Cooking Day

Hello Everyone. So every Friday, instead of teaching a normal lesson (right now, it's phonics) we have our classes in the kitchen where the students are able to do some cooking. Our classes start off with introducing the recipe. Usually it's something small and typical Korean, sometimes it's a little more Western and sometimes it's just jam-packed with sugar and chocolate. This past Friday, we made kimbab (김밥, 김 meaning seaweed and 밥 meaning rice). It's very delicious.



So we start off by having a sheet of seaweed and spread some rice on it. Then there are many things to put inside: thin strips of carrots, cucumbers, scrambled egg and pickled radish. You lay it all out on one side and roll it up like an egg roll. It's very delicious and the kids love it.



Here are some pictures of my kids.. It looks really out of control, but Fridays are usually pretty crazy days. The video is of the kids playing an intense game of rock, scissor, paper. There was one kimbab left and by playing rock, scissor, paper is the fairest way to determine the winner. that game works for any small conflicts in the classroom. Who knew?

Lantern Festival

Hello! The first week in May we had Thursday and Friday off, we had to work for three hours on Saturday, then we had Monday and Tuesday off for Buddha's Birthday. So it would have been six days off in a row, but we had to work for those three hours right in the middle of that break. But I'm not really complaining.



There was a huge parade full of lanterns and huge lantern floats to celebrate Buddha's birthday. I took many pictures, but a lot of them were blurry. I should know how to use that camera by now. I've had it for years.



After the parade finished, we went out in Myeongdong, a part of Seoul with many clubs and bars. There are no bars in the town I live in, so I was excited to get out and do something besides drink -- which is dance and drink.



We just got a hotel before we went out, which sometimes is hard to find because we were in the 'foreigner' part of Seoul and since the lantern festival brought in so many people to Seoul, I was worried that we wouldn't find anything. But we did, so we headed out.

I gave the key to my friend who was staying in the same hotel, because I didn't want to be responsible for it. So when we got off the subway station to head to the clubs, some people put their stuff in the lockers so they didn't have to carry their purses and sweatshirts with them all night. Whatever.

After being out for a while, around 3 o'clock in the morning is when I get bored, need to fall asleep, or need to change bars. I decide I just want to go back to the hotel and fall asleep. I ask my friend for the key and she tells me it's in her bag in the locker at the subway stop. I was a little irritated because you don't have access to those lockers at that time of the morning, because they lock off access to the lockers and the entrances to the subway. So now we paid 80,000 won for this hotel that nobody can sleep in.



So Korea has these saunas called jimjilbangs that are very popular because they are very cheap. They are about 8,000 won per night, but it's everyone just sleeping on mats on the floor; no bed, no blankets, just the mat and the floor. So we found one near our hotel and my other friend and I paid 13,000 won for this one and we got about two hours of sleep. We were crabby the next day.

Now I can look back and laugh at it, but I wasn't laughing too hard at the time. I remember I got back to Inje and slept for six hours, or something like that. It was a fun trip though. It seems like something like this always happens to me when I go to Seoul. So I think I need to plan my trips better...

Beer Olympics in Chuncheon

So a couple weekends after our trip to Gyeongju, there was a Beer Olympics competition in Chuncheon. Chuncheon is the largest city in Gangwon-do province, and only an hour from Inje, so it's a great escape to a bigger town for the nightlife or a big department store. This time, I was going there to drink beer!

I don't know who organized it, but I think the owner of this bar (Tombstone Bar) was a Westerner, so lots of foreign teachers go there to party. Honestly, I have never spent a night in Chuncheon, so I don't know the 411. Anywho, the rules for this competition were as follows: have a team of four, create a team name and come dressed in costumes. There were to be three games played: beer pong, tippy cup and boat race (if you're not into drinking, I think I leave leave the descriptions out, just so you all think I still have my innocence.



So there was a total of 17 teams, and there were some long pauses between every game, so it turned out that all the teams just kept drinking in between the games. Needless to say, everyone was pretty drunk. Somehow, our team managed to stick together and take 3rd place. First, I think we were pretty good, but other teams left early and others just diminished because of their drunken states, so it wasn't a clean 3rd place, but I'll take it.

It was a fun change of pace. Oh, I should tell you our team name: Waygook Powerhouse 3000. In Korean, waygook means foreigner, so I wanted to stick with something international, since this is the "Olympics." There were three Americans on my team with one South African. It was a great time!



I should mention that as my 'waygook-ness' serves me, I added that I was from Minnesota on the back of my T-shirt. I ended up meeting two girls from Minnesota, so that was very pleasing. Thank goodness for Minnesota nice.

Gyeongju, South Korea

Sorry it has been forever since I have written on my blog. I guess I went on a short hiatus. I'm back anyway and I have a few stories to share from the past month. I finally started doing some things, so now I actually have some stories to tell. I'm hoping I can write a couple a week, so keep watching for little stories being published.



The First Friday in April (April Fool's Day) our boss gave us the day off and she drove us down to Gyeongju, a city about 5 hours by car. She paid for everything, including the one night stay at the Hilton. Gyeongju is a very important city to Korea's history because "Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD) which ruled most of the Korean Peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries," cited from wikipedia.org. I have to cite it because a lot of the museums and monuments we visited had most of their signs and information in Korean, so I couldn't get the full understanding of everything. And our tour guide spoke no English.



We saw many important things: Tumuli Park (where lots of important kings, queens and generals are buried ~ one hump means one person is buried and two humps means a king and queen are buried together), Cheomseongdae (which is an astronomical observatory that is the oldest surviving observatory in East Asia), Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple (which is a Buddha statue next to a traditional Temple) and Anapji Pond. All very important monuments in Gyeongju and Korea. A few are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.



I sat in the front seat so I could help my boss with the directions. She had a GPS, but sometimes she would look to the passenger seat as if I understood what the GPS was saying in Korean. Good thing I looked at a map and knew a little about what direction we were headed in. I also just looked at the map and followed the arrows from the GPS. My Korean isn't that good that I can understand. It was a pretty cool experience. I think we got lost a couple times, but that's what makes those adventures so much fun!



It was just a short trip; we drove down there Friday and arrived in late evening and had dinner and went swimming. Then we woke up the next morning and ate breakfast at the hotel and hooped on the Gyeongju City Bus Tour and saw all the monuments. The weather was great for the time of year and the trip was really educational. Definitely one I will remember.



For all those who don't have Facebook, here is a link to my album where you can see all the pics I took: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10100728410516420.3194090.13932786&l=154f232f20

Martes Gratis (Mardi Gras in Spanish)

Mardi Gras was a long time ago, but I haven't written in a while, so I thought I would catch you up. I haven't had many plans lately, hence I haven't written in a while, but it seems like I usually write a blog when I upload pictures to Facebook, but since I haven't taken many pictures lately, I don't have much to write about.

Anyway, for Mardi Gras, there is actually someone from New Orleans that lives in Wontong, the city next to Inje. It's about 10km down the highway. I was going to meet the Inje crowd and from there we were going to travel to Wontong together. We were going to celebrate at the foreigner apartment, but we were running late, so we just met at a bar. Nothing too exciting.

After a couple hours of drinking, we decided to go to 노래방 (noraybang - karaoke) and I sang two songs that I got 100% on -- La Bamba and Pokerface. Don't judge me. It seems to be a regular routine to sing karaoke after a few hours of drinking. It is quite an experience each and every time.

That's about all that happened. I usually bring my camera to these events, but this night I didn't. I will have more pictures to post in the next couple weekends.

Thanks for reading!

Earthquake/Tsunami In Japan

Hello everyone. It has been a long while since I have written on here. Call me lazy or call me boring, but there hasn't been much happening around Inje. But I'm sure everyone has heard about the recent earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. I never actually realized how close the Korean peninsula was to Japan until I saw the map on the news.



Here's a little geography lesson: The red X in the map above is the epicenter of the earthquake. The red circle is the Korean peninsula. I've also written in some other bigger cities/countries to show some relevance. I saw reports on the news that Beijing, China could feel tremors from the quake. I didn't feel anything even though Korean is between Japan and China. Also, tsunami warnings went out for Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. Other warnings went out for countries across the Pacific ocean, including: Hawaii, Western coasts of Canada and the U.S., and South America (Chile mostly). I think Hawaii got some waves, but on CNN here, they are mostly reporting on the damage and economic impact of the tsunami.

This map shows the wave patterns and arrive times from the waves of the tsunami:



Also in the news now many of the nuclear power plants are exploding. That, of course, raises concerns for radiation exposure. That is a big worry over some Asian countries. I don't know the exact extent of it, but I know MANY departing flights from Japan have been canceled and many of Japan's exports are going through extra scannings to make sure the goods have not been exposed to any radiation. I don't think Koreans are too concerned with that. I will keep everyone posted. Everything in Korea seems to be fine! Thanks for reading.

Inje English Village

Inje English Village is my place of employment. It is not a public school because in public schools, the English teachers actually teach with the Korean English teacher, so the co-teach. A hagwon (which is what I think I teach at) is defined by Wikipedia as a 'for-profit private academy or institute.' We are not necessarily a a hagwon I don't think, but some other foreign teachers in my city consider us just as "English village." Quite honestly, I don't know the difference, but maybe it's better that I don't.



Some of the time I think it seems like a lot of parents just need to send their kids somewhere to be babysat, so the parents send them to the English village and leave them there all day. So some kids don't seem very interested in learning. So those day/specific classes are difficult and frustrating to teach, but that's just the way it is. And I was just thinking; I usually tell people the youngest age I teach is 8, but I forgot that's their Korean age, so they add one or two years, so really they are 6. I don't remember the way the Korean age works, but here is an example. I am 23 years old Western age, so you either add one or two, so my Korean age is 24 or 25. I think when my birthday comes in April, I will be 26, but 24 Western age. I think it's because when Koreans are born, they are one year old, not one day old. Then when January 1st comes, I think everyone celebrate their second birthday. But I can't remember what happens when it comes back to their actual day of birth..I get very confused. Blah.



Our school is very small, and as I said before, public school English teachers teach with the Korean English teachers, so there are two teachers in the English classes. But at my school/hagwon/English village (whatever you want to call it), it is only me in the classroom. So every week, our director give us three teachers the topic for the week. The past couple weeks we did weather, clothing and rooms of the house. So typically we print out flashcards with pictures and say the English word. We repeat and repeat and repeat. Then we incorporate a game so the kids have fun and can run around. We are responsible for creating the games and activities and as long as the kids learn the vocabulary, it doesn't matter what we do.



Recently, I really feel like I have the hang of teaching and what I should be doing. Usually I have the older kids - the 11-13 year olds - so they understand way more English than the little ones. So now one day I teach the words and play a small game. The next day I try to have a worksheet where they see the pictures and try to match it with the written word for letter recognition. Then another day I do a writing activity where I print a sheet where the kids can trace the vocabulary words, then write it themselves. And finally, lately I have been creating my own crosswords puzzles so they can do word searches. That routine is what I do in my Class 2; I haven't taught Class 1 for a while, so they will need a simpler lesson plan. Class 3 is just vocabulary quizzes all hour.



Inje English Village has four classrooms. During summer camp and winter camp, we have many students because the public school are on vacation. But we only have three English teachers here (our new one is coming from South Africa tomorrow) so we teach five 50-minute classes Tuesday-Friday. Our hours always change and they will probably change sometime in March.

- Mom, you know who this student is -

Inje English Village is really just a fun place to learn English. There is never any homework and never any tests. Personally, I wish there was just not to know if to students are absorbing anything, but it would also show me if I am a good teacher or not. So, sometimes with those activities I can tell which students are learning and understanding and which ones I have to pay extra attention to. But as long as I know, that's no big deal.



That's about all I have going on for now. I am always thinking of the next trip I want to take, but a long vacation isn't coming until August. Then I have another one in September. The two countries I really want to go is China and Malaysia. We'll see what happens.