Monsoons, Stairs, Paper Food and Playing Matchmaker

Dear Monsoon,
Could you please cut your visit short?

Here I sit on this rainy sunday night, watching some Korean variety show that is featuring a Kpop group that I'm pretty sure are 12 year old boys, Lily has yet again successfully wedged herself between the top of her little house on the second floor and the top of the cage and is joyfully chewing on the cage bars, my tummy is full of Chumchee kimbap and "oh dang" soup, and writing this blog that is bound to be the shortest blog of them yet.

I wish I had more to say but I don't know if it was the rain or that I'm coming to a point where I'm starting to realize it's going to be very very difficult to readjust to being back home in a short 3 1/2 months (nothing is official or anything yet) and I'm feeling a little anxious and nervous, but overall my week was a little depressing. Once again, you've been warned..and I only have one picture for you :/

Nonetheless, let me share with you the things that have become somewhat mundane to me but may be somewhat interesting to my fellow westerners out there. Let's start with this weather.

Two words MON SOON! Actually, it's one, but just for the emphasis you should read it as two words. For the past 5 days it's been raining nonstop, and according to Mrs. Nam (who is strangely accurate with her weather predictions) it's supposed to continue for the next 10 days. This is my first monsoon, and I didn't even know we got monsoons here, actually, I didn't really even know what a monsoon was until Mrs. Ko explained to me that this happens twice a year on the Korean peninsula. Something about a front from the north that meets with a front from South over the Korean peninsula and blah blah blah..rain rain rain. Needless to say, the walk to work this week was more than uncomfortable. And you'd think this rain would just simply make things wet, but along with this monsoon came Mr. humidity. Ugh...I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through July and August.

Since pretty much every Korean shoe store does not sell sizes over 8's, finding rainboots has been impossible. Thankfully, I haven't left home on some sort of trip in the past 5 years without a good pair of water shoes.

I knew I would need them:


Anyhow, if it's still raining at this time next week, maybe you should come check on me...this rain and dreariness is going to make me a little wacky.

On top of this Monsoon, today, apparently there was a typhoon named Meari that hit South Korea, but from the news article it seems it hit north of Gunsan, closer to Seoul. We didn't feel anything really here, just alot of wind and surprisingly this afternoon, there was a tiny break in the rain, so I snatched up that opportunity to go running up and down the stairs behind my house. It felt really good to be out of this prison, I mean apartment.

As I was doing the stairs, which is something that is pretty regular for me on early Sunday evenings, I ran into this older ajumma. (older lady) She was taking the stairs at a snail-like pace, but she kindly let me pass her up more than once. Finally she reached one of the plateaus in the group of stairs and just planted herself there. She watched me go up and down the stairs for awhile and she would say things to me every time I passed her, I was imagining her saying something like, "you can do it! only 5 more! lookin' good!" One time that I passed her she offered me two cheese sticks, which my "short of breath" reply was "kwen chan eye oh" which means, "it's ok." A little while later she broke out a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of soju but everytime I would pass her she would try to cover it up and just give me a huge smile...such a lady :) Turns out that particular area is not only my personal stairmaster but it's a little secret hideout for one smiley, slow moving, slightly overweight ajumma. When I finished, I said goodbye, waved, and politely bowed to my new friend, but I have a feeling I will run into her again soon.

There were several things my kids said this week that made me laugh, but I can only remember one. On Thursday we were reviewing the questions and answers for "Have you ever" so I had them go quickly back and forth with each other, "Have you ever eaten sushi?" "Yes I have eaten sushi. It was yummy." Something like that. Finally after about the third set, we got off the question, "Have you ever eaten dung?" and Sam asks everybody, "Have you ever eaten 1000 won?" (the 1000 won is like our 1 dollar bill) and everybody stops talking and one kid says, "No I haven't." Then I said, "Sam, have you ever eaten 1000 won." He says, "Yes I have." The boy next to him scoots his desk a little further away and I say, "Sam, why did you eat 1000 won?" and he says, "I don't know." Just imagining little Sam stuffing the blue paper bill into his mouth and swallowing it is hilarious to me..definitely a highlight of the week.

So, like I said, the week was overall a little rough. I'm feeling anxious about coming back, finding another job, starting something new, readjusting to my motherland, reconnecting with people I haven't seen in a year or longer, etc. But there was one thing that really made me forget all my troubles and got me excited...I set up two Koreans on a blind date! This, also, was a first for me. You see, many Koreans have met their spouses on blind dates. Everybody and their mom has been on a blind date. It's not like an internet dating site or anything..it's the classic, you know somebody who knows somebody's who's lookin', know what I mean? So, anyways, I knew an older adult student who I only taught for a week while I subbed for a coworker. He's a great guy. Then on Thursday, I was talking to my company class about their plans for the weekend and one of my female students was like, "I have no plans. I need boyfriend." Then she tells me about how she's been on like 6 blind dates in the last couple months and how they were all tankers. So, I was like, "well, I know this great guy..he's this, he's that, so want me to give him your number." Bada Bing bada boom, with a few excited giggles from her and thank you's from the guy, they went out on Saturday night. I heard from him that it went well, so I'm excited to hear from her tomorrow. The whole thing was really too much fun for me..it's exciting knowing I could have started something "magical!" Too much, I know..but it was really fun, I just hope it doesn't blow up in my face..yikes..I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, here's to another week of walking to work in the rain, exercising in a gym that refuses to turn on the a/c, saying hello to at least 5 strangers who say hello first, forcing Lily to go without her noisy water bottle through the night, teaching English, and living life in South Korea :) Cheers

Cupid Shuffle

Dear Rousseau,
If you could please stop falling apart, that would really make my rides more enjoyable.

I'll tell ya right now, this week's blog will not measure up to last's. But have no fear, I will proceed with this weekly blog.

Overall, the week felt very very long yet very very short at the same time. Before I knew it I was eatin' chicken and catching up on the week's TV shows, but every day seemed pack full of long conversations, long class periods, and awkward moments in the locker room at the gym. In 24 hours I was smacked twice on the hiney by two ladies in their 50's and 60's. And all the others witnessed it, so now they think it's ok...great, i'll have to start wearing padding or something because those ladies are small but they sure are strong.

The classes were good this week. My morning class is really growing. We are up to 8 now. I just had one of my students come back from studying English in the Philippines and he has improved immensely, so it's been fun talking to him since he's so confident and willing to converse.

I don't think I've told you enough about my company classes that were recently added. One of the classes has the best energy. They all work in the same department and they are all mostly around the same age, which is probably in the 30's. This week we were talking about how to respond when someone says, "What are you doing?" or "What are you up to?" or "What's going on?" So I wrote on the board what everyone was doing at the moment, and they all said something like ,"I'm thinking about lunch." or "I'm thinking about my house." or (my fav) "I'm thinking about my wife." I was hesitant to write it on the board because then I just feel like they read the answer, so I asked them something like this, "June what is Mr. Lee doing?" The first two went, I said, "Tony, what is Jim thinking about?" And Tony fell right into it when he read word for word on the board, "He's thinking about my wife." We all had a good laugh and then I was able to explain the importance of changing that small little word "my" to "his" :)

On Tuesday in my middle school class, we were talking about activities. This class is one of the most rowdy classes, but they are very fun to be around. So, the question was something like, "Do you dance well?" And before you could say, "kimchi" these kids pushed the chairs into a circle and say, "teacher, night club! You dance!" Oh what to pull out of my extensive dancing skills...electric slide? Macarena? YMCA? Cotton Eyed Joe? Dougie? And much to their surprise and mine, there I was in the "nightclub" doing the Cupid Shuffle.

Thursday also had an interesting moment. I was up at the board writing something (very important I'm sure), and I turn around to see this little girl with her cell phone in front of her face and then I hear "CLICK" the sound of taking a picture. She said, "Teacher I want friends to see face." Oh the joys of being so different in this country.

Like I said, the weekend came fairly quick and I was excited because one of my elementary students invited me to his basketball tournament. He told me it was behind City Hall and to be there at 10:30 a.m. So, I jumped on Rousseau and biked over to city hall in search of some sort of Gus Macker. He failed to tell me that it was inside a school and that the time had been changed from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. So, I spent a good amount of Saturday morning biking around and then shopping for groceries at Emart.

Saturday afternoon I was able to go on a mini excursion with the Pastor of my church and two other Haveners. We went to a beach area about 30 minutes from Gunsan. And although people say it's not as great as the East coast, the West coast has also got it going on. Here are some pics of our mini adventure.

The cliffs and caves were pretty awesome.




While the guys were getting something from the van. I spotted this little angel tied up to a truck. So, while I was staring at him and contemplating whether or not he would be a nice dog, a police man came up to me and told me that this is a Chow dog from China and that it's a "lion dog." which made me think, "ok, maybe I'll just observe."

But then the owner popped around the corner and told me to take a picture with it. So he demonstrated how I should basically pin the dog down for the picture and then before I knew it, he shoved the dog under me and expected me to man handle this slightly wild "lion dog." And this is what came of it:


Who knew the Yellow Sea could be so pretty.


We even found this stone mermaid that Alex piggy backed for a little bit.

And this is my favorite picture of the day. If you see a "drawing man" throw the life ring to rescue him...however, if you see a drowning man, don't worry about it ;)

This was shorter than most, and the rate this week has been going, the next blog may be even shorter. Depending on what hemisphere you are reading this in, have a wonderful night/afternoon/morning!

The Other Side

Dear Busan,
Thank you for your department stores, markets, water fountain show, sunset, efficient city transportation, western restaurants, beaches, sand art and Baywatchy lifeguards ;)

Prepare yourself for a plethora of pictures. I probably should not have included this many, but I figured I'll write less and just show you more of Elizabeth and I's mini vacation to the other side of the peninsula. More pictures will go up on facebook soon.

Last week was not all that interesting, but then again I wasn't really focusing on the everyday hilariousness of my students because I was in great anticipation for the weekend! Elizabeth and I had decided awhile back that we would spend the weekend of July 11 and 12 in Busan, South Korea.

Gunsan is on the west side of South Korea on the Yellow Sea, so we face China. Busan is on the east side and is on the Sea of Japan/East Sea and it faces Japan. Since it's a 4 hour bus ride, we figured that it would be worth it to stay a night and enjoy 2 days over there. So, we booked a room at a guesthouse near the beach, well, so we thought. Turns out, they overbooked, but they said they would "upgrade," us since it was their mistake. We had high hopes for this "upgrade." (more to come about this a little later)

We set off Saturday morning on the 9:05 a.m. bus. (I love Korea, I could basically go to any city in this country by bus)


You see, Elizabeth and I don't usually see or talk to each other during the week since our lives are completely consumed by work Monday through Friday, so when we see each other on the weekend, we tend to jabber away about work, friends, going home, God, our frustrations with the loogys every other person (especially old men) spit on the sidewalks, underground subway stations, etc. So we were just chatting, maybe mixed with some giggling, but nothing too loud or obnoxious because we know Koreans like to sleep on the bus. Take note that it was 10 a.m. NOT like 4 a.m. This man in front of us turns around and just says something really nasty in Korean to us and then stared me down for a solid 4 seconds. I'm sure he was telling us to be quiet, but it was said in such a rude tone. My reaction was that of shock and confusion and then refusal to stop talking. Every other time he would be looking around the bus, I made sure to stare at him with a look that communicated, "You are a very rude old man and how dare you talk to two other humans like that!" This situation brought me back to my Subway days when customers would just be extremely rude and I would have to go down in the basement to shake it off.

Anyhow, we reached Busan about 4.5 hours later without any further situation with the drama king in front of us. We were ready to see where we'd be staying. (O.k. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to explain our accommodations without you thinking we are two extremely naive and stupid 20 something girls, but stick with me, and remember this is Korea not the South side of Chicago...and mom, I'm back, safe and sound in little Gunsan, just remember that)

Elizabeth had been talking to the owner of the guesthouse through email. The name was Genie, so we were supposed to call her when we got in and she would give us directions to another place a little farther from the beach which was supposedly an "upgrade." So, we did just that, and it turns out Genie was a man. A very small, skinny, glasses-wearing, single man probably in his early to mid 30's. And the "upgrade" was actually his apartment on the 32nd floor of a building called "Trump Building." I feel like you just read that and were like, "You better not have stayed with him, you're asking for it if you did." Let me further explain. From the looks of the apartment, an extremely nice,modern, 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment (the bedrooms had locks on the door), he bought his apartment with the intention of renting out rooms for overflow from the guesthouse (Each room had many beds in them..it was set up just like a guesthouse). And to give us more reassurance that this was not some "CSI: Miami" episode waiting to happen, there was a family that also stayed in one of the other rooms as well. So, although I did have scenes from the movie "Taken" playing through my head on the subway ride back to the apartment, it really was not creepy at all, and Genie was a very good host, he even provided breakfast muffins for us :)


And we took a few precautions like telling my coworker our location and giving her Genie's number. AND we obviously made it through with a good night sleep and a beautiful view of the Sea.

Moving on, Saturday we spent a lot of time traveling around the city. Our first stop was at Shinsegae department store, which just so happens to be the biggest department store in the whole world. They had just about everything in here, movie theatre, ice rink, grocery store, restaurants, food court, clothes, jewelry, bags and much much more.

Don't believe me that it's the largest in the world? Well then, feast your eyes on this!

We didn't do much in the department store because we wanted to be outside and enjoy the nice weather, but we did grab some dinner at a little cafe and got a sandwich and a bread bowl filled with soup! Hit the spot.

Next we were off to Gukje Market where there were many many people (foreigners too) and many many things. Here's Elizbaeth:

It was exciting, but it was a little crowded and it just seemed like too much. So, we wandered around a little bit and then decided to go check out the fish market. At first, I was like "why would we go to a fish market when I basically live in one over in Gunsan?" But after all the hustle and bustle of the Gukje Market area, this felt comforting to us country bumpkins.


Hardly any people.

Hard working ajummas..these ladies are separating the shells from the innards.

And this is just feels like home to me.

After the world famous fish market, Jagalachi, feeling refreshed, and then feeling stressed when Elizabeth had a sandal full of chewed gum, we headed over to Dadaepo Beach where Genie told us is Asia's largest water fountain. I did believe Genie up until about 2 minutes ago when I googled "asia's largest water fountain," and a whole bunch of stuff came up about a specific water fountain in China...of course China would have the biggest water fountain show. Anyhow, the water fountain was awesome and there was a light show with music and some sort of routine. It was very cool and took every ounce of self restraint to not go darting past the security guards and into the fountain. (Brooke, you know how I love fountains)


Before we watched the fountain music/light show. We were finally able to get to the beach and see the sun set. It was so beautiful, I couldn't really capture it on my camera.


And while we were admiring the sunset, we had to get our toesies into the Sea of Japan/East Sea ASAP. By the way, Koreans call it the East Sea but the rest of the world calls it the Sea of Japan. Hard feelings I think.

So after a 30 minute bus ride and another hour subway ride, we finally made it back to our "not as shady as it sounds" place. We slept well, that is until the morning when construction workers across the street decided to haul at least 100 metal bars and drop them over and over...(at least that's what it sounded like)...Come on it's SUNDAY! After a thoughtful breakfast by Genie, we were ready for the beach.

Haeundae Beach was so beautiful, and exactly what we needed. In the morning, the weather was a little cloudy, but that was nice because we heard on sunny summer days you can barely move there are so many people on the beach. However, we did meet and observe many interesting people, we were just glad they weren't all up in our business.

While exploring the beach, we found these awesome sand sculptures. I think they were from the weekend before, but they all held up very nicely. I have many more interesting pictures to post of these.

Just a couple of beach bums:
This girl asked us to take a picture with her. I'm telling you, it will be an adjustment to come back home and not have paparazzi ;)
I love spending the day at the beach. By the end of the day, it's almost like the people who sat next to you become your "sort of" friends. Well, this guy and his friend were next to us for pretty much the whole day.
Please notice the flippers on his friend's hands...How old are these guys?

They were quite entertaining. They spent the first 20 minutes blowing up this giant tube. Then they attempted to take it out into the water, but the lifeguard whistled them back in because swimming wasn't allowed yet. After they allowed for people to swim in the frigid water, they were out there and riding the waves on this enourmous yellow tube. It really did look fun, and before they went out, one of the men said to us, "you go." So, I took that as the o.k. to borrow his tube. When they came back in, I asked (in Korean) how much the tube was, and he says, "no no no, you go." So off we went into the Sea of Japan with excitement and an oversized yellow tube. The girl in the picture and her friend also rode the waves with us for awhile. There weren't many people swimming, so us whities were a good source of entertainment for those on the shore. Elizabeth took a little tumble after I sent her soaring on one of the waves, but she recovered quite nicely. I also, got a face full of salt water when one of the waves overtook me. The Korean girl says to me, "beautiful!" I'm not sure how my screaming face and not so graceful fall was "beautiful," but hey, I'll take that compliment. The tube was definitely a highlight for me.

While we were drying off from our little adventure in the water, we noticed this group of lifeguards doing some sort of photo shoot. This guy was clearly their "money maker" so they took numerous shots of him running out of the water like so:

We (and by "we" I mean "me") contemplated going back out there and fake drowning, but Elizabeth stopped me. All I wanted was a good blog story, Elizabeth ;)

After not fake drowning, Elizabeth went out and got us some din din. "Finger Lickin' Good" KFC! And it was so delicious.

We left the beach in enough time to give us an hour at the bus station. During the whole trip, we were talking about how responsible and organized we are for traveling and living in Korea. But then we get to the bus station and it turns out our bus was full and we didn't buy our tickets ahead of time. Wah wah wah...I guess we aren't as grown up as we bragged to each other about. So, we got on a bus that took us to a city called Jeonju about 30 minutes from Gunsan, but the bus from Jeonju to Gunsan would stop running by the time we would arrive there. So, we called our Pastor..it was definitely an, "ummmm...dad, so, um, uh, can we ask you for something?" moment. So, our wonderful Pastor had the driver of our church, Mr. Oh, come and pick us up in Jeonju at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night. Such a blessing, that Haven church. My camera died, so I didn't get a picture of us with Mr. Oh, but he was his chipper self. We were even able to take a little family who was in the same situation as us back to Gunsan. Actually this is a little story.

So, when I was getting off the bus in Jeonju, I noticed the lady in front of me was asking the bus driver where the buses were for Gunsan. I knew that the buses had stopped running, but I didn't know how to tell her that without it being a very confusing and potentially awkward conversation. So, I told Elizabeth about it and we decided we should follow them to the bus station and then when they find out there is no bus, we will offer them a ride with us. So, here are two girls chasing this little family down the streets of Jeonju and thinking of ways to offer them a ride back. And it worked! Turns out, they found out there was no bus, and before the taxi drivers could get em, we were there to tell them they can ride with us. And surprisingly, they were missionaries in Thailand and spoke English very well. The taxi drivers were a little upset with us, but I think we made up for it with giving them a chance to talk English to us, "America? Obama? Obama...booo. Madonna?" An interesting end to the trip indeed.

And here we are a little more crispy than when we left Gunsan.

Well, I hope you can also have some sort of vacation this summer! Someone go eat at subway and order a teriyaki sandwich on Parmesan Oregano bread, American cheese, toasted, extra sweet onion sauce, honey mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions, and a little olive oil. Thanks :)

Goals Made and Goals Met

Dear Mom,
Pardin me four my grammer misteaks in laste weak's blawg.

So, I had every intention of doing this blog yesterday, but after watching "Marley and Me "on TV, I couldn't bring myself to sound remotely happy or humorous. So, here I am on this Tuesday sitting down to write my 30 somethingth blog.

I don't know how much I'll end up saying, but I do know I have a good amount of pictures to show you Westerners out there. However, I don't have a picture, although there is one, to go along with the story of how the lizard died :( Tuesday afternoon I strongly urged the boys in my 5:30 class to let that poor lizard go. I should have followed them outside and did it myself. Instead, the boys forgot about the lizard and the next day they were quick to tell me, "teacha, lizard die." I won't go into much detail of how he died, but they had a video on their cell phone and it was not a pretty sight. Boys.

Overall, the week really dragged on. I felt like I haven't written a blog in 3 weeks. The week was a little frustrating. There were a few cultural clashes with coworkers and taxi drivers. Without really saying too much, I just really miss the concept, "treat others how you want to be treated," (no matter the race, age, or career). I know America is not perfect by any means, but I do believe we have a leg up on South Korea concerning this concept. On top of this, the flowers are really blooming and I'm seeing buckets of petunias, which makes me a little homesick for good ole Dixon, Illinois.


I DO love Spring here though. It hasn't been too hot and the flowers are so beautiful. Seems like there are new types popping up everywhere. This past week, I've really noticed all the roses, and yes, I often stop to smell the roses.



The weekend finally came. It was one of the first weekends I didn't have anything planned, which was kind of unfortunate since we had a 3 day weekend. Monday was Korea's Memorial Day. Nonetheless, I gave myself some goals. 1) clean the apt 2) clean Lily's cage which had gotten a little out of hand and 3) update the resume.

On Saturday I decided to do a little exploring on the new bike I got. Here she is in all her glory:

Her name is Rousseau, but I call her "russ" for short.

She's pretty dependable, minus the pedal that just broke off yesterday. She got a whole lot of use this weekend. I rode all around the part of Gunsan that is fairly close to my house. I also decided that I would count the "hello's" from people. And I must say, it's going to take some getting used to coming home to a place that doesn't treat you like a celebrity. I counted 4 hellos (2 from 2 different groups of children and 2 from adults), 1 wave from a man that was working on a ship that was docked, numerous bows, countless stares, a "hello, teacha!" from one of my students and my personal favorite a "hey, how you doin?" from a not-so-bad-looking American Airforce guy.

I didn't really see any other foreigners biking, well, except these kind folks:


But the ride was beautiful. In many of the parks around my area, there are so many people. So, I found this trail along the Geum River, this river runs along Gunsan and into the Yellow Sea. There were not many people and so I was able to somewhat enjoy an afternoon without mobs of paparazzi ;)


I know it's not as mighty or as magnificent as the Dixon Dam, but hanging out around this made me feel a little more at home..now if only there was an exaggerating fisherman named Jesse to teach me how to fish, it would have been exactly like the Dixon Dam.

Almost as pleasant as the Rock River. ;)


I also, accomplished goal #1 on Saturday. The apartment was finally clean. Now if I could have only gotten the motivation to clean Lily's cage. Instead, I enjoyed some chicken from LotteMart and watching Pirates of the Carribbean for the zillionth time on TV.

Sunday was another beautiful day weather wise. The man who does Children's Church is currently on vacation, so Elizabeth and I are filling in for him while he is gone. Besides the bruises I have from all the flying paper airplanes, it went really well. I forgot how nice it was to have children actually understand you when you give instruction.

Sunday night, I tackled Lily's cage. I think she liked swimming in her own "dung" and is a little perturbed with me at the moment since she has to rebuild her nest. But it sure does look and smell much better in her vicinity. Goal #2 finishee.

Monday was Korea's Memorial Day.
this of course meant NO SCHOOL! Again, I didn't really have any plans. One of my friends was wanting a day at home and a few of my other friends are visiting the States for a couple months. But I managed to fill it up, after all, I still had one more goal to accomplish. So, I started out the day by going over to my friend Melanie's house to do this crazy awesome work out video. It was pretty intense and staring at these toned, beautiful, tanned, busty Californians just gives you that much more motivation! After that, I decided that I wanted to start my new book, "The Help," while simultaneously soaking up the sun so I could further resemble those workout video women ;) So, I went back to the same bike trail I had been to the day before and found this perfect spot. I expect to do this at least 5 or 6 more times before my time here is up.

I planted myself here for about 2 1/2 hours and have a little sunburnt nose to prove it :) But the funniest thing happened to me on my way to this spot. I was riding through town and this man chased me down. "Yogee oh" which means like, "I'm here!" So I turned around and I see this man panting, so I stopped and he says, "Do you speak Korean?" And I said, "no" so he says, "that's ok. I am a photo artist. Can you come to my studio and I can take your picture?" I think he noticed my surprise and hesitation so he further explained that he is trying to capture the image of Gunsan for a project he is doing for the city. He even showed me a picture of this little studio and said "Can you come here at 3?" I thought about it for a minute because it probably would have made for a good blog story, but I decided against it, not that I didn't trust him, but I just thought I looked terrible and I really wanted to start my book and ok, I thought it was slightly creepy. But I did give him my email address so something still could come of it, but really, do I properly represent the city of Gunsan, South Korea? However, maybe he saw this picture from my facebook and noticed the preciseness of my Asian peace sign.


And on second thought, maybe I don't need to update my resume since all I seem to need is this moneymaker (pointing to face) ;) ...I'm totally kidding.

Nothing too exciting happened while I was reading by the river, but a man did stop and ask me where I lived in Gunsan. Again, I sort of lied due to the potential creepiness of the question. After reading, I noticed some movement in the water. So I went down to look at it and there were probably about 50 little crabs sunbathing and playing some form of "king of the hill." It was pretty neat, and I really wish my camera would have had battery, but no worries, I'll go back again soon.

I left the reading spot and headed back into town. There are many cafes, so I've decided I'm going to visit as many of them as I can while I try to learn how to read in Korean. However, on this particular cafe visit, I decided I really should accomplish goal #3 and update that resume. So, after spending a few hours updating and fighting with the margins, I was able to update it. Therefore, I met all my goals for this long weekend and had a few interesting stories to go along with them. Success!

Hope you had a wonderful week and that you are able to do something fun and relaxing during Summer 2011! Someone go to the drive in for me :)

I leave you with this picture of my 7 oclock class and I on our field trip to Paris ;)

Teacher, Bug!

Dear bike master who lives below me,
Thank you for fixing my bike for free AND giving us rice cakes!

Well, this past week was more eventful than I thought it was going to be. Up until Thursday, everything went as usual. Like I said, I've been trying to remember what my students say to tell you about it, but since they are really caught on the word "dung" which i found is basically the Korean word for poo, I figured I'd spare you the details.

Thursday came and it was really quite a day full of unexpected happenings. The morning class was it's same ole same ole. I love that class. We now have 6 regular adult students coming. The orginal 3 and then 1 other middle aged woman and two college aged girls added the class. Mr. Che is one lucky man.

Then I went on to the company class. On my way out of the class I ran into this white dude, and we were both like, "what?" So, we got to talking and turns out he's from Holland and is actually an employee of the company. His name is Floris and he is 1 of 2 foreigners. At first I was struggling to understand him. I mean his English was basically perfect and far better than a big majority of Koreans I've talked to these past 9 months, but he had this European accent and he actually used prepositions and articles. I felt like I had forgotten English myself when we were talking. Anyhow, It was nice to see a little diversity for a change.

The afternoon classes started out with one of my younger students dropping a glass container full of beads on the floor sending glass and beads everywhere. That was a bit of excitement, and it didn't stop there. The very next class, I walked in and one of the students, shouted, "Teacher! Bug!" over and over again, he shouted this. You would think this would spark some kind of reaction from me, but since for the first 2 minutes of class, this particular class shouts random things like this in English, it didn't really phase me.

A little later, after I quieted them down, the little boy got serious while he took out his pencil case and said, "teacher, bug." I was like, "Seungwon, I don't understand." He didn't really say anything so I turned around to write something on the board. When I turned back around, there was Seungwon holding this "bug."



They all got a good laugh from my reaction of a gasp and eyes bulging out of my head. Turns out Seungwon found him in the park behind our school and had been carrying the lizard around all afternoon in his pencil case. The boys all took out their small box cutters (I have no idea why it's a requirement for elementary students to carry around box cutters, but it is) and wanted to cut it's tail. Obviously, I would not allow this.

Today I walked into the same class and asked Seungwon about the lizard and he says, "Maybe die." I was like, "What, did he die?" He shrugs, pulls out his pencil case, opens it and exclaims, "No, it's not die!" Boys will be boys no matter the country.

The excitement of Thursday finally ended and the weekend was here. This past weekend was the 40th anniversary of the church I've been attending here. I think I've mentioned it before, but I go to a church here called The Haven. It's an English speaking church with an American pastor and really, it's purpose is for the guys on the American Airforce base, but there are Koreans, teachers, other random foreigners who are apart of the church too. So, it was a big gathering this weekend with many people sharing about their experiences from being at the Haven in past years and talking about how much it has meant to them. It was really awesome hearing all the stories, and I think I have come to the realization of how much this church and the people in it mean to me. They have really become my family these past 9 months, and it's been hard saying goodbye after one of them has finished a contract or their year service. But the pastor, his wife, and those that are still there continue to be such a comfort to me when I'm feeling lonely and homesick. Although no terrible or depressing event has taken place thus far, I know that if something did, I would have this incredible support system to stand with me. The church is such a blessing.

Well, I figured I'd keep this one short. There are a few other random things like riding around Gunsan on this ghetto bike that I inherited and still getting asked as I speed by the masses of Koreans, "Hello, how are you? Where are you from? What's your name?" or going to Lotte Mart and seeing that they are selling the iPad2 or seeing, also, that they are selling bug nets that are supposed to go over beds to keep the bugs out during the summer (uh oh, I foresee a blog about REAL bugs coming soon). The weather is not too hot, however, my apartment is a sauna for reasons I don't understand but it's almost June 1 so I will start using the A/C soon! Yay! That's all I have, hope you are keeping cool and enjoying your summer!

Arm Fur

Dear sleep,
I'm sorry we couldn't catch up this weekend.

This past week was EXHAUSTING! We even had a "sort of" holiday on Monday. It was Teacher's Day. However, this was the first day I was to start my new company class. So, I did have to go to this one class right in the middle of the day. However, after this class, I decided I wanted to do something to treat myself. I called up Mr. Oh, the old man who used to drive me to church, and we went and saw "Thor" in 3D. It was sweet, and Mr. Oh was pretty floored to see his first 3D movie.

And so, my schedule has changed. I've tried to see the positive in this new schedule, but the biggest negative of all is really getting the best of me. Because of this new class, I am unable to have lunches or other random adventures with my morning class. I'm really going to miss that.

Now I work in the morning/afternoon until later at night. It's a split shift and I pretty much spend my whole entire day at work with a little break to go to the gym. Like I said, it's exhausting. BUT these students are very nice. I am now spending everyday from 11:40 to 12:30 at a company called Tata Daewoo. I teach 2 groups, a beginner class and an intermediate class. They are all very great people and very eager to learn English. Getting their names has been a little difficult, but I always have those students who try to make it easier when they tell me their English name such as "Spring" or "Rain." They probably didn't know what to choose so they just looked out the window for ideas.

The week was busy busy busy. I leave the apt at 9 a.m. and don't get home until about 9:30 p.m. Lily must really miss me. Classes were the same ole same ole. One funny moment was in my 4 oclock class. We were talking about things that are soft and the word, "fur" came up. They apparently never heard it and so I was explaining it to them and they say, "oh, I understand. Fur is on teacher's arm!" then they all start touching my arm hair and saying, "oooooo." Koreans don't really have hair on their arms, AND they only need to shave their legs like once a month. Why, God, why?

The weekend came and it was probably more exhausting than the week. It was my wonderful and beautiful friend, Elizabeth's birthday! I wanted to make it special because it's really hard to be away from home on special days like these. So, I was planning a surprise birthday party, and as you probably know from stories I've told, I am an awful liar. So, it's a good thing, Elizabeth and I mainly contact each other through the internet. Friday night I spent the whole night making this little scrap book thing of all of our adventures thus far in Korea. It was really great going back and remembering everything we've done here, I'm excited to someday look back on this blog, and be like, "What the? Why did I eat that moving octupus tentacle?" Although it was fun reminiscing, I stayed up way too late and then spent all of Saturday running errands, finishing the scrapbook, making those who shall not be named feel guilty about eating dog, and crossing other various things off my to do list.

Well, she loved the scrapbook, and she really was surprised when she walked into the party. About 14 people showed. We ate chili cheese dogs with baked beans, potato salad, veggies, and cherry tomatoes, just like good Americans we ate until we felt like we were going to explode. We also had this awesome ice cream birthday cake from Baskin Robbins, yeah, we actually have 2 BR's in Gunsan! Here's the pic of the birthday girl, and her cake.



So, Saturday was a really late night as well. On Sunday afternoon, I went to help one of the guys from the airbase clean out his room since he's leaving this Thursday. I'm really sad he's leaving, but very happy that he's going to be able to be reunited with his family AND also, he gave me his bike, bike pump, a pan, and ALL these amazing groceries! Hello, Hamburger Helper! And after Thursday, I'll be cruisin round Gunsan on a ten speed, oh yeah.

Sunday evening, we had a little going away thing for the Airman and another teacher who is also leaving on the same day. Goodbyes are pretty hard here, because it's almost like we are living in a whole separate world from what our lives used to be and saying goodbye feels like your saying goodbye forever. BUT I must think about how fun it will be to reconnect with these people in different parts of the world or randomly run into them at Disneyworld or something :) This also made me realize how truly difficult it's going to be to say goodbye to my students and people that have become such a huge part of my life. *sigh* I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Well, that wraps it up. I'm worried my blogs might start getting dull since my life is pretty consumed with work these days; I'll probably be writing more about the funny things my students say. The things that come out of those kids mouths are just so....for example 2 hours ago, I said, "Sky, are you finished?" and he says, "Yes, teacher, I'm dung." (on purpose) And then the whole class erupts in laughter. They love the word, "dung." It's a little gross, but it could be worse right?

O.k. hope you are all well and that you didn't fret over the ending of the world this past week :)

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come." -Mark 13: 32-33

Locker Room Lunch

Dear locker room ladies,
Why do you do the things you do?

This past week seriously felt like 3 weeks had passed. I think it's the holiday that gets me. Korea celebrated Buddha's birthday on Tuesday, so everyone had the day off work. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. My week was packed full of fun, interesting, and disturbing situations.

On Monday, Mrs. Ko invited me and Mrs. Nam over to her traditional Korean house for some tea. The traditional house was very very neat. When you walk in the front gate, it's like your walking into a court yard from Medieval times. There is a stone wall that surrounds the yard until it ends at the small hill. On this hill she had planted tons of Azaleas and on top of the little hill they had planted a bamboo forest. It was beautiful. The pictures don't really do it justice. The house is a little hard to explain. Basically it is one story, fairly long, somewhat narrow, and the doors are made for very very short people. Here are some pics:

This is the view from the back gate

This is the front gate. On the other side is the driveway. The room to the right is the laundry room, the room to the left is a wine storage room.

The house is to the right and the little building right in front is a little porch. Notice the large, decorative kimchi pots to the right. You could play a mean game of hide and seek with access to those things.

The front of the house.

Inside the house..I tried to capture the shortness of this door, I don't know if I did. This was definitely not made for the average American.


The hallway
Tea time with Mrs. Ko and Mrs. Nam!

Tuesday was Buddha's Birthday. Several teachers and I went to the base to play some racquetball and eat some lunch. Watch out, Abby Bentle, I'm taking you down when I get back! Nothing like celebrating a Korean holiday surrounded by America's finest and chowing down some Taco Bell. Outside of base, all the Buddhist temples serve a free lunch of rice and kimchi, I didn't take advantage of this at the time, but little did I know I would have quite the scarring experience with rice and Kimchi on Thursday.

Wednesday came and went, but Thursday was quite the day. After you read these next few paragraphs, you will quickly understand why I do not have pictures to go along with this "first."

I think I've told you this before, but the locker room at the gym I exercise at is a pretty liberal place if you know what I mean, and the time of day that I exercise is at about the same time as roughly 15 middle aged women. Let's just say my eyes are glued to the floor as much as possible when I walk in those doors. This actually reminds me of a story I forgot to tell you last week.

A couple weeks ago, I walked into the locker room and I first noticed that the women were actually fully clothed while doing their hair and putting their makeup on, then I noticed a man who was working on the water cooler. That explained the unusual modesty of the women. But then, unfortunately, one of the women did NOT notice him and right there for the world to see she whipped her top off (all parts of her top) and all the women in the locker room gasped a little and the man said, "Omo" which means "Oh my!" She finally noticed him and was soooo embarrassed while all the women just laughed and laughed and laughed. Clearly that water cooler worker got a little more than what he was being paid for.

So, you catch my drift right? The locker room is not for the faint of heart. So anyways, Thursday's workout was a little odd. I don't know what it is about Koreans, but they barely sweat. Maybe it's because they spend the majority of their time doing crazy stretches, but I definitely stand out with the amount of sweat that I disperse everyday. Thursday, while I was doing my last weight machine this lady gave me an enzyme replenishing drink. I thought it was pretty humorous but also very nice.

I was noticing during my workout that not many of the women were around. I was also noticing a strong food smell. I finished up and walked into the locker room. In the locker room I saw about 12 women standing around the bench area in the middle of the room. On the bench sat the biggest bowl I have ever seen filled with rice in this spicy red sauce with sides of Kimchi. I was a bit taken aback. These women, half of which were topless and the other half just in their full out birthday suit, were chowing down right there in the locker room. I thought I could just get my stuff and high tail it out of there, but they would not have that. Instead, a lady in her birthday suit came over and tried communicating to me that I should come and eat. I tried to refuse, but I didn't want to risk more of them flocking over to me. This was definitely going to be a first. So, I wedged myself into this awkward circle of women and started eating this rice and Kimchi. It was pretty spicy, and I had literally just come out of an hour and a half workout, so I tried to eat it quickly. I finally had about 1/4 of it left in my bowl and thought I was home free until another lady gave me a huge spoonful of rice and more Kimchi. ugh. But I finished it off like a good foreigner.

The whole time I couldn't really understand this situation. Where did this food come from? Why did they bring it in the locker room, isn't this kind of gross? How did they get that huge bowl in here? How are they eating this right after working out? (biggest question of all) WHY ARE THEY ALL SO NAKED? They tried talking to me, which was nice, but from their odd gestures, I'm kind of glad there was a strong language barrier. Anyhow, I thought the weirdness was over, but on my way out, I said thank you to the ladies and one of the older ladies just slapped me on my behind like we were a couple of high school boys in a basketball game. Weirdest workout for sure.

Friday came and I was ready for a little normalcy. But that was not in the cards. I was walking to work and this lady came up to me and was speaking Korean like we were BFFs, it was a little strange, but she seemed nice. I ended up taking the bus, and I said good morning to the bus driver and enjoyed the 5 minute bus ride as opposed to the 35 minute walk. When I got off the bus I was walking away, pretty close to the front of the bus when the bus driver honked. It startled me at first, but when I turned around the bus driver was waving goodbye. This also was a little strange, but nice. I was the first one to work, and already was a little jumpy from the bus incident. While I was sitting alone in the teacher's lounge, the fire alarm went off very very loudly. I nearly jumped out of the 4th story window it shocked me so much. Turns out it was just some testing the fire department was doing.

So Friday was also a bit unusual but at least I wasn't forced to eat spicy food in a lockerroom full of naked bodies. Friday night, Elizabeth, Hwa Jeong, and I went to a Jim jil bang. This was actually pretty neat. These jim jil bangs take up a whole building. There are saunas, bathhouses, a gym, a TV, massage chairs, sleeping areas, sleeping cubbies, a snack bar, etc. It's a pretty cool hangout spot. Many people spend the night at these places, on the floor, in the wide open spaces. I'm not sure why they want to sleep there in front of strangers, but people do. It was definitely a first and I could see it becoming a second as well.

Saturday was such a great day. The pastor of my church took a small group of people fishing at this nice lake outside of the city. Due to my past failures, I wasn't expecting much, but I DID catch a goodlooking bass which we ended up cleaning, frying and eating for dinner. For lunch we ate MRE's which stands for "Meal, Ready to Eat." It's what people in the military eat when they are at war. It's actually pretty cool and if I had more time I would explain it in my own words, but if you are really that interested you can read about them here.

So, the week came to a close. It was a very long, yet eventful week. I hope I didn't bore you too much :) Have a wonderful week!