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
Thursday, 30 April 2009
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)