7 weeks down, 45 to go?

Awesome news! We found (thanks to some other English teachers we met this weekend) a bookstore with English books! And okay, the prices left a little to be desired (I paid 21 dollars for 2 paperbacks) but books! BOOKS!!!! I can read again!! Their selection wasn't exactly huge, but they had some surprising things. I picked up 2 books after much (much much much much much) deliberation and prodding from Aaron; 1 that I had already read (a comfort book, if you will) and a new one to read. My comfort book was Pride and Prejudice and the new one is The Kite Runner. Of which I'm already 1/3rd of the way through. I'm trying to read it slowly and not in one sitting like I usually do. But it's difficult. I'm going to try not to spend all my money on books. No promises though.

Anyway, it's been a relatively low-key weekend here. We spend most of our time in our apartment, which is kind of sad when you think about it, but Aaron doesn't want to ride the trains up to Seoul to wander around. We're settling into a routine here with school and everything, and trying to decide where to go on vacation this summer. There are so many places I want to visit. I would love to go to Japan again (as a tourist this time and not a student) but I also want to see Thailand (though maybe not right now), Australia, New Zealand, Russia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, India...the list goes on.

We went out Friday night with a large group of English teachers and had a very good time, but the rest of the weekend we've just been relaxing for the most part. We did go out and do some shopping. I bought those books and also a new purse for 20 bucks. I am trying to find some decent dress shoes without heels but the ones I've seen are either too ugly or too small. We are going to head out this afternoon to do some more searching, and I'm probably going to pick up some new clothes while I'm at it.

I really didn't have much to blog about here, just wanted to provide a small update about what we've been doing lately. As you can see, not much of anything interesting, though we did meet some new people I sincerely hope we can hang out with again. Sometimes it's nice to talk to someone who ISN'T Aaron, and I'm sure he feels the same way about me. :)

To The Field!

On Monday my school had its Spring trip. I don't recall exactly how Il-kyu referred to said trip, but I soon derived that we would be going on a field trip. Class usually starts at 9am. Instead we all met out and abouts on the soccer field. Then we all walked to the waiting luxury buses...

OMG! These were some nice buses! They were quite comfy and carried me happily through the Korean countryside for the next 45 minutes to an hour.


We rolled up on the destination. I saw a couple buildings and a covered pavilion, housing a bunch of picnic tables. The purpose of the day's trip was still a mystery to me. At that time we lined up all the kids into their classes. We lined them up and counted them all before getting on the bus. I guess counting them once they got off again was just to make sure none of the comfy bus seats had actually ate any of the children....

Oh! A short aside... We rode with the 1st and 3rd graders. One of the 3rd graders, who happens to be one of my biggest fans, was placed directly in front of Il-kyu and I. She then proceeded to share all kinds of tasty Korean treats with us. I thought it was rather sweet. :)

So, the kids were milling about and forming lines and such. Having no actual attention span, I set about finding interesting things to photograph. Here's a close-up of a flowering bush. It has nice, pretty flowers. Me Mum likes to see such things, so you all get to see as well.

When we hopped out of the bus, I immediately noticed these flowers. They were all along the roadside and made me think of the formation of dandelions in the US. Now, there are dandelions here in SK, but these little purple flowers are much prettier.

Eventually, the day's activities began to reveal themselves. We would busy the children with the educational tasks of making our damned lunch!

The 4th -6th graders were stationed in the pavilion. They were spread out in groups along the picnic tables. A big bowl was in front of each group. In each bowl was placed a bunch of (what looked like) flour and a little water.

And the kids mixed it together crazily to form a dough....

But, whatever could they be making?

Ugh! It's sooooooo messy! The dough is for a food called Man-do. Man-do. Not, Man-dough. Man-do!

Have you ever had Chinese dumplings? Gyoza? Boiled? Fried? Whatever? Well, in Korea it's called Man-do. That's what they're making.

For the uninitiated, they made a dough. Then they roll it and make it nice and flat. They cut out a round bit of dough (about 5 or 6 inches in diameter). In the center goes a blot of filling. The filling is usually veggies and seasonings. Pork and chicken are also usually ground into the veggies. You fold the dough over and pinch it shut.

Sometimes the dumplings are just boiled until the dough is cooked and the innards are warm. Other times they are boiled as above and then fried for a crispy exterior. They are best when fried. Either way, they are usually yummy.... we'll come back to Man-do soon...

After a while, I inquired as to what the younglings were up to...

They were making jello....

Brown jello, green jello, white jello, orange jello, and others! Wee! Fun stuff? What could it be?

Kiwi? Apricot? What wonderful flavors? I was not to know for a while yet. The jello takes time to set. As I had to wait to partake of said jello, so too must you wait to hear of my experience with said jello. Have patience!

So, it is nice to not be the only one with a short attention span. After a while of watching the kids piddle around Il-kyu and Eun-Gi (5th grade teacher) decided to take a walk about the area. I, lacking any other form of stimulation, decided to follow...

Here above is the sign for the local village. More purple flowers too.

Some water. A well. Click the picture for a more up close view of the murky water! Ooooooooo pretty!

A funky birdhouse I saw on the walk. Thought you might find it interesting. If you actually find it interesting then it was you I was referring to when I said "you might find it interesting". If you think it's absolute rubbish, then I was referring to all the other readers (who have much better taste and more interesting definitions of interesting) when I said "you might find it interesting".

Those hills are alive. With the sound of music. Seriously. I could hear them breathing. If you do the click thing, you can see some tombs on the hills. Graveyards are for losers. Real men get buried on hillsides in the country.

They don't appear to have graveyards here. Or at least I haven't seen any... Much better to get put on a hill over looking some nice country.

Look! Aren't they pretty? That's another flowering tree/bush-thing. I put it in the foreground of the picture to provoke interest.

It's annoying, you know? Spending so much time taking pictures, I find my brain retraining itself to look at things as if always measuring the potential of interest they might generate if photographed. I don't pretend for a second that I'm becoming a good (or even mildly decent) photographer. Instead, I'm just always seeing things through an omnipresent, yet invisible, camera lens. Thanks overly demanding reading public...

Here's some more tombs!

Here's even more tombs! I may have posted this picture twice. It may be remotely different though, what do you think? I can't tell, and I'm too lazy to rectify the situation.

There's that pesky pavilion! Look at it, being all pesky like that!

Here is a really good pic of a tomb. That center mound would be the burial spot. Surrounding the burial mound is a 'u' shaped hill. This is representative of early Korean villages. In front you wanted a straight and easy view. Best if there was a lake there too. To your back and sides you wanted a hill or mountain to protect from invasion. That's the honorable way to bury folk too...

I think this method is only for those with money though. Land is at a premium so I don't think most are interned whole. I think it's more common to be cremated now-a-days.

Ah, back to the pavilion! There's some of the Man-do fully formed and ready to boil!

It was boiled. We ate some. The kids are not perfect at the art of crafting Man-Do. Yet, they are mostly good. The jello? OMG! That was not good. Jello that looked like it should be kiwi, apricot, and pineapple, was instead, ack, yuk, and OMG! PUKE! YUCK!!!!!!!!!! NOT GOOD!

Okay, what do you see here? A really low volleyball net? Yeah, that's what I saw. In fact, it is a really low volleyball net. Why, you ask? Well, that's because they play a volleyball like game using only the hips down. Yep, no hands, feet instead. Weird, but a lot of fun!

After a while, some people in costume showed up. Il-kyu said they were traditional Korean circus folk. While they may have been Carnies, I did not discern a scent of cabbage....

They started off with this lady tight rope walking. Cool, tightrope. Neato.

Then she jumped across the damned rope. Next she jumped backwards. Then on one foot. Then on one foot backwards. Lady was crazy. If that rope had been 50 feet up, I'd have questioned her sanity.

Oh, Korea has many fun products. Lots of things I would normally like to take photos of. However, I mostly see these in stores where I am not feeling the photo bug. While Mel is always embarrassed to photo stuff, I usually am only feeling said embarrassment in super crowded places.

Anyways, said "crunky" candy can be found in stores. Yes, Crunky. Not, crunchy. "Crunky". LOL!

So, eventually we set out for the return trip. Along the way I made some photos of the Korean countryside....

Here's some hills, and a lake.

More lake.

A little more lake.

Damn, that was a big lake!

Look at the left of the pic. I have no idea what it is. Maybe an over flow for the lake

A bridge over the lake that might actually be a river.

Well, looks like this is the last picture I took. That's okay, I'm tired of blogging. Hope you enjoyed the show.

-Aaron

Melissa lives to blog another day

I guess it's my turn to blog now; Aaron has been harassing me about it for days. I don't have much to talk about so I will post some new pictures and talk about those.

The first few pics are of my school. I am loathe to take more pictures there because of my aforementioned aversion to looking like a tourist taking pictures of random things. These pictures were taken at the end of the day yesterday when most of the students had already gone home. Actually if I brought the camera in to class, I think most of the kids would be up for getting their picture taken (minus the shy girls) but I haven't done so yet.

My school is quite different from Aaron's school. Besides the obvious elementary vs. high school difference, mine is actually a vocational high school. This is the kind of high school for students who most likely won't go to college. In fact, 3rd years in my school get specific job training (we actually have a hair-styling career path; I've seen the "beauty room" but my school is mostly famous for the computer training) so it is a matter of pride when the kids actually go on to university. In order to get into high school in Korea, you must take an exam your last year of middle school. Your score on this exam qualifies you for certain high schools. Basically my students are the unmotivated kids, and they are mostly from poor families. About a third of them are on some kind of government program that pays for their schooling and uniforms and lunches and so forth. So you can imagine their attitude toward English and learning it. Very apathetic. There's always one or two in each class that make an effort but getting the attention of the entire class is something I have never been able to do. There are always a number of students (usually boys) who sleep. And girls who just sit and talk with their friends regardless of my pleas for them to stop talking. It's an uphill battle. That said, I still have some good days when most of my classes seem to go well. Those days make me enjoy my job. I figure, even if they don't learn anything, at least they have fun and take a break from the routine of their normal classes, which are all pretty much lecture-style and fact memorization.

I've already posted pictures of my classroom. It's not as cool as Aaron's, but my school doesn't want to spend a lot of money on the English classroom. Presumably because, as I said, most of the kids don't care about learning English and it's not important to them.

Here is a photo of the first floor hallway. There's about 6 classrooms on a floor; the second half of the building holds the rest of each grade. For example, this hall has rooms 1-1 through 1-7 and the other side of the school has 1-8 and 1-9 and some other rooms. My classroom is in the hall connecting the two sides. The teachers have their own room up on the second and third floors; each teacher gets his or her own desk but they have to share the room with all the other teachers. Although I am completely isolated from everyone else in my little room out in the boonies, I don't have to worry about being quiet or anything like that.

This is the view into the courtyard between the two sections of the school. This is right outside my room; in fact, that wall on the right is the other side of one of my room's walls. There is a drink vending machine here that the kids like to hang out near during breaks between classes. There are glass doors leading inside but the kids ALWAYS leave them open. It annoyed me to no end whenever it was cold because they don't heat the hallways here; just the rooms. So when the kids leave the doors open, of course it is freezing!! I would avoid going anywhere (even to the bathroom) at that point because leaving my room would require a coat. The glass doors here are just outside the door to my room and I am forever getting out of my seat to close them.

Here is one of the walkways leading to the front doors of my school. It's landscaped pretty nicely here; there are tons of these flowering trees all over. I think they are magnolia trees? Regardless, they smell amazing when you step outside. There are also some other kinds of flowering trees, including the infamous cherry blossoms and this kind:

I don't know; some kind of pink/purple flower. Very pretty though.

More shots of the (magnolia?) trees. I had to shoot from the hip so not to look dumb taking pictures of every thing. Sorry for the poor quality! Plus these trees have been blooming for about a week and now everything is dying. They were much prettier 2 days earlier but Aaron usually steals the camera and takes it to school. This was the first day I was able to use it. :)

So that is my school! By the way, I don't think I mentioned this before, but I walk about 2.5 miles to school each morning and afternoon. That's 5 miles a day of walking for me. (I used my pedometer to measure the distance one day, so I am not exaggerating!!) While usually it is nice to get the exercise, on really cold mornings it is rather miserable. Happily, it is getting warmer (in the 70s this week!) but when it gets up into the 80s and super humid, I am probably going to be miserable again. And no, I can't take the bus to school because I'd have to walk halfway there already to get on the most convenient bus. And I figure at that point, it's not worth it anymore.

I've worn a skirt to school a couple of times; it is really nice when the weather is warm but walking so far, I wear my tennis shoes with my skirt and put on my dress shoes once I get to school. Sometimes I feel silly for this. Korean women seem to go nowhere without their high heels and dress clothes. Most women I see are very meticulously dressed and ALWAYS wearing heels. So even though I am not stupid enough to walk 5 miles in heels, I still feel a little scruffy walking around in nice clothes and tennis shoes. I foolishly did not bring a pair of flats with me (which I would much prefer to wear at school) so I need to buy some soon. I just need to find shoes in my size. I'm not sure if I can find size 8 shoes here. Most women have tiny feet. Plus their shoe sizes are different than ours and I'm not sure what = my size. Aaron and I are still working on that; everything is sized differently. Socks, boxers, nylons, shoes...probably even clothes though we haven't started shopping for those yet.

We made breakfast for dinner Thursday night. THOSE are chocolate chocolate chip pancakes. They had a mix pre-made at the store; all you have to do is add milk and eggs. We also made bacon and scrambled eggs with cheese. It was yummy but I dislike making these kinds of meals because in order to have everything be hot and done at the same time, you have to run around and flip this and stir that and everything and it's just too stressful. Regardless of my stress in making it, it was pretty yummy.

We still do not have an oven. That is on our priority list, but we would rather buy a used one than a brand new one. So that means we have to find a store with used items. I know they are around...we just can't read Korean yet. But I am getting better at it. I figured out the "milk and eggs" to add to the pancake mix! I have some flash cards I am studying but the words are not always useful. Words like "math" and "bear". Yes, I know the Korean word for bear. Rawr!!

Anyway, we want an oven so we can actually cook things. Frozen pizza, my dear and sorely-missed hot crash potatoes (though rosemary is probably not available here) and Melissa fries. Aaron has taken to calling the homemade french fries I make "Melissa fries". We can make them now in a frying pan, but they are not the same.

And botana. We are really REALLY desperate for botana. Ashley generously sent us some cans of refried beans but we are saving them for botana. In fact I suggested using a can when we made fajitas earlier this week and Aaron almost killed me for suggesting I waste his precious beans on something so mundane.

We had hot dogs and fries again for dinner tonight. Melissa fries, in a pan. Aaron actually cooked!! So I guess they were Aaron fries. Though I had to supervise the process. Last time he tried to make these fries, they were not so awesome. Tonight though, they were super delicious. My influence, I'm sure.


Sorry for the bad picture. This is to illustrate our frustration with the hot dogs. As we mentioned before, they are individually wrapped. This time around, we knew this fact and proceeded accordingly. Meaning, we unwrapped them before cooking. They were much tastier this way.

As you know from previous posts...not all Korean food is awesome. In fact, I have recently eaten something more horrifying than those bugs a few posts back.

Pig intestines. Yes. Stuffed with noodles. Insert sad face here.

I am seriously thinking about rescinding my "try everything at least once" motto.

There, now I have blogged. I hope you are happy. It is about 9 pm and we are heading out soon. We went to our favorite bar last night, Time to Time (the Bart Simpson bar) and discovered the Baskin Robbins was still open when we left. So we had delicious ice cream for the walk home. I hope that happens tonight!! 31 flavors of awesome. I keep getting the chocolate flavors but Aaron's choices always taste better than mine. Perhaps tonight I can be the cool one. :(

*Mel says that if she gets no comments, she will never blog again! COMMENT! LOTS! Otherwise you have to listen to me babble on and on endlessly!*

One Hundred Million....

...pictures! So, Il-kyu has been working on a project for the school. He has like these display boards in our main hall to show visitors how wonderful life is at our school. Well, the pictures in them are like 10 years old. So, he's updating them. He carries the camera with him everywhere.

One day, he and I went walking after lunch. I didn't have my camera, so he provided the school one that he happened to have on him. I took a few shots. Later he brought me the camera and cable to grab my photos. Instead I decided that you might like to see a bit more and grabbed all the photos. They start before I even arrived at the school! So, you now get to see many many photos! I didn't post them all.... I started with 299, I'm posting about 65. There were a lot of repetitive ones, and also I didn't want to be here all night just uploading pics. I've got places to be, ya know? ;)


One day Mel and I walked to her school. This is a view from the bridge we crossed on the way there. That's a river!

Here's a better view of same said river.

The town area closest to Mel's school. You haven't seen it yet because Mel is highly averse to having anyone think she might be a tourist. I'm pretty sure our white skin is a good indicator that we're not locals.
**Well, I'm not going to walk around with my camera and look like a fool taking pictures of things/places that are very normal for Koreans...in fact when Aaron busts out the camera I usually stand a fair distance away from him lest anyone think we're...together...**

That's the school up there on the hill.
**This is MY school. I am actually going to take the camera there tomorrow to take some more pictures. We have lots of lovely flowering trees that I want pics of. Also I only have 2 classes tomorrow so I have plenty of free time to wander around and take pictures. No one will think I am weird at school; they already know the truth.**

Other side of the bridge, other side of the river. See that stripe through the river? It's rocks! You can walk across them.

There's those rocks again. Better view.

Look on the rocks in the back of the pic, you can see people crossing.

Just today, Il-kyu and I set off on the trail behind the school. It leads up the mountain, supposedly towards the natural spring somewhere on the mountain. We did not find said spring. We instead came out on the other side of the mountain. Thankfully we had a free period after lunch giving us plenty of time.

Here's the path at a nice wide part. It's a bit rocky. Most of the trees are pine varieties.

Random shot to show some of the view.

I'm pretty sure this pictures gives little to no idea how steep the path actually was...

Maybe looking a little steeper?

So, there's tombs all over the mountain. I'm not quite sure if one can still be easily buried on the mountain or if that's an old convention.

Another shot of the tombs.

Okay, now we're back at those early pictures I was talking about. Here's some 5th graders working on a welcome sign for me. If you look up close, you'll see my name spelled "Aron" :D

Ah, this is the board Il-kyu is updating.

Okay, is that not the cutest thing ever? I have no idea what they're doing, but they're adorable in their little lab coats!

Behind the school.

The garden I mentioned before.

This is the day the reporter was at the school. I still don't know how the story turned out. Being in Korean, I would've been able to read it. I keep forgetting to ask Il-kyu how it was.

We had a parents day a while back. I wasn't there because it was a Saturday and I never have to work those. My contract says so :D This is the view of the stage at the front of our cafeteria.

This is the cafeteria as seen from up near the stage area.

Even here they make the parents set in the little kids' desks! :D

This is a staff meeting. I don't have to go to them because they're all in Korean. Only Il-kyu and my principal speak English. Most of the other teachers have varying levels of English, but not quite conversational level.

5th graders role-playing. This was the little mermaid. Flounder, the mermaid, and I can't recall who else.

They're not as cute as the 3rd graders, but still...

2nd graders, the little hellions. If Il-kyu's not there, this class becomes miserable.

I've set the program to randomly select a student. Right here we're matching the lower case with the upper case letters. They're only 2nd graders, so they're still learning the alphabet.

On the way out...

More science time. There's lots of science pics because Il-kyu is the science teacher.

More 2nd graders. We're playing a guessing game. The point is to teach them to ask "what's that?" So they're guessing. Hint: it's a water bottle in that bag.

After a few rounds I put the stool in the bag. Laughs were had by all.

Rock, paper, scissors in English is apparently the funnest thing ever. Much cooler than just playing in Korean. Although, the other night when we were in the bar there was a large group of Koreans playing rock, paper, scissors. That's not usually the first game I think of playing when getting sloshed, but whatever.

6th graders in their native habitat, i.e. their homeroom.

4ths with their homeroom teacher.

Little second grader doing some reading in the library.

More 2nds in the library.

Aren't they cute?!

Hey, it's that garden again. This time you can see we've started tilling. I'm spreading a nice bag of dung.

Role-playing. It's that wacky fairy tale I told you, about the turtle.

Looks like this meeting was a little more formal. That's our principal at the head of the table.

They have boy scouts here too.

Okay, click this pic. Seriously. You need to see the look on that kid's face, it's hilarious!

Dig dig dig!
Try to look busy!

Try to look busy!

Hard at work.... putting captions for every picture sucks. I wish I hadn't established that as the precedent.

So, one day we're learning under, over, in, on, etc... These are presented via a dialog about hide and seek. Il-kyu came up with a hide and seek game on the fly. One kid puts the bag on their head. Everyone hides while we count down. Then bag-head stumbles around looking for people. Hilarity ensues. *bonk* "My freakin' nose!"

Friday the 13th Part 16!

After a while I added a second seeker for even more funny.

*Stumble*

Think think think....

We have a driving range. Yeppers, that we do. I haven't gotten out there yet.

Maybe it was a new phone? I don't really know. Our head teacher (2nd grade) is in the pink scarf.

Lunch time! That's the kid who made the funny face with the rake a bit further up.

Ah, this is the walk that inspired the camera borrow. A 10 minutes walk from my school there's a lake. Pretty!

They're hard to see through the trees, but there's little sheds on the lake. Pay a fee to rent one and they'll take you out in a boat. Then fish 'til happy!

More pretty view.

Just a different view of Song-ri. I passed by this little street on the walk back and thought you'd like to see it.

These tombs are right behind our school.

This is a pretty flowering tree for Mum.
**According to one of my co-teachers, this type of plant even blooms in the winter. She said she wasn't sure why, just sometimes it starts blooming!**

This time I'm showing the 2nd graders "If You're Happy and You Know It". This video is really fast and the kids are British. We just had them do the actions rather than try to sing along. It's actually hard to find a decent video of said song.

Make your own caption, I've got nothing.

Maybe they've got one?

Okay, I guess that's about it. I've got a few topics I could talk about, but I'd rather save those for another post. Otherwise I'll run out of things to say.

Bye for now!

Aaron

PS Mel is supposed to be blogging like tomorrow. So you can expect more stuff soon! :)