One month down, eleven to go...

"One month down, eleven to go...". That's actually Melissa's title. The forthcoming blog was actually meant to be split into two parts. The first was to be Mel's and the second was to be mine. However, Mel got bored/distracted/writer's blocked/whatevered and now the full responsibility falls on me. It seems that she finds it harder to come up with good topics of blog discussion. So, you may see her spending more time in the editing/commenting department on this blog. I will try to encourage her to post as often as possible, but I can make no promises.

So, my official title would've been "Driving Ms. Baby". I decided to keep the title Mel had suggested, but I would've went with the aforementioned one had I made my separate posting. "Driving Ms. Baby?!" you might say. Yes, that would've been the title. "Why?!" you might say. Well, let me tell you.

In South Korea, there is a lot of strange habits surrounding the birthing function. For example, I'm told that Korean mums spend like the first month (post birth) in bed. Usually the baby's maternal grandmother comes to take care of the mum and baby for the 1st month. After that the mother spends another 2-3 months at home caring for the baby. The baby doesn't really leave the home (at all) for the first year. After that there is a huge celebration because the baby lived through a whole year.

Many times I see mothers walking small children down the street in strollers. The strollers have plastic enclosing them to presumably protect from outside germs. That's all well and good seeing the incredible significance placed on tiny youth in South Korea.

Today, I walked home from the bus stop. While waiting for the cross-walk light to change I noticed a luxury car directly in front of me. In the driver's seat was a women with a swaddled baby clutched to her breast. WTF?

So, in SK we treat our baby with the utmost care until it comes to driving around the town? In which case we will buckle ourselves (the mother) in and just hold the baby while we drive in the craziest traffic you can ever imagine?!?!?!?!

/rant

In many programming languages one starts by issuing a command. The command might be something like: "rant". To end the term of the command, one closes it by preceding the command with a slash. So to say "/rant" is funny if you have programming knowledge. For the rest of you.... just nod along, okay? ;)

You see that?!! It's a hamburger!!! And French Fries (kinda)! and corn! One night we picked up some ground beef and made some burgers. OMG! It was sooooooooo good. I haven't had a proper burger in forever. The fries were just potatoes, some oil, some spices, and a hot pan (but really good). The corn was just a can of corn heated with some heat. The meal.... was delicious. After weeks of rice and kimchi, a burger was divine.

Have I explained kimchi? Do you know what it is?I know I explained soju, but kimchi might be a blank spot for many of you... Well, they take some veggies and they put it in a pot. Then they let it ferment for a while. It makes this crazy tasting stuff called kimchi. I really can't describe it in terms you'd understand. The closest thing you've ever had to kimchi is sourkraut and that's still not quite right. I'd suggest just going to a Korean market and asking for some. You might like it. It has such a wonderful zing for the tongue (although Mel doesn't really like it).






So, that's a lot of pictures of Mel's classroom. She was supposed to type about them. Instead you've got me. This is my first time seeing them too. Wow! Look at all that wood! Crazy! Wood desks and chairs too! Oh, and there's an "English zone"! Neato! Oh, that 5th picture must be what passes for an industrial air conditioner in South Korea.... Awww, look the 6th picture has a cute little laptop that the school has given Mel to use....

Mel says that laptop sucks! Every time she tries to use her usb drive the laptop crashes.... It probably pops up an error message in Korean. I can't even ask the tech guys at home what it means because it's in freakin' Hangul. (Hangul is what Koreans call the written Korean alphabet).

Okay, let's move on....

Friday, Mel and I went to a teacher's workshop. It was for the entire province. (A province is probably the equivalent of a state). There was like 90+ foreign teachers. It was really weird to be in an environment where the predominant language was English. We're just not used to that any more :D The workshop just reviewed some contract stuff (for public school workers, like ourselves) and presented some neat cultural stuff.

Post workshop we set out for the return trip to Osan (the WS was in Byeongjeom). The train to Osan arrived, but some stern Korean lady kicked us off. We conferred with some other foreign teacher and found that that train had had its last stop. (That was a neat sentence, that that and had had!). It was fortuitous that we inquired about the train with said persons. Doing so allowed us to meet Jason (from Chicago), Tka (from Florida), and Kelly (from California). After some conversation we agreed to meet for dinner a few hours later.

We met in front of the local Lotte Mart (it's a supermarket). Jason and Tka were the only ones to come for dinner. We were told that there are many other English speaking teachers in Osan. Jason and Tka were a lot of fun and we really enjoyed dinner. They had been here since the fall so they had a bit more insight than we do. They invited us to go to the bar with all the other English teacher afterward.....

This is towards the end of the night. This is Phil! We had just met him. You can see in this picture the various types of glasses the bar serves. The single is the shortest one. The triple is that huge one right in front of Phil. Tka is on the right, protecting her face from you viewing it :D

I apparently snuck this photo of Mel. I had drank a few too many doubles (in between single and triple) and had gotten a hold of the camera. :D

Hmmm...... I think her name is Mya. Random picture from the bar this is.

OH! So, on April 8th they are electing new education officials for this province. This is the advertising van of one of the candidates. Hidden somewhere in that van are very loud speakers. A very patriotic tune played from them.

This is a very very bad picture of the supermarket. I apologize for the quality. I've been at this blogging type thing for way too long now. It's been like an hour. Now it's 10:30(pm) so I'm going to head out.

Please comment as to how hilarious this blog is and to how much you miss the post of Melissa. Without your love and support she may never post again....

*edit* I went back and fixed some of my grammatical mistakes before Mel could get to them. I'm sure there's a ton more that she'll want to fix :D

Aaron