Blossoming Cherries

Dear Cherry Blossoms,
You are the one good thing that the Japanese left in Korea 60 some years ago.

Hello again, expect this to be short. I was hoping to write this during my "free" period, but it turned out the class that usually has one student who comes 3 times a week had a visitor...a hung over chain smoking visitor who knew very little English (but was surprisingly passionate about learning)..therefore, I did not have a free period. Actually, today was QUITE eventful..however, that is for next week's blog..look forward to it because today was "ink"credible.

Last week a parade kicked off this cherry blossom festival that will be going on until the end of the month. I didn't get to think we would be able to watch the parade (I even had one of my students ask the director if we could go down to the street to watch..as if he was the only one who wanted to) but lo and behold, the parade went right by our 4th story classroom. I couldn't help myself, I let the kids look at the open window/hang out the open window. I told them they could only watch if they would shout in English to the people walking, so there was alot of "HELLO! WHAT'S YOUR NAME? MY NAME IS SHARON! WHERE ARE YOU FROM? DO YOU HAVE BOYFRIEND" (Ok, maybe not "do you have a boyfriend?" but seriously Koreans who can barely say "hello" in English knows how to ask if I "have boyfriend")

It wasn't like any Macy's Day parade or Petunia Festival parade, but we did have the typical girl scouts, schools, army, rotc, tractors, people walking with colorful umbrellas (i'm not sure the reason for the umbrellas). The traditional dances and instruments in the beginning were my favorite. To end the opening of this festival, during my second to last class they let off fireworks at a nearby park and we could see it from our classroom. I taught them the "ooooo" and "ahhhh" expression at every explosion....very important to their English vocabulary.

For the most part the week was the same as any other week, except for Tuesday. On Tuesday, Mrs. Ko, myself, and one of my newer students went to the Gunsan library. Having not been in a library since the closing days of my college career, I felt it was time to restore ties with the place. In this library they had 1 unit for English books, the selection wasn't great but I did pick up a book I thought looked interesting and read it in one day. It's called "The Giver," I was a fan up until the ending. Anyways, it was very fun to do something with the morning class again. After the library Mrs. Ko bought us lunch at a cafe called "Sand and Food." Why would you want to buy Sand with your food? I don't know. Why do I walk by a lotion store and it says in big letters, "For your pace and bady" I don't know. (if you don't get it, it should read "face and body")

Thanks to one of my faithful readers, I read an article about money that was found in a garlic field in a South Korean city called Gimje. A man who had illegally set up an online gambling site buried (exchanging from won to the dollar) 10 MILLION DOLLARS and was caught! So, I was curious on where this city was, and it turns out, it's about a 20 minute drive from my city! That made for good conversation with my adult class and even one student suggested we go digging in other fields to "find the rest of it." If they would have offered to drive us I would have totally gone, but they didn't so instead we just talked about it for 30 more minutes.

The weekend was beautiful! The Cherry Blossoms were just beginning to bloom and the festival was underway with a singing competition on Saturday afternoon. After the first couple, everything just blended..until this little boy sang and danced to Michael Jackson's "Beat It." Apparently, the winner of the competition got 2,500,000 won which is about 2200 dollars and a certificate that told the person he or she was now an official singer. Everyone was very good..and they should be since one of the favorite things to do on the weekend for almost everybody is to go to a singing room (it's like karaoke) called a Norybong.

I know this blog wasn't as humorous or interesting as the others, but let me tell you next week will make up for it. Let me wish a good rest of the week with some pictures that I took last week. Enjoy your Easter Weekend!

I've seen at least 5 dogs with a pink tail.

Why so sad?
A little taste of Korean entertainment
I should have worn my silk dragon outfit too.