The Han River and Yellow Dust

By the time Friday rolls around I'm usually pretty frustrated with work or about living in such a big city. That's why I love the Han River so much. The Han and the Yangjae Rivers have these amazing bike paths along them. the past two weekends have been beautiful so I've been able to get out and ride my bike.


I don't even think I can adequately explain how much better I feel after these bike rides. The Han has a bunch of parks and pools and tennis courts that run along it. It's so amazing to be out in the warmness and to see people out with their families and having a good time. Last weekend there was the Korean touch rugby championship which basically translates to a bunch of Westerners running around and giving each other hugs. Though last week I was, in fact, on a mission to find a route from my house to the Korean War Memorial at Samgakji because that's where Arirang taekwondo trains. After a random morning of spinning around i finally made it.
I was thrilled and rushed into the building to find TM talking to a new member. On the way home I was a little more serious about actually timing myself to see how much time I would need to get there. I went kind of fast on the way home because I was chasing someone but at a normal pace it should probably take about an hour and 15 minutes. Not bad considering it takes me an hour door-to-door on the subway. I poked around the war memorial for a little bit and it's surprisingly upbeat. There's a wedding hall that usually has something going on every weekend and the outdoor yard is full of old planes and tanks and stuff. It's pretty neat and I'd like to spend a Saturday poking around with a little more ardently. Maybe climb around on some of the airplanes.



That Sunday some other teachers and I went out for brunch at the Big Rock Brewery in Gangnam. It was great. There was even an omelet bar. This is a little ketchup and egg man that Holly accidentally had a conversation with for a few minutes.



In other news, apparently I need to watch out for the giant yellow dust cloud. This is serious. As it has been explained to me the yellow dust is sand from the Gobi desert that has been picked up by the wind and carried here. My friend told me that it has been this way for the past 10 years or so and is exacerbated by dsertification. The USO has a website that tells you the warning level and whether or not you should spend time outdoors. Way to go, China!!

The New Kindergarten

I now have a new kindergarten class. I won't lie, I really miss my old kids but these ones are nice too. This is another 3rd year 7-year-old class. I find myself constantly comparing them to my former class which is pretty unfair considering I started teaching the other class six months into their 3rd year. We have a lot of work to do but I'm hopeful it will all work out. Independent of that they're all kind of hilarious.

Angela, Helen, Matthew, Eric, Daniel, Lee

Now for a quick run down:

back: Matthew, Lee, Mike, Eric, Daniel, Nathan
front: Patty, Diane, Helen, Angela, Julie

The above picture is the class as a whole. You can't really read it but there is a message on the white board that says something like "Hello Julie teacher's class. This is the man in the wall." Another one of the teachers snuck into my room and wrote it on the board. The entire class is convinced that there is a man who lives in the wall between my classroom and Joel's. I prove this to them by pounding on my wall and then having Joel pound back. They eventually caught on and started to suspect Joel. That's when I sent Joel into my room while I went inot his room and did the pounding. I suggested to them that they write letters to the man in the wall. Some of the better ones include: "Man in the wall, I want to fight you! Lee" and "Man in the wall, I like to ride a bicycle. I love you. Helen"

Exhibit A. The first two kids are Lee and Matthew. Lee is awesome and he is a teeny tiny human being. I like to pick him up and walk around. He's also fun because I teach his older brother in a later class. They look remarkably similar and I often find myself calling his brother, Dave, "Lee". Oops.

The second guy is Matthew. He told me a few days in that he was Daniel S.'s cousin. I am not surprised by this as Matthew is also a bit of a space cadet. But he's a bit smilier and dancier.

Exhibit B. This is Helen. She's new to the class. She's a pretty good speaker and reader and yet she starts to cry during phonics almost every day. I'm not really sure why as she doesn't struggle with the subject at all. You know when she's going to cry because her eyes double in size and then begin to flood with water, just like in those old Warner Bros. cartoons. It's amazing.

Next to Helen is Mike. If you can't tell from the picture he doesn't really like to talk to me in the afternoon. Normally I would be upset by this but Mike is a really good studnet so if he doesn't want to talk for 30 minutes out of the day then that's fine with me. I like him because he makes jokes that go over the other students' heads.

Case and point:

I had been making up rhyming names for students in the class. For example, Lee the Flea, Mike the Bike and Helen Megellan.

Eric (another student): Teacher, what is meric?
Me: What? Merk?
Eric: No, meric.
Me: I don't know what you're saying. Spell it.
Eric: M-R-I-C
Me: What? Are you making up words?
Eric: No, teacher. Mike called me Meric.

As soon as Eric realized that Mike was making fun of him he got a little angry.






In other news...

A mom in one of the other 3rd year 7 Kinders didn't think her child was learning enough during the 5 hours he was in kindergarten every day. So she asked the Korean staff to give them a 40 word review test on all the spelling words the 3rd years learn in a month. Now, all of the 3rd year classes have to give this torturous spelling test. what is the matter with people?

Great new things in life

There are some really great things a-foot. First, Lauren and I went to Technomart and bought an oven. It was only 85,000 won. The even better part is that we split it with 4 other teachers so it only cost ~14,000 won. BUT the best part is that I bought a small food processor so I can make my own peanut butter and hummus. AAAAAND it's pink so you know I'm a girl.

Here I am victorious hoisting the new oven over my head.

Other sweet crafty things that have been going on is that I have started to embroidery. Although I don't know the korean word for embroidery hoop. In fact, I don't even know if that's what it's called in English.


This is what I have so far and it has taken me approximately a million hours to do and is a little shoddy in a few places. If you can't tell it's burning buildings but I haven't sewn in the flames yet. Or the big giant dinosaur that is the cause of the flames.

Why kids are funny

I helped one of my friends teach an English/Korean taekwondo class today. It was fun. At the end each student had to write their dream on a board and then they had to break it. Some of them had dreams like "I want to be a lawyer when I grow up" or "I want to be a policeman when I grow up". But my absolute favorite was a little kid who was about 6. Apparently his dream was to eat noodles.

Lost in Translation

Here are some of the better things some of my students have said or written in the past few months...


"My mom buys creamy peanut butter and crunky peanut butter" ~So Hee (10)

written on a spelling test: I am a Crackodl. You is Capitan Hook! ~Daniel S. (Kinder)

Max is a brand of beer: "Max gives Daddy crazy eyes" ~Claire (Kinder)

Talking about a CD-ROM game: "Teacher, in my house, this is yes." ~Daniel S. (Kinder)

There was a clutch spelling error on George's written spelling sentences: Field- An area in which a crap is grown ~George (Kindergarten)

Written on a note that his Mom attached to a cake that they gave me: Dear Julie Teacher, I want to live with you and I miss you. I love you!! Daniel. Y. ~Daniel Y. (Kinder)

"I was volcano of anger. And Mommy was volcano of anger." ~Claire (Kinder)

In a classroom conversation about Dokdo: "Teacher, you're not Korean. You wouldn't understand." ~Wendy (10)

Cambodia

I haven't written anything in a while. Things have been a little hectic I guess... hm, not really. I went to Cambodia for the winter break that we had. It was breath-taking. Being in Cambodia was a wonderful break from the grey coldness of Seoul. I had forgotten how much I disliked winter. Anyway, here it goes...



Cambodia was unbelievable. I went with another teacher from the school, Joel. We landed in Phenom Penh on Saturday night and couldn't find the tuk-tuk driver that we had arranged with the hostel. So a random driver approaches us and tells us that he can take us from the airport for $6. this was what our hostel tuk-tuk was going to cost so I figured it was a good deal. We walk with him towards his chariot and it turns out the thing is a moto! But by this point I felt like tiwas too late to back out. Plus, I like motos. So it's me, Joel, the driver and two big backpacks whizzing throught the streets of Phnom Penh at 11 o'clock at night. I thought it was kind of awesome as we whipped by all the textile factories but I think Joel was less than pleased.


We spent the first few days in Phnom Penh, checking out the major sites, like the Silver Pagoda. then we went to Tuol Sleng and the Cheong Ek killing fields. It was unbelievable. I didn't realize how extensive the Cambodian genocide was.


There was a lot of stuff to see but tucked away in the corner under a staircase was this little graffitti conversation. Here's someone saying "Don't let shit like this ever happen again. Please!" and then in the left corner of the picture someone has written a list of all the other genocides and mass killings that have happened since then.



After 2 days we took a 6 hour boat ride north to Siem Reap. I put on sunscreen and wore a long sleeved shirt so I only managed to burn my hand and the part in my hair. I was pretty pleased. Siem Reap was awesome and a nice change of pace from Phnom Penh. I convinced Joel that the best way to get around Angkor Wat was to take bikes or elephants. Since we didn't see any elephants we had to go with bikes. I think the only better way to get around would be via moto but then again you would have had to battle the traffic to get here which would be kind of scary.
Biking was great but I almost bailed on it on the third day because my butt hurt (the seats were awful!). It's funny because it seems like everyone is always trying to get you go to their sister's or their cousin's or their mother's shop or hotel or whatever.


In Angkor I had a really weak bad environmentalist moment. There were these little monkeys and some Cambodians were selling little bananas. I bought some and fed them. In the back of my mind there was a little voice that ket saying "A fed bear is a dead bear". Brent Petty would be so disppointed with me!

There are two other most excellent things that happened in the trip. the first was doctor fish. there is a night market that Joel and I went to because we are obsessed with kramas and felt like we needed to buy more. What do we run into but Dr. Fish!! We had been talking about trying to find Dr. Fish in Seoul for a while and here we just run into them! It was some of the weirdest 15 minutes of my life. So much so that we did it again the next night.

At the same night market we saw some children doing a short apsara dance performance. Joel adn I had been looking for a place to see a show for a few days. We went to one dinner theatre place that wasn't very good. We found out that these kids are orphans and they have a nightly performance at their orphanage. The next night we tried to find a tuk-tuk driver who could take us there but it was difficult, especially because the orphanage wasn't answering their phone. We finally made it and it was awesome! They were so good. Afterwards everyone wanted to be in pictures with Joel and me. they were really fun.

Aaanyway, in sum, Cambodia was amazing.

Christmas Play

here are the actual songs I'm going to use in the Christmas play:






I think the dance is going to be awesome.