Hi!
So for our long weekend in May, we did end up going to the Butterfly Festival, but not on our road trip. One of the Koreans got pretty sick shortly before the weekend so we went to Seoul instead. The butterfly festival was great! That day kind of changed how I viewed Korea. It was nice to see so many pretty things in one day. It ended up being more of a flower festival with a few butterflies in glassed in areas. The next day (Sunday), we headed to Seoul for the Lotus Lantern Festival…..or so we thought :p It was the weekend of Buddha’s birthday and we assumed the festivities were always held on that same weekend. It wasn’t until we were roaming the streets of Seoul at night trying to find this big lantern parade that I noticed the guide book said the festival was always the weekend PREceeding Buddha’s birthday! Whoopsadaisies! It was no big deal though, the lanterns were still hung all around one of the major temples so it was not a wasted trip. Plus, it was good for me just to get a little bit acquainted with Seoul….it will probably take many trips before I am actually used to it though…it’s a tad crazy.
There were a couple of weekends in May where we just stayed in Suncheon which is fine because there is enough to do here that can entertain you for a weekend. Also, Kristina and Joanne were, cleaning, packing, and tying up any loose ends before they left. The girls left last weekend to do a bit of traveling and they are back in the UK this weekend. They are the first people to leave since I arrived and it is a very weird feeling. I’ve never had an experience where most ppl weren’t departing at the same time. You know, when you’re at school, writing exams everyone is done around the same time or on my other travels I’ve always been with a group so we came and went at the same time. I knew that this year would be like a revolving door of new ppl, but it’s just different when you’re actually experiencing it. Luckily though, the new teachers are quite pleasant. They are a couple from Scotland in their late 20’s and they have already taught in Korea for a year so they kind of know how things work in general, but they’re still adjusting to life at Wonderland specifically! Their eyes have looked soooo tired by the end of each week so far! It is a lot to take in and it’s kind of a busy time right now too. We had the monthly birthday party for the kindies last week plus a staff dinner for Teacher’s Day (Oh wow, I’ll tell you about teachers day in a little bit!). This Thursday was a kindie field trip and Friday was a speech contest and market day for the afternoon classes.
Alrighty, so Teacher’s Day is basically Christmas in May. I received home made soaps, coffee, scarves, candy, cookies, very sparkly lip gloss, and a gift certificate for a department store here. Strangely enough, one of the most common gifts that other teachers got were these large tins of powdered vitamins! I mean there are individually wrapped packets in the tin, but still….unique.
This was the first field trip I got to go on! Usually the Angels don’t go because they’re so young. We went to the Suncheon Dam where there are lookout points and little gardens plus a museum on how the water system works……at least that’s what I gathered from the short film and pictures because I still can’t read Korean L It was a good day and the kids weren’t that bad, but I was freakishly tired by the end of it. I guess it was maybe a combo of the heat and being on high alert….ya know, so none of the kids end up in the water…because then I wouldn’t be allowed on the upcoming field trips.
Friday (sigh), oh Friday….I felt so many things on this day. It was nice to not teach for the whole afternoon because all the classes went upstairs to the gym for the speech contest and market day. However, it kind of brought on a different kind of stress. The speeches were more stressful beforehand because I had to write them, ask the kids more questions to fill them out a bit and make sure they were 3 minutes, remain calm after coteachers or parents had rewrote a kids speech, and try even harder to stay calm when I saw that it wasn’t even proper English used to rewrite these speeches. Anyways, on the day of the contest it was fine because I had chosen the winners from each class and all they had to do was say it. Some of my kids even won top prizes! The Market Day part was a little more intense. The purpose of Market Day is to reward the kids who have earned the most stickers for good behaviour and what not since the last Market Day 6 months ago. The more stickers you have, the more Wonderland money you receive. There are different stations set up; one sells stationary, another one sells snacks, another sells hot food, and the last one sells sandwiches and drinks. It’s a neat idea, right?! It was just difficult because no one really gave an outline of what was happening and there never seemed to be enough $1 or $5 bills to give to the kids to spend OR when you were working at a station and had to give change. So it was a rush to find/give out money to 10 kids who have their arms stretched out, then it was a rush to get to your station and help “sell”, then do a lap of the gym to try and find change only to discover that every other station is mysteriously in the same boat…..yeah apparently those $1’s and $5’s were all wearing boots that were made for walking because they were outta sight! There was always a quick clean up time to get ready for the next session…and it started all over. Oh well, we all survived.
Last weekend I went to the Boseong green tea fields with one of the Korean teachers named Jessica. I would say that it was my favorite scenery so far. It was this steep hill covered in neat rows of deep green coloured green tea bushes with dense mixed forest leading up to the hill and all around it. I didn’t really pick up a scent from the green tea, but the air smelled like pine….mmmm, so refreshing. Another thing that is refreshing is green tea ice cream! I had tried it before from a corner store and it didn’t really taste that good. To be honest, I thought it was mint so I had my taste buds all ready for mint, only to be ultra disappointed when I bit into it. This time I knew it was green tea and it was soft ice cream that was extra gooey.
I have a new student in my Angels. Her name is Tarin and she’s very cute (actually all my kindies are pretty much gorgeous!) and smart. Sometimes she seems to have her own language because I’m not sure what she’s saying….and the Korean teacher looks puzzled too. There’s nothing wrong with a little Konglish I guess.
One of my favourite students made me feel pretty good the other week. Mark (one of the new teachers) was leaving one of my classes after observing. The students from the next class were already coming in. This girl named Eve quietly put her bag down and asked, “Teacher, who?” “Oh, that’s Mark Teacher, he’s new” I said. Her eyes widened a bit and her smile kind of faded. “Is Mark Teacher teaching ALL of Katie Teachers’ classes?” she asked. “No, no. He will take Kristina and Joanne teachers’ classes.” I said. Eve pretended to wipe her forehead and said “whew!”. It made me feel good because it took away some of my self doubt. Sometimes I wonder if I yell too much or even if I’m really helping or hindering these kids because, let’s be serious, my English is less than stellar!
Talk to you later.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Sea Parting Festival
Okay, so it’s been a while. I have had several little outings between my last post and now, but I’m kind of going to breeze over them in an attempt to catch up to the present. One day we went to a folk village that is 20 minutes outside of Suncheon. It’s the same idea as Upper Canada Village, but way bigger and not as many demonstrations going on. One Sunday we went for a stroll along the river downtown where there are paintings all along one side of it. I also tried out the swan paddle boats….I think one of the rudders were broken because we could not turn that thing to the right! It may have been the drivers too I suppose :p. As a bonus we made a friend…yes we found her in the river and we weren’t sure if she had fallen in or was taking a bath. Turns out she has a few loose screws and was actually taking a bath. Apparently one of us made eye contact and she felt comfortable enough to follow us, continuously speak Korean, and oh yeah…tap me on the shoulder! I jolted my shoulder out of her reach and said a surprised “whoooo-aaah!”. I felt like a snob, but I just REALLY wasn’t expecting it, plus I had just bought this nice yellow shirt with shamrocks on it for St patricks Day in March (it’s still good for through out the year wear too) which I was wearing and I didn’t really care for dirty river hands on it. On another Saturday we went to Gwangju (it’s about 1.5 away) for some shopping and just a change of scenery.
As a side note, when I say “we” it pretty much always includes Kristina (from Manchester) and Joanne (from Ireland). Occasionally the head teacher and my fellow Canadian, Jess, will come with us.
This past weekend, Kristina and I went to the Jindo Sea Parting Festival. It is basically a low tide between Jindo Island and Modo Island, but it was supposed to be pretty spectacular. At it’s lowest point, hoards of people walk across the 2.8km long “Mystic Sea Road”. It ended up not parting all the way and the police turned everyone around, but it was still kind of cool to see, plus we bought some pretty sweet rubber boots to truck around in…we felt pretty hard core. The rest of the festival was mainly food booths with a couple of exhibition tents I guess you could call them. You could make your own seaweed sheets or listen to some traditional drum music while the older people danced directly in the path of all other festival goers. We stayed until Sunday, but not late enough for the tide to go out again (it happens between 4 and 5) because we wanted to make sure we caught our bus home and last buses here are ridiculously early. I think it’s because a lot of the ppl travelling are older…all the students are trapped studying I guess and don’t really travel as much as us young ppl would at home.
This weekend we have a long weekend!!!! 4 days long to be exact J. I’m looking forward to the change of schedule. We are planning on going to a butterfly festival on Saturday, having a day of rest on Sunday, then doing a bit of a road trip with a couple of the Korean teachers on Monday and Tuesday. The long weekend is because of Children’s Day which falls on Tuesday. The school gave us Monday off in lieu of another day we’re supposed to have off later in May, but it also falls in the middle of a week so they put them together.
The teaching is going well enough. I feel like I have a reasonable amount of control of my classes…on most days. I’ve created a poster for “Today’s Superstar” (it’s laminated and everything) to provide some extra motivation. It’s helping a bit, but the extremely “too cool for school” type of child isn’t really taking as much notice as hoped. The winner gets his or her name written on the poster (in white board marker so that it can be erased for the next class) and a special sticker or sometimes candy.
As much as I’m not supposed to…I have favourites. I don’t show it, no worries. From my “Smurfs”, there are a few including, Lucas, Kayla, and Olivia. Lucas goes into this hyperventilating laughter at the smallest thing, like shaking hands with puppets I use. Kayla is just starting to gain confidence with English so when she says something clearly without me prompting her I try to make a bit of a fuss to encourage her. This makes her flap her arms, kind of like I used to when I was little, and laugh. Olivia is pretty much standing at attention ready to dance as soon as I reach for a CD. Stay tuned for more travel updates and student profiles J
As a side note, when I say “we” it pretty much always includes Kristina (from Manchester) and Joanne (from Ireland). Occasionally the head teacher and my fellow Canadian, Jess, will come with us.
This past weekend, Kristina and I went to the Jindo Sea Parting Festival. It is basically a low tide between Jindo Island and Modo Island, but it was supposed to be pretty spectacular. At it’s lowest point, hoards of people walk across the 2.8km long “Mystic Sea Road”. It ended up not parting all the way and the police turned everyone around, but it was still kind of cool to see, plus we bought some pretty sweet rubber boots to truck around in…we felt pretty hard core. The rest of the festival was mainly food booths with a couple of exhibition tents I guess you could call them. You could make your own seaweed sheets or listen to some traditional drum music while the older people danced directly in the path of all other festival goers. We stayed until Sunday, but not late enough for the tide to go out again (it happens between 4 and 5) because we wanted to make sure we caught our bus home and last buses here are ridiculously early. I think it’s because a lot of the ppl travelling are older…all the students are trapped studying I guess and don’t really travel as much as us young ppl would at home.
This weekend we have a long weekend!!!! 4 days long to be exact J. I’m looking forward to the change of schedule. We are planning on going to a butterfly festival on Saturday, having a day of rest on Sunday, then doing a bit of a road trip with a couple of the Korean teachers on Monday and Tuesday. The long weekend is because of Children’s Day which falls on Tuesday. The school gave us Monday off in lieu of another day we’re supposed to have off later in May, but it also falls in the middle of a week so they put them together.
The teaching is going well enough. I feel like I have a reasonable amount of control of my classes…on most days. I’ve created a poster for “Today’s Superstar” (it’s laminated and everything) to provide some extra motivation. It’s helping a bit, but the extremely “too cool for school” type of child isn’t really taking as much notice as hoped. The winner gets his or her name written on the poster (in white board marker so that it can be erased for the next class) and a special sticker or sometimes candy.
As much as I’m not supposed to…I have favourites. I don’t show it, no worries. From my “Smurfs”, there are a few including, Lucas, Kayla, and Olivia. Lucas goes into this hyperventilating laughter at the smallest thing, like shaking hands with puppets I use. Kayla is just starting to gain confidence with English so when she says something clearly without me prompting her I try to make a bit of a fuss to encourage her. This makes her flap her arms, kind of like I used to when I was little, and laugh. Olivia is pretty much standing at attention ready to dance as soon as I reach for a CD. Stay tuned for more travel updates and student profiles J
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Busan
We went to Busan a couple of weekends ago and it was great. It was a bit of a rough start since we missed the bus we were aiming for. Apparently Koreans can be early! Yes it was quite a shocker since they are notoriously and chronically late. Our bus was supposed to leave at 8:10 and at 8:08 it was already gone. No biggie. We got the next bus.
It is definitely somewhere I’ll be going back to…several times. It’s more modern, way cleaner than Suncheon and quite a bit bigger. There is a huge beach called Hyundae beach and it is beautiful! At night, it was nice to walk along the board walk with everything lit up along the shore and on the hills. Through the day we went to the aquarium and did some shopping. The aquarium was good, nothing overly unique in what they had, but it was nice and big. Their “theme” I guess you would call it was to take famous paintings and change them by putting sea creatures in place of the people ie. The Girl with a Pearl Earring was now a Fish with a Pearl Earring. Yeah, different. Yet another random aspect to the aquarium was the little 3-D theatre you could go to at the end. Sometimes I thought we were on drop zone because the Koreans were screaming so, sooooo much. It was ridiculous. Anyways, for supper we stuffed ourselves with Indian food. Mmmmmm, curry; I love you so much.
As a bonus feature in Busan, there were several matching couples. Okay, so there were only about 4 couples, but that’s the most I’ve seen so far. The level of matching ranged from matching shoes to pretty much entire matching outfits. I think the top prize would go to a couple we saw on the subway who had similar shoes, khaki bottoms and striped, button down shirts.
Yesterday the school took us on a staff outing to see the cherry blossoms in Gwangyang. They were quite pretty, but there weren’t as many as we were expecting. For lunch we had bulgogi, which Gwangyang is famous for. It’s very thinly sliced meat cooked over hot wood. It was my favourite Korean meal yet! The meat was so nice and lean (something pretty rare here). We came back to Suncheon and went to Jungdu mountain for some more cherry blossom viewing…and ice cream.
We went to Busan a couple of weekends ago and it was great. It was a bit of a rough start since we missed the bus we were aiming for. Apparently Koreans can be early! Yes it was quite a shocker since they are notoriously and chronically late. Our bus was supposed to leave at 8:10 and at 8:08 it was already gone. No biggie. We got the next bus.
It is definitely somewhere I’ll be going back to…several times. It’s more modern, way cleaner than Suncheon and quite a bit bigger. There is a huge beach called Hyundae beach and it is beautiful! At night, it was nice to walk along the board walk with everything lit up along the shore and on the hills. Through the day we went to the aquarium and did some shopping. The aquarium was good, nothing overly unique in what they had, but it was nice and big. Their “theme” I guess you would call it was to take famous paintings and change them by putting sea creatures in place of the people ie. The Girl with a Pearl Earring was now a Fish with a Pearl Earring. Yeah, different. Yet another random aspect to the aquarium was the little 3-D theatre you could go to at the end. Sometimes I thought we were on drop zone because the Koreans were screaming so, sooooo much. It was ridiculous. Anyways, for supper we stuffed ourselves with Indian food. Mmmmmm, curry; I love you so much.
As a bonus feature in Busan, there were several matching couples. Okay, so there were only about 4 couples, but that’s the most I’ve seen so far. The level of matching ranged from matching shoes to pretty much entire matching outfits. I think the top prize would go to a couple we saw on the subway who had similar shoes, khaki bottoms and striped, button down shirts.
Yesterday the school took us on a staff outing to see the cherry blossoms in Gwangyang. They were quite pretty, but there weren’t as many as we were expecting. For lunch we had bulgogi, which Gwangyang is famous for. It’s very thinly sliced meat cooked over hot wood. It was my favourite Korean meal yet! The meat was so nice and lean (something pretty rare here). We came back to Suncheon and went to Jungdu mountain for some more cherry blossom viewing…and ice cream.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Weeks 2, 3, and 4
These were my first three full weeks of teaching my own classes….and definitely the biggest learning phase I’ve had in a while. It was a bit of a rough start because…well..I haven’t had a full time job in a while, they were pretty long days between prepping and the actual teaching, and kids are flipping tiring! I mean, overall they are good kids, but there’s one or two who can’t handle having a bad day or they like to entertain the others. Obviously, I know kids are tiring. After babysitting someone else’s kids for a few hours it’s kind of nice to be able to give them back. I guess I gave myself a little too much credit going into this by thinking I could breeze into this no problem….8 classes of kids 5 days a week…HA..nothing to it!
In my earlier messages to some of you I mentioned how cool the school was. It’s set up so that each room has a theme such as: Jurassic Park, Universe, kitchen, McDonalds, bedroom, village. This theme is only relating to the decor, not what is taught in the classroom. My room is “The Kitchen” which is quite nice and fairly big. Another cool feature is the ramp to go up to the second floor. It’s just a carpeted ramp, but for some reason it makes a big difference..gives it more of a playhouse feel. We’re supposed to enforce the no running rule, but the kids love running down this ramp so much that I haven’t really got onto it. The walls are covered in colourful pads so they won’t really get hurt. Sometimes they’ve come around the corner and smacked into my basket of supplies in my hand, but they just walk it off. I thought the bell was neat at the beginning too…now it’s just a bit much. It’s a recognizable childhood tune, but I don’t know the name of it….still beats an actual bell.
OK, enough school talk. Outside of school, the main social outing seems to be eating for Koreans and foreigners both. This process is lengthened by how much the group is talking, but it’s certainly never held up by the service! Shortly after you sit down, an array of side dishes are placed in front of you faster than you can say “array of side dishes”. Most places are dedicated to a certain kind of meat and everything is done as a group so all you have to choose is the amount of meat you want. Everything for the cooking part is brought and away you go. Part way through the cooking they’ll often come over and take the tongs and spoon away from you because apparently we can’t stir…. Oh, they have these buttons too where you just press it (instead of trying to flag a server down) and they come running over. Honestly last night we were in a nicer restaurant that one of the Korean teachers took us and we pushed the button only to hear the poor girl running in her high heels to get to us asap!
Besides eating, we’ve been bowling, to the movies, to a Wii bong, and to a bar called “Elvis” that is kind of aimed at “westerners”. The Wii bong is prob my favourite. You pay about $1.50/hour and you get to play any Wii/playstation game you want on big screen TV in the privacy of your own little nook with a couch. It kind of makes Wii more exciting to me just because it’s an actual outing. “Bong” just means room so there are nori bongs (karaoke), Soju bongs (Soju is their very own hard liquor), and there’s another bong that is basically a public bath/spa I guess…anyways everyone’s naked.
This Saturday, we’re going to Busan. I am super duper pumped to see another city. Busan is about an hour and half bus ride to the east. It’s right on the coast near Japan and has very nice beaches, an aquarium and a really wonderful Indian restaurant sooo we’re going to hit all of those places. Since it’s not crazy far away we’re just going for the day although I kind of plan on taking note of other spots I’d like to visit in Busan and come back for a full weekend or two in the summer.
In my earlier messages to some of you I mentioned how cool the school was. It’s set up so that each room has a theme such as: Jurassic Park, Universe, kitchen, McDonalds, bedroom, village. This theme is only relating to the decor, not what is taught in the classroom. My room is “The Kitchen” which is quite nice and fairly big. Another cool feature is the ramp to go up to the second floor. It’s just a carpeted ramp, but for some reason it makes a big difference..gives it more of a playhouse feel. We’re supposed to enforce the no running rule, but the kids love running down this ramp so much that I haven’t really got onto it. The walls are covered in colourful pads so they won’t really get hurt. Sometimes they’ve come around the corner and smacked into my basket of supplies in my hand, but they just walk it off. I thought the bell was neat at the beginning too…now it’s just a bit much. It’s a recognizable childhood tune, but I don’t know the name of it….still beats an actual bell.
OK, enough school talk. Outside of school, the main social outing seems to be eating for Koreans and foreigners both. This process is lengthened by how much the group is talking, but it’s certainly never held up by the service! Shortly after you sit down, an array of side dishes are placed in front of you faster than you can say “array of side dishes”. Most places are dedicated to a certain kind of meat and everything is done as a group so all you have to choose is the amount of meat you want. Everything for the cooking part is brought and away you go. Part way through the cooking they’ll often come over and take the tongs and spoon away from you because apparently we can’t stir…. Oh, they have these buttons too where you just press it (instead of trying to flag a server down) and they come running over. Honestly last night we were in a nicer restaurant that one of the Korean teachers took us and we pushed the button only to hear the poor girl running in her high heels to get to us asap!
Besides eating, we’ve been bowling, to the movies, to a Wii bong, and to a bar called “Elvis” that is kind of aimed at “westerners”. The Wii bong is prob my favourite. You pay about $1.50/hour and you get to play any Wii/playstation game you want on big screen TV in the privacy of your own little nook with a couch. It kind of makes Wii more exciting to me just because it’s an actual outing. “Bong” just means room so there are nori bongs (karaoke), Soju bongs (Soju is their very own hard liquor), and there’s another bong that is basically a public bath/spa I guess…anyways everyone’s naked.
This Saturday, we’re going to Busan. I am super duper pumped to see another city. Busan is about an hour and half bus ride to the east. It’s right on the coast near Japan and has very nice beaches, an aquarium and a really wonderful Indian restaurant sooo we’re going to hit all of those places. Since it’s not crazy far away we’re just going for the day although I kind of plan on taking note of other spots I’d like to visit in Busan and come back for a full weekend or two in the summer.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Week One
Hello everyone!!!
So here it is, my blog, finally. This first entry may turn out to be a bit of a novel so you may want to have a seat.
All of my flights went well. The time did seem long though just because I’ve never gone this far completely alone. When I went to Aus, I met my group in LA and we were on the same long flight so it wasn’t that bad. Anyways, my favourite flight was from Seoul to Yeoso because it was daylight and I had a window seat. It was pretty cool to see all the hills from the top to the bottom of South Korea. The hills were nice, the water was nice, and then there was this haze that sort of added a dreamlike quality to the whole picture. I thought maybe it was because it was still morning or maybe because the seasons are changing and the cold water was mixing with the warmer air yadda yadda yadda. Nuh, no! It turns out it’s all of Chinas pollution. Yep, they build their smokestacks at such a height that the winds are strong enough to carry it over. I think for the rest of the year though I’m just going to keep telling myself it’s fog…that way I won’t feel like my lungs are dying as much.
My first week consisted of a few days of observation and 2 days of covering the classes of the teacher who was leaving. All I had to do was entertain them because it was the end of the term. On the Thursday morning it was kindergarten graduation which is a BIG deal. All of the different classes have their own little performance they do before they get to walk across the stage in their caps and gowns for their certificates. All the parents were there with insane bouquets of flowers and their Louis Vuitton bags. Next on the agenda was orientation for the new kindergartens on Saturday. It’s mainly just to show the kids the inside of the school and see how they do when they’re not with their parents. I was in a room with a couple classes, one of which was mine called “Smurfs”. I was able to spot some kids from my other class by following the crying sounds and then double checking the name tags. Yes, they were part of my “Angels” group. The “Angels” are the first group of 4 year olds to come through the doors of Wonderland. They are 4 years old in Korea so in Canada they would actually be 3. You are 1 year old when you are first born here. Depending on when they’re birthday is some of my kids are even closer to 2 years Canadian age. Everyone ages a year right at the beginning of the calendar year. For example there is one boy who was born in November so he basically turned 2 years old a few months ago, but because it’s Korea, he’s 3 and because it’s past January 1st in Korea he is 4. Everyone has nicknamed him the little old man because he is soooo tiny and looks quite frail.
The nights of my first week were great. The head foreign teacher, Jess (who is also from Canada), took me somewhere different to eat each night and sometimes the other teachers came along too. This was incredibly good of them considering they had marking, report cards, and schedules to make for the new semester. The first few meals made my eyes water, but I’m getting better. It’s not really a shocker since at home I didn’t usually venture any higher than “medium” salsa. My favourite food so far are these bean sprouts that are steamed (I think) and they just have a little bit of sesame oil on them…probably some other ingredients too. They’re actually just one of the many simple side dishes that come with every meal, but I get pretty excited for them. My favourite meal has been dok galbi (I’m just using phonetics). It’s a chicken dish that you cook with rice or noodles and the usual veggies. Most meals out in Korea are cooked in front of you then you pile what you want on a lettuce leaf and mow down. There’s really no graceful way to go about it. When you try doing two bites it kind of falls apart and the sauce runs down your hand. When you try just one bite you look and feel like a greedy chipmunk, but everyone’s in the same boat.
Okay kids I’m gonna wrap this up and try and get some more done through the week. Stay tuned.
So here it is, my blog, finally. This first entry may turn out to be a bit of a novel so you may want to have a seat.
All of my flights went well. The time did seem long though just because I’ve never gone this far completely alone. When I went to Aus, I met my group in LA and we were on the same long flight so it wasn’t that bad. Anyways, my favourite flight was from Seoul to Yeoso because it was daylight and I had a window seat. It was pretty cool to see all the hills from the top to the bottom of South Korea. The hills were nice, the water was nice, and then there was this haze that sort of added a dreamlike quality to the whole picture. I thought maybe it was because it was still morning or maybe because the seasons are changing and the cold water was mixing with the warmer air yadda yadda yadda. Nuh, no! It turns out it’s all of Chinas pollution. Yep, they build their smokestacks at such a height that the winds are strong enough to carry it over. I think for the rest of the year though I’m just going to keep telling myself it’s fog…that way I won’t feel like my lungs are dying as much.
My first week consisted of a few days of observation and 2 days of covering the classes of the teacher who was leaving. All I had to do was entertain them because it was the end of the term. On the Thursday morning it was kindergarten graduation which is a BIG deal. All of the different classes have their own little performance they do before they get to walk across the stage in their caps and gowns for their certificates. All the parents were there with insane bouquets of flowers and their Louis Vuitton bags. Next on the agenda was orientation for the new kindergartens on Saturday. It’s mainly just to show the kids the inside of the school and see how they do when they’re not with their parents. I was in a room with a couple classes, one of which was mine called “Smurfs”. I was able to spot some kids from my other class by following the crying sounds and then double checking the name tags. Yes, they were part of my “Angels” group. The “Angels” are the first group of 4 year olds to come through the doors of Wonderland. They are 4 years old in Korea so in Canada they would actually be 3. You are 1 year old when you are first born here. Depending on when they’re birthday is some of my kids are even closer to 2 years Canadian age. Everyone ages a year right at the beginning of the calendar year. For example there is one boy who was born in November so he basically turned 2 years old a few months ago, but because it’s Korea, he’s 3 and because it’s past January 1st in Korea he is 4. Everyone has nicknamed him the little old man because he is soooo tiny and looks quite frail.
The nights of my first week were great. The head foreign teacher, Jess (who is also from Canada), took me somewhere different to eat each night and sometimes the other teachers came along too. This was incredibly good of them considering they had marking, report cards, and schedules to make for the new semester. The first few meals made my eyes water, but I’m getting better. It’s not really a shocker since at home I didn’t usually venture any higher than “medium” salsa. My favourite food so far are these bean sprouts that are steamed (I think) and they just have a little bit of sesame oil on them…probably some other ingredients too. They’re actually just one of the many simple side dishes that come with every meal, but I get pretty excited for them. My favourite meal has been dok galbi (I’m just using phonetics). It’s a chicken dish that you cook with rice or noodles and the usual veggies. Most meals out in Korea are cooked in front of you then you pile what you want on a lettuce leaf and mow down. There’s really no graceful way to go about it. When you try doing two bites it kind of falls apart and the sauce runs down your hand. When you try just one bite you look and feel like a greedy chipmunk, but everyone’s in the same boat.
Okay kids I’m gonna wrap this up and try and get some more done through the week. Stay tuned.
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