First day with my 5th Graders

All I have to say is that I love my 5th graders. There are a few stinkers but for the most part, I love them. They were sooo interested and excited to learn about me. With all the classes I gave the students a chance to ask whatever questions they wanted about me (top 3 were: How old are you? Do you have a boyfriend? How tall are you?);  the 6th graders only asked a handful--even with the co teacher telling them they could ask in Korean and she would translate! My 5th graders, oh my 5th graders...one class spent 15 minutes asking me questions!! Haha. (Class is only 40 minutes long!)

After school I had to get moving because I was meeting some EPIK friends in Sincheon, near Jamsil (Southeast side of Seoul) which was an hour and 15 minute subway ride for me. I made it on time and met Vi there. A few minutes later Krystle arrived. Kim, my roommate had misunderstood and went to the subway station next to where we were so she had to hop back on the subway and come over. Gabby, our 5th was no where to be seen. We waited, from the time we said we would meet, a whole hour for her. Thinking she wasn't coming we decided to leave but I texted her directions of how to get to the restaurant. Why did I pick a restaurant 1 hour and 15 minutes away you may ask? Because a fellow adoptee I hadn't really met, but knew through other people is the head chef and manager at this restaurant. He was adopted to the US, but I believe by a Mexican family. So the food at Warehouse is a Mexican Korean fusion. After we ordered, I ran back to the station to see if Gabby was waiting for us there--no luck. When I returned we had chips and salsa. We also got "service" which means something free--they sent out a bulgogi pizza for us! Delicious! I got a kind of burrito but it was more dough like and baked, filled with chicken, kimchi and other vegetables. Around when our food arrived, in walks Gabby! She was able to find us. It was fun catching up with these girls too.

Finally we all decided to head back; I had the furthest to go, but everyone was pretty tired from this first week of teaching!

Bulgogi pizza!

My dinner

L to R:
Vi, Gabby, me, Kim and Krystle

Workshop Day!

I didn't have to go to work today because there was a workshop session for the district office of my area. We met at the office location for a lecture session near Ewha Women's University. Sarah, one of the EPIK teachers from my orientation that also lives in my building traveled with me to the site. We met another friend Miwha who also teaches in this area but lives close to Ewha. When we arrived, they gave us a little booklet with information, a sandwich, water and split us into different groups. The lecture was okay. Maybe because I'd just sat through a week of lectures it was a bit much...it also seemed like the level of activities the lecturer was describing were geared towards both higher English abilities and grade level.

After the lectures it was time to move to our lunch location, which was at Seoul Tower (previously named Namsan Tower). We took the subway to get a bus to take us there. There were 3 options for lunch; I picked bulgogi. The view was quite nice as we were eating. When lunch was over, we were able to go up to the observation deck-so all the way up the tower (I forget it's height, but it's kind of tall-not as tall as say Willis Tower or anything like that, but decent--not to mention it's on a large hill/small mountain so it's already got a great view to begin with). It was pretty amazing to look down at Seoul all the way up in the observation deck. I've been to Seoul Tower numerous times, but never to the observation deck.

Then it was on to the Hanok Village. Again, I've been here many times. However, instead of touring the grounds, we did 2 traditional art activities. One was tearing paper and making a picture frame and the other was calligraphy. We were able to choose from "Happiness", "Love", and "Smile" (in Korean characters of course). I decided this year I want to be happy, so I picked happiness. When we finished the calligraphy class, we had a quick wrap-up session and gave feedback to our group leader and then we were free to go. I walked to Myeongdong, which was not very far away and briefly window shopped. Then, I made my way to Hapjeong to meet my friend Krystle. We planned to meet to discuss travel plans for Chuseok which is in about 2 weeks. We wanted to go somewhere with wifi, but for some reason Krystle could not connect. So we set off to find another place. We went to a Paris Baguette and hunkered down to do some research. After much debate and price searching, we settled on Taiwan. It was getting kind of late so we agreed to part and buy the tickets when we returned to our places. I arrived about 30 minutes and Krystle sent me a message saying that the flight and price we saw no longer was available! We tried to do some more searching with no luck. I told her to call it a night and the next day we would just look up prices again and see what happens.

Seoul Tower Shadow and city scape below

Seoul and mountains

So tall!

A random market that popped up at City Hall

Second Day of Teaching

Today was rather uneventful. I taught 5 classes and finished meeting all of my 6th graders. One class asked me a question about North Korea, so I promised them I would show them pictures from when I went to the DMZ last year. The 6th graders have a bit of attitude and some of them are so disinterested in English; though I'm sure the disinterest stems from not understanding, so I'm really trying my best to talk simply, clearly and slowly for them to understand me.

After school I returned home with a delivery package waiting for me! My boxes that I ordered at Bohye's house had arrived! A group of EPIK teachers were meeting in Hongdae to go to the Hello Kitty Cafe around 6pm. I was debating whether I should go or not. I was working hard on my boxes and really wanted to complete them. Finally I decided I would go join and made it just about on time, even though I thought I would be late. We walked to the cafe and some people ordered drinks. I realized how hungry I was, so my friend Krystle and another young woman, Kelly and I left to go get dinner. I know the Hongdae area pretty well, so I asked them what they wanted and they both agreed anything American. So, I took them to a pasta restaurant I had seen and once peeked at the menu. They were both very happy to have pasta. We sat and chatted for a long time. It was refreshing to hear other experiences.

We parted ways and I finished my boxes when I got home before I went to bed.

Working on putting my boxes together!

Krystle and me at the Hello Kitty Cafe

Completed boxes!

First Day of Teaching

First day teaching! It actually went just fine. I had 4 classes, so I had to introduce myself and do the same lesson 4 times today. By the end of the day, my co-teacher and I had gotten quite good at the lesson, introducing everything and explaining what might be difficult for the students to understand. 

The rest of the day I spent working on plans and preparing for Tuesday (because I have another batch of 4 lessons-same as today’s and the 5^th class is one that I see on Monday’s so I need to have a new lesson for them). At the end of the day, around 4:10, we had a staff meeting. I had to introduce myself in front of the maybe 30-40 other teachers in the building. I was also presented with some flowers from the teachers that share my office room. We got to leave a little bit early because the meeting finished up before school ended. I tackled laundry and spent some time walking around my area. I then went to go meet some adoptee friends. One Italian adoptee is leaving shortly so he had a going away dinner. We met in Sinchon and went to one of the ‘all you can eat’ grilling buffets. After dinner, I came back to my place. 

The flowers I got from the teachers

My Cheonggyecheon-like stream near my subway station

Another view--this is the beginning of the stream

Giovanni, Thomas, Johan and Johan's girlfriend

Traveling Day

We spent the first chunk of the morning sorting through more things and deciding what she should do with certain items. While Ginger got ready, I watched the slideshow she made of pictures of her Dad played at the memorial. Around noon we took a lunch break and went to a kimbap shop and ordered kimbap and ramen. Back at Ginger’s place, she gave me more things such as spices, laundry detergent and other random odds and ends she wouldn’t be able to sell. She also gave me a suitcase to haul all of the items, which was a definite must. I wouldn’t have been able to make it home otherwise. We got to the bus station and I bought my ticket for the bus leaving in 15 minutes. We tried to find an ATM but the elevator to that floor was packed and taking too long, so I decided I would just pass instead of missing my bus. Ginger saw me off and then I had my 2 hour and 20 minute ride back to Seoul. Again, I napped quite a bit on the bus. (I’ve recently become quite good at taking naps and have been sleeping quite soundly at night…)

 I arrived in Gangnam and went to an ATM with no success in withdrawing money. I went to the subway and had to make a few transfers and watched my time tick away (I wanted to get to church at 7:30). I made it to my subway station around 7, got up to my room and threw my bags inside and sprinted back to the station; unfortunately I had just missed the previous subway and had to wait several minutes. I ran almost all the way to church (and it really is up hill!) and was about 5 minutes late. Anyway, I still made it so that was good. There was a different priest having mass, but he also had a good homily. After church I came back to my place and was able to skype with my mom briefly before going to bed.

Daejeon Saturday

Bohye helped me look for some crates to assemble and put up as storage at my place. We found a set of 6 boxes for only around $16! And it turned out she had a coupon as well, so it was only around $10! I was going to pay her for them, but her mom said it would be a house warming gift. We had breakfast and then I was whisked off by Pastor Kim to the nearby bus station to go visit Ginger in Daejeon. I can’t remember if I mentioned already, but about 10 days ago Ginger’s dad had a heart attack while she was home in Arizona. She returned to Korea on her already purchased ticket but came back with the intent to leave Korea shortly. Anyway, she wanted me to come down and help keep her on track and motivated to pack and get rid of things. I know it would be important for me to go and help her out.

The bus ride was uneventful. I slept part of the way there. It took about 2 hours and 20 minutes to get to Daejeon. I arrived and met Ginger. We went to get lunch first. We didn’t know what to order; Ginger was having a hard time deciding because she knew she was leaving Korea soon and had to get food she won’t be able to eat in the US.  She ended up getting Samgyetang (the baby chicken with rice and ginger that I had when I was in Jinju with Jenny and her Mom). I got mandu soup because when I tried ordering bibimbap, the ajushi’s (older men) at the table next to us told me NOT to get it…

From lunch we went to her office to work on tackling that. She also had to go and discuss with her Dean about her situation and what to do regarding her contract. She was gone for almost an hour. We stayed there until after 8 cleaning and organizing. Ginger gave me a lot of office supplies and other little things from her office.

We went to her ‘apartment’ which is basically dormitory housing for professors at her university. She did a little bit of organizing there and then we went for dinner. For dinner, we chose to go to “Seo Rae” which is a bbq (chain) restaurant. It’s so good! After dinner, we passed an arcade of sorts and paid to do the “shooting range” game. Ginger wanted to eat mint “bing su” which is the shaved ice dessert, so we went to her favorite café but when I ordered it, the worker said, “I can’t”. We don’t know if  he meant they were all out or what. Instead we went to Café Benne which is a chain and got a fruit yogurt bing su which was pretty good.

After coming back to her place, we did some more organizing and watched tv on her computer. She also got a call from her Mom and helped talk things through on the home-front. Ginger is the oldest of 4; her youngest brother is 17. 

Gingers Samgyetang

Pomegranate Tree!

Grilling meat at our diner

Our YogurtFruit Bingsu

Full Friday

I did not have to observe any classes today, so I mostly just worked on lesson plans and prepared for teaching on Monday! Work was rather uneventful and the day passed quickly. I was able to leave a little bit early because I needed to pick up my contract from the SMOE (Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education) office near Seodaemun. I took the short-cut to Nokbeon Station (and found the subway station this time) and made it to the SMOE campus. There were several buildings and I had a little bit of trouble finding the right one. I got to their office and picked up my contract and was done. Since I wasn’t planning on meeting Bohye’s family until around 6:15, I decided I would walk to the central area and go see Cheonggyecheon. I stopped at Mc Donald’s and got a 700W chocolate dipped ice cream cone and sat by the stream for a little.

I made my way to the subway station and hopped on. It was supposed to take only 40 minutes but it was actually closer to 50-55 minutes and I was afraid I would be late to meet Bohye. I was also in need of cash and couldn’t find an ATM that took my card. Anyway, I made it to the station right on time and rushed out to meet Bohye’s family. But…they weren’t there and Bohye told me to wait a moment. I thought they were just pulling the car around, but actually I think they were leaving their house—or were at another location. So I ended up waiting outside for them for around 20 minutes.

We went right to dinner after they picked me up. It was good to see Sion, Bohye’s younger brother. He had returned from his military training. He asked me if I had learned more Korean since I saw him in December. We met one of Pastor Kim’s pastor friends and his wife for dinner. We went to the same restaurant we went to when I left Korea in December. There was sooo much food! It was all pretty good.

After dinner, we went to Bohye’s church for a service. We were there early and just hanging out. Her brother practiced the drums and her father prepared. It was a short service and I think it was in part because tomorrow is Bohye’s birthday. After his short sermon, they played a short video. It was called “The Bus” and it was a super sad story about this bus driver and the brakes went out on his bus while driving and he couldn’t stop the bus. They were going downhill and there were 3 boys playing on a bicycle at the bottom. Since he couldn’t stop, he hit one of the boys, and it happened to be his son. I’m not sure what the point of the video was, but it was so sad. 

When the video was over, the service was done and we all went home. Bohye and I watched a movie, "Now You See Me" and then went to bed. 

This is round 3 of dishes they brought out for our meal!