Monday - Thursday:
Work was pretty easy the whole week. My students made menus...some were super fancy, while others were barely able to think of a name for their restaurant. This week they are using them to practice ordering, then we are playing bingo using the vocab words from last week! :) Prize for this week is stickers...easy enough!
Went to Paul & Ali's one night for dinner & scrabble, then went to the sauna again on Thursday with Ali. The name of the sauna we go to in her neighborhood is Bonggok Hawaii...super relaxing. Still need to check out the one by my apartment though!
Thursday, my last class of the day. Five minutes into my lesson, another teacher steps in my room & tells my co-teacher something in Korean. Before I know it, students are picking up desks and carrying them out the door. Imagine the look on my face as I stand there wondering what the hell is going on?! Finally my teacher says..."tomorrow is parent's day...so they need the desks for the assembly room." While I understand that part, I still don't get why they had to do it right that second...in the middle of my lesson. So my students come back in and sit in the chairs...and stare at me. My co-teacher has disappeared by this time. So, I explain we need to make menus. I hand them paper and set out some books so they have a hard surface to write on. I also tell them they can sit on the floor if they want. What happens? They try to write on their legs/laps while sitting in the chairs...and their partners are thumbing through the book I gave them to use as a writing surface. LOL. Gotta love dynamic Korea!
Friday:
Friday I had to go to the students' homeroom classes to teach my lesson since they stole my desks the day before. After my busy day of working, I met up with my friends for some dinner and bowling. Dinner was downtown at this awesome place where you cook your own meat & they also give you egg and cheese on the side of the "pan" on the burner. Melted cheese, a bit of egg, and beef...amazing! The bowling alley we went to was the one less than 5 minutes from my apartment, so that was convenient for me! Best part of bowling...it's B.Y.O.B. :) Below is the best pic of the night...my friend Brian, lol.
Woke up early to catch a 9:30am train to Daegu with Paul, Ali, and Alex. Ali and I were planning on staying all day and into the night. The boys had to leave early to go rock climbing. Our day consisted of shopping for a camera (for Paul and Ali), books for me, clothes, lunch with some of Ali's friends, a haircut, then out for dinner & drinks in downtown Daegu where Ali's friends' band was playing at a bar.
While shopping for some clothes I was surprised that alot more things fit me than I thought. I even found jeans that fit me (will buy them later) and the shirts, jacket, & jewelry I bought were super cheap! I was also happy to find a book store with decently priced books. I got 4 books from the "classics" section for 29,000won. The only thing bad about that is I have a feeling I will start a nice large collection of books and have to spend alot of money sending them back home...or taking them with me to the next place. Who knows?!
In the middle of our day we took a taxi across town to the park in Daegu where they have a "mini-zoo" for free. I can see why it's free...the zoo was mainly made up of chickens and goats, lol. But they had a couple tigers and a sad elephant....poor animals! The park itself was beautiful :) The only thing I didn't like was that all the grass was roped off because you're not supposed to walk or lay on it. Sux because I was thinking it would be a nice spot to relax & read a book. Anyways, I took a few pictures of the park, diff types of trees & lots of cherry blossoms.
After the park, we grabbed some food from a burger/sandwich shop & had lunch in the park. The boys had departed by this time, so after lunch we decided to find the hair salon that Ali's friend had recommended. Since the lady spoke pretty good English we figured getting a trim wouldn't be that hard. Ali and I both have hair that's more on the short side, so we didn't want much taken off from the length. While we did express this to the lady...she had another image in mind. She wanted to "Koreanize" our hair and cut it super short and poof it up. She gave Ali some crazy fringe which she had to transform into bangs after we left, and she gave me itty bitty hairs that stick out like "wanna be bangs" in the middle of my forehead. Overall the experience was both frustrating and humorous! :) Once we got home & fixed our hair on our own...we could breathe again and laugh about it! I'm already used to mine..it's just strange to see my neck so much lol.
After our hair drama we met up with Ali's friends for dinner. The friends we met were the ones who were actually playing in the band later that night. Oh yea, as we were waiting for them to meet up Ali and I enjoyed a beer in the street. Another perk to living in Korea...the convenient store clerk even pops open the bottle for you at the register! Nice :) Dinner and drinks completed, we headed to the bar where they were playing. Of course we had Soju & beer with our meal so we had a nice start to the evening. But, Ali had an even better idea once we got to the bar. We noticed the bar didn't have much variety so Ali suggested we go to a place called Viniroo's to get a drink while we waited for the band to start. Turns out this place is the best invention ever! They sell capri-sun type bags of mixed drinks!! We enjoyed one there, then went back to the bar. We then noticed that some people had brought theirs inside the bar, so we went back and got some more! :) I chose the one called "Starburst" which of course tastes like its name. A little sweet, but really good! I tried a few other flavors from ppl, but that one was my fav so far! They give you a little stamp card so you can earn a free one...even though I don't live in Daegu, I'm sure it won't take me long to earn a free one!
This week has been good so far! I made my students bring my desks back to me during my first class on Monday, lol. They would be crazy to think that I'd carry them back and organize them myself! :)
Tonight I am going to Daegu immediately after work to start my Korean language class!! I can't tell you how excited I am to learn more than a few basic phrases! Of course it will take awhile...but the course is 12 weeks and the class meets every Tuesday. I'm taking beginner's level so we will start with learning how to read Hanguel (Korean alphabet) then move on to more sentences and such...or so I'm assuming! The course costs 130,000won which isn't bad in my mind. I think it will super beneficial to me. So now I get to be the student instead of the teacher! :)
XOXO,
Amanda
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