner

Classes went okay, nothing special to report.

Tonight's agenda was to celebrate Kim's going away. Kim--my roommate from orientation. I had mentioned before she had decided to turn in her 30 day resignation. So last week at our Canadian Thanksgiving, we made plans to meet up for dinner. (She's leaving on the 27th.)

The meeting location was near Itaewon (close to the Army base and the International area) and go to a jerk chicken--Jamaican--restaurant. Well, we all met up and walked to the restaurant. And....it is closed on Mondays. Whomp, whomp. So we walked around and found a Thai place. My friend Min Kyung also came to join us. After dinner, they had planned to go to Seoul Tower, but I have been there sooo many times and already said I wasn't going to be going to the tower part of the event. But some of us felt bad because hardly anyone was going.

Min Kyung, Kwang Min, Krystle and I went to get coffee. The area we met for dinner is very, very close to where Min Kyung lives, so she knew of a nice little place. We sat and talked for awhile and then headed home.

Lazy Day

I woke up and had my skype date with my Grandpa. Best morning ever! :) We talked for almost 2 hours. It was good to catch up with him.

After my chat with my Grandpa, I did laundry and tidied my place up and...just relaxed at home. One of my friends asked me to go shopping with him, but I decided it'd be better to just stay home and rest up. Then another friend asked me to meet him and his friend for coffee. Again, I declined and stayed at home.

Around 4 I left to walk to the World Cup stadium. I think it was about 2 miles. I went a little early so I could go to the Homeplus and look at cameras. Then I went over to the fields. Jacob said he was going to be there early but I didn't see him. Kwang Min and Stefano arrived and we were talking and Stefano realized Jacob and John were already on the field playing. At first we only had 8, but then 2 more arrived so we had 10. I played really hard and did a lot of running. I took a few shots on goal, but they were all over. As usual, when 7 rolled around I took off for church.

Again we had the Indian priest (Fr Francis?) and the French priest (Fr Francisco). The Indian priest had a good homily about being prayerful and listening to/being open God's will, not our own. After church I met Kwangmin in Hongdae and we went to the Thai restaurant we first went to. We were going to do something else, but I was feeling cold and soup sounded good.

Breaking Ji out of "prison" and back to Kyunghee University

Jacob and I met in Hapjeong to go visit Ji. My friend is still in the hospital after his knee surgery. He said he will probably be released Nov 3, the final push-back. And he’ll start working on the 6^th. Poor guy. Anyway, we arrived at the hospital and found him on the roof with another roommate. He didn’t have crutches or a wheelchair with him! He had started walking about 2 days earlier. We asked what he wanted for lunch and he said he wanted to break out of his “prison” and go to Wangsimni Station (big subway station with a mall and movie theater above the station). We had lunch in the food court and then talked about watching a movie. So we went to the CGV and looked at the movies and times. Nothing really jumped out at us, so we decided to pass. Ji called his girlfriend, Yeojin and told her to come meet us. We browsed in some of the stores and then went to meet Yeojin when she arrived. She hadn’t eaten anything so she went to get some bread and then we did a little bit more ‘shopping’/browsing. Ji wanted to do a photobooth thing—where you can get your pictures taken with your friends with different backgrounds and add decorations to the pictures, but when we went to where he thought the store was, it wasn’t there anymore. We went to get coffee instead and sat outside talking. Jacob had bought Uno, so we taught them Uno and played a few rounds.

Ji was getting tired—he hasn’t been doing too much at the hospital and he hasn’t been walking for long. We did quite a bit of walking earlier so he and Yeojin went back to the hospital. Jacob and I went on to visit Kyunghee University. We figured since we were already on the east side of Seoul we should visit our alma mater. Jacob did the Kyunghee University program (that I did last fall) in March. There was a fried rice/stirfry place we both knew so we picked that for dinner. When we arrived to the area, we couldn’t find the restaurant! We spent about 10 minutes walking around trying to find it. Just as we were about to give up we decided to go one other direction and…there it was! “Oori Doori” is the name of the restaurant. We got ‘pizza fried rice’ with extra cheese. Yum. It was delicious. Then we went to take a walk on campus and went to visit our old language building. We stopped to get ice cream at a Baskin Robbins and then took the subway back to the west side.

Sungmin and Yeojin

Jacob and me

Giving punishment for losing

Pizza Fried Rice--yum!!

Camera and Friends

Made it through the long day, but it wasn’t too bad. I don’t really mind it too much because I have 3 of my 5^th grade classes and 3 of my 6^th grade classes so it keeps it different and interesting.

After school I came home for a little break and then went to Yongsan to the electronics market. I met Kwang Min so we could look at cameras for me. Since my little point and shoot camera stopped working after my color run, I’ve been on the hunt for a new one. We went just to kind of feel and look at the different designs and models. I’m not sure what to do because the cameras are so much more expensive in Korea. I had price shopped a little and they are anywhere between $20-40 less back home.

Kwang Min and I went back to Hongdae after about an hour of looking. We walked around to find a restaurant he had looked up, but we couldn't find it so we went to an Italian place we'd gone to before. We ordered a pizza and salad and sat outside on the terrace. After dinner we walked around Hongdae and met up with Jacob and his friend, Bernard. Today was Jacob's Gotcha Day so it was fun to celebrate his special day together.  

Favorite Day of the Work Week

Thursdays remain one of my favorite workweek days. I love seeing my 5th graders and I only have 4 classes. Today we did a pop song. I asked them to listen for words they heard in a song. I counted how many words each class remembered and so they felt a big "competition" between them and the other classes--it was a good motivator for them to remember more words!

In the evening I went to Hongdae and met Jacob and another adoptee, Maree. She and I had been in brief contact earlier in the summer but never had a chance to meet up. Jacob is friends with Maree so we decided we'd meet up the 3 of us. We had dinner at Burger Joint, which apparently is part of a chain/restaurant in New York that is popular/famous. It was pretty good, but a lot of food so I was quite full. We chatted for awhile and then walked Maree back towards the subway. Jacob and I did some shopping and walked to Hapjeong to get some ice cream.

Also, finally snapped a picture of my new running shoes! 

Dinner--fries in the bag!

New Shoes

Concert

Classes went okay—I think my favorite 6^th grade classes are 5 and 4. They participate and are happy. Though class 5 was probably only especially happy today because they changed seats. There was open class today (and also next week—that’s when I’ll be observed) so I went with my 5^th grade co teacher to watch some of the classes. We basically just popped in and out of all the 5^th and 6^th grade classrooms and saw what they were teaching. It was funny because the students can act so differently in our room or in their homeroom. Kelly teacher said she felt betrayed by one student because he is so bad for us and was acting so well in his homeroom!

In the evening I met Kwangmin in the subway station at Yeodio (where he works) and then went on to Gangnam area for a concert. Kwang Min volunteered as an English teacher for North Korean defectors last year and they were having a benefit concert. We had dinner before we went to the concert. He picked up the tickets and then we sat outside a little before the concert started. It was so cold today! I'm not ready for winter that's for sure. The concert was pretty good. A few orchestral pieces in the first half. Then after intermission they had a few 'opera' type singers sing along with some songs. We ducked out halfway through the second half because it was getting late and it was about an hour commute for both of us to get back.

Breakfast sandwich--yes, I bought the more expensive whole wheat bread!!

A cool musical water fountain outside

Waiting for the concert to start

Tuesdays with Jacob

Classes were a little difficult today. I had 5 classes and had to teach 3 different lessons. It kept things from being boring, but it also threw me out of my rhythm once you ‘learn’ how to do the lesson with the kids.

After school I went to Emart to buy a blanket to bring to school. My 5^th grade co teacher suggested I have a blanket because I sit by the window in the teachers’ office and she said I might be cold this winter. While I was there, I also grabbed some whole wheat bread, cheese and bacon. I decided I should get stuff so I can eat a bigger breakfast in the mornings. I usually get hungry around 2^nd or 3^rd period (between 10 and 11). I dropped everything off at home and went to go meet Jacob for dinner. We went to the same BBQ place the first time we met. It was, for some reason, a little bit better this time. Maybe because we were both really hungry it tasted especially good. After we ate, I ran to the “dollar store” to get a few things and then we went to the same coffee shop we went to the previous week. We sat and chatted for awhile. 

Jacob grilling dinner

In Daiso

Canadian Thanksgiving

Kids were okay today. Nothing too special happened at school.

At my housewarming party, Tim had mentioned a get together for Canadian Thanksgiving. He deemed me an honorary Canadian, being from Michigan. He also named Min Kyung honorary Canadian by being married to one and Kwang Min also because he lived there for 3 years. So, I met a group of the Canadians—Kim, Tim, Krystle, Priscilla (also mentioned earlier-the day of the color run), Amanda (another English teacher I don’t know too well) and Sallya (another English teacher I don’t know well). We went to a restaurant called Rocky Mountain Tavern. It was mostly just western food, though they did have poutine, which was not given a super high rating from the Canadians. I got a Tex-Mex burger and it was pretty good. After dinner we went to a café and sat on the roof terrace and chatted.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Some of our food

My Tex-Mex burger

Min Kyung and me outside on the terrace--I love this girl!

Tacos, soccer and church

I met Jacob for lunch near Hongdae. We went to a Mexican restaurant—I had a burrito and it was pretty darn good. We walked around a bit and tried to decide what to do. I brought all of my soccer stuff along because I didn’t know what our plan was—I had been thinking I’d just walk to the stadium again after we had lunch. But, we hung out and ended up going back to his guesthouse for a little before soccer.

There were so many people at soccer—we had 14 people I think. There were a lot of returnees there this week. Some of them I hadn’t seen before or some I had met awhile ago and hadn’t seen since I’ve been back. It’s a bit harder to play when there are over 12. The space gets a bit cramped and its harder to play-everyone is clustered together.

I left early again to head to church. Before soccer started, one of the guys, Andy asked me if I was coming weekly now. I said yes. He also asked if me leaving early was weekly as well. I also answered yes and told him I go to church at Sogang at 7:30. He lives near Sogang so he actually gave me a tip about getting there a little bit easier and with less walking. It was so helpful because I was actually a little early for church and had time to change into regular clothes and make it into the church before mass started. The Korean priest had mass, but the Indian priest gave the homily. It was really good—about being thankful and making sure we say thank you and really mean it.

On the way home, I stopped in Hongdae and went to Issac's for toast with Kwangmin again. We walked to Hapjeong Station and I came home.

Mmm burrito

Hungry for a burrito!

Jacob wanted to play photographer--and wanted me to wear his sunglasses

Jacob's reflection in his sunglasses