Thursday was "Sports Day" at the school. In Indiana, we called it "Field Day". There were no classes and the students spent the day in various competitions: track, dancing, and other activities. It is much more of a big deal than when I was in school.
(Left) Grace and Lupina.
(Right) In the striped shirt is Seon-shim, another school friend, who teaches Special-Ed. She did the announcing for the competitions.
The kindergarten children did a dance and were really cute. Unfortunately, all the parents were in the way, so my video didn't turn out well.
The principal treated all the teachers to dinner at a local restaurant. While I was aware of the practice, I wasn't expecting it when the hostess dropped a live octopus into our boiling soup pot. Watching it writhe and eventually die in front of me was a new experience. Then the hostess returned with a pair of scissors and cut it up into bite-sized pieces. The soup was delicious.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
19 September 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
16 September 2010
Two observations, thus far:
1) Traffic Laws are more like Traffic Suggestions
2) There are no shirts with Korean writing. Everything is in the Latin alphabet (mostly English and often making little sense). The only place I've seen Korean was at a tourist gift shop.
Yesterday, I went hiking for the first time with Grace. As I said, it is one of the most popular pastimes here. I can definately see why - the mountains are nearby, beautiful and offer wonderful views. The path we took is about 3-4 minutes from my school. It was a smaller mountain and only took about an hour to climb.
(Left) Near the base of the mountain. (Right) Near the top.
(Left) Near the top. (Right) The mountain on the left is "Samsung-san".
(Left) Directly above the seated man is Seoul.
(Left) In the distance is "Gwanak-san".
The city of Anyang.
(Left) The mountain in the center is "Suri-san".
(Right) On the way back down we saw this mound of stones.
People place a rock on the top and make a wish to a nature god.
Notice: It's very possible I got the mountain names wrong.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
12 September 2010
Today was an adventure. I used the train for the first time and I made it into Seoul for the first time. Unfortunately, it was pretty rainy and I didn't get a chance to see much. I went to Seoul to see my friend Jay and her two friends (a woman from Malaysia and a man from Turkey). It made for interesting conversations. We went to restaurant then to a tea shop. It was a great time, but things got strange on the train ride back.
Two sixty-year-old men sat next to me and spoke 10% broken English and 90% drunken Korean to me. The one was getting off at my stop and spent about forty minutes trying to explain to me that he wanted to drink beer with me when we got off. I couldn't understand most of it, but I did understand mekju "beer", mashida "drink" and "ok, I drink your place". I told him in my broken Korean "mekju eoppseoyo" (I don't have beer), "toni eoppseoyo" (I don't have money)...though, i think he offered to pay..."chada shippeoyo" (I want to sleep) and "nae-il (tomorrow), I go kyo-hoe (church)". Since he couldn't completely express himself, he proceeded to ask everyone who got on the train if they could speak English. Most of them said 'no' or said they didn't know how to translate. It was all good-natured, he looked like a respectable individual when sober and I enjoyed myself. Many of the people in the train car were laughing or at least sympathizing with me...except for the younger gentleman who shushed my new companion. After we left the train station together, we parted ways. I said 'sorry' and 'go in peace'.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
11 September 2010
I don't have time to figure out blogger formatting, so here it is. I finally found some weekend internet, so here are some overdue photos.
I constitute a 'special' teacher and was invited to a dinner with the 4th grade homeroom teachers (and other special teachers) during my first week in Anyang, because I teach 4th as well as 3rd and 5th. Here are pictures of the school. Included is a shot of my classroom and a sandlot visible from my room where kids play baseball. Lupina is another one of the my co-teachers. Here she is explaining how to play a game for class.
Per Amy's request, here are pictures from in and around our apartment building. Yes, our bathroom and shower are one and the same.
From a bridge leading to central park, I took pictures from all four directions, to get a semi-decent perspective of the city. You can see that the city is very green. There are mountains completely surrounding the city and hiking is a very popular pastime.
Central Park is about five walking minutes from our apartment. I went there on a Saturday and there were a lot of families with tents hanging out or playing in the fountains. A street is closed on the weekends for a flea market.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
02 September 2010
I haven't had much internet time as I've been 'borrowing' wifi whenever I can at home, but it comes and goes. I can't buy internet until I get my alien id card.
I've had two days of classes, but I haven't had to prepare much. That'll come next week. So far I've been presenting a powerpoint introduction of myself. I've taught 4th and 5th grade so far. I'll also have 3rd grade next week. There isn't nearly as much order in the classroom as I expected. It doesn't bother me much, because the Korean teacher is in charge of order, I just let her do her work. I actually teach with 3 different "English" teachers...and I'm the only "Native" teacher at the school, so I'm a bit of a novelty. I sometimes feel like I'm on display at the zoo, but the kids seem eager to greet and talk to me.
Anyang is beautiful, despite the typhoon that occurred this morning (school was delayed 1 hour). There is much greenery throughout the city and beautiful parks and walkways.
Bus drivers are crazy here. So far, I've missed three buses (because they stopped much farther than the actual bustop and quickly sped off), had to yell at a driver "wait wait wait" because he shut the door before I could get off, heard a driver yell a passengers and have been on a bus that ran into a cart that an old lady was pushing (afterwards he slowed down for few seconds, then sped off). Seattle buses have clearly spoiled me. Cabs, on the other hand, are awesome. We took one today for 10 to 20 blocks and it cost about $2.00.