Korea Day 16 (Saturday, Aug 1)

Yes, the work week is over. We started the day with Dunkin' donuts at our meeting. Our Korean boss, Bailey brought them for us. They are actually less sweet here and reasonably good. The box said "vitamin donuts" so, assuming that they were healthy, I decided to have one.

The day went smoothly, it was speech contest day 2. My speakers were not as strong as yesterday. We decided to have two representatives from each class as the assembly was a bit too short yesterday. I picked my top two, Linda and Sylvia. They had tough competition from the other classes as some students had lived in the US for a few years and also memorized their speeches! It was fun though. My students seemed exhausted by the end of the day. I was melting.

The weather here is quite funny. When we went for lunch, it was hazy and we knew it was going to rain. Once back in class, thankfully, the rain poured, the wind was very strong and there was thunder and lightning. It looked like quite a major storm. It lasted about 10 minutes and then was gone. When we left to come home, it looked as if it had never rained. It is unbelievably hot and humid outside today.

One of the teachers, Anu, had friends here in Seoul. One of them is a comic and will be performing tonight. He is western and will be speaking in English. We are all going to watch the show. Anu arranged tickets for all of us (12 people) so it should be fun. It's at a western bar called the Kabinett Wine bar in Itaewan. I am hoping that the name does not lie as I haven't had a sip of wine since I arrived in Korea.

Joann and I started doing some research for China. It is very hard to find two or three things to do in such a vast country filled with amazing things to see. We are trying to fit in a few days in Beijing (great wall and forbidden city), a few days in Xian (terracotta soldiers) and a 3 night/4 day cruise on the Yangtzee. It may just be a pipe dream to do all of these in little over a week but we are hoping!!