Sherry's Travels

sorrryyy!!! I'm back!

2008-12-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

So it is has been way to long since my last update! I have been really busy, but that is no excuse! But anyways, here is the long awaited update!
I have decided to apply to go back to school for September. I spent September, October and November researching, picking schools and writing entrance essays!! Took a lot out of me, but I had a lot of help from friends here who edited my work for me! I am very out of practice in regards to writing essays!! I have so far applied to three schools in Ontario, and write eight different essays for these schools (I hear in April… eeps!) And I have also decided to apply back to MUN, and to a school in Alberta, but these applications are not due yet and I am still working on them. All these programs are for high school, mostly elementary, but high school as well just in case for MUN if I change my mind. Working here made me realize how much I love teaching young children. So that is my excuse for the lateness of my post…
So, since my last post I have done a few things, I will try to update in a chronological order with as much detail as I can.
One thing that first comes to my mind is my trip to Costco with my high school friend Heather! What a fun time! We had to take a train for a little under 2 hours, but it was well worth the wait! We even took luggage with us to help us bring our purchases back home! Heather took a video to document this experience! Take a look!! We apologize for the quality, and for some reason the last letter on the titles don’t work but enjoy!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh8DCirXgNE&eurl=http://yearofkimchi.blogspot.com/
Also, admits applying for school I found that I was getting really lazy… and fat haha. So, I decided I needed to do something about this laziness. I knew I would never go to the gym if I joined the gym unless I had a friend who took me along, I need motivation… so a Korean friend of mine was taking swimming lessons, and I used to swim, so I decided, why not! I joined the pool. However, let me tell you… I am SOOOO out of practice!! Like VERY out of practice. I went back to basics. I mean, I CAN swim, but my technique is rusty, and some things I was doing very wrong. My instructor is great and I am learning a lot and can feel myself getting much stronger. However, I better stop getting sick so I don’t have to miss so many classes! (I was on and off sick all of November and on many kinds of meds, and now have broncutis… ugh)
Anywho, back to my first experience swimming in Korea, with a Korean instructor. My instructor or rather, all the instructors at the pool speak no English, and I, no Korean really. I have now started to learn the body parts in Korean to help me. My friend Sarah is at the same pool, but in a different class, she tells me that the instructors were so nervous to teach me at first and even wanted to leave the pool when they saw me coming haha. But I am a good sport, and listen to body language really well... so we are becoming good friends... and when I miss a class; my instructor always tells me he misses me! They also teach by taking your body and moving it for you to teach how it’s done. Sarah tells me that they get nervous doing that since foreigners don’t usually like that, and he always stresses when he teaches me. Bless his heart! Haha But I am fine I tell her to tell him, and happy to be getting a nice work out. Even if everyone in the pool has to wear a swim cap and goggles!
There is an old couple in my class learning how to swim, and they make me smile every time I get to the pool. He always tries to say hello, even though that is probably the extent of his English other than asking me where I am from. Everyone was very excited to learn that I was Canadian!
Now to the change room. In Korea public bathing is huge. In the change room there is a sauna, shower stations, both sitting and standing and a bath. I have never been big on public nudity. I have played sports, and I could never change in front of my team mates and always hid in a stall. I decided that since I live a 5 min walk from the pool, I would change and run home and shower there. I went my locker and took my towel and wrapped it around my body as I tried to carefully take off my swim suit. The janitor working was very angry with me, she came by with her mop to mop up all the water my suit was dripping on the floor and told me to go to the showers... people go there right after the pool and shower, then walk naked to the lockers to get their towels. Now... here I am, nervous about public nudity, and a woman is standing in front of me motioning for me to take off my suit and just looking at me, as well as other women in the change room, I think they were just curious about a foreign body. I shook my head really fast and just said home, and hid more in my towel, all the women laughed at me and turned their heads… I was so nervous! I changed quickly and left!
After that I was in the hallway outside the change room putting on my shoes, you have to take them off in order to enter the change room. A few Ajuma’s (a respectful term for older woman) were walking past, got excited to see me, I guess they don’t see many foreigners in the pool area… and they kept telling me how beautiful I was. It was nice to hear that! Haha I could get used to that!
Another big thing that happened here was we had three new teachers come to ECC. One thing about teaching in Korea is that there is a huge turn over rate with teachers. You get close to people, and then before you know it (time passes very quickly here I find) they leave and you have to start all over again. Well, a very close friend of mine left my school, but decided to stay in Korea and lives close still (yay!), my desk neighbour left and another friend left… it was hard to see them all leave, but it is nice to meet new people too. I have been having a good time with my new co-workers. One is interested in all sorts of music, and even knows some Canadian bands I like, another one has a kitten, and I get to baby sit while she goes away for Christmas!!! Yayyy!!! Pictures will be posted of him!! And the last one I will blog about later in this entry!! (I have exciting news… so stay tuned!!)
Our new teachers had to go to Seoul to training, so while they were out training we had our Halloween party!! It was great fun! Halloween isn’t actually very big here in Korea, so seeing what the kids came up with for costumes was interesting. The kindergartens were more excited about dressing up than the others, but I guess that is the same everywhere in the world mostly maybe? Anywho, most of the girls in the kindergarten classes dressed up as princess, and the boys ranged from spider man, power rangers, wizards... capes with hats were big, I think mostly because costumes were hard to find. One of my Buttercups dressed up as a princess, but also wanted to wear bunny ears haha... she was a bunny princess!!
For the two days of Halloween we had, one day just for the kinder kids and another for the older students I dressed up as a grape. Everyone loved it... it isn’t common to see costumes like that here apparently... most are just your typical ones… I am still called Grape Teacher by some students! Here is a photo:

We went out on the town for Halloween as well... it was a really fun night... one of the best I have had in a while actually. We went to a bar in the Haeundae area, we were among the very select few of foreigners there. Some people wore costumes, so it was great fun. I dressed up as an 80’s aerobic instructor. Such great fun! I was in character all night too!! I brought a small hot pink weight with me and busted it out every now and again! I made friends with a Korean guy that night, he was so shy, but so cute! He made me laugh... he was such a tiny little boy, he wore little short shorts, a white t-shirt and suspendars and I think he might have had ears on at one point.. We danced together a lot, and then I bumped into him a few weeks later when I was shopping at American Apparel! Here is a photo of that night:

A good friend of mine had a birthday just a while back and we went to the PNU area. (Pusan National University) It is a really happening area, and we had a blast!! We started off the night just me and her meeting in Kyunsung University Area getting our nails done for her birthday, then I went home to get ready and her to her house where she received 100 ROSES from her rich friend… was a beautiful gift.. 100 roses! We then went to her house, I made her a party hat for the night and we went on the PNU pub crawl. It was a lovely experience because every bar we went to had live music!! Oh how I miss!!! IT was 15 000 won for the night and that gave you entry to 6 bars and a drink at every bar! Great deal I say! We brought along the new teachers to this event and we had a blast! One bar I went to reminded me of my Newfoundland friends because they played Death Cab for Cutie! I miss you Ashley Gilbert and I wish you could still sing to me… I miss that so much. That is one thing I hate about living alone… no roommates to sing to you, or no one to cook and eat with.
Speaking about Newfoundland I met up with some old friends from res days! A friend Pete lives in Seoul and came to Busan to visit. It was great! I showed him the beaches near my house, a market, and we went shark diving. Yep. I dove into a tank with 20 different sharks, some sea turtles, and other fish of various sizes. That is probably the most extreme thing I have ever done. I am the type of person who is afraid of everything... so this is a HUGE step for me... Not only the scary shark part, but scuba diving too!
So, in learning how to dive, and then actually getting into the tank with 20 sharks I learned that I have a new fear. I was more scared of the giant sea turtles than of the sharks. I think this fear resided with the fact that we had to hide most of these turtles in the holding tank while we got into the main tank because it was too hard to dive with the turtles, they don’t leave you alone. So I had it in my mind that they would bite me. We started our training, signing forms to ensure that if we were eaten we wouldn’t sue, then putting on scuba gear and getting a brief lesson on how to breathe underwater. This was done in the practice pool with baby sharks! They are used to humans by now, and very cute! They likes to rest by my feet actually haha.
As we got ready for our real dive the boys I was diving with, my friend Peter and my good friend Rick from work helped our instructor move the turtles into the holding tank we enter the main tank through. I wouldn’t touch them… I was too afraid. Our instructor told us that all the turtles should be moved, but one was ok, he would leave us alone… boyyy… was he wrong. This turtle was up in my face the whole time. I was screaming into my oxygen tank let me tell you haha! This turtle was half the size of me! I kept pushing him away… grabbing his shell and tossing him further into the tank! One point I accidently pushed the soft part of his body and convinced myself he then really had it out for me. I decided at that point I didn’t want to go into the tank and wanted out… but in the back of my mind my conscious was telling me… you baby, you paid 85 dollars to do this, and you can’t back out now. So I pushed myself to at least make it to the bottom, being scared to move since the turtle was in my face the whole time, even as I made my way to the bottom. I didn’t want to lose my nose to a turtle!
I got to the bottom safely, but I was still really nervous and cold!! I walked along the bottom for a minute in a half, saw two sharks with tons of teeth just meters away, and that stupid turtle again… I decided, baby or no baby, I am scared! Plus, I was menstruating, and even with all my research and asking my instructor if I could still swim and everything told me sharks were not interested in my blood, I still had that what if in my mind. I decided to go back to the top! Once I got to the top the instructor reminded me that we put the turtles in the holding tank and I couldn’t actually get out until my friends were done. So, he left me, holding onto a rope at the top of the tank alone. Hahaha. Let me tell you, classes with Dr. Lee Rainy really paid off, and I practiced my mediation skills for 20 min as I waited for my friends to come back up. At least the turtle didn’t come back until they were back and I made them keep him away! Haha
However, as scared as I was, and wimping out early, I am still happy I did this. I faced my fears and did something completely out of character!
The very next weekend I went to Seoul to visit some more res friends! It is great having people you know from home to random weekend visits! When I was in university I took part in the production of the Vagina Monologues every year since my second year. A woman that was in the show with me was Lacy. She is a great friend and a wonderful inspiring woman! It was so nice to visit her and her boyfriend. I took the bus to see her. The bus to Seoul was only 21 000 won opposed to a 50 000 won train which is a little but faster! I always opt for cheap travel!
Once we meet up, I venture the Seoul subway alone (10 lines I think). I had to travel about 30-40 min to where she was in the city. If you know me, then you know I have a TERRIBLE sense of direction, but I was excited to do this! I made friends with people at the station who spoke a little English and helped me find my way! We even exchanged numbers if they ever decided to visit Busan! I meet up with Lacy and her boyfriend Andrew for food, then got on the subway towards their home… as we ride they tell me they haven’t been to the sauna and bath house in a long time. I tell them that I know I can’t leave Korea without that experience, but I am so shy with nudity.
Well, being in Seoul, and there is no chance of running into any other friends, or (god forbid) any students, so I tough it, and I go! This experience was like nothing I have ever done before. We get to the spa, and pay 6000 won, and they give us gym shorts a t-shirt and a small towel. Lacy and I head to the female section and undress. I am in shock, but I proceed to do it… why not do something cultural and step out of my comfort zone! The bath area has like 10 different types of bathing stations. A sauna heated bath, a freezing cold bath, a normal like pool water bath, a crazy hot bath, a hot bath, a massage bath, sitting scrub stations, a stand up shower station, and a bath full of tea! I tried most, but not the freezing cold bath… I hate cold! It was funny to be there sometimes, the kids played in the baths like they were pools, and wanted to play with me haha.. at first Lacy and I were looked at since we were foreign, but after a while it felt Just as if we were clothed. At one point we were scrubbing and covered head to toe with soap and these two Ajuma’s came to where we were scrubbing and told us we had to leave since they had that spot before us… even though we had been there for 20 min exfoliating already! We move covered in soap and just shower it off and then sit in the warm bath for while and another Ajuma comes over asking if we want her to scrub our skin… they have those services, and some women come out with bruises they scrub the dead skin so well.
We decline… I think just getting to the bath house was a big enough step for me! We leave and proceed to put on the gym clothes they gave us. We go to the bottom of the spa, meet up with Lacy’s boyfriend, sit in a massage chair, lay in a sauna, sit in a cold room full of ice, and then think about getting Dr. Fish (but I hated it before, so I wasn’t going to go and have fish eat dead skin off my feet again since I have such ticklish feet!), or a manicure or even something to eat but look at the time and head back to their apartment and make food there.
We cooked chicken and avocado sandwiches with yellow pepper… mmmm… I love avocado, but it is soooo expensive here! I only buy it once and a while as a treat! We then get ready and go to this amazing Wine bar. The man who owns the bar has over 2000 cds, and tons and tons of other types of music… and then he plays every genre of music under the sun… was amazing. Also, if you had any question about music he knew exactly where to go to find the artist you were talking about, as well as others who fit in the same genre that you may like.
It was a great relaxing, chilled out weekend, the next morning we woke up and listened to DNTO on CBC via the internet and Andrew made us homemade pancakes!!! It was just like I was at home!!
Hmm… what else can I tell you about my life recently… ohhh… it snowed!!!! It hardly ever snows in Busan!! I had a student tell me that it didn’t snow at all last year, but a few weeks ago it snowed for like two hours! I was so excited that I skipped to work and even stopped and asked someone to take my photo! Here it is: (Don’t I look so happy??!)

For those of you who know me well you know I have the terrible habit of losing very important things on a regular basis… two of those things topping the list are my phone, my wallet and my keys. Two weeks ago I went out for dinner with my good friend Sarah, and her swimming instructor, and as you can remember from my blogging above, the instructors don’t speak English. However, ignoring the obvious translation problems we had a lot of fun. We went out for my favourite Korean meal, Korean BBQ, and the swim instructor was very surprised at my chopstick skills, and wanted to show me more Korean things. We drank soju, and we drank a lot of it… we even made Korean soju cocktails. There is the one I drink all the time… someck (Meckju being beer with soju)… then, we also used a Korean style beer glass, filled a soju shot (big shot glass!) with coke, and another with soju, we both of these in the beer glass and then fill the remainder of the glass with beer. It sounds awful, but was surprisingly good.
Ok… now to tell you about my habit of losing things. I put my phone in my coat pocket, must have been the alcohol that got me to do that, instead of my purse. We leave the bar at a decent hour since it was a Thursday, and head home… I put my cold hands in my jacket pocket and guess what… my phone and my keys were missing! We retrace our steps, but no luck. The worst of it was my computer was out getting fixed, so I had no internet access either. I was completely cut off from the outside world.
I get to work the next day, and Sarah tells me my phone was ringing, I think I forgot to mention that my phone was dead when I lost it… we couldn’t even call it to find it. In Korea if your phone is dead, the person calling you will not hear a ring, rather a voice telling you the battery is dead. Within a few days a lot of my friends are receiving text messages in Korean. A few Korean friends of mine try to help me out, and Elena gets a hold of the man who found my phone and we set up a time to meet and he gives me my phone! This man found my phone, found the proper charger, charged my phone, called my friends until he found a Korean friend (he doesn’t speak any English) and gave it back to me with everything still intact, all the money on my subway card which is a cell phone charm ps! Haha Only in Korea!
Christmas is fast approaching… I am a little sad that I can’t go home… but I am keeping myself busy. It is interesting with no family, or any snow for that matter, but I am happy. I have received some packages in the mail and I am getting excited to open them!! Only 4 more days!! On Christmas Eve I will be out with my good friend Bryony, then boxing day we are going skiing with my Korean friends… I have a feeling it will be fake snow, but we are travelling an hour or so outside of Busan, so it might be real!! This will be my first time skiing… I am a little nervous!! Then, on Saturday the 27th I am going to my high school friends house Heather and we are making a delicious meal and watching as many Christmas movies as we can until we fall asleep!! I am really excited!
Now to save the best for last!
I told you before that we had a new teacher and I would tell you about him last. We are planning a trip to China together!!! I have some time off the end of Jan, so I am going on a four day trip to China DURING CHINESE NEW YEAR!!! I am going to see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square… and many other things!! I hope this works out well!!! Here is a link to the package deal! http://www.kangsantravel.com/goods/sch.asp I have wanted to go to China since Big Bird went to China on that Sesame Street Special when I was a kid!! I will keep you updated on that trip!

Well, sorry this has taken so long… I will try to be better from here on out… but I cannot promise that! And to my friends in Cambridge, I hope you are having a VERY Merry BURNSY Christmas!!! Wish I was there!!

cockroaches

2008-10-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

So I am stuck awake in my apt with a little cockroach nowhere to be found. I was sitting on my sofa watching a little CSI after a long day of work... I look to my left and right under my drying rack where my laundry is handing is a little cockroach. Of course I freak, but don't really make a sound... don't want to scare the bug, unless I scare it to death that is.... I just want it dead. I try to get close, but get the willies, so grab for my phone and as I talk to my co-worker Rick, the bug takes off and I am left to find it. Rick tells me they are harmless and he will come to my rescue if I find it, but only then. I moved all sorts of furniture around, and no sign. I am stuck awake worried about this blasted bug. I hope he doesn't descide that a slumber party would be a great idea... I swear... if I find one in my bed, or a family of them in my apt, I am moving back to Canada.

So on the rest of my life that I wanted to update on. I went to the International Pusan Film Festival a while back. Ever since I heard about it I wanted to go. It was a driving factor on getting to me to move to Pusan (Busan) in the first place. A co-worker and I pick out a bunch of films and settle on four which titles sound appealing and the couple sentences described on the website spark our interest.
The first one we saw... I really don't know how I sat through the film, and I wish I could have those two hours back. It was the worst movie I ever saw, and strangest as well.. and not even cool artsy strange. I heard nothing but rave reviews about this festival, and I wish I would have picked my films more carefully... so many of my friends had great eexperiences with the festival. Another film we wanted to see was sold out, then another we accidently went to the wrong theater across town and didn't realize in time... then the last one we went to ended up being a bunch of little films put togother. Some we interesting in their own strange way, most were pretty ummm. bad. The best thing about this festival was at the end of our last film, it happened to be the end of the viewings at that theater, so the staff did a side step dance for us. There were about 15-20 workers dancing in the movie theater to music being played from a lap top that was being held up... so you could barely hear the music... it made me laugh. The man spoke a lot of Korean and then eventually turned to the small group of English speakers that were there and said in his broken English, we will now do a dance for you haha. It was cute... they also bowed to us as we left! It made the whole experience worth it. Now for future reference I am going to look up the directors name, rather than pick my films based on their titles.

Oh... some friends from home will get a kick out of this... Kristin Izsak and Jenny Devine to name a few haha... I was walking to work and guess band was playing on the speakers as I walked by this little coffee shop which always has some interesting English tune playing.... HANSON! Are they back with a vengance and I just don't know it because I am across the world? My friend told me that Britany has a new CD and one of her singles is pretty catchy... I think I need to update myself a little... but I think Hanson might be a little far fetched for new releases?

I got my hair cut for the second time in Korea. It only cost me 12 ooo won I think... maybe even 13 or 14... I don't remember... but man... that is so cheap! I spend a lot of my hair in Newfoundand... but I love my hairdresser and it is worth every penny! The guy who cut my hair here knew little to no English.... we communicated through signals mostly. My favourite part was when he teased me about my grey hair and even plucked one out as he laughed at me. Godddd it is getting bad... so bad that I had my hair straight for the first time in months and nicely pinned back... one of my kids said "Sherry Teacher... you Grandma?!" wonderful.

October has been another crazy month. We had a teacher leave early and we had to take over her classes. I teach so much... I am looking forward to November. Especially where I am finding it hard to catch up on sleep this month. I was pretty sick for a while and sleep is just never sound. I had a flu, and my fever stayed for two nights, so I went to the doctor. I really don't like going to the doctor, and here it is hard because I have to go with my boss, so she can translate for me.... well I decided that for this particular illness I wanted to go alone, since I didn't want my boss to be listening to all my bathroom problems. I went to the Doctor who I saw last time I was sick, and I remembered his English was good. Well.. he ended up calling my boss, have the number on file and I didn't even realize... so she knew everything anyways. Then, after that humiliating experience, the Doctor takes me to the nurse, who then takes me to this little room. She pulls a drape a little, but doens't bother to close the door... so anyone who came into the front desk of the clinic could see me. I had to pull my pants down a little and I was given a needle in the bum to take away some of the pain I had from my flu. I hate needles... and I had to get one in my bum. Not fun. haha

That is all I can think of that I wanted to say, other than I have this new class now, and they have to give me English diaries every Wednesday... some said they loved their new teacher, but one called me a witch. I guess that is what happens when I make them do their work.. and even when they are done their workwork book surprise them by getting them to open their student text books and underline all the nouns on the days reading hahah. I can be a hard one sometimes!!

Well... happy October... I can't wait till the end... we have our Halloween party, and a new month with less classes to look forward to!! :)

a new month, a new post

2008-10-13T02:09:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend was wonderful!
My Friday was a great start. I went to this cute tiny little bar with my couchsurfing friends and saw an equally cute band play! (and when I say small bar, I mean small.. like for those of you who have ever been or seen my house in Cambridge, imagine my living room and dining room... it was smaller than that!) They were WONDERFUL though, and even the size of the bar didn't seem to cause any hostility with everyone shoulder to shoulder... everyone just danced! They had drums, a guitar, a saxophone.... I don't remember the rest... probably a bass. The mood at this bar was so good... everyone was dancing, and the music was upbeat... at one point they even sang the song "No Woman, No Cry..." These are the days that I wish I had a working camera and I could post a video... I promise soon! They even sang the song "What a Wonderful World!" The band was a Korean band too.. it was nice to hear them sing a few songs in English!
I made friends with this group of guys standing and dancing behind me, they were Korean and didn't know a lot of English, but had a bongo drum and liked to dance haha! It was fun! It was really interesting to see one of the guys with the drum have a large tattoo on his neck... that is a very visible area, and here in Korea it is really frowned against to get tattoo's, but mostly frowned upon by the older generations... young people are starting to get them and you see them more and more...
I didn't drink that night, but ended up making it a late night anyways... not always a good thing when you have to wake up super early to plan for sports day! I went to bed around 2am, and I had to be at sports day bright and cheer eyed for 9am. You better believe I was bright eyed regardless of my sleep! Sports day has been, hands down, my MOST favourite experience with my school. Hands down.
I will give you a little low down. We got there early to set up and we see a sound system set up with a MC... and it is at this elementary school with a cute little track.
All the teachers lined up along with four other YBM schools at different tables, and we were expected to run up and cheer loudly and greet our students. We all wore matching long sleeve blue golf shirts, because we were the blue team, then we had to give our students wrist sweat bands. Then, give them name tags for them and their family members. This was a whole family event... Mothers, Fathers, siblings, Grandparents!
Once everyone had arrived, we lined the students up breaking them up into their own schools, then their own classes. We had a cheering competition between all the schools... I accidentally cheered for the wrong team... yes... in front of all the teachers... oops. But in the end, my school totally won! Once we did that, we did a grand entrance and watched as a family ran around the track together holding a torch while corny very Olympic style music played! It was pretty entertaining! Once that happened all the teachers went to the front and all the parents stood behind the lines of kids, and we did our wiggy waggy dance. This was seriously humiliating! haha The dance was too funny... of course I danced it really silly to make my kids laugh... mostly because it was too hard to memorize for me! Then once the warm up dance happened we started our games.
I can't really remember the order of the games, but I will most some as I remember them.
We had your regular tug of war, and relay races, which we all won! :) My school was great! However, we also got the parents involved. Mostly the fathers. Here in Korea, and especially at my school since all my kindergarten kids are rich, they never see their family... so sports days happen at all their schools, even public ones, and the Fathers are always heavily involved.
They had one event where all the fathers sat in a circle with their backs facing inside the circle, and the mothers had to run to the opposing team and try to break up their arm grips to each other... it was too funny to see all these women pulling on these men even dragged them out by their feet!
We also had an event where we had to blow up enough balloons to fill a huge plastic bags... like 12 feet tall bag... so once the bag was able to stand upright because there were so many balloons inside, we had to pull them all out and the kids got to stand on them and break them... man they loved that! Imagine getting to pop all those balloons?
Another event had a HUGE blown up ball, I would say like 7 feet tall. Kids and their families had to push this ball around a pylon and back... it was funny to see these little kinder kids trying to help push this massive ball... my most hyperactive kid ended up pushing her ball almost all the way to other team rather then coming back... it was cute.
All the foreign teachers had to line up and do limbo... you would think I would have been good at this... not so much. I was among the worst. I thought yes... my height will help with something... nope.
Another event the fathers held up a cloth banner and all the kids were able to run across it.
The Grandparents had an event of their own, they played corny music, but that had also been happening all day with the MC, they had to run to a pylon and then do a silly dance and run back. It was so funny.
The funniest event was when the fathers lined up, and had to put on a skirt, take off their pants, do a flip on the ground, run around a pylon, back to the line, take off the skirt and put back on their pants and pass the skirt to the next father... it was really funny to see these grown men in skirts running around in their underwear! haha
We ended the day (which made me a little sad... man I am such a hippy sometimes) by handing out 2 helium balloons to each child.. they had to make a wish and send it off into the sky. The whole time I thought... what about the poor birds?! Not to mention the environment! Think... we have 7 classes of 10 students.. and there was another large size school there, and three small ones.

Well.. there is more I want to write... so I will continue this at a later date.. I must get to work!! I have to teach a class in 5 minutes!

Field Trip and Maskdance Festival.

2008-09-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

So, just back from an amazing weekend in Andong. I HAD to blog right away so I wouldn't forget anything, or not get around to doing it.

Lets start off with my Tuesday night... this is where my story begins. I finish work on Tuesdays at 4:30, so I went home and did some house work, relaxed, then went to my friend Heather's house. Heather and I went to high school together, and she is one of the most amazing women I have ever met, and I always feel so energized after I hang out with her. Well... I get to her place around 8pm and we make supper (soooo yummy by the way, Kimchi, Tofu, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Pizza and Mandu... a FEAST!) Then we decide to fix my couchsurfing page that I never got around to updating... everyone knows how computer savy I am (NOT!) and the site confused me. Well, she is a pro and got it going! :) Then we put on a movie, the same escapes me now... but I loved it. It was about a cop in South Africa who robs banks during the apartheid. It was great!

Well, after being at her house I felt really good about life, being in Korea, and had good conversations too... Heather is really good for that! The rest of my work week flew because on Thursday we had a field trip... and it was a short day.. then Friday.. well Friday is Friday!

Now, let me tell you about my field trip and how amazing it is! We went to this farm and dug for sweet potatoes and picked peanuts that were already dug for us. The kids had so much fun. Each of them wanted to dig the biggest potato, but didn't know how to use a shovel.. haha I did most of the digging, and when we found bugs and worms in the ground they all squealed as I head it up and taunted them with them... I know.. I am so mature... haha but they secretly loved it.. haha I am sure. I had also never seen how peanuts grew before, so that was really interesting to see.
The kids laughed at me when I tried to say Korean things, and they tried to get me to say things and laughed when I said them very wrong. At lunch, just like any Field trip they all wanted me to try their lunches and what their parents made for them. They love when I try Korean food with them. I have actually started to eat lunch with them everyday... I like it because I can see the children really trying to use their English, I get to eat free Korean yummy food everyday, and the kids make me laugh. On the way home from the trip all the kids wanted to sit next to me and play games... so we played the ABC game.... but I changed it because they are getting too good at it... all the ABC game is, is each student says one letter until we get to end, if one says it wrong, we start all over again and the student who said it wrong is out until the next round. Well... this time they had to say the letter, but also a word that started with that letter. They are getting REALLY good at it.. and I think it is helping with their phonics.

Speaking of Phonics my class has always been pretty below the other classes with their English, but slowly they have been getting much better. They were recently tested along with the other classes, and did much better than everyone else suspected! :) I was proud!

Anywho... remembering back to Tuesday where I updated my couchsurfing account with Heather, I received an e-mail from the guy who organizes the Busan group here welcoming me to the group, we pass a few e-mails back and forth and he ends up telling me about this event on the weekend. (I get this e-mail on Friday night at work... the event is the next morning...) The event is for the Maskdance festival in Andong... Andgong is about 2 hours away from where I live, and also in the e-mail he tells me that we will be staying in a Traditional Korean Village. Of course I jump in on that adventure and get my friend Allison on board as well!

So, Friday is a goodbye party for my friends April and Michael. There is no way I missing that because my introduction to Korea has largely rested with them, and I wouldn't have felt so welcome without them. I met a lot of really fun people, and done and seen some great things because of them. This is how I started going to the Socrates meetings. They got me to join. Well... I went 20 min on the subway to their party to only stay for about an hour... but I am so happy I went. They will be missed.
The next day I wake up at 6am after getting home at 12:30am because I have to be across town for 7:30 to catch the 8am train... I have to meet people from couchsurfing who I have never met, but extremely excited. Allison I met up eagerly, go to the bank and then end up missing out transfer stop on the subway and it results in us being late for the bus, and missing it. Thank god for cell phone reception in Korea, because otherwise I wouldn't have found Pablo (my host!) We get to the festival late, can't find Pablo, because I am terrible with directions, but decide we want to look at a lot of these things on our own... (p.s: the bus ticket was only 15 dollars!) We have so much fun... we see masks from all over the world, eat an amazing lunch (chicken still on the bones, glass noodles, some veggies, and this spicy sauce all cooked in the same bowl... Apparently a very Andong dish), we paint a mask, watch kids on the stage practice their takewondoe (so cute!) and watch some cultural dances... around 5:45 we think it is probably a good time to call Pablo again so we can find out about where we are sleeping... I know I leave everything to last minute!
Once we call him he tells us we have to run to catch the 6pm bus since it is the last one to the village. We met a guy named Eric during one of the dances, he was couchsurfing himself in Korea aside from that group we came with and helps us find the bus... we didn't want to miss that since we had no idea where the village was we were sleeping at! haha We get on the bus, and realize... wow... we have no idea what these people look like who we are meeting. I get a phone call from Pablo asking where we are, and he happens to be sitting right across from me on the bus! haha Great turn of events!
The bus ends up taking 40 minutes to get to this village, but it was neat to look out at the window and really see Korea outside the city. I saw houses that looked more like shacks and rice fields EVERYWHERE!
We get to the Village and head straight to the house we have rented (we rented a house and two rooms from another since we came with about 22 people!) People actually live in this village, and they rent out their homes for people to come stay in... this home in particular cooked us supper! We had the same thing for dinner as we did for lunch... but that was perfect because it was soooo good! After dinner I really had to use the washroom, and it turned out to be a Korean style looking toilet (on the floor), but this one was an outhouse... (now.. some may not want to read this... so skip to the next paragraph... )but I would much rather use the outhouses at campgrounds I have used when camping growing up, or even the ones when camping with girl guides... this one was smelly... and mastering a Koren style toilet... haha difficult when you are a girl! Especially clumsy! Well, to make this experience worse... it was that time... yes ladies, that time. Imagine, an outhouse. A standing style outhouse. A smelly standing style outhouse. A dirty smelly standing style outhouse. A dirty smelly standing style outhouse with no toilet paper... A tampon. Enough said.

Once that experience was over we get ready to go to the river for fireworks, but before I go I bump into the couchsurfer I met in Toronto who introduced me to Korean food in Little Korea in Toronto! What a small world! So anyways... I went to the river, the river at night here was BEAUTIFUL! We could see stars!!!!!!!! I haven't seen stars in a long time. There were mountains everywhere, and you just felt like you were really in nature... the smells were beautiful... I really missed the smell of real fresh air. The mountain had some lights on it so you could see it, but it also had wires from one end of the mountain to the beach. From the wires they had attached slow burning fireworks... I don't really know how to explain slow burning fireworks other than they look like a very long burning sparkler... well these were pointed down towards the sand, and it seriously looked like it was raining fireworks. It was beautiful. There were hundreds of them tied to 5 or 6 wires. I had some friends take photos, but they really don't show you how it really looks.

After this experience of sitting on the beach and just watching this we head back to the rented house. It is only just before 9, but I am super tired. We thank everyone for a wonderful dinner and Pablo show us to where we are sleeping... we were sleeping in this little tiny room that you had to slide the doors open and duck in. I am 5 feet tall and I had to duck! Anyways.. we were provided with one blanket and one pillow each! :) And thankfully our floor was heated (that is house homes are heated in Korea). It was cold in the mountains and I wore a hoody for the first time since getting to Korea! I slept in this room and could even hear the crickets... It felt so nice to be in nature. However, since we were travelling with 22 couch surfers we had three others join our sleeping space throughout the night. It felt like I should have been watching television, but I was living haha.. One guy came in throughout the night to find his wife, she had come in an hour or so before him and he was pretty drunk... and was mad at her, and kept talking as if no one was in the room.. ahah she was so embarrassed, but it was harmless... mostly hearing, "Vicky, why aren't you talking to me... where were you, I looked everywhere, it was cold, Vicky talk to me... Why are you being so mean" for almost 30min haha. Then.... the snoring started. I never thought that a human being could make those noises before! haha Thank goodness I am a very sound sleeper and could fall back asleep after a while, but man.. if anyone knows how I sleep.. not much can wake me.. snoring may be one thing, but it has to be loud... this was unreal! She apologized for him in the morning because he was still sleeping, but I told her not to worry.. :) It all comes with this type of travel, and I have loads of patience!

In the morning we woke up early, used the outhouse, this one had toilet paper... thank goodness.. then adventured around the village... it was so beautiful in daylight, they even had a little information room in which we were told all about Queen Elizabeth's visit! Interesting eh?

We went back to the festival, made some more crafts, RAN to the bus, almost missed it again, and now I am home ready to start another work week! :)

Miss you all, and will post pictures from this amazing weekend as soon as I can. I have no Internet right now... my stealing wireless signal days are over and I am going to have to pay like the rest of the world...I am hoping to have the Internet by Tuesday... that might be wishful thinking!

My Sunday night

2008-09-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Hello readers!
It is a little late here, but I must tell you a little about my weekend before I go to sleep!!

first a little story before I get to my day today:
One of my close friends from home Kylie, her university roommate moved to Korea, so I met up with her to give her a nice welcome! It was nice to meet someone that knew someone I knew from home! I have Heather here, but the more the merrier! We had a great time swapping Kylie stories!! Oh Ky, I miss you!!

Now for today:
I was feeling a little lazy today, but forced myself to do my grocery shopping, then once I was home I was not in the mood at all to cook, so went with my friend Steph to find a cheap place to eat. We decided on this little Japanese place and we would get a cheap 4000won meal. Well... we had to pass by the jet ski repair place on our way there. We said hi to the owner who is really friendly and always talks to me whenever I see him, and has become friends with my friend Steph. He asks where we are going, so we tell him to get a quick bite to eat. He says he is hungry too, so we invite him along. He told us that he was closing his shop in 10 minutes, so to just wait. We wait and end up going with him and his friend. They point to their car and ask us to get in... we laugh since the place is down the road, but get in anyways.
Once in the car, they ask us if we like Swellfish. We think they are saying Shellfish and Steph tries to explain her allergy, but they say no, not shell but swell. We decide to go and check out the menu at least. We drive to Haeundae... which is not far, but the car we are driving in a nice BMW with leather seats and a tv in the front haha. I felt high class! At the restaurant we find out what swellfish is... haha it is actually BLOWFISH! Me, not being much of a fish person feel a little nervous, but agree to try it anyways since I am in Korea, and may never get the chance to do it again. We have three courses along with all of the side dishes... the side dishes are pickles, pickled radish in red pepper paste sauce, some sort of fish thing, sesame seed leaves mixed with red pepper paste sauce and a few others that I can't remember. The first course is a delicious salad with of course shrimp, so we pick that out for Steph, but it also has nice greens (how I love and missed!), peppers, tomatoes and blowfish... oh gosh was it ever good! Then we had fried blowfish dipped in a sweet red pepper paste sauce, then swellfish soup. The soup was pretty good.. however as we were eating it, Steph looks more carefully inside and sees a fish head, and even an eye ball. I have a pretty weak tummy and have to turn away... the men we are with laugh, and he takes it out for her and puts it away. I look inside of mine... and yep... I also have a fish head. Mine was mostly bone, and no eyes... lets hope it wasn't floating in my soup anywhere... oh gosh. Well, mine gets taken out too!! Thank goodness! I continue to eat my dinner since it was good, and try to forget about the head.
Once we are finished, we get back into the beautiful silver BMW and start to drive. The shop owner Mr. Gong asks if we want coffee... it is already pretty late, so I say no since I want to be able to sleep tonight... and I am not a huge coffee person either... he wants some still and asks if that is ok, and we agree. He runs into the coffee shop and gets his drink for himself and his friend, but also comes out with a peice of cake for Steph, since he missed her birthday, and two little stuffed animals for us. haha how cute!
While he is in the store, we try to talk to his friend who knows next to no English and and ask him if we can drive across the bridge where our beach is... he says yes of course and even opens the sun roof! We end up not driving to the bridge, but to the Marnia instead. Mr. Gong asks us if we want to see his boat. So we go and see it. He points to this pathetic looking thing and says, here it is... then laughs and points to a beauty and says that is actually it. We get inside of this 200 thousand dollar boat and they begin to get it ready for driving the sea. We are driving around and see the really rich area of Busan at night. Like the Trump towers, and the hotel and spa for the the VIP gift card his friend gave us to try to sauna! Mr. Gong's friend's friend owns it and so we got a card!! :) Anywho... Mr. Gong stops the boat to show us the jumping fish, it looks so nice at night, and we turn around and head back to the Marnia. As we are heading back a song by Elliot Smith comes on the radio... and it just makes the whole experience so great... and then it gets better.

Mr. Gong asks us if we have driving licences. I said I have one to drive a car at home, but haven't driven in years. He says thats ok, and gets up and lets us drive the boat!!! Steph goes first and he teaches us all about driving boats. After she is done we are closer to the Marnia and he tells me it is my turn. Guess what. I drove this 200 thousand dollar beauty of a boat into the Marnia. Of course I didn't dock it, or drive it close to the other boats... but I drove it through the rocky entrace way from the sea to the Marnia. Yes... Sherry Wyse drove a boat! haha woo! The whole time I just thought.. man I wish I had a camera to show my Uncle Jim!

It has been a while!

2008-09-18T03:48:00.002-07:00

So I have been pretty terrible with updating my blog lately. I am very sorry! Especially after receiving lots of e-mails from friends and family asking for more! So, here is an update!!

I am going to start with the beginning of September… I have a new class. My summer intensives loved my class so much so they all signed up for regular monthly classes! They are a great class, so I am really happy. We also had two extra students join my class. I am pretty sure that these two new students were new to English school because they didn’t have an English name. When you take English lessons here, you are given a name. The teachers are usually left responsible for naming these students. I think that is a pretty important role, as most of these children will keep these names for the rest of their English speaking lives. A name is very important for someone and can really give someone personality. I had a girl student and a boy student. Since it was the beginning of September and I had just missed my friend Jennifer Devine’s wedding and I was a little homesick I named her Jenny. Jenny, you will be pleased to know she is a wonderful student and very smart and doing very well in my class! So, you have a little Korean girl named after you!! As for the boy I tried to name him Edmund after my Daddy, but he couldn’t really say it or spell it all that well and he didn’t like Eddie! Hahah So, thinking about all the men and boys in my family I picked a nice short name in which he could easily spell and remember and pronounce. So I have a student named after my cousin Ben! Ben, you will also be pleased to know he is at the top of the class as well, and loves his name. The Korean c-teacher named him Tim because the first day he was so shy and never told her I had given him a name. In the next class all the other students were calling him Tim, but he told me he liked Ben better!

I went to a baseball game here last week. It was great fun, probably the most excitement you can find in Korea. Seriously. These games are always packed! Once you get to the stadium, all the seats are first come first serve, so it can be madness. Our friend left earlier and saved seats as I ran home after work to change out of my dress clothes. After you are seated everyone makes pompoms out of newspaper, you fold the newspaper in half, and tear it in strips until you reach close the end, you leave some room for a handle and then you roll it. I am not joking when I tell you that everyone makes these. Also, I heard the most cheering I have ever heard in my life at this game, and I lived in rez! My favourite cheer is when you hear the stadium yell “Ma! Ma! Ma!” yep… they are chanting asshole. You can bring your own food and alcoholic beverages into the game, even glass bottles of soju, so everyone gets pretty boozy, which makes it funny when you see the old men dancing, like the man beside us, or when people get up on stage at half time or even as you are waiting for the game to start to sing karaoke! During the last inning everyone in the stand is handed an orange shopping bag. You are meant to blow up this bag and then tie it on your head. It is really funny to see a sea of orange heads! I think the main reason for this practice is because you are allowed to bring in your own food and drinks you can put your waste in these bags and leave it at the door as you are leaving. We didn’t bring our own things to the game, but bought a few beer. It really didn’t make much of a difference because it was still really cheap. One beer only cost me 2000won ($2). I couldn’t read the sign very well since it was all written in Korean, so I befriended the group beside me. During half time they went to get food, and even came back with enough for my group of friends as well. Koreans are so nice. They bought us fish that was molded into tubes that looked like thick noodles that was soaked into this spicy red sauce. It was actually pretty good. Another hit at the game is dried squid, or fried chicken. I have had dried spicy squid before, and it is actually pretty good!

This past weekend was a Korean holiday, which was really nice. I got Monday and Tuesday off of work, so this week I only had to work three days! The holiday was Chuseok, which is like a Korean Thanksgiving. From the amount of gifts I received from my kids you would have guessed it was Christmas! I got lotions, soaps, body wash, perfume, a picture frame. It was lovely! The perfume is very nice, it is a really nice brand I am told called Anna Sui. I like it because it smells nice and the top of the bottle is shaped like a peacock.
From what I have been told and what I have read Chuseok is a major holiday here and it is a time where all families gather together and give thanks to their ancestors for the bountiful harvest for that year. In the morning before they eat they make Songpyoen. This is a rice dessert filled with sesame seeds, red beans, chestnuts, pine needles… they are actually very tasty! We had a cooking class with our kindergarten classes where we made homemade songpyeon. It was so messy, and the kids had so much fun. We teachers in my group even made a bunch, and I was told I made them very well! Which is nice to hear because an old Korean saying says that the person who makes the most beautiful songpyeon will meet a good-looking spouse! Haha
The day before the holiday all my kindergarten classes were playing traditional Korean games to celebrate Chuseok at ECC. We played a jacks game, a game where you had to throw a stick into a long tube, a game that reminded me of hackie sack, and many others… we even got to eat songpyeon! All the kids also came to school wearing traditional Korean gowns… they looked soooo cute! I even got to wear one for a photo with each one of my students! My Camera is broken, so I don’t have any photos, but a friend of mine will send me hers soon! I will post them soon! However, Allie the drama queen and supermodel of the class who goes with her mother to the nail salon all the time to get her nails done told me I looked beautiful! Haha
For my long weekend I went to Seoul. It was really interesting there! Such a HUGE city. 10 million people live in Seoul, and they have 10 lines on the subway! It was madness at times! I took the cheapest bus to Seoul, which most people told me was crazy since it was the long weekend and a regular 5 hour trip would take 10! I decided to take my chances since the ticket was only 19000won, and the train was 50000won. I am glad that I chose the bus. It was actually very comfortable for me (I have short legs!) and it only took me 4-4.5 hours! The train takes 3.5! So I think I saved money there!!!

Once my friend and I got to Seoul we adventured onto the subway to the middle of Seoul, since I was on the East side. It took 30-40 min and I had to transfer subway lines like three times. But I did it!!! We got off the subway in Itaewon. This place is known as the “America of Seoul”. There are a lot of chains there that you would see in America, and the most foreign population I have seen in Korea yet. Walking down the street, I am not kidding you, I heard 5 different languages and about 20 different English accents! We ate Sushi for supper, then went to the corner store and bought a bottle of wine. This wine was only 5000won! We got ready for the night in our hotel, which had no bed! Oh… I had Korean style sleeping on the floor that night. Once we were ready and had a few glasses of wine we went to this cute jazz bar and listened to live jazz music. It was lovely! The music was great, and she even sang some English songs! When she finished her set, it was almost 2 in the morning, so we walked down to the heart of Itaewon and found the hill that many frequent called “Hooker Hill.” Now don’t get any ideas! We went to this bar called “Trance”… they had a Korean Drag show! What fun that was!! These drag queens were beautiful, and did a great job with their performances!! However, there was one woman who was a total train wreck, but hey, you can’t go to a drag show without at least one total train wreck right?!
The next night during my trip we stayed in Insadong (the spelling is probably wrong)… this is a very artsy place and you can buy lots of handmade goods, and that I did!! At one point during my shopping I saw a tiny little parade drive down the street. They were in these little orange motor bike type things with instruments attached all over. The first one had a keyboard, and the rest were various types of drums… I wish I had my camera! My camera is of course broken! The rest of my trip was pretty low key. I did a walk of the the old and new downtown areas of Seoul and saw a street that was made to look like a piano and a walk along the river… we also saw a Palace… I can’t wait to go back there! A friend I went to university lives there… well two friends! And I plan on going on another visit to spend time with them! Hopefully I will have a camera by then!
Well, I am sure there is tons more I could say…. But I am super tired and have a long day tomorrow! Someone I know came to work here in Korea, and after a week couldn’t handle it and left the country… her school was in dire need of help, so my co-worker Brad is covering all her morning shifts, which means I am covering one of his classes for the month!!! Ughhh… tragic turn of events!
Well goodnight all, and I promise to blog more often!

Market play and such

2008-08-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

Hello hello

GUESSSSSS what! I am finished intensives! Today was my last day teaching intensives, and I went out with a bang! We had "Market Play" today. During my intensive month, my classes which were my extra classes I had to give my students these pretend dollar bills when they were good as rewards. Kind of like in the kindergarten class when someone does something that makes me happy I put a heart beside their name on the board. Anyway, we did this all month just for today. Each kid was sent a letter home with a list of things to bring to school... stationary items, fruit, veggies candy, drinks... anways. We made our own market! ANDDD I got to shop! haha Today at work I got paid to help my kids practice their shopping skills in English and I got some sweet treats from it too!! I got a few potatoes, carrots, a peach, a small green Korean pumpkin and some candies... it was awesome. My favourite moment today was when one of my little kids Jimmy (who is a girl, I don't know who named her Jimmy) got me to help her buy some treats. She is VERY shy, but she really wanted a cucumber. Bless her haha.. she is only 10. And that I think is Korean 10.

Another one of my intensive kids Sally had the same sort of thing it seems from her Piano Hogwan. She got some cool things here... pencils, pens, erasers, and she got these plastic rings. She gave me one as a best friend ring. It fit on my pinky ring finger haha. Thomas was really cute today too... of everything at the market today... he was most excited over his bananas!

While I am on the topic of school I will mention that because of intensives, some of my students took the morning class and transferred out of my afternoon class. One of my classes is now down to three students. They are all 8 year old boys. My last class with them I knew it was a class of boys because Bruce looked at me, said excuse me from the table we were sitting at and walked outside... I was shocked he did that in my class, he stood there for a minute then came back in. It was obvious what he did. He went outside to fart. At least he left the room to do so. haha oh kids.

Last weekend I went to Seomyeon with my friend Heather from high school and my friend Sakina after our Korean lesson. Sakina found this group which offers volunteer Korean lessons. These lessons only cost 3 dollar a month! And that is to cover the snacks! Right now I am learning the alphabet! I have some homework to do before I go to sleep from last week actually haha :) I love that I am a student again! This will be great.. I will be able to get around so much more easily and when/ if my family come to visit I will be able to ensure in Korean that there is no shell fish!
Anyways, in Seomyeon we went to a Vietnamese restaurant and then some window shopping, a few book stores, then to a cafe for gelato and Dr. Fish. What is Dr. Fish you ask?
Look at this youtube video Sakina found:
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=H6IpcWRlp78
Now that you have seen that you can only imagine how I felt when I took part in that. My feet are extremely ticklish. I can't promise that if you touch my feet I won't kick you in the face... I am that ticklish. Pedicures and iffy. I went and had a bunch of tiny fish eat the dead skin off my feet. It was the weirdest feeling ever. For the most part I only barely had my heels in. I laughed too hard and made a scene.
The cafe which had these fish had a little library, served gelato, and with my gelato I got butter... why butter? They also served free bread for toast, jam and tea/coffee... it was a nice spot!

The following day I went to my beach just minutes away from my house and just read and loved life. The weather was nice, it wasn't as hot as it had been and had a nice breeze to it. My friend Steph met up with Sakina and I later in the afternoon and then we met up with some of the guys we know that work at the jet ski repair shop right by my house. Steph is friends with the owner. He drove over one of his jet skis and his employee took us out on it. It was my first time on a jet ski... and let me tell you... it is my last hahaha. Just imagine me... already nervous because I am not huge on deep sea water getting on a jet ski for the first time and I am nervous with machines that go really fast. The man who took me on the jet ski spoke very little English. Steph gave me a quick prep lesson on what to do to not fall off and we sped off. I held on to his life jacket and felt myself bobbing up and down a little too much. Not knowing what to say, I said... toooooo fast... I think he thought I said faster. My nerves were shot. So I yelled stop! haha He slowed down and I said... home please haha. He asked if I wanted to go again... haha no.

The man who owned the rapair shop and the jet ski also had one of those banana boat things that you would toe from the jet ski or a boat. Well I handed back my life jacket and said thank you for the ride... then he fastened it back on me while I said no that's ok.. and insisted that I try the boat... and he would go slow for me. Steph convinced me to oink (only in Korea)... so I decided to try it again after not liking the one I had been on in Mexico a few years back. She said it would be a great story. So I told him I would if he went slow... yes. I am a baby. He tricked me.. he went slow the first time, but the second time he sped up, then when we were docking he ensured he tipped the boat. You would think I would be mad, but it was great. I am glad that I was forced out of my element.

I started to feel a little homesick the other night so I forced myself to go for a walk. It was lovely to walk along the beach and think of home and feel happy where I was. It really is beautiful here and it helps to keep me focused. I just sat in the breeze for 30 to 40 min just day dreaming. It was wonderful. It was dark out and the bridge has colourful lights on it at night, it is a pretty sight. As I got up to walk home I bumped into my good friend Cheryl. I hadn't seen her in a few weeks since she was gone to Africa to visit a friend. She brought me back a key chain and a post card! :) I love getting post cards!

A friend from Canada moved to Busan yesterday. Her boss told her to tell me that she was at the Haeundae station at exit 4. So I went there. She has no phone yet or Internet access outside of school. I went to where I was told and waited for hour in a half. I didn't want to leave worried that she was lost in Korea... so I waited. While I waited I met this guy named Ian. We became instant friends and found out that he only lives 45 min away from me in Canada. Wild the people you meet across the world! :)
Well I finally get a call from my friend once Ian leaves for his bus and I am left to wait alone. She only has a minute before the phone cuts out since she is on a pay phone with a small coin, so I ask her what she sees. All she can make out before she is cut off was a building that said 2001. I walk up to a bunch of Korean women and ask if anyone speaks English, one of them did!! I told her I needed to find a building in this huge city which could be anywhere that said 2001! hha she knew what I was talking about and even left her group of friends to help me! Koreans are so nice like that! My friends boss had told her the wrong subway stop for some reason and I was two away. I managed to find her and we went and had a great first Korean meal! I even got to laugh at someone who was just learning chopsticks hahaha.. I have gotten a little better, so it was funny to see someone try it for the first time ever... especially where you hardly see forks here.

Also... side note as I end this entry... as I write this I am hearing Celine Dion blaring... hahah My Heart will Go On... I never hear English music really played around my apt, but today Celine is blaring!

an update in my crazy month

2008-08-21T03:40:00.000-07:00

hello hello
I haven't blogged in a really long time. I have been pretty busy still adjusting, and also my summer intensives are crazy... this is my schedule:

Monday and Wednesday and Friday
9:40-10:10 class
10:15-10:45 class
10:45-11:15 class
11:15-11:45 class

1:30-2:10 class
2:10-2:40 class

3:45- 4:25 class
4:30-5:10 class
5:15-5:55 class
6:00- 6:40 class

7:30-8:10 class

Tuesday
9:40-10:10 class
10:15-10:45 class
10:45-11:15 class
11:15-11:45 class

1:30-2:10 class
2:10-2:40 class
3:00- 4:30 class

Thursday is almost the same except I don't teach from 3-3:45.

However, it really isn't much of a change... I really only have 2 or three more classes than my regular schedule.
I am learning lot about myself by being here. What I can do, and what I want to do. I really think that I can teach. I really enjoy teaching these young kids... especially the 6, 7, 8 year old kids. They are just so much fun. I like colouring flash cards, playing games, and just having fun. My favourite is when you KNOW your student has had an "ah ha" moment. You can just see the bell go off in their heads. I really honestly think that this is what I want to do. So much in fact that I think my calling is to go into primary elementary teaching.
I know teaching here will be nothing like teaching in North America, but I just love being around kids. These kids make me laugh and we have so much fun. In my Courage class I always start the class by asking how the kids are feeling. My favourite response is from a little boy named Mike. He always says really fast that he is "fine, great, excellent, fantastic, then pauses, puts his hand on his chin and slowly says good." And lately he has also been adding that he is power ranger. We then continue the class by writing the date on the board, and then I ask my students about the weather. As I do I draw pictures on the board of the weather, then of me and what I might be doing in that weather. If you know me... you know that I can't draw at all. I draw what the kids call Joulla Man. I believe that is a Korean web comic of a stick man. hahah We draw me at the beach, sometimes I am wearing a tube for the water, holding an ice cream and fishing. Mike then wants his picture too and all the other kids chant until I do. Mike gets me to draw him as superman. I do this in all my classes and the kids just love it... in my Buttercup class, which is my main kindergarten class... and the hardest to teach because all those kids are wild children, I have captains everyday, and I draw a picture of me and the captain... kids look forward to being captain for those drawings, and especially helping me mark workbook.
In Buttercup class when I mark workbook we choose a shape, most often a happy face, heart, happy heart, star or happy star. The kids love to choose which shape they want. The captain also gets to choose which colour pencil I use that day on our worksheet. I love that most of the boys cheer for the dark colours, except for Ricky... He always wants pink. He is sooooo cute. He is always very well dressed. His dad is a doctor, and his mom was the one who bought me that real burberry bag. Well one day he was wearing his ECC uniform rather than his normal burberry getup. The uniform he was sporting this day was plaid burberryish shorts, with a short sleeve pink button up collared shirt, and a red bow tie. I LOOOOVVEEEE when the kids wear bow ties! Well, Ricky runs right up to me and says "Teacher Sherry!!! (with his huge smile), guess who is captain today!" I get down to his level and ask him who indeed was captain... he responds with an even bigger smile, "Ricky is..." then he tells me he loves me and runs away. Today I saw him just after my lunch and we cuddled as we watched sponge bob! :)

These younger kids are so much more fun to teach then one of my teen classes. That class has turned into a nightmare. The kids are so rude, and just don't have the time of day for my class... I have tired everything. I wish I could explain just how crazy this class is. They always have a snarky comment, and try to find ways to trick me and have them not do their work. Let me tell you... it isn't working. I am not giving up on them! This is my goal for the year... These kids will learn something from me! haha I think having this range is really teaching me a lot about educating, and something I definitely will be able to use in the future. My last class I had with them, only 3 out of 4 students were present, but ALL three of them got 0% on their spelling tests. I told them they had to copy out their words 10 times, then I told the Korean teacher to tell them they had to get their parents to sign the test. Yeah, that is right... I was strict Sherry!!

I am so glad to have a break after that class, it helps my energy level for my last class of the day. Those kids are great. I love them. It makes ending my day so good. They are so smart, and they love learning most of the time, and we just have a lot of fun in class. My boss came into my class and asked if they had all handed in their English Diaries, but one had forgotten, which is completely out of character. She is a lot slower than the other students, and doesn't try as hard, but always does her work! I told my boss I didn't get one, but not to worry, that never happens and they are really smart... blah blah blah... I praised them up the yang. They were seriously GLOWING. My boss responded by telling them all in Korean something along the lines of what great students they were. As the class continued you could just tell that made them really happy. We had a great class, and had a few of those "ah ha" moments. This class has the same circulum as the class prior, so I gave them the same test. They didn't do very well on the test either, but keep in mind... this is their summer vacation I am teaching them on... (side note, I only teach a hogwan, (public school), they go to their public schools as well, and also other hogwans like science, math, computers, music.... etc) Anywho... I made this same class write their wrong answers out 10 times and gave them the guilt trip of me being disappointed... these students were so sad that I was upset, they promised to do better next time. I told them they needed at least 6 out of 10 for their sentence tests this Friday, or they would have to write the sentences out 10 times just like their vocab words... although I was strict you could tell that they still loved me. As I leave that class I always tell them study hard, but do something fun! haha they nod their heads look at me like I am nuts and say yesss teacher haha... I always tell them to read books and play outside... they just laugh at me. We have great conversations in class... every Monday I start by getting them to tell me about their weekends, and I tell them the edited versions of mine haha.

I made a little girl bawl today in class. I was so surprised when she started to cry. We were learning about the star shape and the colour purple. I had them all hold their purple colour pencils in the air and as that was happening, little Geena and Allie were talking. I told them three times to not talk, and the fourth time I told Geena she had to move in an extremely friendly way. She looked at me and shook her head. I have learned to not give that much attention, and took her things and nicely just put them on the other desk as I continued the lesson. She stood there, with her things on the other desk and didn't cry, but power cried. I got the Korean teacher, then all was decent... although during our next story reading class she was still a little sad. However, I would take controlling issues like that than what my teens try to get on with any day!
Also, side note. If I ever hear the song "The Wheels on the Bus" ever again, I am going to throw punches hahah. I have heard that song everyday this month. EVERYDAY. And... the kids don't like to sing it... they yell it. haha.. ohhh... but one lesson with that class was so fun.. well two stick out in my head. I made bus tickets, and arranged the seats in the class to look like a bus. I have all the kids bus tickets and roles, when the song came to their part they got to get on the bus... it was so much fun!! Then one of the lines is the parents on the bus go chat chat chat. Well I needed to teach them what parents meant... so at my wits end and having no luck, I bring in my family photo and show my parents to the class. They were soooo excited to see my family! :)

So moving to Korea I have been forced to get used to a lot. I see meat hanging everywhere, the smells are always strong, fish and gasoline mostly. This was an easy adjustment for me... I didn't even care that much when I saw the row of pig heads. However, not last night, but the night before I found something that I will never get used to. I HAD A COCKROACH in my apt! It was the biggest bug I have ever seen. I screamed, I guess typical me, took a picture, again, typical me, however I didn't get close because I was too afraid. Then called my friend Rick who lived downstairs to get it out. I hope I don't get anymore... I hear they travel in packs. I am too afraid to google anymore information!

Over this past weekend I went to Boemeosa temple with some friends. My friend Heather who I actually went to high school with posted a note on pusanweb.com and asked if anyone could take us around and tell us and translate what everything was. It was seriously amazing. One of the best things I have done in Korea so far. My minor in school was Religious Studies, and most of my courses were focused on Buddhism. I loved listening to what things were, and just understanding it! Like when they spoke about Avalokiteshvara the Bodhisattva... I knew what that meant!!! :) I really loved learning about this particular Bodhisattva... in some traditions it is a male, in other this Bodhisattva is female. At this temple she was a woman. Most of the Bodhisattva's are male, which make it so interesting. A Bodhisattva is a sentient being who takes a vow to prolong their own Buddhahood, or enlightenment until all other sentient beings are enlightened. Oh gosh... I can't wait to visit other temples!

Today was a short day at work and I was finished at 4:30 so I went to the post office, mailed my letters, then went to the beach. Today was such a great day. Normally the weather has been insanely humid, but today it was cool... but still pretty hot. I loved sitting by the beach and just day dreaming. It was my favourite part of my day! The best thing was seeing all the people at the beach. My beach isn't as busy as Haeundae... which has been known to have a million people there at one time. A MILLION. Seriously, I went there last weekend, and it was body to body. And you have to rent an umbrella to stay at the beach pretty much... so it looks like an umbrella city... I wish I had my camera with me that day. Anyways, back to my beach. At my beach today there were a bunch of people there, and it is the Korean way to not wear bathing suits. When I went to Jeju, my friend Elena bought her first bathing suit, and Hannah refused to pack hers. We went to a tropical Island! At my beach I saw what I am assuming were students in black shorts, white t-shirts and red bow ties... swimming in the beach. It was so cute.

I went to the Mega mart and bought a new lap top computer. I am pretty pleased about it. I only spend 519 000 won on it, and my friends told me it was a great computer.... I know nothing about technology. I also got a pet fish. His name is Jack. I love him. I sing to him and talk to him everyday. He is so white he is almost clear with a little orange on his head. He is named Jack since Johanna asked me what his name was as I was watching Will and Grace and Jack made me laugh!

OHH... and I solved how the mosquitoes are getting into my place... the bottom of my screen window has an opening on the metal for some reason... I need to get tape... these buggers have been driving me bananas... I swear they have bigger brains then the bugs at home! But once I get some duct tape... I will be in sleeping heaven! :)

I am sure there is TONS more I want to talk about, just can't think of it at the moment...
oh wait...
I made friends with this girl who is from Sierra Leone originally and moved to Korea from the States to work for the military. She cooked us AMAZING African food, and had Sangria... it was wonderful... Also, her apt was the BEST place I have ever seen in Korea. She had two bedrooms, a study, a laundry room, a living room, TWO BATHROOMS WITH SHOWERS, AND A BATHTUB and a kitchen! Plusss... she had a full size washer AND dryer, and a dishwasher... if anyone works for the military... look into coming to Korea... you may just get the best place I have ever seen here! And the people I talked to who all worked for the military said they loved their jobs!

Well... hope all is well.. keep in touch.. and thank you to all who sent me such lovely little smiles in the mail! :)

Where is Teacher Sherry?

2008-08-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

School is madness right now.
I am in my intensive teaching month... I am teaching 26.3 hours a week... that is only teaching... that doesn't include prep time, or just time I am at school between classes and such... madness. Plus in order to get paid for over time you have to teach over 26.5. I am JUST under. :(

However, in my class I need to tell you about my latest lesson with my Wake Up 3A class... and yes, I realize you have no idea what wake up means... it is the title of the book I teach... it is also one of the lowest level books... I believe wake up goes up until 6B.
Anywho. I had to teach the concept of on, in and under. I also had to teach bedroom, closet, dresser, and bed. So in the text book there were various pictures of these items. Also, with these items they had various things on, in and under them. I had to teach, "the boy is in the closet." It made me giggle a little (not out loud though, good god!), the graphic didn't help either with the boy looking sad in the closet and the other boy outside looking weirdly at him. Well, they were just not getting it. I was pointing at pictures, trying to draw them on the board, so finally I started using things in the classroom as props. I took one of the students chairs and stood on top of it... then said, "where is Teacher Sherry?" They all yelled the correct response, "Teacher Sherry is on the chair!" Then I took the chair and put it above my head. Again, this worked really well and they responded with "Teacher Sherry is under the chair!" Very pleased that I got them to understand these concepts after a frustrating lesson, I got to the concept of "in". I couldn't get in the chair (so sitting on it instead of standing) without them confusing it with "on"... so looking around the room ANDDD the only option I had was the closet. I had ten 7 year olds yelling "Teacher Sherry is in the closet!"

Thought that might make you laugh a little.

my vacation

2008-08-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

I am going to start this blog with telling you all something really cute that my Grandmother told my father.
If you read my last blog I said that I was learning how to surf. I obviously told my parents all about it. So, my father then tells my Grandmother one day on the phone. She is so cute.. when he tells her that I am learning how to surf, this is what she said. "With all the stuff she does on the computer, doesn't she know how to use the internet?" hahhah I love it. My Grams is an awesome 92 year old lady! :)

Well, I am just recently back from my vacation. I went to Jeju island for 4 days. If you are ever in Korea, please make time to go there. My vacation was perfectly beautiful. Just imagine an Island that has 4 distinct seasons, but the summer one is very tropical. There are palm trees everywhere, and the water is very blue, even turquoise in places, and every warm! The beaches were so nice.

Our first day there consisted of getting on a boat (cheapest way to travel there, only 38000 won) . We got there a little late, but in plenty of time for departure. The boat was leaving at 7, and we got there at 6:45 to board, but already had our tickets in hand. Soooo... since we were there "late", apparently there was no room for us in the area where we had purchased our tickets (the room that fit 212 people). We were upgraded!!! woooo!! We got to sleep in a room with 21 people. (Bryony counted). We got there, and as the boat left the dock I took some photos and then went back to our room, did some crossword puzzles a friend gave to me, then started to feel a little dizzy. I am known for getting sea sick, so I went right to sleep. All the lights were still on, and people we were teaching my friend Rick how to play "go stop", a Korean card game were loud. I didn't care.. I put my sweater over my head and conked out. I ended up sleeping the majority of the 11 hour trek. It was great, and everyone was so amazed that I could sleep in a state like that.

We arrive in Jeju at 6am. We can't get into our hotel room until 2pm, so first we go to the this botanical garden. It was beautiful. They had so much there.. they had plants, the had birds, they had a cave and they had a folk village. We got some great shots! Also, about the plants.. I always wanted to see how a pineapple grew.. oh.. I got to see one! Anddddd did you know for a kiwi plant to grow they need a male and a female plant?
After the botanical garden we went to the beach close to our hotel.. I slept in the sun for an hour or so then swam in the waves. I loved it. The water was so blue and so warm, and the waves were nice. We ended up meeting some other foreign people there and exchanged numbers for later that week. After growing tired of swimming we headed back to the beach and ordered chicken and it was sent right to our umbrella on the tent. It tasted lovely!

We then went to our hotel room. We hung out there for a little while... but let me tell you the best part. We get to our hotel and there are no beds. None. Can you imagine? We were given a mat for the floor, a pillow and a blanket each. After that 11 hour ferry boat ride I really wanted a bed haha. Oh well.. you make due with what you can right?
We went out to our BBQ area after our friend Elena made Kinchi chige (that is definitely spelt wrong.. but tastes AMAZING). It is a korean soup made with kinchi, onions, and spam with rice. The BBQ she made us was with this Korean green onion salad and pork. It was soooo good. There was a big screen in the BBQ area and they were playing the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks.. I didn't think I would have to sit through that movie ever again after seeing it with Bridget and hating it.. haha it drove us nuts.. so we just drank the beer and soju we brought and had nice conversations while we tried to ignore the film.
The next morning we woke up early to meet our driver for 9am. Once we met up with the driver we went to a million places.. I am going to try to remember them all for you. First we went to Mini land. It is a park that had miniatures of famous places from around the world. I got to see the great wall of china, the taj mahal, the white house, some building in Germany... lots more... but nothing from Canada. I half expected to see at least the CN tower. They even had a little section on dinosaurs, but nothing from Canada haha.
After that we went to a green tea museum and saw tea farms, it was small, and run by the major tea place in Korea, but pretty and nice to see.
After that we went to an art sculpture place and walked around in the sun and saw sculptures. It was nice, but sooooooo hot. But worth it.
We then went for lunch (and my timing might be wrong.. lunch might have been before the art place... oh well..)
Lunch was lovely... I had a sea food soup. I am warming up to sea food. In my soup there were so many different types of shell fish. Oyster, shrimp, crab... and another that I can't remember. There were also peppers and some other veggies. Then a side of rice to eat with the soup.
After that we went to the beach for an hour (we had a tight schedule with our driver and other fellow travellers... so that was cut down on for that day.. :( I was sad... but the day was still fun).
After the beach we drove to two different waterfalls and were able to see the falls. They were very beautiful, not very big, but very beautiful. Especially the second one since it was right beside the sea and emptied out into it. What I didn't like about it was we had to pay a fee to get in. We had to pay to see nature... oh well.. it was nice to have seen it.. even among all the other travellers who were trying to get their photo taken at the same time.. they were very busy spots.

We then went back to our apartment and started cooking again. We made curry rice that night.. it was wonderful! We ate that again outside in our BBQ area... I thank Elena for all the Korean cooking she did for us!! mmmm However, since we had such a busy day I was so tired and went right to sleep that night.
The next day was similar to the one previous with the amount of things we saw. We met the driver at 9:30 and went to love land first. This place was sooo funny. Huge statues everywhere of people doing it. hhaha It was basically a huge stag shop or our pleasures with statues everywhere. It was funny to see... I will have to post the link for pictures once I can get them off of my friends.
After that we went to a folk village and learned about old Korean life. The one thing I remember very well was the toilet. It was near the front of the village, very open with a pig pen beside it. The pig who lived there ate the waste that was put there from the toilet. It was very interesting to hear about that. They also had very interesting houses to keep cool from the heat... made from the lava rocks that the Island has with a thatched roof. The roof has to be replaced every year from all the wind on the Island and it takes a few months to make.
After that we went for lunch and had Korean food. It was BBQ pork that you wrapped in sesame leaves. It was BBQ with mushrooms and onions and had lots of side veggie dishes. There were also a side of a Korean potato pancake made with green tea... that was my favourite!
After that we went to a cave and walked around there... it was interesting and very cold which was nice since the weather was soooo hot.
We then went to sunrise peak... we wanted to hike the mountain, but it was really much too hot. We instead walked around the bottom by the sea. We even got to see a woman diver! She never dived in the water while we were there, but she collected sea weed along the side. This was my favourite experience of the whole trip. It was just beautiful and I had a I love life, I love Korea and life is amazing, the world is an amazing beautiful place moment on the rocks with my friend Bryony. I didn't want to leave... I seriously can't wait for you to see photos of that place.
After that we went to the Women Divers museum. In Jeju the women fish for the community (this is dying down, but still very prevalent on the Island... these women used to travel as far as Russia to fish). The museum was my second favourite. I learned so much about these women and have so much respect for them. They fish for the communities. There are 3 classes of divers.. the lower class are the ones that stay near the coast, but the higher class go into the sea. These women hold their breath for two minutes and dive down to the sea and collect shell fish mostly. When the Japanese invaded Jeju, they even fought with the men to protect their Island. These woman are just amazing!
After the museum we went to a maze park and walked around trying to find our way to the middle. It was pretty cool. We got lost a few times, but we found our way! It was a really neat place, and the hedges were really tall and big..
We then rushed to the ferry dock and took our friends Hannah and Elena there since they had a boat booked for that day and we had one more day.
It was really sad to see them leave.. but we continued with our trip and continued to have lots of fun. We went to our new hotel room... and guess what.. they had two really big beds!!!!!! :) I was soooooooo happy!!! We then decided to drink some of our beers and have a night out. Once the beer was drank we went to an area of town that our travel guide book said would be good... we found this Mexican restaurant the guide book said was good, and man was it ever! We had CHEESE!! I miss cheese!!! We shared quesidillas, fajitas and burritos... andddd drank two glasses of wine each... it was perfect.
From there we found this bar that some locals told us was fun, and free to get into! haha They were playing some dance music and we danced the night away for a while. At some point of the night a Korean band got on stage and played some music. They were a rock band and did a cute side step while they played their instruments!
We decided later is was time to move on so we walked down the main stretch.. while we were there more foreigners talked to us and we randomly met our friend Rob from the beach our first day. He took us to a bar called "Led Zeppelin". It was a good time and there were a lot of Canadians there.
From there we decided drunkenly we wanted to go to sunrise peak and watch the sun come up... so we get in a cab that Rob haled for us not realizing he thought we were going home to the first hotel we stayed at and asked to bring us to the beach where we met. We should have asked the cabby where he was driving!!! We just thought Rob knew where we were going!!! booo... so we ended up 20 000 won later on the wrong side of the Island!! Plus this area didn't have a very good view of the sunrise... oh well.. we slept under the stars for a little while then found another cab to take us across the Island again to our new hotel with beds!!!!!! :)
We got there around 7am and fell asleep until 10:30ish when we decided to spend the rest of our time on Jeju in the sun on the beach. We arrived at our beach and there was some sort of festival happening there and some guys video taped my friend.. she had to walk out of the water, call them over and give them this present that was advertising some event. It was pretty funny.
The beach was lovely, but really windy and blew all this sand in my hair... oh well.. it was worth it.. even though it was stuck in my hair until I got back to Busan to my house.
The ferry on the way home was much better... it was HUGE actually. They had a bar on it and everything. I never attempted any alcohol, but ordered a juice and played a card game with my friends and headed off to bed. I again slept the majority of the 11 hour ride without getting sea sick! Go me! Plus, we were late again this time and didn't have to seep in a big room. We slept in a room with only 10 people!! :)

After getting back to my home I slept until noon. A much needed sleep. After getting up for my day and having a much needed shower I went to the beach near my house to make the most of my last day on vacation. I spent a few hours in the sun then went to the 9th Busan international rock festival with my friends. It was great. They had lots of bands and it was on this beach about an hour away. They had the stand set up with sprinklers all around it since the weather was really hot... I tried my best to hide from those haha.. water and sand equal mud.. and I didn't want any mud haha.
It was kinda weird to be there... the media took tons of pictures of us since we were obviously foriegn... it got kinda annoying to get followed around. We went closer to the band stand after meeting this famousish band called super kids and danced. A group of wet, muddy, funny friendly Korean guys pulled me to the center of their dance circle and wouldn't let me leave.. ahhaha they wanted to watch me dance.. so I tried to flee.. since all of you who know me KNOW I am a terrible dancer! When they still wouldn't let me leave I grabbed Bryony and Stephanie too and we danced while the media filmed us and took pictures of us! haha I might be on the Internet somewhere! Or even TV.. haha I will let you know if I am!
We then decided to go home after the Australian band played since we start intensives next month yuck! But this has been a great vacation and it will have to keep me going for a long while yet! No more time off for a while!

Well folks.. that was my last few days.. a lot to say, and I never really explained anything.. e-mail me if you want to know more! :) I would love to tell you more stories of my time in Jeju!! I seriously want to move there!

Wish me luck with intensives tomorrow!

weekend

2008-07-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while. Things got a little busy around here with test time, report cards and intensives. Plus I was sick and had to go to the doctor!
Well I will start with what I have, the doctor told me I have Bronchitis and Pharyngitis. Basically the infection is in my throat and lungs I am told. The doctor was very helpful and spoke very good English. I even had my first chest x-ray (that I know of, or remember having done.) I was given lots of meds and now I am feeling pretty good. I am done my meds now, so lets cross our fingers that it doesn't come back!

I held off in telling a story because I wanted to ensure Kylie got her passing RN/ graduating present before I said anything.. just in case she read this! haha I went to Nampo-dong for some serious shopping and found her the best fake Louis Vuitton wallet I could find! It is wonderful! Fake designer stuff is huge here, and you can find stuff that looks very real. Her wallet is Paten pink leather that zips up... I hope she likes it.. I bargained for a good price! :) She even had them locked away in a drawer... haha It was a lot of fun!

This past weekend I started to learn how to surf. I love it. I decided it is my new favourite thing.. my arms are a little sore from all the paddling, but it is well worth it! I am going to continue to learn... I will keep you updated on how that goes! It was such a great morning though! I got up at 7 and left at 8 and was in the water by 9:30-10ish... My friend who is teaching me came first in the festival here, so this should be a lot of fun!

Later on that day I went across town to a friends house for a pot luck... it was wonderful... great food, great people, and fun music! I love when people bring their instruments!!
We also went to a bar after where that friend was djing... lots of fun!

The next day I went to Socrates and we discussed the topic: does contentment inhibit progress. Very interesting! I would like to talk more about it, but I have to run and teach a class...

BUTTTT!!!!

JEJU TOMORRRROOOWWWW!!!! :)

Monday!

2008-07-21T04:14:00.000-07:00

MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!!!
Today is my second last Monday until my vacation.. and I don't really count the last Monday because my vacation starts next Tuesday!!!! I can't wait to go to Jeju!!!!

Before I tell you about my weekend I must tell you what I saw a while back and cannot remember if I actually wrote about it or not... A man was driving down the street on his motorcycle with his small child on his lap!!! I almost fell over when I saw that! Good god! Safety?! Driving here is nuts, I have said that before.. and it is apparently pretty easy for anyone to get a license... especially if you are a foreigner... but that is only word of mouth. I have no idea for sure.. I don't plan on ever driving here EVER so I never looked into it that seriously.

So, lets recap, driving is insane.. people drive then look, only follow the light signs when they feel like it.. you have to really look before crossing the street, and you see people driving with children on their laps.
Okay.. I am explaining this, because I just found it to be really weird that you cannot drive a jet ski without a license... not even for recreational purposes... anddd apparently these are hard to get with long wait lists... I just found that to be interesting...

Now for my weekend!!
Friday I was really tired after a long day... my Fridays are insane teaching 11 40 min classes! So, I decided to go out to eat with some of my friends. We settled on a pizza place (I think we were all feeling a little homesick)... it was probably the BEST idea we had yet to eat... well not really, but it was good. The pizza place, Mr. Pizza it was called, had an all you can eat salad bar!!! I was in heaven.. I can't remember the last time I had salad.. and produce here is expensive. This buffet only cost 6500 won for TWO people!! It has lots of veggies, ready made salads, fruit, jello, and even cereal... I was sooo happy. I didn't even need the veggie pizza we ordered! (So I took it home and ate it the next day! mmmm!!!)

Saturday started off well.. I woke up at 7am and couldn't fall back asleep, so talked to a friend for a bit, then became very productive. I swept, and mopped my floor, I did all my dishes and washed my bed sheets and hung them to dry on my roof's clothesline. I also read more of my book "The Girls." I would like to say a big thank you to Dianna Thoms for recommending that one.. I lovedddddd it. Seriously I think everyone should read it.
After that was all done it was 12ish, so I went to a kimbap place, bought two and ate those, then went to the subway to meet Heather. She lives about 20 min away from me, so I met her at the seomyeon stop on subway line 2 (http://lookatkorea.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/busan-subway-map.jpg) I live at the Geumnyeonsan stop. After meeting her we switched to the orange line and took it all the way to end and went to Nopo-dong... not be confused with Nampo-dong (where all the shopping is). Nopo-dong is where the bus station is. We got to the bus station which took 35 min and then got on a bus to Tongdosa which took about 45-50 min. Once we got to Tongdosa we took a short cab ride and it took us to the Tongdosa Buddhist temple!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongdosa here is the wikipedia site since I don't have any pictures yet. Heather had her camera, so I will steal them next time I see her.
It was BEAUTIFUL there and had so much fun! We walked around, read about the Temple (this is something I have wanted to do pretty much since I went to a Unitarian Church in my pre-teens and started to learn about world religions!) We went into the gift area and I even bought incense! I have Buddhist incense from a real temple!!! :)
We were taking pictures by this pond thing where you throw change into it for dreams to come true when this older man from Ulsan (South Korea) came up to Heather and I and wanted to have his picture taken with us. This happens a lot... seriously when you live here you get stared at a lot, approached just to say hello by kids who just run away giggling because they are happy they got to practice their English, or asked for photos.
This man turned out to be a non-governmental diplomat... whatever that means? He told us that if we ever wanted to go to Ulsan he would show us the sites... he said there are many beautiful things there...
Heather and I then continued our adventure at the Temple and even said hello to a few monks who lived there. One in particular stuck his finger in the air and waved it around in circles and this dragon fly just followed his finger... it was actually pretty cool! We then walked to this grassy area before we left and ate apples and just read our books in the sun. It was a great day!!!

My Sunday was although not very great. I woke up and went to Socrates. Which I love going to!!! This particular conversation was about truth and falsehoods... I wasn't completely into it because I have gotten so sick, so instead of going with everyone to eat afterwards, I went straight home.
I napped until 4, woke up and decided I still wasn't better then napped again until 6. I woke up and finished my book and then let myself sleep for the night at 9.
I woke up this morning feeling much worse, but I still have to make a living, so got ready for work and now I am going to the doctor with my boss tomorrow morning! I think it is just a chest infection, so I just want him to listen to my chest. I even got a fever today in class, and so I just want to be safe. I will update you on that tomorrow. I am told the English at the Doctor's office is pretty good, so wish me luck!

Before I leave, I also want to apologize for my terrible grammar and spelling... I know you should expect more from an English teacher.. first of all I know I can't spell... we grew up in the day of spell check.. but I am so rushed sometimes that I don't get a chance to do it... sorry! (This is for you Scott who brought this to my attention this morning! haha) This also explains why most of my stories are at face value rather being too in depth as I would like to do... I think I need a computer haha.
Now I must go home and sleep!!

byeee!!

correction.

2008-07-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

correction.
In my previous blog I said my berks were 4100. I meant to say 41 000. hahahah Well the ones I got were 47 000. They are amazing and my feet love me.

Yesterday was a great day.. I had this thing called Ugane... it was chicken, veggies and fried rice with some sauce and kimchi... it was amazing... then I had ice cream with pop rocks in it haha. YUM!

I always walk past this construction site on my way to work.. they are building a new school... construction here scares me. They climb scaffolding without any protection, and even cut metal without any eye wear.... scary. Yesterday it looked like the tractor was going to tip.

I also want to quickly comment on my man to man class. The last lesson was called "beautiful men." It was asking opinions regarding make-up on men, long hair, shaving legs, etc...
My university student said that it is ok for men to have long hair, and even shave their legs, but definitely not wear lipstick...but foundation is ok. He said that men who wear lipstick must be gay and he just wants to hit them. I felt a little weird by that, but didn't want to cross any cultural boundaries so laughed and ask why. He said he didn't know, he just did. So I told him to think of why, then left it at that. haha.

Well.. today is Friday! TGIF! :)
Have a good weekend!
Happy First Birthday little Kassandra! xo

Field Trip

2008-07-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

Maybe I am mean...
Today was the field trip day. We went to Omyland... it was a dump of a place from what I saw... a little run down, but the children's museum part was kinda nice... but strange.

Sooo... to the mean part. We were in the indoor playplace which looks just like the playroom here at school... but ours is a little better and we don't have little tykes play piano's with missing pieces... (too much?)
Welll... we were getting ready to leave the building and there was a huge spider.. and I mean a mother of a spider. I was a little squeamish... it didn't help that the other teachers were acting the same way... hard to calm down. I ended up practically throwing a poor little kinder boy in front of me in the process to bringing him to his shoes so we could move on to the next station to protect me from the spider... hahaha Poor little guy! He laughed at me though.. and then Ricky (my buttercup student who got me a Burberry drawstring bag) almost stepped on it with his bare feet.
In the children's museum they had the weirdest things... they had celebrations from around the world posted on the wall, they have old toys, and then a weird statue of Charlie Chaplain... but they also had a room with skeletons (fake looking) in a cage and Dracula in a coffin. A little boy in my class ventured over, so I went over with him so he wouldn't be alone and I didn't realize he was scared once inside, and me putting my hands on his shoulder and saying ouuu didn't help. For the rest of the time there he didn't leave my side. And a little girl Nicole came through with the rest of my class and I had to pick her up and carry her because she was crying so much... but don't worry.. I am not that mean... I didn't scare her! We then went up this weird hallway with carpet and wood and weird things on the wall for you to feel, then pass this door with rope hanging from it to a room a hallway painted with glow in the dark paint. Then you just had to turn around and go back. It was really strange.
In the museum they also displayed a few barbie dolls. For some reason in this small collection they had people from the X files... don't ask.. I have no idea what that had to do with anything.

but to get to this place we had to drive through stop and go traffic then up a windy mountain road... gosh it made me a little car sick!

Well.. I should get going now.. I am done for the day, but I am going to Nampodong to this placed called ABC mart. They have an AMAZING deal on Berks! I am going to get some sandals! They are on sale for 4100 won! (1000 won is equal to one dollar)... remember... my main mode of transport is my feet... I need something comfy with the condition of these roads... and a good excuse for this sale! hahah!

Mutant Mosquitos!

2008-07-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

First of all I need to tell you about the mosquitoes here.
THEY ARE MUTANTS. Seriously. They are smart. VERY smart. I was drove nuts trying to sleep last night. I woke up in the middle of the night and turned on my light and tried to track it down, but it went into hiding.
This morning, right before I went to shower I got it though. It felt so good to finally get him too... he got me good last night.. a few times on my foot, ankle, legs and chest. grrr. But seriously now, every time I go to get them they fly away and hide, then come out to taunt me and ten fly away away again... and picking only the best times to actually get me. They are super-power mosquitoes and I need to do something more... I was fine for a while, and then one day my kids in my odyssey 3B class asked me about my bites, and I said they must be sick of my blood and I don't need to be a mosquito blood donor anymore! I spoke way to soon!

Yesterday was a great day. I went to the beach after work. On Thursdays this month I am done work at 4:30, so I get a bit of sun! :) I met up with my friend and co-worker Bryony and just let it all in. You can see mountains past all the buildings in the distance and it was just amazing to see what a different place we were living in. She was offered a position in a university she had been wait listed for, but decided to finish her time here instead. (This makes me very happy!!) So to celebrate life and living in Korea we spinned on the beach! We were both wearing skirts that flare out really far when you spin.. so we just spinned and spinned until we fell in sand. Life is great! :)

Tomorrow we have a field trip with the kids. We are going to this place called "omyland". I have no idea what this place is... I have heard that it may be some sort of playground... well regardless I am excited to spend a fun day in the sun with my Buttercup class! :)

I had lunch with the Buttercups today! :) They called me "Baby Teacher" because I sat in the chairs with them to eat. haha They were so excited to eat with me! We had chicken, kimchi, radish, rice and soup. It was yummy! :)

I had to go into my friends classroom again today and ask for her CD player.. my Bravo CD player is on the missing list... her kids laughed at me again calling me small teacher! haha They laugh whenever they see me.... apparently I am really small!

My kindergarten lesson this morning.

2008-07-11T04:20:00.000-07:00

This is what I had to teach my Buttercup kindergarten class this morning. Keep in mind they are Korean age 6... so 5 years old.

Final Activity A
Once upon a time, there lived a princess, Sandy. She lived with her family in a castle. She had a father, a mother, a brother and a sister. She was an ugly girl.
But, after ten years, she became a beautiful woman. Many men wanted to marry her. One day, a man came to her castle. "Will you marry me?" said the man. "No, I don't like a tall and dirty man like you." He was so sad.
The next day, an old man came to the castle. "Will you marry me, Sandy?" said the old man. "No, no. I don't like an old man." He became very angry. Everybody was scared.
Sandy was sick in bed because she couldn't find a right man for her. Finally, a man named Randy came to her. He was young and clean. "Will you be my wife?" said Randy. "Sure, I want to be your wife." Sandy was very happy.

Seriously, word for word! So lets play a little game. Who thinks Sherry was happy about teaching this to her children? Who thinks that this story teaches a young mind a valuable lesson? Ok... I am teaching key word vocabulary, such as father, brother, sister, girl, man, woman, boy, and feelings like happy, angry, sad, and scared... but this story put together the way it was... oh gosh... I hated this lesson!

Teacher... why are you....

2008-07-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

Been a bit busy, but wanted to tell you what happened yesterday during my Phonics class with Bravo.
A Korean teacher came in and took my CD player that I was planning on using, so I had to hunt down another player while my kids were left alone in the classroom... with these kids, once they are seated nicely they should never be left! hahah They are bonkers! Well I ran into the neighbouring class, no luck, so I went to the next one. It was my friend Bryony's class. One her students upon seeing me called out, "Teacher, why are you so small?" Hahaha... even here in Korea I am known as the small teacher. The whole class laughed at me.
I get back to my own classroom and feel a little better because Deborah and Ellie run up to me (because of course I had to leave the class unattended and everyone was out of their chairs) and said "Teacher Sherry (which they said like Shelley), you are BEAUTIFUL!" They tell me this all the time! :)

Julie in my buttercup class has also been commenting on my warobe more... everyday she likes something else... and gets me to draw it on the board when I draw me as a stick person after we discuss the weather... (I draw me to show my feelings with the weather, since we are learning about feelings! haha) Steph Power... she lovessss when I wear the bracelt you gave me.. and Jill Saunders.. she also loves our matching braclet! haha :)

I feel like there is a lot more for me to post, but I don't have much time... I have my long afternoon stretch coming up... and I need to make sure I can explain percentages to my older crowd. If you know me at all... I can't even add simple math in my head... this should be fun... at least I am going in prepared!! ughh!! Oh well.. I can do it... I have all my notes with whatever what if question they ask already answered! And I have been told Korean children are amazing at math anyways!

buttt.. yayyyy!!! It is FRIDAAYY!!!! :) (TGIF!!! BIG TIME!!) Last night was the first time I ever thought... ohhhh I hate KOREA! haha I don't actually.. but I have a cold and the air conditioning makes my throat worse, so I turned it off... and couldn't sleep with the humidty.... opened the windows and the mosquitos killed me... then I had really weird dreams.. and ughh.. no sleep at all!! Halls are saving my life right now... and I am almost out of them. I worry that this isn't actually a cold, but my body acting out the the air quality rather.

Nice people

2008-07-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Koreans are so nice!
I have had many great experiences with Korean people while I have been here. During my first few weeks here I had to go to Seoul and got lost trying to find the bus to the train station. I had a man who worked at the 7/11 practically walk me to my stop. On the way home trying to find the subway I had a girl walk away from her bus stop to make sure I found the subway safely, missing her bus in the process. The best part of that was she spoke VERY little English, and I could try to say hello, but that was it. She spoke to me using her cell phone's English translator! :) Oh gosh, and let me not forget my friend from the plane. She texts me and calls me to make sure I am ok! I heard from her yesterday for the first time in a while.. she apologized because she was in China!! She is really nice and super helpful!!

Well the reason I bring this up is because I had another great experience yesterday. (Well a few of them!!) Bryony and I went to Nampodong (I think I spelt that terribly wrong)... but it is a great place to shop and get good bargains. There is an underground shopping area and we were walking along there (Dad you would love it... so many camera shops!) But we walked past this costume jewellery store and the man invited us in... like many vendors will to get you to spend money. He spoke English to us so we went in. When we went in they were eating, so they gave us chopsticks and invited us to try some. Who knows what it was, but it was good! I think it was some sort of pork dish. They also gave us some Soju. (oh yuck!! You see men drinking that stuff all hours of the day).
Later on during our adventure a lady helped us find the electronics area of the market and I bought a Sony CD player for $45! We got a deal! :) It was supposed to be 50... but hey, $5 more in my pocket! It is a pretty sweet ghetto fabulous CD player. It is pink! haha Now that I have a CD player you should send me loads of English music!! :) I actually bought some blank CDS and friends here are going to help me out a little as well! Last night when I got home I listened to Steph's Ben Harper CD... it was magical! I missed English music!

Anyways, after I bought the CD player we walked around a little more. We passed this side of the road restaurant thing and the food looked AMAZING. We stopped and asked the couple who spoke a little English was it was. They couldn't really explain it so picked up some food with their chopsticks and fed it to us! hahaha Then also a taste of their beer mixed with soju to wash it down! haha It was great!

Also, today at work I got a present from one of my students. He was on at trip with his mom and they brought me back a Burberry draw string 150th anniversary bag. It looks a little long, so I don't know what it should be used for... but it's BURBERRY! hahah anddd I am pretty sure it is real.

Well, I have class in about 10 min. I get to teach a phonics class about the long vowel sound i.

Last night

2008-07-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

Last night after work I went to the pizza place beside my apartment. The cooking time was estimated 15 min, so I went up to my room and put away my laundry while I waited which was drying on the rack and the homemade clothes line. 15 min later I walked to get my food and ran into my friend/co-worker Rick. The pizza man was so excited that we were friends and started talking to me! It was great! Of course Rick was the translator since he knows Korean pretty well and I can maybe say "Thank-you" and "hello" on a good day!
I found out that the pizza man used to a pharmacist (there are TONS of those around) and said if I ever had a question to ask him. I showed him my thumb (because I burnt it on friday and it was looking kinda gross... maybe since I didn't have it in a band aid when at work with germy kiddies!) He brought me and Rick into the backroom of the pizza parlor and put ointment on it and a band aid and gave me an aspirin. He also told me if it doesn't get better to come back! haha He even called me his friend in Korean when I left the parlor! :)

I also forgot to mention what some of the public bathrooms are like here in Korea. They are a bowl like toilet thing on the ground that you have to squat over. I usually avoid them since I am terrified on peeing on myself in public! Well... friday night during our 4th of July celebrations Steph and I mastered this washroom! hahah
A funny note. The time difference between here and Newfoundland is 11.5 hours. It can be a pretty interesting phone call at times. Friday night is their friday morning. I called my friend a little intoxicated to tell her about this bathroom adventure and how proud I was that I didn't pee on myself. Embarrassing? YES. Well the best part was she was at work and I was talking loud.

Anyways... off to prepping I go. Today I teach my kids what it means to be scared. We are learning about feelings!

music

2008-07-06T19:32:00.001-07:00

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx_yk-B4Q80

I also wanted to post this link.

This song is HUGE here... and I think you all need to hear what little English music I am exposed to.. haha
I am buying a CD player this week. It is a MUST!

My weekend

2008-07-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello

I had a great weekend. This was our first weekend in a while where it was really nice with no rain at all!! I loved it!
Friday we celebrated 4th of July with our American friends. I never made it to Krazy Burger, but I did go to the beach to light firworks, and clumsly burn my thumb! :(
We met some old friends on the beach and even made some new ones! At a bar called Thursday Party we met some Korean guys who were celebrating their friends bachelor party. He was visiting home from the States and was gettig married the next day. He even invited us to his wedding reception! haha We never went though.
Saturday was a nice day, woke up and went directly to the beach. Ate some kimbap and mandu for lunch and just hung out in the sun. Met up with some friends on the beach randomly (ones that introduced me to joining the socrates cafe). One of April's friends (she is a socrates friend) went to grad school in Newfoundland. We both went to MUN, and of course we played the who do you know game. Since he was doing grad school I named a good friend of mine, and the first name I said he knew pretty well haha. Small small world! He was even apart of the GSU and me MUNSU so we knew a lot of people in that circle too. It is wild you who you can meet on the other side of the world! (Did I mention I also found a cousin here too?!)
After the beach April and Tom took me and our new friend Pete who April found lost on the subway for Vietnamese food. It was AMAZING. You were given this pot and you put the meat in the pot and mushrooms and let that cook then had these thin wrap things you put the cooked meat and veggies in and it was wonderful!
After that I went home to shower and took the subway to Seomyon and met up with April and met some more socrates goers. We went to this rock and roll bar and they were playing some great 90's tunes! Then once we tired of that we went to this bar called Vinyl. It was a lot of fun!!
This is an internet explaination of this bar:
Vinyl UndergroundLocation: Near Bukyoung University. Take the subway (Line 2) to the Bukyoung/Kyoungsoung station. With your back to Kyoungsoung at the T-junction, walk toward Bukyoung University on the left side of the main road. Turn left at the "TTL" shop (the next-to-last street before you reach the Bukyoung campus). Walk past Monk bar on your left ( about 100 meters up the street ) and make a left, its right there on your left hand side. Look for the banana.
Review: What can be said about the Underground? It has really been "the" place to party on a Saturday night for a couple since it opened. There's an awesome line up of live DJ's spinning music of various styles on Saturday nights. DJ's come from Seoul and beyond to play for the typically jammed dance floor.
There's lots of live music on the weekends as well. Mojo plays here, as well as bands from Seoul like Heady, and the occasional relatively big named (Korean) punk band. The stage is large and set apart from the rest of the bar a little bit, and there's plenty of room to stand, sit, lounge, talk, check your email, dance, or sleep ( only in Korea ). Great drink prices, considering the alcohol content, the standard 'DongHa' pour, and they have draft beer as well as an assortment of bottled beer. The staff is super friendly and English speaking.......the place to be in Pusan.

Sunday I woke up and went to my first socrates cafe. The topic chosen was "is sexuality a social construct". It was really interesting to hear differing views of this topic. The group consists of many different people, and the main man who runs the group is a masters university student who studied philosophy. Sometimes it felt like I was back in a university class... I loved it. It was also great to hear the views of the Koreans that went, especially since sexuality is a very hush topic. I can't wait to go next week and see what topic gets voted on then.
After that we went out for some yummy food.. went home, got a funny phone call from home, then went directly to the beach where I stayed until supper time.

This weeked was really fun, and this week at school will be less busy since I am in the swing of things for the new month and new books.
Well I must be getting to my prep!

toodles!

Happy Birthday Lisa.. and Happy Korean Birthday Dad!!! :)

Oh, also... TODAY IS PAY DAY!!! My first pay day! I shouldn't be too excited yet, since I haven't gotten my bank card yet, waiting for that in the mail. Going to the bank was surely an adventure too. They bow to you when you enter the building, and they spoke no English. I was taken by the secretary at school. I just signed what she said I needed to do... the whole process felt a little weird since I didn't really know all the time what I was signing. Good thing I trust my employer!

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

Today is the 4th of July. We have a few teachers here from the states, and a friend in a neighbouring city who is from Henderson Nevada. She is close to the same age as my cousin Cody... but she dosen't know him... but I thought that was interesting.
Anyways, the plans for the night is to go to Crazy burger and eat gormet burgers, then go to the batting cages then back to the beach for beers... should be an interesting night, we tried to make it American! hahah

Also... I have heard that my Mother is sending me a package... I sent her an e-mail and told her that I am going mad without anymusic.... Steph has a CD player.. and I am thinking about getting one if I find one cheap. I look on Pusanweb.com... a lot of teachers are leaving now, so you can get things cheap there... anyways... if you are so inclined to make me a CD... I would love that... just get in touch with my mom and maybe you can send it altogether to save on shipping!!! :)

My friend Steph thought that she might have a shellfish allergy because her eye gets swollen sometimes.. and we thought maybe it was from that.. that was cut out from her diet as well as red pepper paste (just in case) which is not easy!! (Watch out Dad if you come! I will talk to my Korean friends and get translations for allergies!) Buttt... her eye swelled up again... soooo nursing friends.. we think it is from the air quality now.. what do you think? This has happened four times! She is going to see a doctor soon... but it is hard with the language barrier sometimes. My friend Rick had to go because his ear got infected and he ended up missing two work days because of the mis-communication about his meds from his doctor.

Well.. I have my last class in 10 min! Have a good weekend everyone!

yesterday

2008-07-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

I was walking home yesterday from school after forgetting my keys and phone.. well.. this guy that hangs out at the restaurant beside my house talked to me... he normally says "Hi, Sherry." But yesterday he needed to tell me how beautiful I was. I laughed and said thank you. He looked hurt and said "No joke, you are really pretty! I never realized that until today" hahaha

I also took an adventure to the Mega Mart last night to pick up a few things. Man... going there at night is surely an experience! That is when the food starts going on sale and everyone is mad... they push. That is common here. I walk down the street and if I am going to slow people have no problem to push me out of the way! haha

I have deicded to join this club called "Socrates Cafe." It is a bunch of people, Koreans and foreigners that get together and talk about various issues.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4766189585
This is the facebook group made for it. The last topic was memory and personality. I met some people who were in the group and they were super nice and made me really excited about it. Memory and personality was a topic that I talked about a lot in my last semseter of school... and I find it so interesting.. I am reading a book called "The Girls" by Lori Lansens it follows the whole idea of not really being able to trust your own memory, and memory is more of a creation rather than a recollection.

But I have to teach a class soon... So I must be going.
Happy Canada Birthday Johanna! :)

Mike, Rachel, Sandy and Sarah... I heard you read this blog... I miss you!! :)

random

2008-07-03T03:27:00.000-07:00

I came back to work because of course I forgot my keys and phone. However I am proud. This is the first time I have misplaced something. I know you are impressed!! :)
Today Steph and I went out to eat after work.. we found a Chinese spot, it was really good. Some Korean guys we randomly bumped into on the beach helped us find it! I like making new friends who are very helpful. They knew to ask the right questions too.. haha along the beach the food is usually quiet expensive, so they helped us find a spot in our price range! :) The bread appitizer was interesting though... it was bread wrapped in the same dough that they wrap mandu in... it was plain... but it was good to dip it in the sause from our chicken!
But I did think of something I wanted to mention. Back on the subject of my Man to Man class. (The class where I tutor the university student.) Today we talked about lucky vs unlucky things. He knew about four leaf clovers... but didn't believe in them... the same problem as the tarot cards... his girlfriend broke up with him! haha However, I did learn something interesting! If you dream about pigs you will come into great fortune (money!!) :) Lets hope we all dream about pigs! And for those of you wanting babies... dream about dragons. But don't dream about getting money... that is very unfortunate!
And one more thing that I needed to post... Rebeccah, this is especially for you! I was watching tv and a commerical for the station came on... they had a preview for some of the movies that would be playing.... some examples are pirates of the carribean, harry potter and then some for some action ones that I didn't recognize... some of my friends who like law and order, CSI and action films would like tv here... that is on ALL THE TIME! I either watch CSI or childrens stuff.
Anywho..
the song to go with that was MIKA LOLIPOP! hahaha!!
Johnny Depp was even made to wink!

Well gotta run!
xo

new lessons at ecc

2008-07-02T03:10:00.000-07:00

Okay... this will be a funny post for those of you who know me well.
Let's play a game...
What am I most scared of?
If you answered with the word snake.. (as I normally call them s-words) you get a prize. Post back if you knew the answer and maybe I will send that to you in the mail! haha

So. This is the story.
It is a brand new month here at ECC and I went into class with no idea what books I was teaching... we couldn't seem to find them. I was told my book was called "We went Walking"... but it is actually called, "I Can See." In class we read this book about different colours and animals who are those colours and carry out various activities to help with comprehension.

Okay. I am in class. I found the new book. We open it up, and I read aloud to the class. A few pages in, what is dead center in the middle of the book? The biggest flipping yellow s-word I have ever seen! NO JOKE! What am I supposed to do? I mean if you know me well you know that this fear is actually a phobia and I can't even see a picture of this creature without feeling nervous. I can't act different... can you imagine if you were my student and you found out this valuable information? Put yourself in the shoes of a kindergarten student. My teacher is extremely afraid of snakes, what do I do? Answer: EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO SHOW HER SUCH PICTURE EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY!

This is going to be an interesting month. (SIDE NOTE: This stupid I can see yellow s-word is HUGE and its' mouth is open with fangs ready to attack.) Thanks ecc... too bad phobia's couldn't be added to contracts!

My day ended well though... my last class of the day is really fun. I have told you about this before. I have a university student I tutor. He comes to class everyday with his own material, so I don't have to prep a thing! Yes! :)
In his class the lesson was about fortune telling. I asked him if he understood what that meant while we looked at pictures of palm reading, astrology, fortune cookies, crystal balls and tarot cards.
His response was comical! He said that he knew about the crystal ball because of Whoppi Goldburg in some movie I don't remember, fortune cookies.. well I guess because everyone knows about that.. and tarot cards because he knows it is all lies! haha I laughed and asked why he would say that.
He told me he went and he hated it. He said, two years later he still wants his money back! He told me he had a girlfriend, but not anymore. The tarot lady said he was a "play boy", a guy with many girlfriends. His girlfriend said he was crazy.. but he said no no no! (Of course all of this is explained with a lot of gestures and broken English). It turns out, she was the "play girl" and this fortune teller got it all wrong. He partly blames her for his life being single hahah. He won't go back.. it is all lies and makes me have no girlfiend he says! hahah. Give me my money back, 5000 won too much!

Now for my last class of the day! The bell just went!

Pop Song Contest Day!

2008-06-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

So Thursday and Friday were amazing days here at ECC! It was the Pop Song Contest!!! :)
It was for the older kids that I teach. Over the last few months they have been practicing songs and dancing to perform for us and we got to vote on the best class.
I am proud to say that my Carnival 5 class came in 1st place for the 3-4:30 grouping show! :) I was a proud teacher!!! :) I am going to make them little cards that say "yay, you're the best" haha or something just as corny! :)
This is how the contest was organized. Thursday there was one showing of 4 or 5 songs for the classes of that time.. then on Friday it was the huge event.
From 3-4:30 we listened to 12 classes
from 4:30-6 we listened to 12 classes
and then from 6-7:30 we listened to 10 classes

it was a long day...
here were some of the highlights:
My class came in 1st at the first showing for "Superstar"
my other class came in second in the second showing for "Way Back into Love"

One class, who came in first during the second showing sang a song from Annie... they were so cute and the dance was perfect and they all wore little scarfs around their necks as they sang "tomorrow"

The language barrier was funny for a few things. A class sang the song "Itsy bitsy Teeny Weeny"... but accidentally wrote Itchy Bitchy on the contest form...
Another class sang a song with lyrics that read change the world, but Koreans have a hard time with that word and sang "Change the Word"... I know it is terrible, but Steph and I laughed because yes... they were changing the words!!! hahaah

This weekend was a pretty relax weekend. I got a few hilarious phone calls from home... I made travel plans for Jeju (my trip at the end of July) and wrote out sooo many of my monthly report cards!

Jeju is going to be a lot of fun. The trip is only going to cost me about $300!! And with that we have the boat, a car rented with a driver and a hotel for three nights, my spending money and money to feed myself!
These are a few places we want to visit
-The national park
-Sunrise peak (I only wish we could see this at the sunrise... but it is beautiful regardless) You take this hike and you see the land which is amazingly beautiful and if you get there early enough you can see the women divers swimming in the water (even when freezing cold) with no gear just catching the fish for their matriarchal community!
-a folk village
-a folk museam
-some statues made from lava rock
-and a hilarious museam called "loveland"
http://www.jejuloveland.com/
http://www.jejuloveland.com/html/eng.html
http://www.jejuloveland.com/html/intro04.html

I am pretty excited for my trip to say the least! It will be four foreign friends and two Korean friends as the Korean teachers write as we plan our trip! haha Our first night together they are cooking Korean BBQ, then the second night we are in charge of supper... ingredients are hard to find here.. so I think we have decided on spaghetti and garlic toast! haha

Well.. today is activity day for my classes who have not been tested already, so I better get started on the activities I have planned!
Toodles!

forgot to mention

2008-06-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

something I forgot to mention!

When the kiddies were eating cake they had to share this huge peice together... they all ate it with their little chopsticks and starter chopsticks... it was truly an amazingly cute sight!

annddd... so I didn't know anything about bathroom policies in Korea... and my friend was compalining about her drain.. she said it kept on clogging and she said someone must be flushing toliet tissue down the drain. I had NO IDEA that you couldn't do that here... so it was meee!! hahah

Now I have a trash can beside my toliet.. you have to discard all tissue waste there... in public bathrooms it really makes me sick! yuck!

Well.. I gotta get back to work!! I have another test to give today!

Stay tunned though.. tomorrow is the start of the pop song contest! I wish my camera was alive and well for me to show you videos!! hahaha This will be the best day ever!

Today in the life of Sherry Teacher

2008-06-24T02:30:00.000-07:00

Today in the life of Sherry Teacher!

Today was June birthday month!!! :)
It was seriously the cutest thing ever. All the kinder kids went into the play room and the teachers who had students with birthday's in June got to walk them to the stage while a room full of 80+ kindergarten kids sang happy birthday in Korean. They had party hats on and everything!
I got to walk up three students. One of the little ones names was Brian. He is one of the cutest kids I have ever seen! He has the cutest smile ever! (It is probably the biggest smile I have ever seen on a child!)
One all the kids were on the stage we sang in English with the piano and the kids blew out their candles! We had soooo many cakes, and then also every kid in the school got a little chocolate cracker box gift to take home and we had yogurt drink, fruit and this rice cake treat. This treat was sooooo good. The rice is kinda fused together with this sweet chocolate type filling. On the outside it looks a little like an uncooked perogie! (made me think of you Miss Ashley Gilbert! Perogie and chocolate... hahah)
Once the candles were blown out each class went to the front to perform the talent portion. My main group of kinders sang a song about family since we are learning about parts of the family. The sister part was the cutest part.. they sang.. this is my sister and flipped their hair like a vally girl! haha!! Allie the little drama queen did the best!
My favourite talent group was the class who had nothing prepared. Two kids just got up and started to dance without any music. One little boy who was a little heavier got up in front of all the kids and just shook his bottom! hahah I laughed until tears were almost down my face! The other little girl who was dancing did a belly dance! It was so cute! I wish I had a camera to make a video!!

Now some more things to remember to tell you:
It is common to see women with only their big toe nail painted... the other 4 toes are just normal.

When a store opens they have a stage set up with girls in skimpy cheerleading costumes singing and dancing to get people to go into the store.

My hair is a big hit here. Not many people here have curly hair. All the kids think it is a perm. Some like it.. some hate it and tell me! hahah My kindergarten kids called me not pretty teacher when the first half said pretty teacher! Today I went to school with straight hair and my bangs tied back. Rachel and Emily age 5 did not like it at all! hahah Oh kids!

I went with my friend Steph to get blankets for my bed. I got a thin blanket to act as my comfortor and a matress pad. The blanket was $43 and the matress pad was $20. And this blanket is pretty pathetic! hahah

Oh, Rebeccah. If you come visit.. converse shoes are REALLY cheap! I have seen them for $30.. and there is no tax here!! :)

ohhh I gave my first test today! The kids were so nervous. It was an oral test and I had to call them outside one by one to answer questions.. they have a lot to work on... but some really surprised me!

Anywho... I feel like I am forgetting a lot.. but I must get home to get ready for tomorrow and start my montly report cards!!!

P.S: Happy Belated Birthday Zane! And HAPPPYYYY BIIRTTHHDAAAYY Ashley Gilbert!

and Tania... I love you!

random post

2008-06-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

So today was an interesting day. I caught kids passing notes in class! I had to have a Korean teacher come in and read it and talk to them. After the teacher left I said I want this to be a fun class and have fun learning... when things like this happen it makes teacher Sherry sad. So they promised to be good. They like Fun Sherry!

Ok... there are a few things I keep forgetting to post:
my kinders are awesome.
I brought in a family photo when teaching this is a girl, this is a boy, this is a man, this is a woman, this is a sister, brother, father, mother... etc... just before I brought the picture they had learnt the term short. So prepared they had, Teacher Sherry is SHORT! hahah Even my 5 year olds know I am short!
They were also very excited to get to see my family. I also showed pictures that Johanna took of Newfoundland for me to my classes, and we very surprised it was in Canada, some thought maybe Europe.
Today I taught my kinders about snow, and brought in a picture of Exmouth Street House... if you ever came to visit me and my lovelies there you would know that we NEVER shovelled our driveway... the kids were laughing so hard when they saw all that snow!

We had fire drill day yesterday... I thought of you Kristin Izsak the WHOLE time... too bad they were old so no real hot ones for ya! Buttt.. the whole thing was in Korean, so I was LOST. However, through the power of body language I was able to decipher that they wanted a volunteer. They picked on my friend Stephanie and she was adamant about saying no. sooo... of course I was the next one picked. I said no at first, but all the kids loved me and yelled out yaaaayyy!! Sherry Teacher! (How can I say no to that??!!)
I went on stage and they dressed me like a fire fighter in front of 80 something kinder kidies. They laughed and laughed. I mean Korean's are short.. but I am still shorter.. the uniform was huge on me, and it was heavy and hot. He spoke only in Korean so I had no idea what was going on, and then he put a mask on my face to breathe in. I of course did it wrong since I had no clue what he was saying.. so he put it on his face, and so I was smushed right into him. He then called for little kinder volunteers to breathe using the second one attached to my gas tank on my back. The tube was very short so I was bent awkwardly the whole time. haha It was excellent. We all just had a great laugh.

Oh.. so the weather here does wonders for my hair. I get such frizzy poofy hair all the time. I am glad that my hair seems to be growing super fast here.. my finger nails too. I hope by the time Monsoon season comes I can tie my hair back. I decided to embrace my curls today.. and when I walked in my kinder class they laughed at me. Some said Pretty Teacher.. while the other half said nooo.. not pretty teacher. Allie informed me she liked my straight hair better!

Speaking of rain, we had a tiny typhoon the other night. On the way home from dinner the Korean teachers thought that Steph and I were crazy.. we danced and twirled the whole way home! It was a nice warm rain!

Now to end this random quickly written post. My next class is so fun. It used to be just three 13 year old girls, but now we have two more. One 15 year old girl and a boy. Well my students have to submit diaries every wednesday for me to read and mark. Giney's have been so cute! She told me all about this handsome boy that her public school teacher sat her beside! haha I tease her all the time about her "boyfriend!" It is great

ohh.. I also have some new names for you.
I have an Esther, Steph has a Gladys (spelling?), I have also have a Dino and a Brainy.

ohhh wait I lied.. one more!
I had a stressful day. A mother watched my WORST class.. so I was really stressed out! I decided that to let myself winde down after such a day.. I mean the class wasn't at its worst that because I ran myself off my feet, but they were not great either!
I pass by this restaurant everyday, and noticed something in the window that was drawn to look like ice cream. I decided to treat myself. I ordered it.. and this is what I got (it wasn't terrible... but definitely not what I was in the mood for!)
Ice with milk on top of it topped with red bean and pineapple.
hahah all I could do was laugh. If you know me and ice cream... it was saddening!

beach day, hike, Seoul

2008-06-15T02:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am going to start today and tell you how much I love living in the area I live in, and how much I love kindergarten kids!
We had beach day on Thursday! Oh my gosh it was the best day ever! We took the subway to haeundae beach and met up with the Korean teachers there and the kiddies. We had a sandcastle competition! I thought my class made the best castle, but my friend Rick's class won with their alligator! My class made a car. Seriously, once I can upload the pictures from the day I will show you our car! It looked just like a little beetle! So cute! The kids loved helping too, they would run to the water bucket and fill their little pails with water to help smooth out our creation.
The kids all wore their matching shorts and t-shirt uniform shorts set. We started the event by all lining up and singing and acting out songs. Just imagine this, 8 classes of 10 students all singing and dancing. Ohhhh I could teach these kids forever! They are so cute!
Lunch time was my favourite. One of my little kids, Allie, her mom made me and the Korean teacher lunch. Allie is a really cute smart kid, but her mom cries to the school all the time that Allie is not getting enough attention. My boss tells me that Allie is special and I have to give her a little extra attention... her mom is rich, and I guess that makes my school want to do what they can to please her.
Anyways! She made kimpab (google it!) It is sooooo good! I loved it. However she made two HUGE tupperware containers full and gave us two yello mellons and raspberries!! mmm!!! This was my favourite part of the day! haha The cutest was seeing all the little kiddies eat with their chopsticks and laugh at me because I'm not very good yet! They also LOVED that I didn't know a lot of their food yet and would say, "here Teacher Sherry, try this!!" They loved to see how I reacted to it!! :)

I had to teach a class when I got back from the beach and do my man to man class too. (That is a class where I tutor a university student) I loveeeee that class. It is right after my hardest class (that class is so hard, I don't know how to communicate to them, I have to try and simplify my vocabulary and use tons of visuals!) So going to my man to man right after that makes me so happy! I got to edit one of his university papers. I LOVEDDD it! He had to write an opinon essay on Capital Punishment, it was so interesting to read our differing views.

Today I went hiking with two teachers from my school. My friend Steph and George. Steph is from London Ontario, so super close to my home in Cambridge and George is from the UK. He has such a cute accent, but his family is from Spain.. it is cute to hear him speak Spanish with his English accent! Anyway, I also can't wait to post these pictures. We didn't do the whole mountain because we were all a little hungover, but we walked for a good 2 hours. It was a good workout, and the view is just breath taking! The coolest thing about this hike, other than the fact that it is minutes walk from my house, is they have rest stops all through out it that has gym equipment... neat eh? A free gym on a mountain right by my house? George and I have decided that this will be a weekly thing! :)

So I must get going now, poor Heather sprained her ankle and couldn't come on the hike, but she is on her way to my place now and we are going to go and play pool with some of my work friends and walk along the beach! :) yay!!! I will never tire of living beside the beach!

OHHH one more thing.. I went to Seoul for the day on Saturday. I had to go for training. It was really cool to be on the train and see what the land looks like. I didn't get to see Seoul since right after my training I had to run to the train station to get home.. however I am very proud of myself. I took the bus to the train station in Busan, then a subway in Seoul to my traning class. There are 15 lines of subway in Seoul. And this is MEEEE.. I am TERRIBLE with directions! I know... you're impressed! :)

Butt.... before I go..
Happy Belated Birthday to Kylie and Happy Birthday Jenny!

Happy Daddy's day to you Dad!
love you!

friday friday...

2008-06-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

I have about 10 minutes until my next class, and I think I just need to breathe. It is not hard to tell that today is friday. The kids are nuts. I didn't get any of my lessons done on time today with my kindergarten kids... they just wanted to run around the classroom and play with each others things.
However, one moment was very cute today. Allie called me mom, so I said no Allie, silly girl I am not your mom! I am Teacher Sherry! Then she told me matter of factly that I was mom for everyone in the class room, I was a mom for all ten students! hahaha :) It was actually really cute. :)

I want to save my blog about beach day for after school when I have time to really explain how great it was! So I will tell you one really funny thing about yesterday night instead before I run off to teach my grammar class!
Steph and I were talking and walking along the beach, as we do everynight, and we happened to see this little Korean man walking his two massive dogs. These dogs were BEAUTIFUL, but they were probably bigger than me! I am not joking, probably even bigger than him. As we got closer to this man we saw something sticking out of his manpurse... (everyone carries bags here)... Steph laughs and says what is that cat doing in his bag? Well it turns out that in his tiny little manpurse (like this bag was small!) He had his dog stuffed in it! hahah It was too cute... this dog was along for the ride between these two massive dogs stuffed in his purse... all you could see was his tiny little head and front paws sticking out as the bag bounced on the mans bum as he walked. It was a funny sight to see. Apparently he walks (or carries) his dogs often along the beach.. we will keep an eye out for photos! haha

Gotta run to class.. the bell rang!

phone number

2008-06-11T03:12:00.001-07:00

If you ever come to visit me here in Korea, NEVER DRIVE!
I am so nervous when I am in cabs here, the driving is crazy. Cars drive so fast, and make such sudden movements!
Also, cars have the right away over people here it seems! When you are waiting at the cross walk and the light flashes green telling you to proceed, ALWAYS use caution! Cars have no problem running those lights... A few friends and I had a close encounter the other night with a BMW coming pretty close to hitting us. Steph was so calm about it.. she just said I bet he wouldn't find his car so fancy with our blood all over it.

Now that I am on the subject of public transportation, I took the subway to the university area so we could see the movie "Sex and the City". It was just as good the second time around!! I even cried the second time I saw it! I loved it! Anywho... of course I got us lost, and we were only travelling 2 subway stops away! hahah But the point of me bringing up the subway is to tell you how clean it is! The subway is SOOO clean! You never see any dirt anywhere, and it is such a nice way to travel. There are only 4 lines, so it isn't hard to figure your way around.

The movie theater is also very clean. It was so comfortable to see the movie there. It was an interesting experience. You have to pick a number and wait for your number to be called before you purchase a ticket, and when you purchase your ticket you also pick your seat number then too!

But about all the cleanliness here, it is weird that it is so clean. There are NOOO trash cans anywhere on the street. You are supposed to just leave it, and people are employed to come around and pick it up. The disposal system is so complicated and I don't even understand it yet. But, everyday is a different type of trash day. They stopped having trash cans in the city because peolpe were using them for household disposal.

Well I have to get my things ready for class now... I have to teach in 9 min, and I am giving a test! DUN DUN! haha My first class did terrible... but this next group is much smarter and studies much harder so they should do much better! :) But it was our first test, so there is tons of room for improvement. Ohhh.. before I go I must tell you that I was stict Sherry today!! I had a student not listening, so he had to stand in the corner! I also made one whole class put their heads down for three minutes!! They won't misbehave next time! hahaha

If you want to call me.. this is how:
http://www.howtocallabroad.com/results.php?callfrom=Canada&callto=Korea%2C+South

If you are using a calling card I believe you drop the first zero in my number

This is my number: 010 8013 0509

Today at ECC

2008-06-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Today in school we had ECC episode day. It was seriously the cutest thing I ever saw!! Those kids are so cute!!! Each kindergarten class had to act out a scene from shows like powderpuff girls, dexter, Johnny something... well you get the point.. it was so cute.

I love kids. They had to introduce themselves and then perform infront of all the other kindergarten classes... there are about 6 of them. The teachers had to judge each class and score them, and also pick the best student out of each class and give that student an award. Oh my I wish you could have seen their cute little faces and voices! Next time I will have my camera!!

Also, I found this amazing sandwich spot just minutes away from my house and school. ANDDD I ate a ham toasted sandwich that had egg on it, annddd I never got sick. I guess my taste buds are changing, and my tummy too.. I usually get sick when I eat egg... But at this amazing find I ate this sandwhich and a strawberry smoothie for only 2800 won. (Remember, 1000 won= about one dollar Canadian!) What a steal! I will frequent this place much more!! :)

Anywho.. I have had a long day, and must get ready for my long day tomorrow. I have a class that just doesn't understand me. They are supposed to have a working knowledge of English, but they didn't even understand me when I said sit in your seats. It will be an interesting year with them. Any suggestions? hahah My day gets better after that class only because it is my Man to Man class and I get to tutor a university student. It is a nice break from screaming kids! hahaha

Well I must prep a little before leaving the school.. some of us teachers the Korean teachers and English teachers are going to see the "Sex and the City Movie!"

P.s: I love living near a beach. I ate my lunch beside the water today! :) Ohhhhhhh I also booked a ferry ride to Jegu Island!!! Google this place... going to be great!!! The ferry we booked as the cheapest seats possible! We will get mats and be put into a empty space with 200 other travellers haha... should be an expereince! (This is an 11 hour ferry ride.. and guess who gets sea sick) hahaha (Maybe my sea sickness will go away like my feelings towards egg!)

a cultural experience

2008-06-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

This is a quicky since I must be getting to my prep work!

I went to my friends house yesterday for a pot luck.. mmmm good food!! We had a stew, some chicken, salad and snacks! It was great!
However, while we were playing some card games I recieved a phone call from one of my friends who lives in another city. She was close to me and experiencing a bit of problems. She went to a hair place and got them to dye her hair blonde. (She has hair the same colour as me.) She was crying when I got there... she said.. why did I think that in Korea, where everyones hair is black did I think they could dye mine blonde?! They dyed it three times (her poor hair!) It went from orange, to bright yellow, to grey! The best part was they didn't speak any english at all.. she was trying to tell them she needed toner.. they had no idea what she was saying. The Korean/English dictionary did not help.

Also.. on the subway I saw a t-shirt I think many of you would love, it said something along the lines of "the wonderful bowie, sexy, glamorous"

Now to get some prep work done!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22189&l=6738b&id=500613710
There is a link to some of my photos! :)

Beaches

2008-06-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

Right now I am writing my blog from a PC zone. It is an internet Cafe here in Korea. There is one right by my house. They are HUGE here... lots of people come here for hours and hours and play their video games here. You will honestly see these things on just about every corner.

So this last few days have been eventful! There was a holiday on Friday. It is a memorial day here, so I got to sleep in!!! That made me very happy, since I never had time to let my body really adjust.
So... my Friday started on the beach (oh I loveeeeeee living near the beach!) We all met at this American bar on the beach for everyone, and drank pitchers of beer while we waited.. well why not right? It is a holiday, why not celebrate. Once we got everyone together we went to the beach and sat outside with a beer just taking in the scene. There is a beautiful bridge that has neon lights attachted to it over the water on the beach. Once we got out thoughts together and the weather was cooling down a little more we went to a bar in another area of town that had a live band. This was my favourite place! We stayed for a while and enjoyed the music, however the people playing were from the West. I would really like to see some Korean live music (well at the beach they have a band that plays! Last night they played jingle bells!)
After the live band we went to a Keroke bar. That is HUGE here. The looked somewhat like a hotel. You book time and they take you to your room. The rooms are filled with flashing lights and sofas with a huge tv. I guess my body hadn't adjusted to the time difference and I fell asleep admits the loud music! As soon as I woke up everyone was like well hello sleepy head! They didn't want to wake me since they knew that I was really tired still from my trip!

Saturday was a fun day too, when we were on the beach the previous night we met up with a friend of ours who told us about a sand and surf at the haeundae beach which is only a 20 min subway ride away... (BEAUTIFUL BEACH! GOOGLE IT!) So I wake up and head over with my friends Rick and Chris to the event. It was the first day, so all I see is some of the sand sculptures, which are BEAUTIFUL! One made me really homesick because I swear they must have met my roomie Laura before! The sculpture in the sand was of a woman playing the violin! It even looked like a sand Laura! haha :)
Later that night we went to the beach in our area, the one that is 5 min away from my house (jealous?) and just hung out since it was my friend Chris's last day (I am going to miss him.. he is a great teacher and a great mentor!) I got tired around 10 and it was cold so I walked home with my friend and her beautiful dog to meet my friend Heather. We looked through Busan books for a little while and made a list of sights to see. I can't wait to do it all!!
Today (Saturday) we went back to the festival to see our friend, who is going to teach us surfing.. and we missed the event, but got there just in time for the awards! She won first place! We saw her as she was doing this sand wrestling thing and said oh! There is our friend, and a Korean guy was like she is your friend? She is a celebrity! haha She won last year too and was defending her title, so I think he was just impressed that our friend was the girl who won!

Well.. I also went to the mini mart today and bought a card reader... so I have that until I get my camera cord. I will try to upload some photos soon. However I need a cord soon before my camera dies. My area is beautiful and all the markets are wonderful!

Ohhh.. lastly, the night on the beach where I was just talking with friends and saying teary goodbyes to my mentor.. that night for supper I tried pig intestine, and then also some kind of bug. I think it was silk worm. They have them along the beach kinda like street meat!

I love it here.. and still waiting for culture shock to set in.. it hasn't yet. Coming here has been oddly smooth!

address

2008-06-04T21:26:00.001-07:00

2F, Sambo Bld., 55-22 Namcheon-dong, Sooyoung-gu, Busan 613-815

This is my school address, but send any mail to here. Apparently if I gave you my own address I may never see it!

I just got back from lunch. It was great! :) I am lovvvving the food here! :)

Oh, one more interesting thing, everymorning I wake up to a pick up truck driving up and down my street selling fruit and annoucing it from the speakers... it is so weird to wake up to talking that I can't understand not even a little bit!
I tried to learn how to say hello, but I forget the prouncation all the time! Heather is trying to teach me. I think we may just start taking flash cards for a little while until things become easier!
I had to take a cab from Heather's house since the subway was closed, and I didn't know how to tell him where I lived, so I pointed to the closest subway station on the map. He spoke a little broken English, and asked me about music. He said he liked Metallica, I said my friend Gavin would be happy to hear that! :) However, he also played me songs that came from the Wedding Singer soundtrack.

Ohhhh.. one funny thing I saw at the subway. Apparently plastic suugery is common here, and small faces are seen as beautiful. A sign at the subway read: Small face, beautiful breasts!

Well, back to work!
Send me mail! :)

I now have an appartment!

2008-06-04T17:48:00.001-07:00

I am all moved into my place! It is bigger than I expected, but still really small. The shower is connected to the sink in my bathroom, so I have to shower beside the toliet, and before I shower I have to turn the hot water on in my studio area. I have a bed that a little bigger than a double, a stand up closet... what are those things called again? I have a fridge, three chairs and a table on the way. I also have a second closet which is currently holding my towels, iron and shoes! :)
On the veranda area I have a gas stove, a sink and well.. that is about it! haha :) I woke up this morning so happy! I woke up to the feeling... wow, this place is mine. Just mine. It is a good feeling!

So now to just quickly tell you things I have noticed before I run out of time to do the things I need to have done for my first kindergarten class of the morning :)
My subway pass is a cell phone charm that I scan to get in and off of the subway.
The number 4 is very bad luck (in the Motel I was staying at it went from floor 3 to floor 5), my house number is 401, again, if I was supersitious than maybe I would take it as a sign?
ummm.. my school is above a GM car dealership? haha and next door to a pizza hut. The pizza's are very interesting from the pictues, it looks like they have no sauce and sweet potatoe with some sort of mayo looking stuff drizzled on top.
There is also a McDonalds across the road, the menu has some interesting things on it.
They are also very strict about garbage. You can only compost what animals can eat, so no tea bags, and the rest I am finding out slowly but surely. The most I have gotten is I have to buy the garbage bags from the convience store.

Well.. now to prep for my kiddies! :) Today they are learing the difference between a man and a boy.

ALSOOO.. I have a phone now so if you are inclined to call then that would be great! :) However, my number failed to work for a friend back home, so I will get that number once I know how to really use it! :) My phone is also mostly in Korean, and those who know me know I am technology stupid as it is.. so this has been fun!

Well I am having a great time! I will post as much as I can, or whenever anything interesting seems to come up :)

I'm here!

2008-06-03T08:48:00.000-07:00

So it has been an interesting start to my stay here in Korea! On my way to the Toronto airport we got a flat tire just 50 meters from my house! I almost missed the plane!!! Thankfully, Heather's mom (Heather is here with me in Korea, and I am currently at her house using her computer) called her dad and he drove me to the airport. I guess if I was superstitious I would have taken that as a sign?
Well, I get to the airport to find out that I should have really read into International travel and learned that I am only allowed to have one carry on. For some reason my thoughts told me I was allowed TWO! Soooo... I get to the line, and the lady gets mad at me, and I am all alone so I get worried that my stuff will have to be left at the airport and get teary eyed, so she let me take it. I guess my sensitivity helps sometimes? Well, I go through security and because I am already teary I start crying... I think it was mostly nerves and knowing that this is a for sure thing now. I try to talk myself out of it, I mean, hello, I have always wanted to do this and I am 24 years old! Grow up right... well my conscience did not want to hear that! The man working at security saw my tears and asked if anything happened. All I could say between my tears was I was sad because I was moving away.... to make me feel better he took me to a fast line in security and then asked me on a date... oh gosh.
Well, I finally start to regain myself and sit waiting for my plane. I make friends with a girl from Manchester and she clams me a little. We talk about travel, work, and about flying (have I mentioned that I hate flying?!) She is great! When we land in New York at JFK she helps me to find my connecting flight. I have to travel by this air subway thing from Terminal 8 to terminal 1. This airport is HUGE! So once I find it I get my ticket stamped and soon realize that means I get to be chosen for a random search. I get taken to a side room with other people who are experiencing the same things. I have to load all my bags and let security open them all and swab them all looking for possible explosives, I also have to walk through this structure that blows air at me to ensure I have no explosives on me. It was an interesting experience to say the least!
I find my gate for Seoul, and just flake out. At this point I had fallen asleep at 2am, woke up at 6, and looking forward to a 14 hour flight. Once on the plane I make friends with the girl sitting beside me. Her name is Young Ju, and she told me her "English" name was Yohanna. We pick the same movie on the flight to watch and talk about it as we watch it! It was a Korean movie, and VERY good! I can't remember the name, but it had Love in he title. One it was meal time I pick the Korean option over the Western one, and she teaches me how to prepare it. It was called Bibibimbap. It had rice, veggies, and beef with sesame oil and red pepper paste, it usually has an egg on top... however, I don't egg... Here in Korea I give my egg to my teacher friends. Anywho... my new found friend gives me her phone number and tells me she is in Seoul for two months and if I am ever there she will take me out, or once I get a phone here and I have any questions to just text her! I have been VERY lucky with making friends thus far! :)
The next flight I need is Seoul to Busan, and with Yong Ju's help I make it to my gate! She asked many people questions in Korean to help speed up the process. Our luggage took a long time to load in Seoul and I had to re-check my luggage!
Once I land in Busan my boss is there to pick me up and takes me to the Motel I am staying at and I learn that I have to stay there until Wednesday and start work the NEXT day. Apparently time difference changes shouldn't affect me! (This is a 13.5 hour time difference from Ontario I think?)
It wasn't actually that bad. I love my school, and all the teachers. It is going to be a bit of an adjustment, but not a hard one. The kids in my school are also VERY cute and love my attention and call me Teacher Sherry. It is very honourable to have the title teacher. My classes range from 15 min to 45 min. This school is a private after-school academy. It is very common for rich children to be put in these programs. Korea is a small country with a HUGE population, so jobs are not always available, and schools are also very competitive. In one of my older classes (13 years old), one of my kids was involved in 4 of these academy's. One for English, one for science, one for all subjects and one for piano. All of these academy's also give out homework. I can't imagine such a work load.
The food here is very good, and also very cheap. When I eat out it is usually $4 per meal. I went out for Korean BBQ last night and Soju (a very common drink here). The BBQ was soooo good. We enter the restaurant and take off our shoes, it is very disrespectful if you don't, then get seated on the floor. There is a grill in the middle of the table and a woman comes over and puts meat on it with full garlic cloves and mushrooms. Then gives you tons of side plates and oil. Once the meat is cooked you take sesame leaves and put the meat you cover in oil and then add some of the sides to it, as well as the garlic and mushrooms, wrap it and eat it. Try it sometime, you will like it!
There is so much more I want to post, but it is getting late and I must be ready to teach Kindergarten in the morning!
Oh, one more thing... here all the students pick their own English names. I have a "Cherry" and when she is being disruptive in class we call her Strawberry hahaha. In Heather's school she has a "Cheese" and "Mysterio".