I’m at work on Christmas Eve with a headache. I didn’t even teach today…which begs the question why did I have to come? I didn’t teach yesterday either. My students had more exams. I think I should’ve been able to start my vacation early. Even on Monday I only taught one class for some reason??? My head hurts too much to think about why that is though. Anywho I’m bored to death and the fact that I skipped lunch probably doesn’t make the situation any better. Ooooh before I forget….I got some great news today!! For winter camp…which I was kinda dreading, I found out that I only have to teach about 12 students at a time. Hooray! Also one of the two classes I’m required to teach will consist of TWO, count ‘em TWO English teachers i.e. ADULTS. Thank goodness….a break from children and more mature subject matter too.
I can’t wait to leave town for Christmas tomorrow…Although it doesn’t feel like the holidays at all it will be a welcomed break. I’m still deciding if I wanna do an impromptu trip to Thailand. I saw some other peoples pictures and seeing as how I am soooo easily enticed its looking like a great idea.
I had teacher training last week for about 4 days. It was really good to have and also quite a bit educational with the information presented on Korean culture. It’s really amazing, every week I learn something even more shocking than what I learned the week before. Whew when’s it gonna slow down? I think I’ll start a section on my blog solely dedicated to Korean lifestyles…I need to think of a catchy title for it though.
Well I guess that's all for now. Happy Holidays Everyone.

A weekend in Jinju

I haven't spent a weekend in Jinju since my third week in Korea. I think I just felt so miserable and isolated from the rest of the world here that I just wanted to get out any chance that I got. So I was always out of town on the weekends and it was getting exhausting. This past weekend I decided to stay here and check out my city.

I had a really nice dinner with the female teachers from the school. We were celebrating because one of the teachers will be retiring soon so we had a dinner in her honor. After dinner we went to a really nice coffee shop in town called the Coffee Flower. If I ever make a list a things to do here in Jinju that place will definitely make the list, its great. We had the upstairs reserved for us and it was really cool because its cozy like a house and there were several different rooms to sit in. They make these really delicious waffles with fresh fruit and ice cream. It's great.

The younger teachers left early to say goodbye to the handsome ethics teacher that was leaving. It was supposed to be a simple goodbye but someone got the idea to go out drinking too. So went to a bar and drank and played drinking games and took pictures until it was really late. And then decided to go bowling. I was tipsy and sleepy and we still had class in the morning. Note: In my last entry I wrote about how long my week was and there were all these exciting things going on this week...this is part of it. I'll get to the weekend in a second).

Once we finally said our goodbyes I laughed so hard because instead of giving hugs and kisses like people in other parts of the world, they just shook hands! Wow! Who does that? I just laughed and they looked at me like I was crazy but the feeling was mutual. I love the teachers at my school though they're great.

So for the weekend I started out just hanging out with friends downtown and listening to one of their stories about how she wanted to leave her hagwon because she felt so mistreated. After listening to them talk about their situations I appreciated my school so much. It gets stressful every now and then but at least I've never had anyone try to take my passport or get angry because I got sick or upset that I went out even though I was sick and blame me for students quiting the school. Whew...thank goodness.

On Saturday morning I met with the male teachers and my "representative" her English name is Dana...funny story. I'll tell it later. But she translates to the non-English speaking teachers for me and helps me out with just about everything. Everyone always jokes that she's my secretary. She was kinda forced to go on this long hike because none of the other teachers speak English and they said she needed to translate. I kinda felt bad. The hike was great though. It was a really beautiful site surrounded by the ocean and huge rolling green hills. The day was very overcast so you couldn't even distinguish the sky from the ocean. There were so many boats and fisherman out in the distance too. It was a very nice site. The hike also went well because that handsome teacher that left the school came back into town to join us for the hike. That was a pleasant 8 am surprise!

We had lunch on the mountain and I was pretty much forced to try some kind of disgusting raw fish. It was really ugly and brown with silver skin and tasted horrible. I tried to smother it with as much kimchi, veggies and sauce as I could but it didn't help. I was pretty much yelling at someone to pour me some water so I could wash it down. It wasn't quite a yell though since I had a mouth full of food and was trying my hardest to stay calm and respectful...that's big in Korea. They guys laughed so much because I looked like I was gonna loose it.

Later that night there was a Christmas party at one of my friends homes. It was really good to go there and eat and relax with friends. We tried to go to Nora Bong later in the night but she's in a small town so no luck with that. We ended up in a bar drinking some beer and being "loud" foreigners.

On Sunday I was super excited because it was Kimchi day at my co-teachers house! I got up early and went over to have breakfast before we started to make kimchi. It was so much more work than I thought it would be. Around this time of year all of the women make a years supply of kimchi for their families. Sometimes groups of women will get together to make enough for all of their families. They were not as excited as I was since this is a mandatory thing they'll be doing every year for years to come. I thought that you just boiled the cabbage and blended together some seasoning and spices then mixed it all together and called it a day. That's not exactly how it works out.

When I arrived there were two huge red tubs filled with this red paste and Mrs. Im's mother-in-law, her friend and her maid were all there to help out. They kept mixing so many ingredients into the mix. It was garlic, some kind of seeds, whole salted and boiled shrimp chopped up, some kind of grey stuff and bottles of brown liquid and peppers. I mean it was like massive amounts of just "stuff" going into the mix. We had on gloves and mixed these two huge bowls of stuff with our hands. Once we finished mixing we got the heads of boiled cabbage out, cut them into quarters and opened them one leaf at a time smearing the kimchi sauce on them and then packing each piece of cabbage into a container. There was soooo so so much cabbage to do this with. It was very interesting though watching the process kind of turned me off. I just had to get passed it though because we had that kimchi for lunch later on that day.

All in all I have come to the conclusion that Jinju is not such a bad city after all. I'm starting to feel more comfortable here and the teachers at my school actually do know how to have a little fun.

Wow it's been a while since I've done a post. I've been pretty busy having a little fun in Korea. So last week was a pretty busy one for me. Lets see...my second graders were having exams so on Mon and Tues I had no classes to teach. The teachers wanted to give them a little break so we watched movies for class. It kinda sucked on my end because I taught about five classes from Wednesday through Friday so I watched the same 45 min of Journey to the Center of the Earth over and over again. My students loved it though, and so did I. Fantasy movies are really big here in Korea.

On Wednesday I had the last class for my English Conversation students and we had planned to watch a movie together....so yeah lots of movies for me. When I got home I didn't even want to see a t.v. or laptop. I just wanted to read or close my eyes and not look at anything.

Later on when I got home some of the younger teachers from school called and told me that they were hanging out because it was leaving soon. I was so sad because he was so handsome and really great guy. So I don't have anyone to look forward to seeing when I go to work these days....tragic. Especially since Korean guys are usually pretty shy/mellow but he was a good flirt. I don't speak korean and he doesn't speak english but somehow we managed to speak. Well, lets get back to the subject. I didn't feel like going to nora bong so I stayed home.

Thursday all of the teachers got together and had a really nice lunch to celebrate the students finishing their exams. It was at Japanese restaurant. The food was beautiful and strange and largely un-edible by me. I had to order a second round of orange chicken for myself. I had some huge snail looking animal that was chewy, it was alright I could do it again if necessary. I also finally tried this raw oyster thing. It was also alright I may have enjoyed had been more drunk and not so analytical of the texture. Everything, if you don't already know was raw of course. There were these small crabs that looked so good so I made sure to grab one of those. Had I been less hungry and halfway thinking I would have known that they were raw as well. But no I just bit into it and got a mouth full of gushy nastiness. That, I will never do again. Fool me once....There were also a bowl of snails and some kind of really odd sea slugs, I think that's what they are. But they eat them raw dipped in some sauce. I don't even wish I were adventurous enough to try that. I've seen them in the sea food store and they do not look at all appetizing. It was a really good experience and I enjoyed my day there. Oh I must add that after lunch we were served some very delicious Korean style tea. It was very Cinnamony and sweet. Quite tasty in fact.

Afterwards we went hiking which is quite different in Korea. They have stairs almost all the way to the top. It's exhausting but the view is great from the top. I like hiking with the school because afterwards it kind of a tradition to sit down in this huge tent at the bottom and drink rice wine and have some snacks. The older male teachers always want me to sit with them and chat and drink. They are very funny and some kinda flirty so I sit next to the ones that have their sanity. Some teachers wanted to go to a movie after hiking but I had made plans to meet with a friend instead. I felt terrible because we had kept planning to meet and I kept putting it off. I'm glad I finally followed through because she's a really great friend to have. Lots of energy and knowledge about korean culture since she's been here for a while. I love that she can give me the scoop on so many things.

My apartment

Ok so I never did a post about my apartment and have had many requests from family and really good friends back home *wink*. So here it is. I should've done this in the day time so you could see the street but if I waited till the morning it would never have gotten done.



If you look closely you can see my lotion bottle sitting on the floor. This is a good strategy. Since the floors are warm, my lotion gets warm too. So when I get out of the shower it feels so good to put on heated lotion instead cold lotion. Great idea!


I'll post more pics too.






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuAO5UPHBY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUf6jzznbqc

Getting pushed/shoved

Don't get upset when the old and young all push you. They shove here and it is not a problem at all. its part of the custom. No one gets upset by it. You'll be shoved, bumped and cut off, all the above. With that said don't hesitate to push your way through too. I think it's hard at first because we just don't do that sorta thing. You get bumped around when its really crowded, but not just pushed and ran down. But you gotta do it cause they be all up in the way and never walk straight. I still say sorry, sorry, sorry cause sometimes you can't help but bump and push, they don't even look twice or once for that matter. And then I think, hmmm when am I gonna stop that? Because it never even gets acknowledged. When you push them its the same as the wind blowing....nothing unusual, not even noticeable most of the time.

One time I was about to miss my bus back to Jinju and this older lady was standing in the doorway. I think she was trying to figure out which gate her bus was at but I sure shoved her right out my path...No way I was getting stuck in a city I didn't know or have friends in. She didn't care, didn't even look my way, just moved over. LOL this lady I work with said when she went to the US someone totally went off on her cause she bumped/pushed with no excuse me. She said "I was so embarrassed, I didn't know it was so different". And this is a really nice lady so go ahead heave your way through. I've seen ppl brush other ppl's kids out the way too and was the only one who even noticed.

Multiple posts in One

I'm so not a diligent person, which I kinda regret. So I never post on my blog regularly and then I end up with multiple things to write about and then I have this inner debate about whether I should just make one huge blog with multiple pieces. Then I think that would be too much, so I consider just doing multiple blogs on the same day, which should be alright since its my blog. But it still feels like I'm breaking some kind of rule or just going over-board. And then I ask myself why I don't just keep up with my blog in the first place especially since I have so much I want to say. Finally I just say, "Oh well. I just can't help it". I'll just have multiple blogs for the day and multiple topics in each. And like the non-diligent person I am, I won't add the pictures until days later. Its terrible and true.

Stuff out here is so expensive for not that great of quality. I guess its because, and this is just my theory but I think its pretty accurate. Korea doesn't really get anything made in cheaper places like Thailand and China. Most stuff you buy here is made here. And they don't pay people like .40 cents a day. They pay them a real salary so we have to pay real prices. I hate to say it but the whole sweatshop thing really works for me. I like the bargains we get in the west. I saw a jacket that I liked about a month ago and lo and behold it cost a whopping 1,500,000 won. It wasn't that nice, come on. Seriously ridiculous. That's only about 700 USD at the moment but even that....Its ridiculous. All the ugly coats that you wouldn't want are like 400,000 won. I crack up when I see this. I tell the sales people come shop in the US so you can see what this is really worth. If I see one more plain turtle neck sweater for 50,000 won....

The public schools are so conservative...Korea is in general though. you don't see much skin besides legs, which are usually covered by leggings (I like this because I hate my legs). Not even a collar bone, yet alone the slightest bit of cleavage. I think It took me about a month to pick up on that. Everyone is covered to the neck, seriously. I wore a shirt that went a little below my collar bone and immediately had scarves thrown around my neck. I knew about the coverage issue so before I left home I pulled my tank top straps up as high as they would go. I thought I had it covered but once they saw that clavicle it was all over. I think Korea will make a lady of me for this reason and also because of the dirty floors.

Korea is really (and I'm not complaining...I am because I hate this but its just one of those things I guess) filthy. I walk down the streets and I cringe. Maybe I have some kind of issue (slight OCD) but it drives me crazy. The floors in the bathrooms are always wet and dirty. They don't clean the way I'm accustomed to. They just hose down the bathroom w/o cleaning products and the floor is just wet and people still walk in and out so its a wet floor turning black because of dirty shoes, so its more dirty. My pants are always too long so they touch the floor. I can't even explain how gross this makes me feel. Its not just the bathrooms but the streets as well. There is always trash and rotting fruit peels and the smell of sewage around. People spit all over and....ugh. Gross. We have the same situation in the US and everywhere else I'm sure but I've never seen a street like the ones here. Probably because I haven't been to NY. Anyway I know my pants are touching all these things so I've decided to invest in lots and lots of skirts. I NEVER wear skirts or dresses but yep Korea will make a lady of me I'm sure.

Priceless

I just had a really great weekend in Seoul. Cirque du Soleil has been here in Korea for about 3 months now and I finally got to see the show.It's called Alegria. It was pretty good. I've seen other shows by Cirque, this one isn't my favorite but it was a good time. It may have had something to do with the venue....it was a tent so there were huge poles with lights attached placed throughout the tent. Our seats were positioned with a good amount of pole sight so we were moving all over the place trying to get a good view. The crew members were so strict on seating, even though the venue was far from sold out. The show itself was fine.

I was so excited because I saw snow fall for the first time in 2 or 3 years....It snowed in Tucson a couple years back. I took some pictures and it began to look a lot like Christmas. Nice big snow flakes too. We shopped, haggled and bargained, slept 7 to a hotel room....Best way to save money.

The funniest thing that happened is that we were rushing to the show after getting a hotel room and missed the train. Not all of us missed it however, one of the girls jumped on and tried to hold the door open for the rest of us. It didn't work, so she just ended up on the train alone. I was one of the ones that was way behind so I didn't get to see this personally but they say the look on her face as the train took off was priceless. I wish I was there. It sucked though because she had no phone and she was the one who knew where we were going so that was bit of a mess. And I think her boyfriend was kinda worried that she was separated from us in this HUGE city. Seoul is really big. Hmmm....but yeah he obviously didn't hop on the train with her lol. We had to laugh at him about that.

Fractions for English

This picture is from the first night I met some other foreigners in town. I was extremely excited. I remember just before coming out here, I only wanted to be around Koreans and be totally immersed in the culture. That died down quickly and all I wanted to do was find someone to talk to in english. The english speaking teachers here can't understand me when I speak at regular speed so my conversation literally slows down to like a third of what it usually is. It takes a bit of extra thinking because we use so much slang in our language...I never realized that until now. English is LOADED with nothing but slang so whatever you have to say....you have to reduce it to simplest terms....like fractions for english...Seriously

Example:

32/5 = 6.40

I've got a bone to pick with you = I'm upset with you

The Dark Knight

Very interesting....Last night the movie "The Dark Knight" came on television. I guess its not that big of a deal except it was only in theaters a few months ago. But the thing is that it didn't come on a payed channel like pay-per-view it was just on regular t.v. Back in the US I'm thinking that its probably on pay-per-view still or maybe just coming out on HBO or something like that. At first I thought it was just a clip and then realized, no no no this is too long to be just a clip.....not that I didn't watch it or anything. I just think its odd, like maybe boot-legish Legal boot-legging going on in Korea.

This post is kinda irrelevant but I typed it so its goin up.

Finally Free

My last early morning class (8 a.m.) was yesterday morning. It's such a relief. I have an extra 30 minutes in the morning plus I just come to work now and wait until 9:20 or 10:00 for my first class to start.Its so much less stressful. I'm trying to think of productive ways to fill my time now that I'm free. I also have an afternoon class which we are taking a break from until next week. Basically, I've been working from 8 a.m. until 5 or 6 p.m. teaching 6 classes total. It was a lot.



My busy schedule will return soon enough though. Over winter break I have to teach for 4 hours and I'm picking up 2 extra classes to make more money. Needless to say there will be lots of movies and games and talking. I never knew how tiring teaching was. I am learning to be more creative with my lessons thus making my job easier.

School is so hard in Korea

I haven't yet done a post about the school system here in Korea. But after today I think I'll give a little bit of insight to the people back home.

Yesterday, I had my morning conversation class work on an activity about giving advice to teens about problems they have in their lives. We ended up having a really good discussion and the students liked the activity. So this morning when I got to class my computer wasn't working so I decided to build off of yesterdays activity. I told the students to write about a problem they were facing, present it to the class and we would discuss it and give each other advice. My first 3 speakers all were worried about going to high school (they graduate middle school this year). And they didn't have the usual worries that American kids have. Like "I wonder if I'll make a lot of friends" or you know just being nervous about the new environment. Usually American students are more excited than nervous, there are so many parties, and big football and basketball games, so many extra curricular activities and so many new people.

But all I heard today were things like "I'm scared because girls usually drop out of math in high school because its too hard. If I don't do well, all of my hopes and dreams will be gone because I won't qualify to be a diplomat when I grow up". So of course I asked what if anything they were excited about. You know, being more independent, more social activities etc....."Opsoyo" which means it 'doesn't exist or don't have' in Korean. When students don't have their work in class they say "opso". That's pretty much the status of their social lives as well. I mean you do have some students that don't care much about school or certain subjects but that's a pretty small percentage.

No wonder Koreans my age, for the most part don't do much at all and are not very social. I don't think they've developed the skills plus they're probably so tired from working so hard as students and finally have time to sleep and relax. Its good and bad I guess, we could learn to work harder and maybe they could learn to relax.

Thanksgiving

So today is officially Thanksgiving back home and I can't wait to take my lunch break so I can go home and call my family. Here in Korea, us foreigners had a celebration yesterday. The town was kinda far away so I wasn't planning on going. I have a class that starts at 8 a.m. But as usual I couldn't let myself miss out on the excitement. So when I got the call at 9:15 pm asking if I was going, I had quickly stop my movie, put away the kimchi dinner I was having, change out of my pj's and get to the bus station before 9:50, which is when the bus left. I don't know why I feel compelled to do such things.
The trip to Changwon (an hour away) was an event in itself. We had to haggle down the 60.00 cost of a taxi to 30.00....in a language we don't speak, because it's faster than the bus, but we managed to do it. Had to stall the taxi driver to wait for a friend who was late. We actually ended up having our taxi try to meet up with her taxi which was a mess because none of us could communicate clearly with the drivers and we only "sorta" knew how to get to the place we wanted to meet at. I don't know what it is but all of my trips seem to start off the same messy way.
I should mention that the only reason we were able to take the trip for half the price was because another girl was headed for a town going our way so we basically split the cost. Needless to say while all of this was going on she was getting more and more frustrated. At one point she and her little Ralph Lauren dressed dog were about to hop out of the taxi all together. My friend is like "We can't let her get out, our price'll go up". LOL.
Eventually we all were in the taxi headed to Changwon. The driver was so irritated he kept telling us SHHH!! He was pointing (and I know he was cussin in Korean). It was terrible. Once we actually got to the guys house everybody left because it was late and they had work. Nonetheless we ate turkey and sweet potato pie, watched some stand up and had a good time.
After the little celebration we had to figure out how to get back home since the bus station had apparently closed....back to the taxi's....same story.
I got home close to 3 a.m. went to bed and now am back at work. On sunday we will have a more relaxed thanksgiving here in Jinju. I hesitate to say that.

I had to write about Thanksgiving since its the first major holiday since I've been away. I hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey day and had many reasons to give thanks.

October 2

Mr. Bae picked me up at 10 o’clock this morning so that we could go to Jinju, the city I’ll be teaching in. I had a nice long morning to rest. My first great and tragic mishap happened this morning. I blew my very expensive high tech blow dryer while trying to use a converter. This makes me sad because without a dryer my hair is a mess. In Jinju I met up with my Co-teacher Mrs. Im. She is also very kind. Her, Mr. Bae and I sat and talked while we waited until 11 am when I had an appointment to verify all of my documents…contract, letters or rec, diploma etc.
As it turns out Mr. Bae is very worried that my income is not enough which sorta blows my mind since I'm supposed to be living the high-life over here. The words “not enough income” makes me nervous. So they suggest I fill out a tax exemption form and suggest that I teach additional lessons.
After all of this was done we bid farewell to Mr. Bae and head off to my apartment. On the way we stopped for lunch. We had Bulgogi, which is my favorite Korean dish so far. It is sooo much better here than it is in the U.S. I even had Kimchi and liked it. After lunch we stopped by the school and met some of the other teachers they are all nice. Then we went to Mrs. Im’s house were I meet her kids, ate fruit and talked.

My apartment is so nice. I really am surprised at the size of it. Its a two bedroom with a pretty large bathroom. It looks like a cabin...lots of wood and bricks.

October 1

Finally landed in Seoul and had to catch a connecting flight to Busan. It was really confusing and took a long time to figure out how to get my boarding pass. I had to wait in a line for foreigners after filling out some kind of immigration form. All of us foreigners were confused…Americans, Indians, Europeans and everyone else and asking each other what was going on. I had to go to baggage claim to get my luggage take it upstairs to my airline then check in to get my boarding pass, recheck my luggage, go through security and head to my gate all over again. Wouldn't it be easier for them to just transfer my luggage and have my boarding waiting for me at the gate...or is it just me?

I now sympathize with our immigrants in the U.S. Even the most simple things are difficult. I just wanted to scream, "I don’t have drugs or a bomb now someone take me to my plane"!!!

Once I got to my gate I was very thirsty and hungry. Mostly everything in the snack shop was Korean….of course b/c I was now in Seoul. I bought some tea that was made by coca-cola and it was absolutely repulsive. I couldn't even bare the taste…it tasted like it stank. You know like a bad odor. Since I have been in Korea I have yet to buy another beverage for fear of it tasting like that. (now that I am posting this 2 months later, I have had that same tea on several occasions and would like to note that it is an acquired taste. I now enjoy it somewhat).

Finally, I arrive in Busan at 9pm!! After I got my luggage I went out to a sea of people awaiting their family, friends or business associates. Their were lots of signs and none with my name on them but out of nowhere I heard my name, “Hello Jessica”. It was Mr. Bae…he’s the Director of foreign teachers in Busan. We drove for about 30 min to the next city were he rents a room from a hotel. I stayed there for the night so that I could save money which was quite generous of him. It was a nice place with leather couches and a flat screen TV. I bought food from the convenience store downstairs and then I was on my own till the next morning.

Sept. 30 The day I left the US

Even at the curb side check-in my luggage weighed too much. I had to pack my purse and carry on bag with more stuff. On top of that I had to send my mom to the car with clothes in tow. Oh what a great help she was during this process. The flight was very nice. From Phx to San Fran I slept because I hadn’t gotten any sleep for 4 days. In San Francisco the international flights are in a separate part of the airport and that side alone felt like a whole new country. It was becoming less and less diverse with each step. Soon it was all asian workers.
The flight to Seoul was the longest I’ve ever been on. 12 hours total. Asiana Airlines is really good though. The service was excellent…they handed out warm towels before the meals. The food was delicious. You could choose between western and asian style and the food was served in real Korean style dishes. From appetizers to desert and coffee or tea. We got two meals like this plus the usual snacks and drinks. Oh yeah they served wine with the meals….I loved it. There were lots of movie channels and games to play on your own private tv. The stares started on the airplane so I already knew what I was in for once I got to Korea.

So my first couple of weeks here I was writing up little tidbits about what it was like being in Korea. Eventaully though my work caught up to me and I stopped writing about my many adventures. Plus, I hadn't actually started a blog and kept putting it off. Alas I am publishing my entries and will continue to blog for my next 10 months in Korea.

Here is the first one.

Sept 29
For my birthday I was so busy getting ready to leave for Korea that I was too tired to celebrate. Plus I had so much to still do. My flight left the morning after my birthday. My mom and I spent the whole night packing then unpacking and repacking my luggage…well my mom did, really. I was too stressed out about not being able to take all of my clothes shoes, beauty products and decorative items. So I just watched and had mild anxiety attacks throughout the night. Gosh 50 lbs of luggage is really not much at all. I had to leave sooo much behind. It was upsetting.

OMG

I finally figured out how to start blogging after 2 months of not really trying! LOL ok now I can let everyone see how I'm doing. I'm excited...no more batch emails!!