We both have a hilarious time with the textbooks because the explanations are written in Korean. To create an exercise it pretty easy, but to figure out the grammar point is a bit more difficult. Jamie, however, has excellent web search skills (and a high tolerance for painstaking tasks) so he looks them up for us.
my (shannon's) co teachers are really adorable. I technically have two sets of teachers work with: One set is the women I share an office with. there's 5 of us- not all English teachers. One of them, the oldest, has taken me under her wing. she was so worried about me the other night that she called my co-teacher (the one who is organizing all the paperwork for me) because she couldn't call me. hilarious. she bought me a gift for my birthday. chopsticks! very cute. The other woman is my main school liaison. she's the one that has to herd me around and translate everything for me and call immigration and all that jazz. She super charming, but i'm sure not thrilled to have to babysit me constantly. Then there's another korean teacher (literally she teaches korean) who speaks english conversationally but she's so excited to learn that we chat a lot. And the last woman is the music teacher. she speaks very little english, but i hope we'll ultimately trade songs! That's one group. there's me, my Number one co-teacher (the one i go to with any issues), the woman who was worried about me, a korean teacher and a music teacher. we're all in the counseling office. they're real sweet. For my birthday, they bought me a cake and sang happy birthday.
Ok. the other group: the English department. There are 9 of us. i co teach with five of them over the course of a week. They're all very sweet and I think fairly nervous to work with me. they speak English well, but have a hard time with comprehension so it must be nerve racking to have to do work with me in a classroom with students. for the most it seems like i create the lesson plan and they step in when necessary. I feel bad because they all have a lot of work to do so i imagine it's frustrating to have to share and work on lesson planning with another person when you have never done that in the first place. Not that any of them complain. they're all very sweet. We're going out for dinner tomorrow night as a department! very exciting. i think they got the idea because Jamie's department went out a few weeks ago too. This past Sunday i met up with a few of my co-teachers to go and buy books for our English classes. Is was fun to pick out books for the library and then they took us out to dinner (jamie came along). delicious of course. One of the women, had also cooked us dinner! Ms Kim-She sent me home with a huge back filled with food. She even made us (from scratch) kimchi-two kinds. She very worried about what I eat. Every day someone asks me what I cook at home. I've got to start lying because it's embarrassing to say rice and vegetables all the time... Anyway, that's the English department.
This past weekend we went into town to visit one of the many palaces in Seoul – this one is called Deok Su Gong and is located near city hall (a very cool area). The palace itself was really beautiful (and modestly sized as far as palaces go – it seems that a lot of the original space was dismantled around the turn of the century). The changing of the guards was really neat to see too – it was like a 9 minute ceremony and included at least 30 people. They even had an ancient marching band! Once we get internet in our apartment we'll figure out how to post the video on line. The palace grounds also hold an art museum, surprising enough and we were there during the last week of an exhibit on Bolero. By exhibit, I mean that every single piece of art in the building was Bolero – kind of a strange museum! His work is a lot of fun though, and the palace grounds also had his sculptures/statues set up throughout.
After Deok Su Gong, we wandered for a bit downtown and ended up at some neat spots – first was Seoul plaza, where some event was occurring. We caught some live music before continuing on! After the plaza, we ended up at the Cheonggyecheon stream – it is gorgeous. The story is that after the Korean War ended in 1953, this stream was cemented over for a highway bypass. Since then, the bypass was demolished and the stream was uncovered – it is lined with cut stone and has a fantastic design to it.
We are enjoying traveling the city on the weekends, although this weekend we'll be preoccupied with our move! Luckily 95% of stuff can fit in our suitcases (although we do have a lot of furniture between our apartments which I believe will also coming along) More details about the move to come.
OK and now, fun things about Korea:
Pizza – Pizza, while not as popular as in the US, is available and enjoyed by many Koreans. Its not bad, but a few differences. Firstly, they are generally over the top with toppings (akin to some of Antonio's pizzas for the Amherst folks), and some of them look just out of control with drizzlings and features – OH, I saw one shaped like a heart! Second, all pizzas come with a side of pickles! I don't know why. When I inquired about them, my co-workers thought it was traditional in the US as well! When a friend of our was asked "What do you eat with your pizza?" she promptly replied, "Breadsticks!" Earning her the puzzled remark, "More bread?"
Side dishes – Forgive me if we mentioned this before, but on the subject of side dishes they are a necessary aspect of every meal here. And they are free! At any meal you can expect to see anywhere from 3 – 10 of them (I'm not exaggerating; I've heard at some places you can expect 20). Kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage) is literally served with every meal, and it kind of grows on you. It makes every meal very exciting, as I'm typically trying 3 or 4 new foods each time. Be warned those who do not like seafood or spicy, because you'll run into a lot of both here!
Galbi – OK, I have a food theme going here so why stop: galbi is Korean barbeque. The hook is that you barbeque at your very own table!! It is incredible and fairly cheap (I think we paid under 10 bucks a person, including drinks). Also brings a slight aspect of danger to the meal for added excitement.
Silver suits are everywhere! This particularly hilarious because jamie had just bought a silver suit and was considering wearing it to the wedding. We should have brought it to korea!
The cars are not small. While this is not really "exciting" it did surprise both of us. we expected the cars to be European sized vehicles. But No. they're all midsized cars and several SUVs (although more of those in the states). Driving, however, is frightening! People seem to take most driving signs and signals as suggestions- although i will say i haven't seen anyone blaze through a stop light (not to imply that we didn't' see a demolished scooter at our neighborhood intersection just the other day). Also, driving on the sidewalk seems very common. Bike riding=not a good idea.
Dunkin' Donuts are everywhere. Apparently Korea runs on Dunkin'. And i must confess-it's good! Who would have thought that coming to korea would also be my homecoming for Dunkin' Donuts. OKOKOK. I know we already said it, but it still surprises me!
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