Thanksgiving Weekend

So no real Thanksgiving in Korea at least for Americans. Obviously we're not in America. Anyway I had a nice full weekend. On Saturday(Korea time) I climbed a mountain, ok it may be a hill but it was my first in Korea or really ever for that matter. The first picture is the mountain itself, hey I didn't say this was the Rockies it's plenty tall for a nice stroll in the afternoon



There were step to start the climb. Actually when I think about it the climb started way before the steps. You just start going up hill gradually turn left and start the climb walking up the side walk then you get to the stairs. After the stairs you see this sign. I have no clue what it says but I think it's telling me where the trails are. Not the greatest help for a non-Korean speaker


Thia is Okcheon from the start of the climb proper, you can't see it all cause of those apartments, also it's a pretty sprawling town you couldn't take a picture of it unless you had a fisheye lens.




These are stacked rocks. Koreans believe that if you can stack a new rock on top you get to make a wish and it will come true, fail and a rock monster will crush you.



Could it be the top??!?! No it went up more not much more but it was a bit of a downer I thought I was done but nay more climbing.



But it was ok, it took about 20 minutes to climb but I'm out of shape. I hope to cut the time in half and go up 300m in 10 minutes or less. Also I'd like to figure out how far it is cause that would help.




View from the top.

More on Thanksgiving weekend tomorrow or this afternoon for those of you in America. It involves fried chicken, basketball, apple pie and church.
Edit: and most importantly an answeres prayer

Photo-post #1

I go to Seoul alot. It seems like almost every weekend I find myself there. Well I'm gonna have a hard time slowing down when I get to take pictuers like this.



This was in the most trendy area of Seoul Myeong-dong, there are shops with western sized clothes and it's really upscale. Those are 2 things I never thought I'd say. I mean I don't particularly care for clothes or what I'm wearing, until I get into a class full of children then I want to dress like the Pope for some reason. So I may end up back there this weekend but only to buy a winter coat. Or a Pea coat to be more percise, why I don't know I saw one that I liked in a store, I'm going to go to Daejeon tomorrow first cause there is a store there that I'll check. Also while in Seoul and in Myeong-dong I found this.



It was just as glorious as back home and I'm afraid that this alone may drag me back to Seoul. It was in the bottom of the Lotte Hotel and Department store which is this grand and opulent, and beautiful for that matter, building mostly because it has this.

I was also in Itawon, the hole in Seoul that is the foreigner district. I don't mean to be so down but the other places in Seoul really are nicer. But I havent seen a DVD selection as varied as this since I moved out of my Wolf Vilage apartment.





Anyway being here no is cool but it makes me appriciate Thanksgiving even more than ever. Not for missing family and friends, but for missing the frame that it provides for the Holiday Season. It has already begun here. So I'll leave on this kind of a downer note before some Christmas light pictures. My co-teacher, Hyunsuk, is sick. She's an absolute angel but she has basically been barely able to come to work for going on a week now. If she does come in she makes it up to the class room for maybe 2 lessons(to make sure I'm covering the right material) then she goes back down stairs to the office and leaves. There is really nothing you can do I just thought I'd tell someone cause it sure as hell gets me down. So now, happy pictures.

Future Thoughts

So here we are, Wednesday night and I'm watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the INTERWEBS. I just watched the end of Star Trek. I really don'r have a lot to add. Classes are going. Some are smoother than others. I won't lie my main school is a bit tougher cause my Co-teacher isn't always in the classroom with me. The kids are smart but not that smart and neither am I. I am often frustrated but I feel pretty good knowing that the other English teachers, who are Koreans, know how hard it is on me and the previous Teacher who left after one year. Her boyfriend stayed and I don't know what to think of that. Maybe she just really only wanted to do one year and had a job lined up or maybe she felt pushed to the limit. Either way I am slightly worried by what the future might hold although if this is the deep end I can take it.

At my second school, I think I may have mentioned this but my co-teacher is leaving in January. She's super nice and sweet but I get to expect the unexpected at the start of the next school year, in February I think so it will be interesting, which I believe is starting to a theme on here.

I love my Location

I went shopping today. I left for Daejeon and by the way it was snowing. Before I left I talked to 2 people back home. First Jackie, we video chatted and she showed me her new apartment. Then I showed her my room and I went to open the back to to shoe the view and lo and behold snow flurries were coming down. We probably talked for 15 minutes but most of it was showing the places. After I got off the line with her I called my Mom and talked for an hour. It was good to hear how shes doing. I also found out that the temperature difference if about 20-30 degrees, high temp today was about 42 in Okcheon and it's supposed to be in high 60's in Charlotte, so you all should consider yourself lucky. I spoke with some Korean friends and they were like "this is nothing, wait til real winter", I can't wait(spoken with sarcasm layed on thick).

Anyway, just because it was only 40 degrees out doesn't mean the sexy short skirt dance girls can't be out selling things for the man. I don't know why but the LG store by Seodaejeon Station had two women out there on a platform, one would constantly dance, the other had a mic and would talk then join in the dancing. I cannot stress enough that it was 40 degrees, sure they had on leg warmers but they also had on short skirts. Across the street from that is where I went exploring today. The Say Department Store. Don't let the name fool you, in Korea all most all stores are Department stores that have everything including in this one 2 food courts, a massive parking garage, a GS 25 Supermarket and the big prize Western fast food. Last week I had gone in and found a Burger King in the space between the "Say" and "Say Two", and yes they are technically 2 stores that are seperate but are connected in basically one large building. Today I found a Popeyes Chicken, Holy Cow, I was floored because basically that and Bojangles were like the last 2 things I would have ecpected to see here, I better start looking for that Bojangles. I will go back next week and take pictures to prove that I'm not some horrible liar.

Hmmm

Hey!

Almost a week later, sorry I promise I'll start writing more regularly to whomever read this. So this week has been pretty standard, although I did start teaching multicultural lessons to 6th grade classes. It's no so much a multi cultural lesson as much as it's supposed to be about me but I think that would also be boring for the kids so I tried to have the 2 classes do surveys. I don't want to bore them but I have to say I gotta kinda write these lessons and the kids off because after December and English camps I will probably never see any of these kids again. 6th grade is the end of the Elementary school line and I don't really see them poping in to visit cause I've only seen 3 middle schoolers in the school at anytime afterwards anyway, I don't want to sound cold cause there are really good kids there but I'd like to make it really interesting for the kids who start 6th grade after the winter break.

P.S. Winter Break in Korea is like 4-7 weeks

Big day today

Today was AWESOME!!!!! I got to talk to the other two Korean English Teachers a ton today and they are hilarious. The 3rd and 4th grade teacher I talked to the most we had a demo class that people could come and sit in on and we got together and practiced for a hour before hand. After our walk through we just talked, she probably isn't the best English of the bunch I have but she expresses herself the most. We talked about Korean culture and how much she doesn't enjoy some of it. She has to cook... alot, and she doesn't really enjoy it cause ya know, she has a full time job. She told me about ceremonies for dead ancestors on her Husbands side only, and how because he is the oldest son she has to do the cooking for the events. Her mother-in-law chips in a ton though but she had funa and was asking my opinion on alot of it. She also talked about how men don't cook here. Asked me how it is in America and marveled at the fact that some men do cook and some actually do all the cooking, that's pretty much unheard of here.

After class we went to the gym where there was a ceremony for our big day. 3 classes of kids did dances, one Thai, one Philippine and one Korean. All I'm gonna say is they were like 3rd or 4th graders and they broke out the smoke and bubble machines for it. Then we heard speaches. I've never laughed so hard on the inside and stayed so still on the outside. The other teacher is the 5th grade teacher and her and the 3/4 teacher were just like "uhhh why won't this end". They hated every moment of every speech and often would turn to me and say "aren't you bored?" to which I would reply "I can't understand so I cannot be bored" Which is true for me. I just sat there tried to spell some stuff in Korean and listened. Then at the end the Superintendent of Chungbuk-do, which is the province that I'm in that is a "State" to those of you in the States. He apparently said that I did a good job for the class that I did, he went as far to say my name, my full name. I laughed out loud, not very loud but it was audible. Good times.

After all this we went to a dinner my first dinner with the or either school. This is what I read about although it was still like only an hour I enjoyed every minute of today.

2 posts in one day, how dare I

Back again because I forgot to mention something in the first long and rambling post of the day. My main school decided that it would be a good idea to close down for Tuesday thru Thrusday because it was supposed to be so cold. Needless to say it was about as cold on Monday as it's gotten since I've been here and Tuesday was also cold but today(Wednesday) hasn't been bad and Thursday isn't looking so bad either. School closings here are just like teacher work days back home, if the teachers back home just sit on their asses all day and surf the internet. It's not to say that I didn't get any work or planning done. It's just that it only takes so long then you're done.

Anyway early this afternoon I got word that my Thursday/Friday school might be doing the same thing on the days I was supposed to be there this week and it was confirmed midafternoon. So tomorrow I'll go back to the Main school and sit a desk tomorrow and try to plan while on Friday we have an Open day which means that we start at 8:30 instead of 9 and random important people get to come in and judge us as teachers and people based on one class. Nay not even one class but maybe 3-5 minutes of one class which is most likely a special lesson that I've planned for a month and done with the other 3rd graders.

Since Halloween

Back again on a Wednesday, I promise that I'm going to start writing more as things have calmed down and now I feel like I know what I can do and when I should try to do it. Halloween was fun, if you want to se pictures facebook me. I could use the slight boost in friends. Went as Harvey Dent, the Billy Dee WIlliams one from the first Tim Burton Batma and had a great time. We were literally out all night as we were at bars from 10:30 til 4 and then we went to a Nore-bangh for like 2 hours or something like that, probably closer to 90 minutes but I'm just not sure. Also we may have been at the bars for longer and Nore-bangh(which is Korean singing room aka private karaoke) shorter either way it ended up being fun and lots of songs were sung at the nore-bangh, drinks were had at the bars and we split up and returned to the place that we were from at around 6:30am after McDonalds for breakfast.

I got home at 7am Sunday morning and was seriously worried about being able to sleep and still wake up before 1pm. On the cab ride from Daejeon to Okcheon I texted my friend who I hang out with her and her family on Sundays afternoons and speak English and try to speak Korean. I tried to explain that I might be late for th meeting. I went to sleep as soon as I got home at 7am and was awake and eating breakfast at 11am. I thought I was going to die at church but I survived service, cause the pastor like any good pastor tells jokes and even though they were translated I still enjoyed them. After the service we have Fellowship, Koreans are still slightly strange to me in some small and inconsequential ways, when you answer a phone and you know who it is and say "Hello" most will say "I'm so and so". That comes down to mostly a translation thing think, at fellowship I was talking to one of the High School kids who other than the adults are the only people who usually talk to me and then some one brings up this woman, and the introduction went like this:
Person A: "Hello Bernard"
Me: "Hi"
Person A: "This is Person B, She is 23, I hear you are 24. Friends?!?!"
Me: "Sure"

While "friends" is being said there is a hand jester going on to signal that we should talk. Then Person A walks away and I start talking to Person B, I don't even think I got her name but I do know she is a University student at a school in a town like 30-40 minute bus ride away from Daejeon, she is studying Tourism and Recreation (yea they've got that here too) and she speaks really good English. We talked like 15 minutes who know if we will ever have another conversation again, probably, but they may end up being of the how was your week variety. We'll see.

Anyway turning towards the much more boring professional life I'm carving here, class is gonig OK. I've made the unthinkable decision to not play a game every single class that I am given total control. First reason is I can't think of but so many games and I don't want the kids to get tired of the same stupid card games, the second is I just don't se what they can get out of the games that wouldn't be better served by me taking more time on the actual lesson stuff and then ending the class with a tip or a correction of popular yet wrong phrases they use here. Example, my last 2 or three classes on Monday instead of playing a hastily prepared game, I exlpained the difference between "Nice to meet you" and "Good to see you" If you walk around a school for more than 2 weeks you will eventually get tired of "Nice to meet you" and I had so it was time to put my foot down and actually start teaching them things to fix mistakes that they are maknig and that I know they are making. The best part was that my co-teacher was there and she didn't hate the idea and hasn't really mentioned anything about it so it must be ok with her. And that's a good thing