Seolnal: Two adventures in one day!

Happy New Year, everybody! This weekend was Korean New Year, known as Seolnal, and it is a pretty big deal around here. Bigger than Christmas and solar new year, at least. We got two days off from work so I had a four day weekend (which is now almost over... very sad). I have had a great time with my weekend. The weather wasn't too frigid, either, so it was perfect for a little shopping excursion with my good buddy Tara.

Wednesday, my school moved classes to earlier in the day so people could do their New Year's Eve celebrations at home that evening. It was really cool to be done with classes at 2pm and get to have the whole day to ourselves. Kendra and I spent the day going to Costco and E-Mart to get some much needed groceries and other assorted items (she really needed an external hard-drive for her overflowing laptop). We were ridiculously tired after hiking all over the place for that and headed home to feast upon the fruits of our labors (for me that meant a Caesar salad... yummm) and get settled in for the rest of our four day weekend.

On New Year's day proper (Thursday, that is), Tara called asking to come over saying that if she didn't get out of the apartment soon she was going to go crazy. Everything besides the 7-11 were closed so outing options were limited.

Instead, we talked boys (we came to the conclusion that the majority of them are stupid... sorry, but facts are not in your favor, Male Readers) and looked through some tour magazines I picked up to plan some adventures for our weekend.

Now, something you need to know about Tara and me is that when when we get together we become super girly. I don't know what it is. Our favorite activity is shopping together. We can waste tons of time walking around a mall and we don't even have to spend money (though, admittedly, we usually do). So it came as no surprise that we made plans to go to Namdaemun Market, which Tara had not visited yet.

Friday turned out to be the perfect day to go to Namdaemun. There was, like, no one there! Usually when I go there are crowds of people all over the place. There was still a good amount of people but it was still pretty easy to maneuver our way through to all the open shops.

The first thing that caught our attention outside the subway station wasn't a shop, but a big ol' fat pigeon. It was sitting all fluffed up by this giant pile of garbage. It was so dirty and ugly that I kind of think it's cute.



Speaking of gross things, there was one guy selling some really nasty looking fish that looked about a week old. I'm ok with fish markets but these were NOT fresh fish. Eeew...



After taking the picture of the icky fishies, I turned around and saw the CUTEST LITTLE BABY COATS! My friends who have married in these last few years should make announcements that they are having baby girls so I can have an excuse to buy some of these cute baby coats. :)





Another thing that you see a lot of in Namdaemun is ginseng. Apparently, Namdaemun is famous for it. It looks like little aliens in a jar all over the place. Kind of creepy. But in an awesome way.



We also went underground to a shopping center and there was this one store that had a crap load of records! I don't collect or use records at all, but it was a pretty cool site.



Tara was also amazed by the sheer number of records at this guy's store.



We also got some delicious pancake things. It was pretty awesome watching the lady cool these. The would press them flat with the little smasher thing and then use her BARE HAND to flip them over! I mean, this is a hot griddle covered in oil and she just reaches in, grabs the pancake, flips it over, and rubs a little more oil on the flat of the pancake for good measure! She has super human hands of steel. That, or she's been doing this for years and the nerves in her fingertips are shot.



Then came the Scary Bathroom Adventure. Tara needed a bathroom and on our way to find a public building with posibilities of a bathroom, we happened upon a sign that definitely pointed to bathrooms. After walking up a few flights of increasingly grimy stairs, we got to the top of a the building and it looked pretty much like an abandoned warehouse with a ton of boxes piled up.



Some old dude (probably a janitor of some kind) asked us if we were looking for the bathroom (at least we think so... he asked about the "hwajangshil") and he pointed us down this hallway of what we think were little houses. It seriously looked like people lived in some of these.



Then we went down another hallway between some sketchy buildings and we were pretty certain we weren't going to find the bathroom.



I was beginning to question if I had remembered the word for "bathroom" correct or if maybe he had asked us if we were looking for homeless people shelters when, tada! we found the bathroom. And this is the sight that greeted us.



Yep. The first thing you see is an unobstructed view of the urinals! Lucky for us there was no one there at the time.

One thing that held true for these bathrooms that is in most public bathrooms in Korea is the potty bucket. They don't flush toilet paper here, but instead put it in a bucket. I will never get used to that. I frequently forget to put my used paper in the bucket. I'm a stupid American. I have gotten better, though, about putting my paper in the bucket.



Before I sat down to do my business, Tara discovered there was no toilet paper in her stall. So I checked my stall, the other two stalls, as well as the stall in the mens' restroom before we began searching our purses for some kind of replacement. The whole time we were doing this, I was silently cursing myself for leaving my travel toilet paper in my other purse at home.

There was a supply cabinet that we thought might possibly have a secret hidden stash of toilet paper in it. However the cabinet was locked. We still wanted to know what was in it so I held my camera over the door and took a picture.



No toilet paper. Just a bunch of cleaning supplies and junk. Oh well.

One good thing about the Scary Bathroom Adventure was the view from the top of the building. You could see all of Namdaemun from that place. It was pretty awesome.



After we checked the Scary Bathroom Adventure off our lists of things we probably should never do again (rape whistle, anyone?), we headed back into the streets of Namdaemun. Tara had been on the lookout for a pair of boots and one shoe store in particular looked promising.

Second adventure of the day: Creepy Shoe Guy!

One of the shop worker at the shoe store spoke English. From what we could tell, this old guy (the English speaking dude's dad) owned the shop and he and his sister worked there. Tara was asking about shoes and he was asking about her. Haha!

You get this all the time from guys in shops here as they try to flirt up the American girls that come into their shops. "Oh, you so pretty ladies!" "America! U! S! A! I loooove U.S.A.!" And it's funny and cute. This guy took it a little further with comments like, "Oh, I love you," and "You are just my type." That last one killed us. We were laughing so hard. And his comments came with hugs. Oh, dear. It was so awkward and funny. I kept one hand on my purse during these nice little hugs and watched Tara's, too. I've seen too many shows about those "Free Hugs" where people are just stealing wallets to trust hugs from strangers (not to mention CREEPY STRANGER HUGGING ME!).

He took advantage of our willingness to accept his hugs. His last hug was the most awkward and I actually pushed him away after he KISSED ME ON THE CHEEK! After that I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him away saying, "Ok, we're done, now." After Tara paid he pointed to his cheek and asked her for a "po-po" or "little kiss" and she laughed and was like, "No! I'm not KISSING you! You're crazy! Ahjushi," she turned to his dad, "Your son is CRAZY!" And the old guy just laughed an old dude laugh while the daughter/sister smiled awkwardly and looked really uncomfortable.

I still think this guy had a little soju with his lunch (Korean alcohol). Tara even asked him and he was like, "NO! No! Oh, my GAWD, NO! Never! No soju!" with some added Korean in there that was probably something about crazy American girls.

Tara made sure we got a picture with this guy because it was so strange. I don't have a copy yet, but she said she'd email me copies of her pictures from Namdaemun, so as soon as I have a picture, I'll post it right here so you can see the Creepy Shoe Guy.

Next up: Myung Dong!

It was a long week...

Ugh. What a long week. This week really decided to drag its feet. Sooo long!

The regular week was pretty long. I don't know why it seemed that way, considering I had achievement tests this week. Usually those days go by really fast since it's mostly the kids sitting and doing the work. This week, however, seemed to take forever.

I don't suppose having to work Saturday helped the matter at all. :/

This next week is Sollel (Korean Lunar New Year) and we'll have Thursday and Friday off of work! Yay! Unfortunately, they made us provide make-up classes for next Friday THIS Saturday. Yeah... Friday kids were not very happy about that because they had to come in two days in a row. Teachers weren't very happy about it because they had to teach on Saturday.

I was also asked to substitute for a teacher so instead of one three hour class, I had two. When Junho asked if wanted to sub for K.J. I really wanted to say, "No, I don't want to, thanks," but I knew that it would be really hard to find another teacher to fill in (for a Saturday class especially) so I said yes. I suppose it's only fair since I had to have people sub for me the week I was sick.

That's all I did this week. Nothing fun for the weekend. Just church which, while nice, isn't really relaxing what with having to herd *adorable* three year olds for two hours. I'm really ready for my four day weekend next week.

Next week: pictures! Of something fun! I promise!

Random pictures

Looking through my pictures from my camera, I discovered that I have a few pictures from these last few weeks that are worth sharing. So this post is just a couple of random pictures with captions.

These are some cute little egg molds I got for mom... and I had to try them out before I could send them to her, of course. In this picture they are cooling off in cold water.



This egg turned out the best: it's a BUNNY EGG!!! :D



Here they all are together: bear, bunny, and fish. The bear doesn't really look like a bear and the fish's mouth is giant, but the bunny turned out really cute. I don't even like eggs...



One of the girls in my middle school class made me some cookies!! They are sooo cute!



My favorite was the chicky one. :)



Since my elementary kids saw my drawings, presentation prep time has become craft time for some of the kids as they all try to outdo each other. This group was making a puppet show.



We saw these guys in the subway on our way to Myeoung Dong last weekend. It was pretty cool to hear Spanish again.



Here they are again, singing their little hearts out in the subway.



I got ear muffs with my box of sugar I mean cereal.

Free samples and new glasses!

Once again, life has been pretty uneventful. It's still cold, but not as bad as last week. It did snow today while I was at church so I was very happy that I had decided to wear my booties to church instead of the heels since I had to walk to the subway station through several inches of snow. Brrr!

Teaching the three year olds at church wasn't as bad today, either. We only had four kids so not as much crowd control. The lesson was also about prayer so easy subject. I brought the sock monkey which helped a lot, too. The kids loved Ringo.

I went to the mall last night with Tera, just to get out of the house. We first stopped to have dinner at this kebab place and I had the grossest pita ever. They covered it in this sweet gravy and added pickled and jalapenos and the beef gyro meat was kind of meh. Oh well. The fresh pineapple juice was delicious so not a total loss. I should have taken pictures of the pita mess.

We just walked around the mall a while. I had a mini identity crisis when Tara and I found out the music store had the new Michael Jackson album. I was like, "Wait... isn't he dead?" because it wasn't just old songs with a new cover. But, it's ok, guys. We do not have a zombie Michael on our hands. It's just previously unreleased songs. The cover for the CD is really awesome, though. Looks a lot like the artwork for his other CD's. Nice.

I ended up finding some makeup. I'm almost out of foundation which is always the hardest thing to find so I wanted to get a head start. The ladies that helped us were really nice. We had all three girls trying to explain things to us about the different foundations and bases with the little English they knew. I ended up just buying some foundation and mascara - the immediate needs. I spent less than $10 total. But then the lady that bagged up my purchases loaded me up with free samples!

So, here is what I bought.



And then here are all the samples they gave me!



I'm not sure what all of them are, but I know that one is an oil for your face, body, or hair (cool), one is what the girl at the store called B.B. moisture (whaaaat?), and the other thing is actually labeled in English but still makes no sense. Should be fun trying them out. :)

On the way back home from the subway, I stopped at this little store where I had been eying this cute little Hello Kitty bento lunch box for my mom.



I also got a matching utensil holder, complete with Hello Kitty spoon and chopsticks.



Aren't they cuuuute?

I was also able to pick up my glasses from the eye place last night! They are so awesome. I'm trying to decide if the prescription is right and just needs some getting used to or if they are too strong (I know... how is that even possible?). They are totally 80's (I think Mom even has a pair almost exactly like this) so I think they work very well with the flowery dress I stole from Mom's closet this last summer.



And as we can see from this picture, my bangs are once again in desperate need of a trim.

Then, just something fun from today. I was watching some t.v. online and decided to play with a box cutter and an empty roll of toilet paper that was sitting on my desk.



Not exactly precision work, but it was fun. A good end to a good week. :)

COLD

IT IS COLD.

It's beyond cold. Going to church today was a super trial because it was so cold.

Let me back up.

The week started off cold with a little bit of snow, annoying but not too bad. Temperatures kept dropping until yesterday the high was about 10 degrees. Not the best weather to go out in, right?

What did I decide to do? Go shopping of course! This involved much more outdoor walking that you would normally think.

First I met up with Tara and Shawn at an eyeglass store for a new pair of glasses. Usually, even with insurance covering the frames and part of the lens cost, my special blind girl lenses end up costing upwards of $100. Glasses are expensive.

I got a pair of frames for 10,000 won (about $8) and then special lenses for 100,000 won ($80). That means even without insurance, these glasses only cost me about $90. That is nice. My friend Tara will pick them up for me on Monday (the store is only open while I'm at work... strange hours) and I'll be getting them when I see her next. Yay!

After getting the glasses, we got on the subway and headed to Myeong Dong and met up with Tommy at the giant Forever 21 there. We had dinner at a Chinese place and walked around some of the outside stalls a while before going into this indoor mall thing (lots of stalls, inside).

The guys headed home first and Tara and I walked around the subway shopping a bit. We found this awesome little boutique with the coolest jewelry. I got this awesome pendant of an owl with a magnifying glass in the body. The lady was really excited to see us and shared her snack with us. Fish jerky! Yum... Tara is more polite than I am and just chowed down the whole thing in a few bites. I took a big bite (part of my goals list here in Korea) and it wasn't really all that bad, but not good enough that I was willing to finish it without something to wash it down with. So I took it out with me and abandoned it on a box (public trash cans are virtually nonexistent here).

Sometime soon I need to take Tara to Namdaemun market because she would love all the shopping there.

Also: it was SOOO COLD. Walking around, it was probably getting below zero. And it was windy. Brrr!

And this is why there are no pictures. We kind of booked it while walking around outside and then I kept forgetting while we were inside. I'll try to get some pictures up for next week.

Today was even colder. The high was 5 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. The online weather report said that with the wind it felt like -9. It was really hard to want to go to church. The worst part was that the boiler at the church is broken. Oh no! It was okay in the chapel but downstairs in the Sunday school rooms the heater wasn't working at all. They had some radiators for some classrooms, but plugging those in kept kicking the breaker off so we couldn't have that on, even. The thermostat in the room said it was 17 degrees celcius (about 62 degrees fahrenheit) but it was totally lying. It was freezing. The kids were all wrapped up in coats. They said that if the heater isn't fixed next week, they'll just cancel Sunday school. Why didn't they do that today, I wonder? Coldest day YET and we still had to sit with no heat. Whatever.

And that's my week. Cold, cold, and colder. :) This week I get to do practice exams with my reading classes so that's awesome. Means lots less work for Ms. Olson. Hopefully it warms up a bit this week.

Student surveys and gifts

Wow. My life has been exceptionally boring these last few weeks. Since Christmas, I've just kind of been not motivated to do anything. I need to get back on top of things. That's why this weekend I will at least head over to Myeoungdoung to shop or something that involves taking fun pictures. It's too cold to really go do the palace and temple tours.

Did I mention it snowed? Yeah. Cold, wet, and slippery sidewalks. Ick.

Even if life has been really boring, I feel bad for not updating.

This last week I received my teacher ranking. I suppose that is pretty exciting. The way they rank teachers is a little bit different here. In the U.S. they base how well a teacher is doing with experience, administrative observation as well as student performance on state tests. However, as far as I could tell, most schools don't have a seriously set rank for their teachers. I'm sure some of my relatives in the educational field will correct me if I'm wrong. :)

In Chung Dahm (the school I work for), they have 38 teachers and each teacher gets a rank number. Our rank as a teacher is greatly based on the student surveys and our retention rate as well as compliance and other observations made by our supervisors. None of our ranking is based on anyone EVER observing our class. While they do watch CCTV's of our lessons, they do not take such observations into account for our ranking.

I agree that student retention (how many students choose not to drop out of Chung Dahm while in your class) and what students think of their your teaching should play a part of our ranking. It is, after all, a business. Chung Dahm doesn't want teachers that don't know how to make students want to stay with the program. If students don't like the teachers then they won't stay at the academy thus taking away the money they pay for tuition and books. Chung Dahm needs teachers who can change their style to fit the attitude of the students they are teaching.

However, kids will be kids and sometimes they are not completely honest in their surveys, saying mean things just because they hate coming to academy no matter how good of a teacher they have. That being said, I wish that CCTV's (or observations of teaching methods) would play a part in the ranking system.

And so for my first term teaching at Chung Dahm I got placed 12 out of 38 teachers based solely on student surveys. I feel that's pretty decent after my first term here. I had some technical difficulties at the beginning of the term figuring out the grade input system (oops) so my "compliance score" and other unspecified factors took me down to 24 overall. I still feel pretty good about it. It's only my first term so that's not too bad. My goal is to be even better at the end of this term.

Aja! Aja! FIGHTING!!

Also last week I got my first gift from a student. It was too cute. I mean, I get food from my kids all the time. The take out snacks during the breaks and I usually end up with a small meal during my elementary classes. Last week, though, one of my girls, Sophia Kim, gave me a little metal bookmark of a crown. She made me a card and everything. That girl is adorable. She is this terms Helen. I wish all my classes were elementary.

Last week I also decided to never doodle on my notes during school. EVER. One of the kids saw my doodling and now all the girls want princess drawings. "Draw a dog!" "Can you draw me Hello Kitty?" "Me next!" I told them today that I will make something to give everyone on the last class of the term. Now I need to draw something and then figure out how to make photo prints at E-Mart or Costco (because, really, I am NOT hand drawing each of my elementary kids a picture).

A few things to look forward to in the next few weeks: Lunar New Year is coming in a few weeks; the first week of February, if I'm not mistaken. I believe we get some time off for that. I've heard at least days so let's keep the fingers crossed! I'd like to go do something for that if I can. Where else can I celebrate the Korean Lunar New Year? I will also be going to see a Broadway play on the 29th: the Korean cast of Jekyl and Hyde. It should be fun seeing the show in Korean.

Happy New Year!!

Wow. I can't believe that it's already 2011. Can you believe it? This time last year I was getting ready to start my student teaching, finishing up my last semester at BYU. Now, I have a BA and a teaching certificate along with a job teaching English in a foreign country. A lot has happened this last year and most of it has been good. I hope this next year goes as well if not better.

I didn't really do anything exciting to bring in the new year this time around. Kendra and I tried to get tickets to go to a Bi concert, but all of my attempts with the website didn't work and I couldn't find a phone number to call to get tickets. I was kind of pooped from work and so my new years eve was spent with pizza, Criminal Minds, and a facial.

Once it hit midnight, I opened the window and shouted, "Happy New Year!" It was really, really quiet outside and I don't know that anyone really appreciated my enthusiasm. I guess no one on my block decided to party at home. Oh well.

Someone suggested going to the riverside to watch the fireworks and hear them ring this big bell thing. I heard it's like the Times Square celebration in New York. I considered it, just so I can say I went, but then I found out they close the subway stop at, like, 8 because they always get so many people coming and they can't handle the crowds. Since I get off of work at 10, it wouldn't have been possible to go.

So, instead I had my nice quiet evening at home. I also kicked back today and just had a quiet day picking up my apartment with a quick trip to Daiso to pick up some crafting supplies. It has been really nice. Now I plan on making myself a chicken, onion, and pepper-jack cheese quesadilla and curling up on my couch to watch either "500 Days of Summer" or the new "Karate Kid." Hmmm...

Happy 2011, everyone! May you make it a good one. :)