Korea Day 11

Today was the start of the second week and things went pretty smoothly at work. I know all of my students' names and I know the daily schedule. There is a fair bit of work each day as we have to write comments for each student, we have to give the homework to our C.C. to put on the report and we have to create a vocabulary list from the lessons. Joann and I are working together most of the time, although we are teaching different books.

Here are a few shots taken by the camp's photographer today. These are, obviously, of Joann's Monday class. There are fewer of her class as I can't yet recognize her students unless she is in the shot with them. I also recognize the blue felt fish that she made to decorate her class. Her class colour is blue!

The remaining class photos are from my Monday class. They are a pretty good bunch. For the picture where I'm bent over looking over some students, they are showing me how their electronic dictionaries will say the words aloud to get the proper pronunciation! I was impressed.

It is amusing here - they try to serve Western food but it doesn't come out quite right. For instance, today at lunch we had spaghetti. It was spaghetti but it had sweet and sour sauce on it.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant that is about 2 minutes from our place. We had a noodle dish and a dumpling dish and shared them. The food was great but the sauce was a bit too spicy for us (even for Joann). I was impressed that I got Joann to eat dumplings. I thought she didn't like them because she was unsure what was inside them. In fact, it the texture of the outside that she doesn't like, when they are steamed or boiled. The dumplings at dinner were deep fried. After dinner, Joann and I went back to Insadong. We are both enamored with this area. It is busy but quaint and interesting for a stroll in the evening. We have walked through our neighbourhood so much that their isn't much left to see here.

We found out the the palace is closed on Mondays but we visited a Buddist temple. It was beautiful. Here is a shot of Joann standing at the gate of the temple.

Here she is standing outside with a prayer wheel.

Here is a Buddha where people make donations to the monks. Joann told my that they live on the generous gifts of other people for their food. There were some bottles of water and a bag of rice as offerings in front of this Buddha.

Here is one of the painted panels about Buddha's life. This is him taking his first steps.

After having a look around, we went into the temple gift shop and bought a few nice items. I bought a ring that is like a prayer circle as the outside part of it can be rotated. I like it!! I also bought the monks a bag of rice! Joann told me the meaning of the white elephant - I think Buddha first appeared as a white elephant but please don't quote me on that. This white elephant has a young Buddha standing on him. Joann cut him out of the photo so I thought that might cause her some bad luck. This statue was not at the temple but a few blocks down the road from it.

Joann has decided that she can have 2 Baskin and Robbins cones each week (such restraint) - she ALWAS gets chocolate mousse ice cream! I had a tiramisu gelato in Insadong and it was delightful.

Well, it's 11:30 pm here and I'm exhausted. I have many more photos to upload but I will leave that for another day. I am off to bed. Good night - I guess it's good morning for you as it is 10:30am there!