Joann's room

Here are some pictures of Joann's room. Her room is almost a square. When you come in the door, her desk is to the left with the shelves above it and her bathroom is to the right. Her bed is in behind the bathroom.

Here the bathrooms are quite efficient. They are completely tiled and there is a glass door that seals it off from the rest of the room. The shower head is above the sink and to shower, you close the glass door and turn the water on. The whole bathroom can get wet but it is contained from the rest of the room.

The flat black screen is a TV and, yes, there are about 3 English speaking channels. I must admit that I have not turned mine on yet.

Korea Day 13

Here are some photos of Joann's class today, Wednesday, July 29. There are a few shots of the cafeteria where we eat lunch. With my class, you can see what the food is too. The food in the caf is pretty good.

Here are some picture of my class today. I was showing them photos on my computer. We were studying animal habitats so I was showing them pictures of deserts, rain forests, and tundra. Students have electronic dictionaries but they can be as annoying as phones.

There is also a funny video with my class in it but there was an error when I tried to upload it so I will try again later.

After work, I fell down the stairs leaving the our building at the university. I didn't hurt myself but I was a bit embarressed. As we were walking up the stairs in our residence, I tripped again and my lip hit the step. I think I will have a bit of a fat lip but otherwise I'm fine. I don't know if I'm tired or just becoming more of a klutz than usual.

One of the other teachers heard that you can get a pedicure here by having little fish eat the dead skin off of your feet. It sounds a bit weird but we decided it would be an interesting experience so 6 of us set off to a good place that was recommended by a few of the Korean women that we work with. Apparently, it was a coffee shop/pedicure place called "Dr. Fish". It was disappointing because when we got there, they no longer had the pedicures, it was just a coffee shop. We wandered around the area and did a bit of shopping.

Korea Day 12

Okay, I have to admit today was not a great day. It started out fine but at about 10:30am, I started to feel ill. I think I have a cold coming on and I am overtired. I think I was pretty good with my students but I had a headache and I was feeling lousy.

I think we are all still getting over the jetlag and we are all really tired. It seems that the person in charge is adding work for us on a regular basis. We have to do comments for the kids every day (we were told once a week), we have to do extensive comments (we were told a sentence or two), we have two meetings a day (we were told one a day). I know these things sound like really small things but I think it's the accumulation and the exhaustion speaking.

The day went smoothly at school but we had a 30 minute meeting after classes were over. I came home, took 2 aspirins and went to bed. After a 2 hour nap, I felt much better and things didn't seem as bleak.

Here are some photos of my Tuesday class. They are from the camp photographer as I keep forgetting to take pictures.

Here is a shot of Joann's class. Again, I can identify them when she is in the photo!

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!

Korea Day 10

Today was our first day off. Joann and I decided not to set the alarms and relax. It felt great. I was in bed reading until about 10am.

We had breakfast and we had already made plans to go hiking in the mountains. There are mountains to the north of Seoul and the base is accessible by subway. We packed some water and snacks and headed off. The subway was a bit unusual as we reached a stop that was a few stops away from our destination. The subway worker came up to us and said "Get off." We have learned that Koreans don't add any pleasantries when they speak but they are not trying to be rude. He told us that the train didn't go any further. We asked someone by showing our subway map and he mimed where to go (quite well) and we were off. The guide book said to follow the well dressed hikers from the subway to the mountain. It really was that easy. It was funny though, Koreans get all geared up for a hike. They wear long gortex pants and shirts, hiking boots, gloves, hats or huge sunvisors, and carry metal poles to help them walk. We were quite the spectacle in our shorts, t-shirts and runners! All along the way to the national park (where the trails are) there were stores selling hiking gear. It was incredible.

The trails were great, wide and often with steps made out of rock. There was a little stream that ran through the park beside the path we took. Our intention was to get to one of the peak's to see the view of Seoul. Unfortunately, with the heat (we started around noon) and my lack of physical fitness, we walked about 2.2km up the mountain but stopped 0.9km from the peak. It was great to be outside though and we had a great day.

We came back home soaking wet (yes there was some sweating going on) and happily exhausted. We showered and rested and then went out for dinner. We went to a place called 'The Bonnie House'. It said it had fusion cuisine but we were not sure what the fusion choices were. One of the entrees was fried rice with spaghetti on top and another was fried rice with pizza on top. This might make you think that the fusion was Korean/Italian but our food had no Italian flare to it. I was quite happy with my meal - fried rice and beef - because it came with green peppers and onions and a salad!! In Korean meals, they don't seem to cook the vegetables, they just throw them in raw at the end. I was still happy with raw onion and green pepper. The meal was a bit unusual in its presentation. The whole meal came on one place. It consisted of fried rice, beef and veggies, salad, a bun and 2 slices of fruit with whipped cream! We also got a few pieces of fresh fruit given to us at the end of the meal. Koreans also go with the 'tomato is a fruit' and serve it with any fruit dish. We were given some apple, kiwi and cherry tomatoes.

After dinner, we went for a short walk, bought some yogurt for breakfast, came back here to do some school work and then Joann helped my get caught up on my blog. She has been keeping a journal and it was up to date.

It is now 10:40pm and I am quite tired. I will try to upload a few photos before I go to bed.

Korea Day 9

We are getting excited about tomorrow as it will be our first day off after 8 straight days of work. The day went by quite quickly.

We received the first part of our pay, 300 000 won!! Don't get too excited, this is equivalent to $300 Canadian. It did feel nice to have such a wad of cash!

We all went home and got ready for the evening. We met for dinner at 7pm and some of the Korean staff came with us. We went to the same chicken place where Joann and I had eaten a few nights ago. This time we had fried chicken from a 'thirty year old family restaurant'. It was also delightful. We had our regular Cass beer but we also tried Soju. This is a local drink, I think it is make from rice. I have heard it compared to paint thinner. It was fun to try it though. It is actually better when added to the beer. We all were enjoying ourselves and there was even birthday cake for Hailey! She is another teacher who is here for 6 months from Australia. The cake was delicious. It was, however, green. We think it was green tea. It had nice whip cream icing and strawberries.

We had planned to meet the teachers from the other camp (4 of them and the camp is called Gaepo) for drinks. We went to an area around another university - there seem to be tons on universities here in Seoul! It was bustling!! There were tons of shops, restaurants, bars and people everywhere. We went to the "Ho Bar" for a drink. I had beer but some of the other teachers ordered vodka to share. They actually got a full bottle of vodka, some mix and a plate of fruit for about $80. They went wild doing vodka shooters and having drinks as well. Most of them were feeling pretty good by the time we left. The bar gave us free french fries and they lasted about 3 minutes at the table!

A few of us decided to come back home and the others were going to continue partying. Joe, one of the Korean staff, suggested that we go home on the bus. He said it would be shorter and we wouldn't have to transfer, as we did on the subway. The bus arrived immediately so we all got on. The bus was soooo crowded and the ride was very jolting. It was also harder to determine when to get off as there were no signs. On the subway there are signs in Korean and English. We did make it home and got to bed by about 1:30am.

Korea Day 8

We are starting to settle into work. This was our third new class. We had a small schedule change and had 'English Olympics' instead of speech class. The students were happy - we played Boggle and Guess Who and it was great to see the students participate, even the quiet ones! I was amazed to see how many English words students could make with the 16 letters we gave them. It was funny - I didn't give them the letter 'e' and my students were begging, "Please teacher, use an e!!"

Most of the teaching group went out for sushi. Molly, Joann and I had Indian food instead. This made Joann very happy. I have to say that the food was very good.

Being thoroughly exhausted, we had another early night.