Waeguk Saram

This is a birds eye view of Gwangju, South Korea from Mudeungsan National Park. For a very long time I thought that Gwangju was a very ugly city. I believed that I would always be surrounded by old buildings, plain apartment buildings and a constant supply of buses, cars and of course taxis. I have been here a month and I never had the chance to explore the city more. It was a nice walk. I AM EXPLORING!!!

Happy late Chuseok! This holiday is closest to an American Thanksgiving. Every Korean leaves to visit their families in other cities throughout South Korea. The families visit their ancestors and eat traditional foods such as songpyeon. It's a crescent shaped rice cake filled with things such as sesame seeds, black beans, mung beans, cinnamon, pine nut, walnut, chestnut, jujube, and honey. My school is not very logical in its ways. For the second time, I was told that I was going to teach Kindergartners how to make songpyeon. Again, I have never made this type of Korean food before so why does it make sense that I should teach a little four year old how to make it? It turns out to be a very simple recipe. It turns out that I never had to teach them. The funny result of this event is that the kitchen was filled with all the songpyeon that were made by the kindergartners. Koreans do not like to waste food. What do you do with all of these crescent shaped rice cakes? There is a rule that you should not eat any food eaten by anyone under 10 year old. You don't know where those little fingers have been. The teachers gave the gifts out to every class to eat. They gave some to the teachers. We did not want to want to eat them. They were given to every class to eat. The elementary kids eagerly ate them ALL! Ew...what is boogers were steamed in them?

I HAD A GREAT WEEK!!! What did I do...? Not too much. I know. I am not too exciting. I spent to much money and I have been too busy trying to figure out how to be a teacher at this school. The only freedom I had experienced since I arrived in Korea was as a rest stop on a bus to a seminar. Haha. I decided to not spend any money for a trip...yet.  So, I made a plan. I am planning to go somewhere EVERY other WEEKEND! Hopefully, I can finish lesson plans for the next week before the weekend comes back around.

Anyways...

I got haircut at a salon across from my apartment. The stylist kept talking on her phone. Was a customer late? Was she talking to someone in her family? No. It was an invitation to see the foreigner get her haircut done. This lady came with her three young teenagers to watch the foreigner. Awkward. The haircut was 6,000 won. Its about five dollars. THAT IS THE CHEAPEST HAIRCUT I HAVE EVER HAD! Wow. I will give them business for that price.

I also visited my happy place. I went to Coffee & Cat. It's a cat cafe in downtown Gwangju. I was surrounded by 17 different cats all doing their own thing. Half of them were sleeping. I was fascinated that this place was so popular. I want to find the cat and dog cafe. There are cat and dogs. I admit that there was a smell....I SAW KITTENS!!! XD

Good bye for now. I promise to have more adventures.... :(

First Month in Korea

As of September 12th, I have been in Korea for one month. I started working here on August 12th. So, far it has not been that great. I have been exhausted. I keep getting sick germs from the kids. I can't seem to manage my classes. MISERY!!!!

I got paid for the first time. It was below the amount I was suppose to earn. I hate hagwons. All the expats have been telling me that it gets better. I sure hope so. I crashed and burned for the first time yesterday regarding a class I was substituting for. I was frustrated with the organization of this stupid worksheet and I made the students angry because I did not know what to do with the worksheet. I was trying to follow it exactly as I had observed her using it. Not even. MISERY!!!

On another note, I had been directing a short play for some first graders. One of the girls fathers recently died from lung cancer. I had no idea that this little girl was going through such troubled times. I felt so sad. What if I were her? I hope she get's plenty of support so she doesn't grow up with mental issues as an adult.

The rest of the girls performed their play on Thursday. I read some of their diaries about the event and they seemed to have a lot of fun. It took several of us to manage them but the play worked out nicely. In the beginning, only the parents were expected to come so the teachers took the extra mile to invite all of the Kindergarten classes. There were SO many little kindergarten kids. I was like...OMG. I have taught all of these kids at least once. I was so amused that this school could manage to fit all of these students AND parents into this medium size room but it worked! I wish I had taken a picture of it.

Funny story but no so funny story. As the teacher, I am required to call out these girls Korean names for their award certificates at the end of the play. I learn about this on the day of the event and so I have no time to practice. I am Korean illiterate so I am pronouncing choi as cho and other wrong ways in front of the parents and all of these little kids. I hope the only thing they were thinking was...silly foreigner...

Speaking of pictures. I have a laptop, kindle and camera in my apartment. I brought all the chargers for these things. I have all the charging equipment for my computer. For some reason, I no longer have the chargers for the kindle or my camera so I am forced to buy an extra pair. I don't know how I manage to replace or misplace everything that I touch. It's terrible. So, I am unable to upload any pictures I took with my camera. I am so sorry for those waiting to see some pictures...I will put them up as soon as I receive another computer cord for my camera.......

Koreans are funny. Why must everything go in a bag? I have a bag of many many bags that I have collected from my purchases. Stop giving me bags. >:/ Why did my dinner of "pasta" taste like it was covered in sugar? How come some Korean food is so sweet.....or hot? Not all Korean food is like this but I'm always tasting sugar in everything...this is just like processed American food. Ugh...

It's Korean thanksgiving this coming week! I want to make plans for an actual vacation but I am not sure how much I can afford to spend since I just paid for other expenses such as my rent, airplane and stuff I ordered for my apartment. There are plenty of other things to see around my city. I'll take pictures and post them for sure.