Jaunting Janique

Life In Seoul Continues... The June Edition

2009-07-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 6th: The newest addition to la famille Boire was born today. Welcome to the world my beautiful niece, Hayden Marie Boire! Can't wait to meet you, little one!

Saturday, June 13th: The idea of having a SLP picnic had been brought up and suddenly, we were told that we'd be going to play paintball. No one's really sure how this decision came to be made, but the decision was made and that was that. I admit, I wasn't all that excited. Meeting at 9:00 on a Saturday morning didn't make for enthusiastic participants, especially knowing this would be an all morning/afternoon ordeal. I was a tiny bit happier because Jane told me that I could bring AJ. I wanted to bring him along because I knew he'd have a blast, not to mention I wanted to be on his team... Who best to have on your team than someone with intense gun training! Bwahaha! We met up at school and were surprised to see a huge blue travel bus waiting for us. I was expecting a SLP bus, not something so cozy! The ride there was fairly quiet, mainly because several people who will remain unamed had been out drinking late the night before. Some may or may not have woken up still intoxicated... Haha! Let's just say those individuals were especially entertaining *cough*Laura*cough*. We traveled for about an hour and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere. It's always interesting leaving Seoul and seeing houses. Trust me when I say that houses are a rarity here... It's apartment living all the way. Anyways, we were given instructions, safety rules, everything we needed to know to have a safe and happy paintballing experience. Some of us were still slightly relunctant about playing, myself included. Not exactly a fan of guns, even the paintball kind. Well, let's just say that our attitudes changed pretty much the minute we started playing. It was so much fun! We ended up playing 3 rounds and it was one of the funnest things I've done in a while. First of all, I loved running around in the forest. I've missed that and it reminded me of being at the cottage. And it was just so funny watching people hiding, scrambling around trying to take out the opposing team. Here are some pictures that were taken during the games:

I'm totally in the zone, trying to stay unseen but take people out at the same time. Turns out that I have terrible aim. *pouts*

My partner-in-crime, Amanda, and I. We discovered that we're pretty good at hiding out and staying out of the line of fire. We were the only 2 survivors on our team in the first round and survived round 2 as well. Go us!

The best team around: Team Mean! From left to right: Jay, Amanda, AJ, Stephanie, Lindsday, Danny, Tara, Me, Dan

The whole crew (well, everyone who showed up, that is.).

After we finished paintballing, we hopped on the bus and headed for lunch. We spent a few hours at a galbi (grilled pork or beef) restaurant, eating and hanging out. And no, I didn't eat galbi. I picked at the veggies and had some bibimbap. After lunch AJ and I found a trail that brought us down by the river and we walked along the water until it was time to leave. Everyone was spent from events of the day, so it was a very quiet bus ride home. Pretty sure everyone went to bed early that night!

Friday, June 26th: On our third field trip of the year, we went to the Gyeonggi English Village:

"The Gyeonggi English Villages are places where people can use the English language in a variety of contexts as well as experience English-speaking cultures. All this can happen right here in Korea.There is now an alternative to traveling abroad for this type of experience. The English Village offers a similar environment that students, families, and teachers might experience in a foreign country, all right here in our own backyard." (http://www.english-village.or.kr/)

If we'd had lots of time to spend here, I'm sure it would have been a great. The buildings were beautiful and there was a lot to see, but you'd need several hours to actually enjoy it. We were there for may an hour and a half and I have to say I was pretty disappointed. All we did was quickly walk around and take a few pictures by a parked train:

We ate a quick lunch and then saw the last 30 minutes of the cheesiest English musical I've ever seen. Even the kids were less than impressed, which is saying a lot because I can normally make them laugh by doing practically nothing at all. The only good thing that came from the musical was the plot, which had to do with a little girl going into the Land of Monsters. The kids weren't even a tiny bit scared of the monsters in the show, so I asked them to show me their scariest monster faces. These were my favourites:

Jenny L's the smallest, silliest kid ever, but she's got one mean monster face!

Surprisingly, I feel that the girls were better at monster faces than the boys! Jinny and Juddy were pretty fantastic at it!

...With the exception of Joel, who blew all the other boys' monster faces out of the water. The fact that he used props to emphasize his ultimate monsterness automatically makes him fantastic! This kid takes being a monster seriously!

The kids all said that they really enjoyed the English Village, so while it was my least favourite field trip thus far, it's their opinion that matters. If they're happy, I'm happy!

Saturday, June 27th: Today was the day that I never thought would happen: Everland!!! We'd tried 2 times previously to go, but woke up on both those days to torential downpours. Needless to say, I pretty much did a dance of joy when I woke up that day and saw the sun shinning in the sky. AJ and I met up with Laura and Amanda at 8:30 that morning for an early start to the day. After a subway and bus ride, we finally arrived at our destination at around noon. Amanda and I were so happy that we skipped towards the Everland gates, dragging AJ along with us:

Once inside, we didn't delay in taking a group shot. Kimchi!!!

From then on, the fun just kept 'a comin!

We had some silly photo ops (I love AJ for not only dealing with my silliness, but encouraging it as well! He's such a good team player.)

Had our faces painted. This was long overdue for Amanda and I, who had wanted to get our faces painted together at the Cherry Blossom Festival in April. Sadly, we weren't able to find the face painting booth then, so when we saw the table upon entering Everland... BAM! We were all over it! Yes, we're both children at heart and proud of it!

We rode as many rides as we could find, including the ferris wheel, carousel, spinny rides, a flume ride, a roller coaster that scares me but causes me to giggle hysterically the entire time, a fun house, a laser ghost hunt, a room that appears to spin 360 degrees (that was messed up!) etc, etc, etc. Oh. We also upset some Koreans by showing them how you're REALLY supposed to ride the bumper cars. We couldn't believe it when we were waiting in line and saw them dodging each other, trying their best not to hit anyone. It looked more like go-karts than bumper cars. Isn't the point of bumper cars to BUMP into each other? So we made it our mission to hit as many people as possible during out alloted time. It was funny seeing all the shocked expression clearing saying "WHAT?! YOU HIT ME!?!" It was great!!! The poor locals never knew what hit them! We also went on a Jungle Safari in which we got to ride in a tiger bus, as seen below:

Just being inside that bus made me so happy! We got close up and personal with lions, tigers, bears, oh my! Also from a distance, some giraffes, zebras and an elephant. It was pretty amazing actually and not as depressing as I originally feared it might be. You know how some zoos are... they're standards are less than awesome and it's always sad seeing animals having to live like that. But these animals seemed well cared for and had lots of room to roam and stretch their legs.

Once it got dark, a parade of lights drove through the park. There were many floats, but this one was my favourite:

Isn't it beautiful! I wish my house could look like that. That'd be great. We spent this busy time hitting up a few more rides before the park closed down at 10:00pm. While AJ and Laura went on one last ride, Amanda and I visited the gift shops and treated ourselves to a few things. I bought myself a small stuffed white tiger and moose ears. They make me feel very Canadian. I also bought myself a panda shirt after the Jungle Safari. Amanda bought the same one, so we're happy to finally have couple shirts!

Speaking of couple shirts, I'm going to go off topic for a few minutes to explain to you the phenomenon that is couple shirts and outfits. In a display of their love for each other and as a symbol of their relationship, it is common for Korean couples to wear matching shirts. When I say matching, I mean the exact same shirt, just in different sizes. It's become an ongoing game to take pictures of as many couples we can see wearing couple shirts. On this specific day, I do believe we saw at least 10, but it could be more. I lost count after a while. This game started early on the day as we saw 2 couples in couple shirts as we were waiting for the bus to Everland. I also feel the need to point out that both sets were of the pink variety. I find it interesting to note that Korean men have no qualms about wearing pink, purple, or any of the so-called "girly" colours. Some couples take this trend to an extreme, not only wearing the same top, but the same bottom as well. Here is an example of quite possibly the best couple outfit I've seen since living in Korea:

Please note the matching shirts, shorts and shoes. Oh yeah... they're serious about this couple outfit business. Just yet another thing that makes Korea such a fantastic country to live in!

Anyways, we stayed at Everland until the park closed at 10pm, then made our way back to the bus, then back to the subway, then back home. It was about 12:30am by the time I walked into my apartment door and after a loooong shower to wash off the grime of the day, happily went to bed. I forgot to mention that it was a hot day, reaching the mid-30s, so I felt less than fresh. I'm so happy that I got to experience Everland a second time during my stay in Korea. I had a good time the first time I went during the weekend of Chuseok, but we spent most of that day at the zoo and I really wanted to go on some rides. I'm happy that it finally happened! And I couldn't have gone with a greater group of people. The 4 of us had a blast that day and were all fantastically random and silly. Too much fun!

July - to be continued...

Life In Seoul Continues... The May Edition

2009-07-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, May 5th: Happy Children's Day!!! This was a happy day for one reason and one reason only: HOLIDAY!!! This was our first day off since the Lunar New Year in January and it was desperately needed. We were originally supposed to have the Monday off as well, which would have given us a 4-day weekend, but nope. Didn't happen and we had to go into work. Needless to say, no one was pleased and everyone was pretty bitter upon hearing this news. Anyways, a day off is a day off, right! I could (and kinda wanted to) spend the day in bed sleeping and being lazy, but instead woke up early and headed to Itaewon to do some shoe shopping with Meghan and Kelly. Fun! We spent the morning/early afternoon trying on shoes, looking at clothes and then eating Quiznos, followed by Coldstone for dessert. A trip to Itaewson isn't complete without a sub/ice cream combo! Which reminds me: Someone needs to open a Coldstone in Canada. Best ice cream EVER!!! Later that afternoon, Meghan and I took the nearly 2hrs trip to Uijeongbu to meet up with some army boys. Meg had a date and offered to meet him close to the base and since I'm always happy to spend time with AJ, I was quick to offer to make the trip with her. Meghan ended up meeting her date a bit later than intended, so she, AJ and I had dinner together which was great, because I love hanging out with my two favourite redheads! Once we were alone, AJ and I wandered around Uijeongbu then went to a DVDbang (DVD room). DVDbangs are one of those things that I so wish we had in Canada. They're all over the place and basically, you go in and pick a DVD from a huge selection. You then go into a private room with a sofa and watch the movie on a big screen complete with surround sound. So awesome! I've never had to pay more than W12,000 so it's cheaper than going to a theatre and definetly more comfortable. I met up with Meghan at around 10:30pm and we made the trip back home. I was in bed later than my bedtime, so I was once again tired the next day, but that's ok. It was a busy, but entertaining Children's Day!

Saturday, May 9th: On this lovely sunny day, a bunch of us headed to the Han River for the...

(3rd Seoul World DJ Festival)

Upon entering the festival grounds, we made our way to a painting booth. The paint was meant to be used on the wall, where people had written messages, drawn pictures, and so on. But as our group has never really been known for following the norm, we took liberties with how the paint should be used:

We definitely got dirty looks from the workers at the booth, not to mention strange looks from everyone else throughout the day, but it's not as if anyone tried to stop us! I personally think we looked fabulous! It was a great day. DJs from all over the world played so we had an eclectic variety of music to keep us entertained throughout the day. There were also booths setup throughout the park grounds, so I wandered to all of them with random friends. Amanda, Kelly and I made t-shirts for super cheap which was fun. Oh! And Meghan and I had our portraits done, but it wasn't very good. We both looked so angry in the picture which was annoying because we were laughing the entire time! I'm still a bit bitter about that because Jen and Tara had had their portrait done earlier in the day and there's was really good! *pouts* The day went by surprisingly fast and suddenly, it was nightime. Bring on the glow-in-the-dark accessories! Haha! By this time, everyone was getting pretty mellow after a day in the sun, so it would have been easy to head home. But Jamie being the fantastic woman that she is had the insight to bring jump ropes. I hadn't jumped rope in soooo long! It was great fun and had quite a crew, old friends and new, joining in on the action. Oh! Throughout the day, we kept being photographed by random photographers and journalists, which was kinda weird but fun all at the same time. I'm sure our pictures are in some Korean newspapers somewhere. Anyways, Jen (or was it Jamie... Can't remember!) was browsing DJ Fest's Facebook page and checking out the pictures from the event when she came across this picture that was posted as one of the album covers:

Yup, that's Tara and I in all our jump rope glory! We were very excited and felt like semi-celebrities! Haha! I'm very glad that I got to experience DJ Fest, especially knowing that I'd be missing Ottawa's Bluesfest this year. I need my yearly dose of music festivities!

Monday, May 11th: Happy 1st birthday to my beautiful niece, Abriele. I'm very sad to be missing your first birthday, but look forward to spending time with you once I get back to Canada! *kisses*

Thursday, May 21st: Happy 24th birthday Laura Teacher! Je t'aime!

Friday, May 22nd: In honour of Laura's birthday, Linsday hosted a potluck. The whole SLP crew made an appearance at one point in the night which is always fun. We're pretty good when it comes to birthdays and I find that everybody tries extra hard to attend whatever celebration might be going on. There was lots of yummy food and everybody stuffed their faces until we whined about how full we were. I'm not sure how long we stayed at Lindsay's, but eventually the group split up. Some were heading to Hongdae, but I followed the birthday girl and others to a nearby noraebang for some song therapy. Oh how I love noraebang! I haven't done it nearly enough times which I find silly because I absolutely love it. What's better than sitting in a room with your friends singing your hearts out?! Can't think of many things that top that. We should have been there for an hour but were given extra time which is always a bonus! Anyways, I had an excellent time celebrating Laura's birthday and hope that she too had a good Seoul-style birthday!

Friday, May 29th: Today I went on my 2nd field trip with my new batch of preschoolers. We headed to a farm in Il-San where the kids had a chance to pick vegetables, hang out in a grassy field, and take a tractor ride around the farm. Here are my kiddies showing off their prize cucumbers:

Cherry Class (aka Cherry Cats)

Banana Class (aka Banana Monkeys)

It was a fun-filled morning and the kids got to run around like little maniacs, something they always enjoy doing. I also got in a good workout chasing and being chased by kids from not only my class, but others classes as well. Amanda has a video on her Facebook page with me screaming and running around like a lunatic.. good times! Since I was sleepy by the time we left, I'd hoped they'd be sleepy on the trip back home and relax, but as always, I was wrong. Even after all this time, I'm still amazed by kids seemingly unlimited amounts of energy!

Friday, May 29th - Sunday, May 31st: This Friday night was spent heading to Busan for a beach-bound weekend. This was the opening weekend of the beaches in Busan, a nearby city by the sea, so we went to celebrate .

(2009 Haoundae Sand Festival)

We caught the train at 10:oopm-ish from Seoul Station and settled in for the 3 hour trip. I sat at a table with Meghan, Tara and Laura and we entertained ourselves by playing cards, drinking, and trying not to get kicked off by train personel who kept coming over asking us to quiet down. In our defense, we were being quiet! It's just that no one else was talking or they were asleep. What didn't help was that we kept having mad giggle fits in our attempts to be quiet which pretty much defeated the purpose. Anyways, the trip went by fairly quickly and without any real incident. Upon arriving in Busan, the group split up since we were staying in different places. I headed with Amanda, Meghan and Laura to a hotel in which a friend had reserved rooms for us. Our group chose not to go out that first night so once at the hotel, I settled in my room that I was sharing with Amanda and went to bed.

We slept in the next morning and after figuring out directions and getting ready in our beach-wear, the four of us headed for the beach. One slight problem: IT WAS FREEZING!!! It was overcast and windy, not an ideal day for lounging on the beach! We kept hoping it'd clear up, but the weather was still dreary once we got to the beach. We met up with the others and tried to sit on the beach, but gave up when we decided it was too cold. Instead of being beachbums, we wandered around and checked out the shops in the area. I ended up buying a bathing suit that I paid far too much for, but it's fabulous and worth every penny (or WON, in this case...)! We then went to eat which became a mission in itself. We had tried to go to a reknown Mexican restaurant, but it was a tiny takeout restaurant and the lineup was insane. We stood in line for a while, but we were a large group so we finally gave up. By this time, we were all craving Mexican food so we went to a restuaurant that we had seen by the beach. This place was originally a bar that they'd turned into a restaurant not too long earlier. It was easy to tell that they were ill-equiped for such a busy weekend because most of us waited for over an hour for food that never came. Sigh. We left after paying our drinks and headed back to the beach. Sand sculptures were being created so we decided to check them out:

After checking out the sculptures, Amanda, Meghan, Laura and I, the quartet that hadn't eaten since breakfast, went to TGIFridays and FINALLY ate. We spent more than we're used to spending in Korea, but it was worth it. YUM! There were plans to go out that night, but Amanda and Laura opted out. Once we got back to our hotel, I switched rooms with Laura and got dolled up with Meghan. We cabbed to Ellen's, Tara's friend whom she, Jen and Susie were staying with. We hung out at Ellen's for quite a while, listening to music and playing drinking games. We finally made our way to Foxy's, a fantastic club. SO MUCH FUN! It has several levels and each level played a different kind of music. It made for a great dance party and we spent many hours dancing our little hearts out.

Waking up on Sunday was slightly painful thanks to all the fun that was had the night before, but we once again made our way to the beach. The weather was much more cooperative that day and we stepped out of the hotel to sunshine and warm-weather. The entirety of that morning/afternoon was spent lounging on the beach. Amanda and I were crazy enough to go for a dip in the ocean (it was cold!), although not many were quick to follow in our footsteps. We left the beach and headed for the train at around 3:00pm and made it just in time to catch our 5:00pm train back to Seoul. Even with the crappy weather on Saturday, it was a great weekend and I'm glad that I got to visit Busan, a city I'd heard nothing but good things about. If I were ever to live in Korea again, I think I'd want to live there. It's a large city but has a chill small city feel to it. Plus the beaches are great, so it's totally my kind of place!

(Meghan, Me, Laura, Tara, Susie, Amanda, Jen)

June - to be continued...

Please note...

2009-06-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

For some reason that is still unknown to me, The April Edition post has decided to place itself after The February Edition post, instead of taking it's rightful place before The March Edition. I wish I knew why this was and most importantly, knew how to fix it, but I don't. I felt the need to comment on this because it's bothering me and I feel that it might bother others who might be a wee bit OCD such as myself. If you have any suggestions on how I can remedy this problem... Please help me!!!

^__^

Life In Seoul Continues... The April Edition

2009-06-23T07:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday, April 4th: Now that the weather is warming up, it can mean only one thing: Back to doing touristy stuff! A group of us decided to go on a walking tour that follows this route: Dongdaemun (Honginjimun) → Seoul (Naksan) Fortress → Biu-dang → Naksan Park → Ihwajang. For your viewing pleasure, here's are a few pictures from that day (Check out my Facebook for a more thorough vieweing experience!):

Group shot overlooking smoggy Seoul

(Top: L-R): Dan, Jen, Meghan, Kelly, Amanda, Me, AJ, Kiki,

Bottom: Susie, Tara

"Built in a massive public project at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty (starting in 1390), this stone wall averaging about 20 feet (6 meters) high encircled the entire city, providing protection from thieves and wild animals as well as military attacks. This part of the wall belongs to the section that reached north and then west from Honginjimun to the northern city gates (which are no longer extant). This city has grown far beyond its original fortress walls and gates, but interest in them as important historical architecture has been revived by proud Seoul citizens, and they are progressively being restored to their original splendor."

"During the reign of Great King Sejong (early 15th Century; he is depicted on the 10,000 won bill) this was the residence of a notable Yangban (member of the aristocratic class) named Yu Gwan, known to history by his pen-name “Hajeong”. Serving as a State Minister in the royal court, he was a leading participant in the reformist Neo-Confucian movement of that time dubbed “the spirit of Chungbaek-ri.” Take a little time to look around this residence (restored in the late 20th Century) to get a good impression of Joseon Dynasty aristocratic architecture, and the lifestyle of its residents. Nearby this house there is a spring called “Jajudong” which was once famous for its clean and clear waters."

Funny story about this part of the tour: We were all sitting at this building listening to our tour guide and the security alarms kept going off. It was a high-pitched siren-type alarm, but while we all looked at each other nervously waiting for the police to show up, our tour guide just get chattering away as if nothing was going on. We assumed that this was a normal occurence, but it was funny all the same.

"This “Pear Blossom Manor” was the home of the first President of the Republic of Korea, named Lee (or Yi) Seung-man but best known to global history by his own adopted spelling Syngman Rhee. He was a dedicated fighter for Korean independence against the Japanese imperialists a century ago, and then spent decades in exile in the United States, diplomatically lobbying for American support for Korea's cause. Becoming a fervent Protestant Christian, he married the daughter of an Austrian Ambassador. When Korea was Liberated in 1945 he was able to return to this house in Seoul, and quickly became a leader of the conservative political forces. Upon the creation of the Republic of Korea under auspices of the United Nations, he was elected as its first President in August 1948. He led the nation bravely through the devastation of the 1950-53 Korean War and then the reconstruction era that followed it. Public discontent with the political and economic corruption of his administration led to his forced retirement in 1960, when he fled to exile in Hawaii. After his passing away in 1970 his wife returned to this residence and continued to live there until her own passing in 1992. Their home was restored as a public exhibition hall of artifacts related to his life and presidency in 1988, and is fascinating for all those interested in Korea's modern history."

Saturday, April 11th: Cherry Blossom Festival Time! My one word to describe this day: BEAUTIFUL!!! A group of us headed to The Yeouido Yunjungno Cherry Blossom Festival, which occurs every April and where you can take in more than 1 400 cherry trees.

Some of the girls: Lindsay, Jen, Kelly, Amanda, Me. If I remember correctly, Meghan took this picture, but Laura and Randy were also wandering nearby.

I'm not exagerating when I say that this area was jam-packed with cherry trees.

It seriously looked like something from a movie, with light pink and white blossoms everywhere. The best part was when there'd be a breeze and the blossom pedals would swirl around like snow. I've never seen anything quite that beautiful and feel so fortunate that I was here to experience it. I think it's safe to say that cherry blossoms are one of my new favourite flowers!

Friday, April 17th: First field trip of the year! In celebration of Easter, we brought the kiddies to a large park and had an Easter egg hunt. Alright, they only actually hunted for Easter eggs for about 10 minutes and they weren't even chocolate eggs. They each had to find an Easter egg that was a actually an egg-shaped contained full of bubbles and they loved it! After lunch and an exciting game of duck-duck-goose, we took a walk and found a large playground where the kids could let loose and run around like hummingbirds on speed. Introducing Banana and Cherry class being their silly selves.

Saturday, April 25th: Not that we ever need a reason to get dressed up and have a girls night, but this night was extra special because a bunch of us went to see the a bilingual performance of Vagina Monologues presented by V-Day Seoul 2009. As described in the
performance brochure, "V-DAY SEOUL is a dedicated group of foreign and Korean citizens who have come together for the third annual bilingual production of The Vagina Monologues. We are raising awareness, through the play, to prevent violence against women and to help shatter sex taboos in the Korean community." To say that the show was amazing would be an understatement. Acts such as "My Angry Vagina" and "Vagina Happy Facts" made me laugh out loud, while others such as "Say It" and "I Was There in the Room" made me cry and most importantly, made me think. A lot of the more intense ones had to do with Korean comfort women, women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during WWII. It's painful thinking about what those women went through and what some women are still being forced to go through in this day and age, but I think it's important that we do think about it because as long as it's in our consciousness, those women won't be forgotten. I'm so happy that I was fortunate enough to see this performance and would recommend to all women (and men!) that if you get the chance, go see Vagina Monologues. I guarantee that you won't regret it!

May - to be continued...

Life In Seoul Continues... The March Edition

2009-06-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

Monday, March 2nd: This day was... *cue the ominous music* the first day with the new preschoolers!!! Not gonna lie, the thought of teaching twenty 6-year olds with little to no English knowledge TERRIFIED ME!!! I had been teaching a class of 6-year olds and a class of 7-year olds in the last session, and while they were both first year classes, I started teaching them 6-months in so they were pretty good at communicating in English by now. Now I teach 2 classes of 6-year olds (Cherry and Banana class) and honestly, had reason to be scared when walking into that first classroom. Here were 10 tiny children (They really are tiny, but smaller than my last set of 6-year olds! Especially some of the girls. They look like dolls in their oversized SLP uniforms! Although I had to remind myself that these kids were born in 2004, so are in reality 4 and 5, hence their mininess.) staring at me wide-eyed, whispering to each other in Korean, unsure if this tall wagook in front of them was a monster or not. This day consisted mainly of singing silly action songs and colouring, hoping with all my might that no one would cry. I also tried to learn everyone's names, which wasn't made easy for us foreign teachers. The kids were wearing name tags, but with their Korean names on it. Their lockers were labeled, but again... Korean names. Awesome. A few were able to tell me their English names, but not everyone, so I made sure to ask Jinny if she could help me out with that. Oh, forgot to mention that I'm once again paired with Jinny which makes me so happy! She's an incredible teaching partner and is super easy to deal with so I was thrilled when I found out. Anyways, it took a few days to learn all their names, especially one whom I dubbed Smiley for the first 2 days because whenever I'd talk to him, he'd just smile and giggle. On day 3 I finally discovered that his name is James. And yes, he's still very Smiley. I actually don't think I've ever seen him look sad or angry, now that I think about it. All I gotta say about that first month of teaching these kids is that it was INTENSE because of the immense language barrier, but also very rewarding. These reasons will be discussed at a later time.

Wednesday, March 4th: This marked the first day of the 2009-2010 session, meaning new afternoon classes. I'm actually really happy with how my schedule's set-up now, since I'm off at 4:10 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays (MUCH better than getting off at 7pm like I used to on those days) and off at 5:10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays (that stayed the same). I now teach two IE1 classes, which means I'm teaching kids that were in the one-year 7-year old preschool program last year and who now come in every afternoon for 90 minutes (from 2:40-3:25 with one teacher, 3:25-4:10 with the other teacher). The upside to teaching this level is that I already knew a lot of the kids since I'd taught the majority of them in afternoon preschool. I also teach 3 of my old students from Kiwi class, Julia and Michael in my first class, Anny in my second class, which has its upsides and downsides. Upside is that they're fairly easy to get under control, since they've known me long enough to know how I work, downside being that teaching the same kids everyday for this long gets a little tedious and my expectations towards them tend to be higher because I know what they're capable of. My third afternoon class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is a Hi-Kids 1 class, meaning these kids are fairly beginners at English and the little that they do know is whatever they've learned in elementary school. They're 10 and 11-years old and I'm lucky because they're actually quite bright and know more English than I initially thought they would. They're a very energetic bunch (mostly good energetic, although they can be a bit much at times!) and for the most part all eager to participate.

Wednesday, March 11th: Happy 2nd birthday to my adorable nephew, Logan!!! I can't believe it's been two years since you were born. <3>

Saturday, March ?: Can't remember the exact Saturday that these events took place, but I do remember that it was a good day. That afternoon, I had a girls days out in Insadong with Amanda, Tara, Kelly, Jen, and Meghan. Insadong is a large touristy shopping area that has many traditional Korean shops for all your souvenir needs.

The day started off with a bang when Tara and I discovered WineAid, which we purchased in the 7-11 located in the Balsan subway station. WineAid is a basically a wine cooler, in a can. Yes, you read that correctly... in a can. Here's Meghan, Tara and I showing off our cans of winey goodness. (Pretty sure the girl between Tara and I was less than appreciative of the photo op. The man next to Meghan looks pleased to be included though!)

Once we arrived in Insadong, Kelly and I felt the need to enter the mystical realm known as the 'Auto Toilet':

Not sure if it's clear or not, but the sign inside the Auto-Toilet reads "This is an automatic sanitary restroom. The whole toilet stool is cleaned and sterilized after every use and the floor is washed regularly." I just though it was really funny look and was amused that the doors close behind you as if you're in some secret lair or something. There's also a time-limit which I believe was 10 minutes, but if you want to get out before that time, you get to press this giant yellow button:

Nothing like a giant yellow button to make a girl's day! Anywho, the remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets of Insadong venturing into one shop after another. I ended up buying a pretty paper fan (it was sooo hot that day! Definetly a sign of spring!) a pair of earrings and a pretty amethyst ring. Korea's fairly reknown for its amethyst and since it's my birthstone, I felt it was necessary to buy myself a piece of amethyst jewelery.

That night, a bunch of us headed to Hongdae for a fundraiser at a little bar off the beaten track. I wish I could remember what they were raising money for, but my focus was on the fact that all the bands were covering 'Beatles' songs. Excellent! The bands were quite good, especially one who had a sax player and a trambone and other random instruments that you wouldn't expect to find in a little bar like that, but who rocked! There was lots of singing and dancing involved and I left that bar with high spirits.

April - to be continued...

Life In Seoul Continues... The February Edition

2009-06-22T02:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday, February 14th: Ah Valentine's Day. The day of looooove! Not gonna lie, this has never been my favourite holiday. Blame the romantic in me, but I don't believe you need to set aside one day in the year to express your feelings to your loved one. Shouldn't that be an every day thing? I was originally worried that AJ was a V-Day fanatic and that I'd have to suck it up and celebrate the day, but thankfully we share the same point of views on this holiday. And what better way to celebrate a holiday that you don't especially like: Get a tattoo! The day was actually a coincidence, but it made me laugh nonetheless. I'd been wanting to get a new tattoo forever, even when I was still in Ottawa, but I just couldn't decide on what I wanted. I'm not one of those 'Ooooh pretty! I want that forever inked onto my body!' kinda people. I believe I'm one of the smart few who actually takes time to think over my tattoo, even if that means obssessing over it for months. I never expected to get one done in Korea, since tattoos are still fairly taboo here and unlike at home, you don't find a tat shop on every street corner. The fun part about working with such a variety of people is that you get to meet an equally varied amount of people! Several of the guys have had work done by Hojin, who lo-and-behold started dating one of my good friends (sadly they're no longer together). This lead to some of the girls getting tattoos which of course brought back my desire for a new tattoo. After months of research, that "AHAAA!!!" moment came. I explained my idea to Hojin and a few days later, became the recipient of this wonderful piece of artwork, which is located on the left side of my lower back (its about the size of my palm):

Since living in Seoul, where trees are mostly for show (There's many trees, but you can tell there all fairly new and were planted mainly for aesthetics. No 100-year old trees in downtown Seoul, that's for sure!), I've realized just how much I love nature. It's very easy to take for granted those things that surround you everyday; things that you grew up with. But when they're suddenly scarce, you start missing them. Since being here, I've taken so many tree pictures (Amanda teases me mercilessly) because I get so happy to see them. I was looking at some pictures that I had taken and that's when my "AHAAAA!!!" moment came to me. A tree tattoo!!! Now to decide what kind of tree. Well, I've always wanted something that shows I'm Canadian. There came my second "AHAAA!!!" moment. What's more Canadian than a maple tree! I'm VERY happy with Hojin's work and am thrilled to have a permanent memory of my time in Korea. After the tattoo was complete, a few of us went out to Hongdae to celebrate Jen's birthday, which is February 15th. All in all, I do believe this was the best Valentine's Day to date!
Saturday, February 21st: First off, this day is my dearest and oldest friend Sab's 26th birthday! Wooohooo!!! We've often missed each other's birthdays over the years, but never has there been so much distance between us when our birthdays come around. *tear* This day, a Saturday might I add, was spent at school. We had a "seminar day" from 10:00am - 3:00pm which all of teaching staff had to attend. We spent the day talking about the different SLP programs which ended up being more insightful than originally thought. We also had a guest speaker from Oxford Press who was very interesting and who gave us great pointers to increase our effectiveness as teachers. SLP bought us lunch which we had at VIPs, a tasty restaurant with an American-style buffet. To say we ate our fill is an understatement! Everyone was pretty sleepy after that, so we were happy that the day was nearly done. We actually finished earlier than anticipated which was excellent!

That night, we were supposed to go our for Jen and my's combined birthday party extravaganza at Monkey Beach, but a series of events forced a change of plans. Amanda made dinner for some of us, which I started to eat but then had to leave. AJ got hurt on his way here so I went to meet him at the subway station. I didn't really want to leave my injured bf at my place all by his lonesome, so I stayed here with him. I was very disappointed missing the Monkey Beach dance party, but turns out that no one actually made it there. Everyone ended up at Adam's then went to Hongdae and Monkey Beach was rescheduled for the following weekend.

Thursday, February 26th: Today was the last day of the school year for our preschoolers, meaning my last day teaching my 6-year olds and 7-year olds. *tear* It's amazing how quickly our 6 months together went. There was a graduation for the 7-year olds since they'd now be going to elementary school and would no longer be going to SLP every morning. Each class took their turns going into the Rainbow Room and reciting a poem for their parents. They also received a year book-type photo album (with their English name engraved on it...very nice! I'm still sad that I didn't get one too.) and a certificate stating that they had completed preschool at Gangseo SLP. This morning went by very quickly and I was sad having to say goodbye to my little minions.

Friday, February 27th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! 26... YIKES!!! Since there was no preschool that day, I got to go into work a little later than usual. Not by much though, since the morning was dedicated to meetings to discuss the new schedules that we'd be receiving because this was the last full week of the 2008-2009 session. Once work was done at 7:00pm, I headed to VIPs with some of the girls for my birthday dinner. I wore a silly birthday hat (always a requirement!!!) and ate many, many food. It was fantastic! Once we finished stuffing our faces, we headed over to Madigan's, an Irish-pub that's become a popular hangout place for us on Friday nights. It's very chill and not usually super busy, which suits our large group perfectly! We were there to celebrate/mourn the departure of Alisha and her bf Jinmo, as well as Jon. It's not that dramatic, considering they're all returning to Korea in the summer and fall, but a bummer nonetheless. Must of us planned for it to be an early night, until we found a large private room that contained a noraebang (karaoke) machine! The early night turned into a singing all night, especially Laura, Amanda and I who spent many hours singing our hearts out. I do believe it was nearly 4am by the time we relunctantly dragged ourselves away. What can I say, noraebang's addicting and oh-so much fun!

Saturday, February 28th: Official birthday party night! Some of the girls met up earlier in the night for some pre-drinks, then we made our way to Monkey Beach. The rest of the work group made their appearance at some point in the night which made me very happy, although Jen, my birthday-partner, fell asleep and never made it! AJ was sick and also didn't make it. Bummer. :( Their absence was felt, but it was still a fantastic night and the buckets of booze (I'll never tire of this concept and am so happy that I have 2 in my possesion... They're so great!) flowed freely. Oh! And there were glow bracelets and glasses and other funness! Kelly managed to procure us some, which isn't that shocking considering Kel's a pro at getting free stuff: "If it's free, it's for me!" There was much dancing, much drinking, and much laughing. I'm very happy with the way my 26th birthday played out! If anyone's wondering if I received any gifts, I did! Meghan gave me an amazing gray purse which I adore. She knows me too well! Tara got me a glass Hello Kitty phone charm. Jen got me a ginormous panda pen, some Hello Kitty socks, Hello Kitty stickers and Hello Kitty post-its (she also knows me too well!). AJ got me lots of DVDs from his local DVD man, including several seasons of Friends and the Heroes. My favourite gift also came from him: A GIANT TEDDY BEAR! Yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that I still love stuffed toys and this one is especially fantastic! He's at least 3 feet tall and very cuddly, just like AJ! (AJ's definitely taller though!) What's even better is that AJ won him for him at a carnival game that's close to base... Tee-hee! I'm still unsure as to how I'll be getting T Bear back to Canada, but he's coming with me, no ifs ands or buts!

March - to be continued...

Yes, I agree, this is getting ridiculous...

2009-02-03T02:24:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly 3 months since my last post. Yeah... that's bad. I clearly recall promising to start posting regularly again, only to go on my longest hiatus yet. *sigh* I guess it's a good sign in a sense, because it means I'm too busy to be sitting around in my apartment waiting for any reason to blog about it. On that note though, I do apologize to those who were checking in and looking forwards to my updates. I'm not planning an overly detailed post of these past few months, mainly because I can't remember every tiny thing that's happened! But I will write about the more important events. So here we go folks, the update of all updates!

Friday, November 14th: Field Trip day! We brought the kiddies to Aiins World, "a dream-like theme park that has 109 replicas of famous structures from 25 different countries." I don't really get why they call it a theme park, since there's no rides or anything, just many, many replicas. Ah well, it was still interesting to visit! I got to see the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of Pisa, the Sphinx, Atlantis, the Statue of Liberty, etc, etc, etc. Many, MANY replicas. My one critique, and this is a biggie... not ONE replica for Canada. Not a single thing!!!!!! That irked me quite a bit, but I tried not to let it ruin my Aiins World experience. *pouts*

Saturday, November 22nd: Presentation for Preschool 2009. Preschool teachers were fortunate enough to go into work at 10:30 on a Saturday morning and stay for 2-3 hours. Yay. The purpose of this day was to give a presentation to parents of potential SLP preschoolers for the new school year starting in March 2009. Parents were invited to come watch a presentation describing the preschool program and they were also asked to bring in their children, who'd be entertained (i.e. babysat) by the preschool teachers. A kind of 'how will my child react to being in preschool' test, if you will. This wouldn't have been too bad had I not been asked to make a presentation explaining the afternoon preschool program. Nothing like giving a presentation to 80-90 potential clients, many of whom don't speak a word of English, all while trying to be approachable, mature, and child-friendly. *gulp* Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck. I think the hardest part was speaking slowly so that I'd be somewhat understood...I can't help it if I talk fast to begin with, then go into super-speed when nervous! Thankfully everything went well and I received good feedback from my boss. Whew!!!

Tuesday, November 25th: At approximately 11:00, I was pulled out of class by my boss with a request to once again make my above-mentioned presentation. Apparently there was another presentation for the parents going on that day. At 11:30. Fantastic. I'd just like to mention that I was having a 'I don't care what I look like' day and had put zero effort into my appearance that morning. Thankfully I wasn't wearing comfy pants and a sweatshirt, but pretty close. It's safe to say that I was more than a little stressed about this and extremely grateful that I had kept my presentation notes in my desk (I'd almost thrown it out!!!). This presentation also went well (not as well as Saturdays, in my opinion, but what can you do?!), and luckily the number of parents in attendance was dramatically lower than Saturday's presentation.

Saturday, November 29th: For any of you who might remember, in my last post I mentioned a boy that I'd met and was dating. To give those of you who are curious more details, his name's AJ, he's from New York City, and is stationed outside of Seoul with the U.S. Army. He was gone for most of November for training near North Korea, and we hadn't seen each other for a few weeks prior, so many, many weeks were spent sending a gazillion text messages in an attempt to get to know each other. The 29th was a special day because AJ was back and we finally got to see each other after nearly 6 weeks. Also a VERY nerve-wracking day, because we'd only known each other for a few weeks when he left, so it was easy to imagine that things would be incredibly weird. We met at our designated 'spot' and wandered that area all day and saw the new OO7 movie. Happy to report that it wasn't weird at all and I came home feeling like I was drifting away on Cloud 9. ^__^

Friday, December 12th: This weekend was a bittersweet one for me, because I knew that festivities were going on back home for Alice, Moe and Celine's birthdays. It was also my Maman's birthday on the 14th, so kinda hard not to be reminded of home when so many special women in my life are having special days. Luckily, it was AJ's birthday on the 13th, so that helped distract me. He hung out with his friends for a good chunk of the night, then met up with me and my crew at Ho Bar 3 later on. Funnily enough, we celebrated Tara's "birthday" earlier on that night. It wasn't actually her birthday, she just likes celebrating her birthday as often as she can get away with. That and it's funny. To us at least!

Friday, December 19th: SLP Staff Christmas Party! Everyone met up at 7:00, once the last class of the day let out, and we rode a SLP school bus to Hongdae. It was pretty funny seeing so many teachers crammed into one small bus! We went to a Japanese restaurant where many of us foreigners ate little. It was hard-core sushi, heavy on the raw fish. They kept bringing platter after platter of slices of raw fish! There was even a fish head complete with eyes at one point!!! I'm still mildly scarred from that experience. Thankfully a few of us had the insight to eat before going, so I didn't go hungry. I felt bad, cause the school was paying for everything and I feel like so many fish were killed for nothing, cause so much of it went untouched! The soju and beer on the other hand... the waiters couldn't keep up! Hahaha! All in all, it was a good Christmas party and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Most of us left the restaurant at around midnight, although the joyful mood quickly ended for Amanda and I at this point. It had started raining at some point during the night, and much like it gets back home when it snows, there was no cab in sight. We wandered Hongdae for 2 HOURS trying to catch a cab. The subway and buses had stopped running by this point, so a cab was our only way home. It was so unbelievably frustrating and there were a few times when I just wanted to sit on the curb and cry. Luckily, we ran into Adam who'd made his way to Ho Bar 3 with the guys earlier in the night, and he managed to get us a cab home (and nearly get himself killed in the process. I'll spare you the details...). That much time standing in the freezing cold rain lead to a wonderful headcold. Lovely.

Wednesday, December 24th: Not only was today Christmas Eve, but it was also the preschool Christmas Concert! Every preschool class presented a short play (approx 10 minutes) and sang to songs for their parents. When I found out about this in late October, I was SO excited. I remember my teaching partner laughing at me and telling me that it wasn't as great as it sounds, but psh.... I mean come on, it's plays and songs, how much better can it get?!?! Yeah... it pains me to say this, but she knew what she was talking about. Kiwi class presented The Gingerbread Man and sang Jingle Bells and Jingle Bell Rock; Apple class presented The Little Red Hen (I know what you're thinking: What does this play have to do with Christmas?! I'm still unsure...) and sang Skidamarink (Again, the relevance to Christmas eludes me. I blame my teaching partner.) and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. We started rehearsing in mid-November or so and once the week of the concert came around, wasn't convinced my kids would be able to pull it off. They seemed to be getting worst by the day! When we started rehearsing, they were actually quite good and I was super excited, but then we saw a gradual decline in their presentation and it was pretty discouraging. But lady luck was on our side concert day and both classes did FABULOUSLY!!! I was very proud of my lil' ones!

In a perfect world, I'd have finished work once the concert was over, so 2:30ish, but no deal. Still had 4 classes of teaching ahead of me and didn't get off until 6:30. Boooooh!!! After work, we met up at Jamie's who was sweet enough to share a bottle of champagne that she'd received for a 'HOLIDAYS HAVE BEGUN! YAY!!!' toast (Christmas holiday: December 25th - January 4th). From there, we made our way to Fish & Grill (the restaurant in my apt building and our go-to place for beer) and spent a few hours trying to make it feel like it actually was Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day: Lindsay, being the sweetheart that she is, hosted a Christmas brunch in her apartment. She made delicious pancakes and had another assortment of goodies. Champagne was also provided, so we had mimosas. Yum! We had a Christmas exchange, so everyone brought a $5 gift and we played an exchange game. I ended up with a giant plastic Molson Canadian beer bottle bank. I stayed at Lindsay's until about 3:30, then a few of the girls came back to my apartment and we did a mini exchange between us. I received wonderful things from my lovely friends, but my fav is easily my Korean Hello Kitty doll, courtesy of Amanda! And my bamboo, the only plant that'd survive in my apartment. I finally have some green in my apartment!!! Once the girls went home, I napped and had an overall lazy day. I was surprised by how un-Christmas-like the day felt. Later on in the evening, I went to Kelly's where we were supposed to have a Christmas movie marathon, but we waited too long to meet up. Instead, I caught the end of 21, then came back home to call my parents who were spending Christmas at matante Cecile's in Ottawa, as well as Mitch and Jord who were celebrating at Jordana's parents. I sadly wasn't able to call Gilles and Angela that night, because my Skype account ran out of money and it took forever to reload!!! That was the first time I had to put more money on it since beginning to use Skype to make long distance calls, but it had only taken minutes to load money on it when I'd initially set up my account. It took over 24 hours this time! Thankfully I was able to speak to them the following day, which made me VERY happy because I hadn't spoken to them since being in Korea. Christmas Day ended much like every other day, talking on the phone with AJ, who was stuck on base. *tear*

December 28th-30th: 10 of us left the bustling city behind and made our way to the mountains for a few days. We took the bus early Sunday morning and made the 2 hour long trip to Vivaldi Park, a ski resort. This lead to my first attempt at snowboarding... Alright, I'll admit, I'm not a natural. Does this really surprise anyone thought?! Pretty sure I'm devoid of any athletic ability! Anyways, my lack of athleticism didn't prevent me from having a great time! I suck at snowboarding and spent my time struggling on the teeny-weeny bunny hill, but I'm proud of my efforts and absolutely LOVED spending a few days in the snow! Sure the hills are man-made, but that's besides the point! We stayed in a motel about 20 minutes from the resort and it was traditionally korean. No beds, just mats to lay on the floor. I think this was ideal though, because 6 of us ended up being in one room together (the other 4 were couples, so they had their own rooms) and it felt like a slumber party! We played games (mostly 'Apples to Apples', my new favourite board game of ALL TIME!!! I highly recommend that you play it. You'll love it!) and acted like goofs. It was great. The only little downside is that floors in Korea are heated. This would seem great, as we were sleeping on the floor on all, if it wasn't for the fact that the floors got scorching hot throughout the night! We all fell asleep wearing numerous layers, prepared for a potentially chilly night, and woke up sweating buckets! If you touched the parts of the floor not covered by our bed mats, it felt like concrete on a super sunny day. Intense! So night 1 was uncomfortable, but we were all prepared for it on night 2. And I was grateful for the heated floors on day 2 for another reason... my body hurt! It felt wonderful laying directly on the floor and letting it act like a giant heating pad! We were scheduled to head back to Seoul on Tuesday, but only found out upon our arrival that our bus wouldn't be leaving until 5pm. Check-out was at noon, so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves. We headed back to Vivaldi Park and I went up to the top of the highest hill with Tara, John, and Hojin. I had been on the bunny hill the entire time when we were skiing/boarding, so I hadn't seen the view from the top yet. It was beautiful! I got quite a few great pictures that I'll eventually post on Facebook. From there, we met up with the others for some 'gotta waste a few hours' beers. We then discovered the wonders to be found beneath Vivaldi: A bowling alley, an arcade, restaurants, stores... the perfect place to waste time!!! It was very sad to say goodbye to Vivaldi and the wonderful feeling of being surrounded by snow and trees. I miss having that many trees around!!!

New Year's Eve: Woke up earlier than felt necessary to go shopping at Forever 21 with the girls. Our mission: Outfits for New Year's Eve. I know, I know, way to keep it to the last minute! Very typical. We did succeed, for the most part. Kelly and I ended up buying matching dresses, but in different colours. Her's a dark gray, mine a hot pink. The best part, the bust is sequined! Finding sparkly dresses was basically our goal, so we were very happy. By the time we bought shoes to go with our outfits (Cause new shoes are a necessity! And I mean, it's so easy to do when you can find a nice pair of heels for $20!) and made the trip back to our hood, it was already mid-afternoon. After a failed attempt at taking a nap, it was time to start getting ready. We wanted to get to Hongdae early because we didn't know what to expect or how busy bars would be, so we figured our chances of getting in somewhere would improve if we got there before 9pm. Good thing we left as early as we did, because traffic was CRAZY, not to mention the cab that I shared with Kelly and Amanda decided to head in the opposite direction towards Bombai, not Hongdae. *sigh* A 20-minute cab ride took over an hour. *twitch-twitch* Luckily the other girls had arrived a good half-hour before we did and were able to get a table at Ho Bar 3. I swear we'd considered going somewhere different for once, but we decdided that going to a familiar place would again increase our chances of getting in! Most of our crew is there at least once a weekend, so we're pretty well-known by now. It was pretty much only the ladies in attendance for a good portion of the night, but finally the guys showed up, as did AJ and friends, who almost didn't make it for midnight... not gonna lie, I'd have been less than pleased if that had happened! Everyone joyously rang in the New Year with many hugs, kisses, and laughter. Several hours and numerous drinks later, it was time to enjoy my first sleep of 2009. Not that I slept all that much though, because my alarm was set to go off at 10am. Dad's birthday is December 31st so I wanted to call him to wish him a happy birthday while it was still the 31st back home. I feel I deserve a tiny bit of credit for waking up so early on New Year's Day! ^_~

January 1st - January 4th: Spent the remainder of my holidays with AJ, relaxing and being exceptionally lazy. We may or may not have gone out with the crew that weekend... I figure odds are good that we did, but I really can't remember! Haha!

The week of January 5th: First week back at school after the holidays. While I feel that nothing huge happened this week, I do remember feeling that my patience had been restored and I enjoyed teaching again. This was refreshing, since my patience and love of children was definetly dwindling by the time mid-December arrived.

Monday, January 26th: Lunar New Year's Day! This meant that I had a long weekend and didn't have to work on that Monday, nor the Tuesday. Score! A few of us had REALLY been hoping to take the ferry to Japan for the long-weekend. I was so excited to finally get another stamp in my passport and to finally see Japan. What we didn't realize was how big of a deal the Lunar New Year is for Koreans and how many people would be traveling. Our plan was to take the train to Busan (it's a 3-hour train ride from Seoul) and from there, take the ferry to Fukuoka, Japan. Well, our manager Danny was able to find us tickets to Fukuoka, plus a hotel, for under $300. The only problem: The train to Busan was completely SOLD OUT. We thought about taking the bus, but found out that because of the holiday traffic, it would take up nearly 12 hours to get there and we'd have to leave Friday night. Some of us worked until 7pm on Friday and so that alternative was impossible. Meaning: No trip to Japan. *sob* I was with AJ most of the weekend (I'm happy to report that things with us are going EXCEPTIONALLY well and that I'm very much in love! ^__^), although on Sunday night, I dragged him to the theatre with some of the girls to see The Changeling (I hadn't heard much about this movie, other than it starred Angelina Jolie, but I was pleasantly surprised). On Monday night, I had a girls night with Kelly, Liz, Alisha, Laura and Meghan and we headed to Itaewon. We weren't sure if anything would be open because it was Lunar New Year's Day, but we figured Itaewon would be a safe bet as it is VERY foreigner friendly. Many bars/clubs were open, so we weren't disappointed. We hung out at the Rocky Mountain Tavern, a fabulous Canadian bar that I believe I mentioned in a past entry a few months back. We stayed there for several hours, all kind of weirded out by the fact that the only Koreans in the place were a few of the waiters. RMT is more of a sit-down and relax kind of place, so we left when the need to have a dance party struck. It took us WAY longer than necessary to find a decent place to dance and when we finally did, let's just say it wasn't the most pleasant of places. The male population vastly outnumbered the amount of females, and moments after our arrival it became very grabby, if you get my drift. This was the only point in the night where we wished we'd brought a guy. Male friends make excellent bodyguards when all you want to do is dance with your girls! All in all though, it was a great night!

Friday, January 30th: Field Trip Day! This field trip was by far my favourite, because... WE WENT SLIDING (Or sledding, as most people apparently call it....?!). Seoul does NOT have enough snow to create a snow hill, so we bused 30-minutes away to a man-made hill. The concept that someone had to create a snow hill is very strange to this northerner! I have to admit, I was a tad bit disappointed because the hill was pretty weak. NOTHING like what I'm used to! But the kids don't know any different and they loved it! Some were even a little bit scared prior to going down their first time. That being said, none of them wanted me to go down with them. *pouts* I think I was more excited to slide than they were, but felt it would be inappropriate to go by myself when I'm supposed to be supervising and giving the kids moral support. I think I asked every one of my kids (plus kids from the other classes that I know.) if they wanted me to go down with them, but each and every one of them shook their courageous little heads and said "No. I want to do it by myself." Well fine then! I ended up going down with Jamie and Amanda instead! HAHAHA!!! It was great!!! Although not nearly long enough. *pouts* The worst part was going back to school knowing that I had a full day of teaching ahead of me.

This now brings us to the current week, that of February 2nd. Not much going on this week, other than writing up the much dreaded report cards. Quite possibly one of my least favourite things to do in the entire universe. It wouldn't be so bad if I only had to do it for one class... It's the 10 classes that kills me! They're due tomorrow (Friday) and I'm not done... probably not surprising that I choose this week to update my journal! Gotta love procrastinating!

Also gotta note that Valentine's Day will mark my 7th month of being in Korea?! Does that seem insanely weird to anyone else?!?!

4 Week's Worth of Updates for Your Reading Pleasure!

2008-11-11T02:13:00.000-08:00

It's come to my attention lately that I fail as a blogger. In my defense, the last month has gone by RIDICULOUSLY fast, so fast that it actually feels like I just updated this thing last weekend. But alas, that isn't true, so here I am to make things right. As this will most likely be a loooong post, I suggest you get comfy, perhaps get a beverage and snack before you start reading. That might make this a more pleasant experience and I won't feel quite so bad for blabbering away for an eternity!

Week of October 6th:
The week went by in the usual fashion, except that on Thursday we had Sports Day with the preschoolers. This consisted of an entire morning/early afternoon at Mok-Dong Stadium with all of the kids, as well as their parents, mostly the mothers (although I was surprised that so many fathers showed up. Moms are definitely more involved in their child's education). The weather worked to our favour as it was a beautiful sunny day. I ended up with a bit of a sunburn because none of us expected it to get so hot in October! That's life in Seoul for ya. It was a fun and exausting day! We had professionals leading the activities, since the kids didn't actually play sports but games. The kids were divided into 2 teams, Pororo (green team) and Keroro (yellow team). I was on the green team, not that teams really mattered since it was set-up so that the day ended with both teams being tied. The teachers were there mostly to supervise, although that was easy because of the parents. We were asked to participate in some of the games, like running through a long tube on the ground (which was nearly too small to fit into. John, our one male preschool teacher, had a rough time! Hahaha!), running over a blanket that the parents were holding without falling on our faces (As most of you know I trip on flat surfaces, so that one was tricky!) and there were also activities organized just for the teachers to earn points for their team, such as the 'Deflate the giant balloon as fast as you can' game (Our team killed it by laying on it and rolling around until it was flat! Hahaha!) and 'Who can pop the most balloons in this giant plastic bag' game (Again... rolling on them proved effective). The parents were asked to participate in most of the activities with the kids and they also had a few activities of their own, like a somewhat inappropriate obstacle race: One parent was piggybacked by another parent who ran to a certain point in the field. At that point, they put the other parent on the ground who tried to pop the balloon that was taped to their butt with a ping-pong paddle. They then hugged (or cheek kissed as the case often was), then ran back to where they left off. It was HILARIOUS!!! There was also a parent-only tug-of-war which was fun to watch, especially the dads who were at the front and soooo into it! Its only a game, guys! The only downside to Sports Day was having to go back to school and teach afternoon classes. Needless to say, I was less than enthusastic in my teacher methods that afternoon and was incredibly happy when 5pm rolled around and I was freed.

That weekend was pretty relaxed, but fun. A group of us went on the Han River boat cruise on Saturday evening and that was really nice. The weather was great, a perfectly clear night with the full moon nearly full, and the cruise started at twilight so the view from the river was gorgeous. Seoul looks so beautiful lit up at night and that makes it easy to forget that if you were to fall into the Han River, you'd catch god knows how many various life-threatening diseases. It may be pretty but it sure ain't clean! On Sunday afternoon, I met up with my friend Jean-Marc for a much needed coffee date. We realized that we hadn't seen each other since Celine visited in August, meaning we went the entire month of September without a visit. Unforgiveable!!!! We spent the day wandering around Hongdae catching up and checking out the various little stores in the area We found a great little cafe where I had a DELICIOUS cafe mocha, then we met up with his friend Jasmine and went for dinner at Kraze Burger, which reminds me of a little hamburger diner which feels out of place in Korea! I had some sort of chicken sandwich thingy and all I know is that it was delicious! I left my visit with JM feeling full and content to have seen my longtime friend again, with a promise that we wouldn't let a month slip by without seeing each other.

Week of October 13th:
As I recall, this was a fairly uneventful week. I can't think of one significant detail to share with you from the week itself, so I'm gonna say that's a good thing. If nothing's popping to mind, that means there was no unecessary drama or evil children to deal with!!! Oh! There is one thing: A new addition to the SLP crew, Kelly!!! I feel the need to give her a shoutout cause I know that she reads this thing. Well, at least she did, since she found me through this blog and my insanity apparently helped prove that working at SLP wouldn't be the biggest mistake of her life. Always glad to help. So if you are reading this (stalker...): HIIIII KELLY!!!! *waves*

That Saturday, a few of us headed to Incheon, a city approx. 30 minutes from Seoul. Our plans while in Incheon: Visit Chinatown! Yes, you read that correctly, Chinatown. Incheon's Chinatown is Korea's only official Chinatown and it claims to be the largest Chinatown in South Korea. Truth be told, it wasn't that big, but it was still a nice place to visit! What made me laugh was all the souvenir shops that basically sold all of the same chinese-made trinkets. Even funnier, how something 'made in China' is supposed to be a big deal, when you consider most things are made in China! My one exciting purchase: sunflower seeds! Sunflowers seeds are IMPOSSIBLE to find in Seoul but are apparently quite popular with the Chinese (I'm only assuming this because many stores were selling them...), so I bought a brown paper bag of roasted/salted sunflower seeds. They taste kinda funny, obviously not the 'Spitz' that I'm used to from back home, but they do the thing! We were all excited to have some "real" chinese food (Note the quotation marks: When I say "real" Chinese food, I mean Chinese food cooked by Koreans! Haha!) in Chinatown. The kicker though: SOOOOO EXPENSIVE!!! We've all gotten used to spending $5 max for a satisfying meal, so were shocked that most places we checked out were selling individual entrays for over $20 each. We finally found a little hole in the wall that sold good, cheap, Chinese food. I split fried rice and springrolls with 2 of the girls and our total came to $9, so $3 each. Now that's more like it! Once we roamed Chinatown and its shops til our hearts content, we headed to Jayu (Freedom) Park, located nearby. We had to climb a ginormous staircase to get there (It reminded me of the exaggeratedly huge staircase in Kung Fu Panda), but it was worth the climb as Jayu Park offers a great view of the city and sea. Only downside: it was a VERY smoggy day in Incheon, so the sea looked more like a white blob in the distance. We had planned on trying to make our way to the beach but that discouraged us, so instead we wandered Jayu Park for an hour or so then headed home. We had met up at around 10 that morning and it was nearing 6pm by that point, so we figured we'd succeeded in playing tourists. Especially since we knew it would take us a good hour to get home.

There was no plans to go out that night, but my friend Tara (who hadn't come to Incheon that day) called wanting to know if anything was going on. We both decided that we were down for a laid-back night, maybe have a few beers and call it quits early. We had a beer at 'Fish & Grill' downstairs with Lindsay, then found out that our friend Jen also wanted a relaxed beer night, so we met up with her in Hongdae (Jen doesn't work with us but is a public school teacher. So we usually try to meet up with her in Hongdae because that's basically the halfway point between her place and here). The 3 of us ended up at Ho Bar III convinced that we'd have a few beers and be home by 1am at the latest. Yeah...plans changed apparently. We went from mellow to suddenly in the need for a dance party. We tried out a few different places but ended up at Tinpan, a dance club that normally feels crazy busy, but I think that's because we usually show up in a massive group. It's easier to deal with when you're in a group of 3. Needless to say, we stayed there until the wee hours of the night and left as the sun was starting to rise. So much for a relaxed night out! I have zero regrets though because it was a hilariously fun night. Plus I met a fantastic guy who I'm now dating. Yay!

Week of October 20th:
Hmmm... what happened during this week. Again, can't say that much happened during the week itself. Weekdays have become awfully routine as of late. Guess that's a good thing though, having a routine and all. On Saturday, I headed to the COEX mall with Tara and Jen for a shopping expedition. COEX is a MASSIVE mall and we've all gotten used to subway shopping so it was fun to go into real stores. Although less fun seeing real prices! I left fairly empty handed, although I did buy a cute necklace charm at the Hello Kitty store. Come on, like I could ever leave that store without buying something! That adventure took most of the day, so I was happy to come home and relax before the nightime festivities commenced. It was my friend John's birthday on Wednesday, so we went out Saturday night to celebrate. We ended up at 'Monkey Beach', a club in Apgujeong, which is a popular Thai-style bar that has live fire shows, which we sadly missed. *tear* Another wonderful part of Monkey Beach...you can buy mixed drinks served in child-sized beach buckets! FABULOUS!!!! Needless to say, that was a fuuuuun night! Everyone had a grand ol' time and while it's less convenient to get to then the bars in Hongdae, we've all made comments that we MUST return in the near future! Sunday was spent recovering from the booze buckets. Hahaha!

Week of October 27th:
Halloween week!!!! This week was spent planning the preschool Halloween party on Friday morning, plus getting ready for Halloween night. I dressed up as a black cat and spent part of Friday morning carving a jack-o-lantern with my Kiwi class and going trick-or-treating to the other classrooms. We then played 'Pin the Hat on the Witch' and 'Halloween Dance Party' (which was nothing but them flaying around to a Halloween mix cd I'd made!). I then went over to my Apple class and played my 2 games with them as well. All in all, it was a great morning and the kids had fun. That afternoon was good as well, although no Halloween festivities with my afternoon classes. Not gonna lie though, we did slack off WAY more than usual. Come on, it was Halloween! Its sad to think that Korea doesn't actually celebrate Halloween. At least not to the extreme that we do in North America. Stores don't decorate or advertise for it and the only costumes you can find are for the kids. Even then the selection is awfully bleak. So that made our Halloween night even more of a mission, because we had to assemble our own costumes! I have to admit that I'm incredibly proud of everyone and their accomplishments! My fellow vegetarian, Tara, and I dressed up as cannibals, cause we were amused by the irony of such a costume. We bought stage makeup and smeared red paint on our faces and bodies to make it look like we'd just devoured a bloody chunk of human goodness. In reality we looked more like messy vampires, but it was still funny. Especially the reaction we received when we went out to Hongdae. It varied between people being impressed and complimenting us to people cringing away in fear. Success!!! Everyone met up earlier in the night at Susie's, who was hosting a Halloween/Birthday party in her own honour. Her bday's November 1st, so it felt appropriate to celebrate both at once. As mentioned before, everyone showed up in costume and looked AMAZING!!! We then all headed to Hongdae and as always the group split up, but as is the norm we somehow came together once more later on in the night. Hongdae's such a huge area, but our huge group always somehow ends up back together at once. Anyways, Halloween night was a lot of fun, even though I was sad not to be celebrating it in Ottawa. I can't remember the last time I didn't celebrate Halloween with Deb and Do!

On Saturday afternoon, I met up with Tara in Hongdae. She wanted to buy new workout shoes and no one else wanted to go with her, so I was essentially guilted into it. One day I'll learn how to say no to people! Oh well. I was able to get a latte at Starbucks plus we ate at Quiznos, something we can only seem to find in Hongdae. Jen met up with us and we made our way back to our neck of the woods. We decided that we needed a scary movie night in honour of Halloween, so we went to the a nearby DVD rental place and rented 'White Noise' which we watched on a laptop at Tara's. No one has a DVD player and all of our tvs are too old to connect laptops to the tv itself, so watching movies on computers has become the norm. *sigh* The movie itself was kinda lame, but we still managed to get freaked out and shriek more than once. That's when we weren't making fun of it, of course! Haha! After the movie we headed down to Fish & Grill for a drink to 1) not be creeped out anymore, and 2) to keep Tara company until her man showed up. I was good and left after only one drink and went home to go to bed early and talk to my own guy.

On Sunday, we had a girly day and a bunch of us met up that morning to go shopping in Meyong-Dong, a shopping district that I hadn't experienced yet. There's sooo many stores down there, including designer stores like Louis Vuitton, Channel and the such. We only shopped at Forever 21 which is a MASSIVE store. If I remember correctly, it has 3 floors that are jam-packed with clothes. I'd say we spent a good 2 hours there, if not more. My mission was to find jeans and a Fall coat. Didn't find jeans, but did buy a cute coat as well as several shirts and was quite satisfied with my purchases. Then started the frantic search for somewhere to eat, more specifically a Subway or Quiznos. Easier said than done! It took us nearly an hour and were ecstatic (and more than a wee bit cranky) by the time a Subway came into view. I haven't had Subway since getting here, so it was especially delicious!!! Once we we had our fill of delicous sub-goodness, it was early evening so we headed back home. I spent the remainder of the evening/night doing laundry and attempting to make it look like a bomb hadn't landed in my apartment.

Week of November 3rd:
This week was less than awesome because I started to catch the cold that'd been plaguing the entire SLP crew for several weeks now. My apartment's been ridiculously dry at night, so I was hoping that's why I was waking up with a sore, scratchy throat, but by Wednesday (after having purchased a well-needed humidifier after work on Tuesday) I realized that this wasn't the case. I've been really good at fighting off colds since my arrival in Seoul, especially since becoming a preschool teacher (There's ALWAYS a sick child in your midst!!!), so I guess I was bound to lose a fight eventually. I don't think Wednesday night helped much either... One of the guys found a place nearby that sold fireworks, so he planned to set them off on the roof of one of the apartment buildings that night. This was in honour of Guy Fawkes Day, celebration explained in the following (Thank you Wikipedia!): "Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night, Cracker Night, Fireworks Night, Bommy Night) is an annual celebration on the evening of the 5th of November. It celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th of November, 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, were alleged to be attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London, England." I hung out with some of the girls after work and we met up with everyone on the roof at 10:20pm-ish. Turns out that most of the fireworks that Jon bought actually shot out confetti, and not sparkly fire, but thankfully someone had bought 2 roman candles that did have a lovely, albeit slightly pathetic effect. There's nothing quite like store bought fireworks! Hahaha! This night turned into a double celebration as my U.S. friends were quite excited that Obama won the presidential election that day. It was a triple celebration in my mind, because I was also celebrating my brother Mitch's birthday, although he'd have no way of knowing that. I did though! After hanging out on the roof for a good hour or so, we headed down to 'Fish & Grill' for some celebratory drinks. I dragged myself to bed at around 12:30.

Needless to say, Thursday was a bad day. Combination of not enough sleep, too much celebratory beer, and a now official cold made me the worst for wear. I was beyond happy when Thursday ended. I was bummed to wake up on Friday to realize that while I did feel more rested, thanks in part to an early night in bed on Thursday, I felt sicker than ever. I now sounded like a 90-year old chain smoker with a very bad case of the sniffles and a head that felt like it was filled with cotton balls. Good times. Friday was the longest day that I'd had in a loooooong time and I almost cried with relief when 6:20pm came around and I was able to go home. I went to Pizza Maru's with the girls for dinner and from there went home which I did not leave until Sunday. Saturday was spent watching movies and sleeping, slighly messed up on cold medicine. Thankfully that helped, because I was feeling almost human again when Sunday came along. By then I was officially going stir crazy, so was glad to have somewhere to be: Thanksgiving Dinner! It was decided a while back that the crew would get together for a pot-luck dinner on a date between the Canadian and U.S. Thanksgiving. We met up at Jess' at 6pm and it was a great night. There was sooooo much food and possibly even more dessert! We didn't have turkey, but Jess bought a smoked chicken and Jon brought fried chicken, so we at least had some form of poultry. I think my favourite part was the mashed potatoes that Susie made, the pumpkin pie that Jen brought, and the peanut butter fudge courtesy of Lindsay. I ate WAY too much of that fudge and had the worst sugar headache by the end of the night! Well worth it though!!! It was an exceptional Thanksgiving that was shared with a bunch of amazing people that I'm beyond happy to consider friends. Sunday also marked my 4-month anniversary of living in Seoul. Can you believe it?!?!

This now brings us to the Week of November 10th, this week! Today is Pepero Day, which is similar to Valentine's Day, where people give each other Peperos and other romantic gifts. A Pepero is a cookie stick covered in chocolate (Same as Pocky...I know some of you know what that means!) and Pepero Day is held on November 11th since the date '11/11' resembles 4 sticks of Pepero. Its not a huge holiday (Korea seems to have TONS of love-related holidays! I've been told of at least 3, not including V-Day! I do enjoy the fact that they have Black Day, which celebrates singledom!) but I did receive several boxes of Pepero from my students. Any holidays that provides chocolate covered cookie sticks is a happy day to me! Hahaha! Not sure what the next few days have to bring, although I do know that Friday is Field Trip Day for the preschoolers. As is the norm, the teachers have yet to be told where we're going. We usually find out the day before, if not the day of field trips. Nothing like being the last to know! There's plans this weekend to go shoe shopping in I.D.A., an excellently cheap shopping district, as well as adventuring to Costco which I've been told is pretty far. I think it'll be worth it though, since I've been told all Costcos are the same no matter what country you're in and I'm psyched to buy certain things, more notably Quaker oatmeal! YUM!!!

I promise to try to be less of a slacker when it comes to updatingmy journal. I mean, it's for my own good because I've been sitting at my computer for nearly 2 hours typing all of this out. Plus it's hard trying to remember everything that I've done! But I want to document it not only for you, my dearest readers, but for my own memoirs. I don't want to forget any of the fun things I've done while in Korea and this blog will help guarantee that!

Janique's jaunts are to be continued...

Jan ^__^

Yet another birthday celebration, Itaewon, 3 months already!!!

2008-10-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

Last week was a 4-day week because Friday was Korea's Foundation Day. Yay another 3-day weekend!!! The week itself dragged on, it was quite painful actually, but other than time moving at a snail's pace it was a pretty good week. We had a birthday to celebrate, so the crew went out on Thursday night. The birthday girl had requested a fairytale theme for the event, so we (the girls, because the boys lack our coolness!) had quite a good time putting outfits together:

We hung out at various apartments until making out way down to Hongdae. We started the night at 'SKA', a dance club that I've been to a few times and that's always been a lot of fun. It used to be free cover for foreigners, although it's now W10,000. Boooo! You do get a free drink though, so that somewhat makes up for it. We danced our little hearts out for several hours, until the pain from our high heels started kicking in. From there,we ventured over to, surprise surprise, Ho Bar. I think I'd die of shock if we didn't end up there at least once during a night out! Ah well, it's a fun place with good music, cheap drinks and familiar faces. We spent several more hours at Ho Bar, then closed the night with a Burger King stop. Nothing like fast food at 5:00 in the morning! I waltzed into my apartment at approx 6am and noted with delight that the sun was rising when I crawled into bed. All in all, a Thursday night VERY well spent!

Friday and Saturday were spent in self-inflicted isolation. I was in need of some 'me' time, so I ignored my phone and did my own thing. Basically wander around listening to music, reading, and watching movies. I did miss out on some group activities both of those days, but there's ALWAYS something going on. If I waited until there was nothing going on for me to have a few days to myself, I'd be waiting a loooooong time. I absolutely adore the group, but it was really nice having some downtime. I talked to Mom and Dad for over an hour on Saturday morning, which was obviously a great thing. It's been really hard coordinating times for us to talk with my new preschool schedule, so I was happy that we were able to work in a time that worked for all of us. I miss my parents and it makes a world of a different just hearing their voices and finding out what's going on back home. Yay for technology and its ability to aid in communicating with loved ones who are at the other end of the world!!!

On Sunday, I returned to the real world and joined Lindsay and Amanda for an excursion to Itaewon, which is basically foreigner's central. This area is heavily populated by foreigners, especially U.S. Army personnel, so it was incredibly strange to see so many non-Koreans in one place and to hear so much English being spoken! Bizarre! The main reason for our Itaewon trip was to visit 'What the Book?', a new/used English bookstore. HEAVEN!!!! It's not a massive store, but has a great selection of books, both old and new. The best part is that if you can't find a certain book, they can order it for you. Fun! Not surprisingly, I left the store with 5 books in tow and a happy skip in my step. Lindsay and I have made a promise that we'll visit 'What the Book' at least once a month, a promise I'll happily keep! After this, we wandered around the part of Itaewan that we were in waiting for Tara to come and join us for dinner.

She arrived maybe an hour later (It's a good 45-60 minute trip from home) and we tried to find somewhere to have a real meal, not just fast food or Quiznos. We ended up at a Canadian pub, somewhere that Tara had visited before. I love that Korea has Canadian establishments! It's like our equivalent to a Korean restaurant and it makes me giggle a whole lot! From what Tara had been told, the owners are 2 Canadians who missed home, but loved Korea so much that they decided to open a very Canadian-esque restaurant/pub. The place was packed and I think that was mostly due to the hockey game that was being projected on a big screen. They were playing the Senators/Penguins game from the previous night and most of the guys were wearing either Sens or Pens jerseys, hollering and cheering. I totally felt like I'd been transported back to Canada! Especially since it was Hockey Night in Canada playing on CBC and all of the commercials were for Home Hardware and other Canadian franchises. We all reflected on how strange it was to hear English commercials and Tara and I (The 2 Canadian gals) were giddy at seeing commercials that were so familiar to us! The place itself was decorated with jerseys from Canadian sports teams, Canadian license plates and other knick-knacks that are delightfully Canadian. You can even order a beer in a cup that looks like a mini replica of the Stanley Cup! The next time we go there (Because there'll obviously be a next time!) Tara and I are totally getting drinks in those! The food was delicious and I was thrilled to see 'poutine' on the menu! We ordered one for the 4 of us because Amanda, being from Florida, had never tasted it before and we wanted to show it that it didn't taste as gross as it might sound. Lindsay, who's from Maryland, had only had one poutine in her life, so it was also necessary to give her another taste. Sadly it was only ok, but I am a bit of a poutine snob. There's nothing quite like a poutine made with homecut fries, thick gravy and fresh cheese curds, sold from a chip stand. *sigh* It was a nice temporary substitute though and I mean, for Korea (who's definitely not known for its cheese...ugh.), it was good. Amanda enjoyed it, so all that matters is that someone else now knowns the wonder that is a poutine! After a very satisfying meal (I had YUMMY chicken quesadillas...not very Canadian, but they did remind me of home because I order quesadillas so often when we go out!), and some good entertainment (the game was tied in the 3rd period when we left, although I later learned that the Sens lost 4-3 in overtime. >_<), we headed over to Coldstone for dessert. I had never experienced the wonder that is Coldstone, because as far as I know, it doesn't have any stores in Canada, but it's fabulous ice cream creations! I don't remember what my deliciousness was called, but it was chocolate ice cream folded over orea cookies, peanut butter, chocolate chunks and other yumminess. SO GOOD!!! I could barely move by the time we left there and it was an unanimous decision to cab home (Since it would cost us less than W5,000 each), as opposed to dealing with the subway ride. Once again, another weekend had come and gone.

Oh! I almost forgot! That Sunday marked my 3-months since I'd arrived in Seoul. Can you believe it?! I certainly can't! 1/4 of my contract is already done and it feels like I just got here! But, as mentioned before, it also feels like I've always been here. I still wake up some mornings and it hits me "Woah. I'm in Korea." and I feel the same jumble of emotions that I did when I first stepped foot in the Incheon/Seoul Internation Airport. The reality of my current life hits me at the strangest moments and it feels very surreal, as if I'll suddenly wake up and be back home. I'm so relieved that I'm enjoying it as much as I am, because those moments do shake me up a bit. The fact that I'm so far away from everything familiar to me, everyone that I've known for so long...craziness! But then I'll go to work and be bombarded by these adorable little faces and talk with those that I believe will be lifelong friends and I'm so happy to be here. I know that once my year's up, I'll be so excited to go back home and be with my family and friends again. I smile just thinking about it! But I also know that it'll be really hard to leave this life behind and all of the people and things that go with it. But not going to dwell on those thoughts just yet. Afterall, I still have another 9 months to go!

As it is currently Saturday in the 'Land of the Morning Calm, that means that my week is not yet over. Meaning, you get to wait a little bit for my update of this past week. I don't think this is a huge deal, as it's not as if I haven't given you enough to read in the past 12 hours!

So once again, my life update is to be continued...

Field trip, Day and Night on the Town, Foreign Fan Girls

2008-10-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm a tad late with this latest update, so let the story continue: Our adventure left off with my upcoming field trip with the preschoolers. We went to the Sodaemun Museum of Natural History, or 'The Dinosaur Place', as the kids called it. It was a lot of fun, albeit a bit stressful since there were many other schools there as well, so keeping track of my 9 hyper-active 7-year olds (Kiwi Class) was a challenge. I don't think I'd be exagerating to say that I was doing a head count every 30 seconds. The kids LOVED the exhibits, especially the dinosaurs, but I was a bit disappointed by how quickly we had to go through everything. We had limited time, plus I was following my teaching partner who had our 6-year olds (Apple Class), and she was flying through everything. She's the expert, so unlike myself knew what she was doing and how things should proceed, but it was literally "Wow everyone, look at this! *60 seconds pass by* Ok, time's up! Let's see what's next!" The kids didn't seem to mind, I assume their used to super speed field trips, but I wish we'd had time to actually spent more time looking at the exhibits. Plus I wanted to see things too! *pouts* Ok, yes, that's childish of me. It WAS for the kids entertainment and I was simply there to supervise, but museums are fun! I think the biggest bummer is that I didn't have much time to take pictures of the kids, something that I was really looking forward to doing. I did get a few good shots, including this one of Kiwi Class, which is amazing because I didn't think they were physically able to stand in one place for this long!

Aren't they cute?! Sure they make me want to rip my hair out at times (Ok, not gonna lie, almost daily), but I love them all the same! I think my favourite part of the trip was their 'let loose' time. There was an outdoor area with plenty of space to run and burn off some of that excess energy. It was fun seeing them running around like mini maniacs and not having to tell them to calm down; I could just let them be, which was nice. Plus it tired them out for the bus ride back to school, which is always a bonus!

The rest of Friday was relatively uneventful. Taught my 4 classes in the afternoon and got off work at 6:20pm. Met up with some of the crew for our traditional Friday night dinner at Pizza Maru's, then came home and did a whole lotta nothin'.

On Saturday, I joined Lindsay and Amanda on a trip to the Electronics Market in Yongsan. Lindsay had finally received her alien card, so it was time to shop for a much needed cell phone so that she could truly be kept in the loop. Our group communicates via text messages for the most part, so a cell is definitely necessary. After a successful shopping trip, we met up with Jen at the Omokyo subway stop and made our way to the Hyundai Shopping Center to go see 'HellBoy II'. Loved it, quite possibly more than the first one! Comedy, action, good effects, all rolled into one nicely wrapped package. I highly recommend it! Although as many of you are aware, I can usually find something good in all movies. If I'm entertained, it's aaaall good! ^_~ It was past 7pm by this time, so we headed back home, went out separate ways, then met up at Susie's at 9:00ish. Tara and Susie had decided not to join us for our daytime excursion, but we had all decided that it was necessary to go out that night. Pretty much the entire group showed up at Susie's which is always fun! We hung out there for a few hours, then headed down to Hongdae. We started off the night at 'Pause', a sit-down bar that's owned by a friend of a friend. It's small and we pretty much took up all the space, but I liked it. Plus we pretty much had control of the music. Yay! I hadn't been yet and had heard a lot about it, so I was happy to finally have a chance to see it for myself. The only downsides that I can think of were that drinks were almost as expensive as they are back home (Booooo!!!) and the bathroom. Oooooh, the bathroom. It was upstairs, up a scarily steep staircase that is made MUCH worst when wearing heels. When you finally climb the staircase, you're met by one bathroom which has a urinal and a *gulp* squatter. I was still less than comfortable using a squatter (I will ALWAYS take a regular toilet over a squatter!!!), but that awkwardness was tenfolds after having drank for several hours. I felt like I was at a bush party all over again, peeing in the woods, except there was no tree to lend any support!!! Thankfully I survived multiple visits to the bathroom with no incidents and didn't fall going up, or even worst, going down the stairs. Whew! After 'Pause', we decided that some dancing was in order so we wandered to a club...can't remember it's name. S-something or other. I'm still unsure as to what happened, but only a few of us ended up going in to dance and were having a grand ol' time when John came to find us and told us the group was moving on. But...but...we were getting our groove on! That's the downside to having such a large group; It's hard to please everyone. We had all said that we'd try to stick together that night (a hard task indeed), so we relunctantly left our dance party. *Sigh* We then ended up at Ho Bar, not a big shocker. I can't recall one single night where we've gone out that we haven't ended up there at one point in the night. I'm not sure what time I got home that night, but it was late. Or early. Whatever.

On Sunday, against my every instinct and desire, woke up at noon. That would seem late if I hadn't gone to bed only a few hours earlier! Now you may be wondering: What would make Janique, the Lover of Sleep, get up on a weekend before getting at least 10 hours of sleep? It was fangirl day!!! In my last post, I mentioned that 'Big Bang' and 'Wonder Girls' would be performing across the street at SBS. Well, I had the 'Wonder Girls' part correct, but it was actually another boy band, one who's apparently even more popular than 'Big Bang' who'd be performing: DBSK (Or TVfXQ...will explain that doozy in a bit). Susie's our resident K-Pop (Korean Pop) fanatic and knows pretty much every word to every song that any Korean boy band has ever recorded. I met up with Jen, Lindsay and Amanda at Susie's apartment and we began the process of making signs. Signs for what? Signs to go parade at SBS, of course! We wore our tackiest, most neon clothing to ensure we'd be noticed (with the exception of Lindsday, who sadly isn't as crazy as the rest of us. She did offer to play camera woman though, so at least she wasn't too embarassed to be seen with us. Hahaha!), although quite honestly, the chances of are not being noticed, even if we'd worn normal clothing was slim to none. Afterall, we were the only foreigners in sight. And as an added little somethin'-somethin', we put our hair in pigtails, just cause that somehow seemed appropriate. With signs in tow, along with Susie's iPod and speakers, as well as my bright yellow tambourine, we made our less than subtle introduction to the crowd who for the most part had been waiting outside SBS early the previous evening. We danced, we sang, we cheered, embarassed several Koreans in our attempt to get them to join us... good times. I'm hoping that this following link works, so that you can see for yourselves. Here one of MANY videos that was taken that day:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1046029591582&subj=502185922

We did manage to get a few followers who actually followed us through the crowds for a while and sang along with us. They even inducted in the official DBSK fan club (Can't verify how official that was, but it's the thought that counts!)! They were the ones who brought about the DBSK/TVfXQ debacle. All of our signs read 'DBSK'. More specifically, Jen, Susie, Amanda and I each had a poster with a letter, plus several mini posters making cute/silly play on words with the initials. Suddenly our newly formed posse informs us that they're actually called 'TVfXQ'. HUH?!?! Susie protested (as much as one can when speaking to girls who have very little comprehension of the English language) that she saw that their name is DBSK. They giggled at us and shook their heads, repeating TVfXQ, over and over again. But...but...OUR SIGNS! OUR BEAUTIFUL SIGNS!!! We were devastated to say the least, not to mention horrified that we'd gotten the name wrong. Susie still swore that they were also called DBSK, because I mean, it's not like she pulled those initial our of thin air. Sure enough, we've since discovered that TVXQ (as there's apparently no longer a f...?) are often refered to as DBSK. We weren't wrong! HA!!!! After several hours of unadultered silliness, we went back to Susie's to 1) Relax and drink water because we didn't have enough hands to bring liquids along, and 2) Find answers to the DBSK/TVfXQ insanity! We had considered bringing out fangirlness to downtown Seoul, but once we sat down, we realized we were quite exhausted and that it wasn't necessary to share our awesomeness with anyone other than DBSK fans. We headed off to dinner, were home by 9:00 and I went to bed shortly thereafter.

I still have 2 more weeks to update you on, but it's now nearly 2am and my brain hurts from teaching all day and still somehow being awake. I'm not convinced that I'm still making sense as I write this, so updating is to be continued....

My So-Called Life as an English Teacher.....

2008-09-25T01:35:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was slightly disappointing. Plans were made to once again venture over to Everland on Saturday, but this time to hit up the amusement parks. A few of the girls had appointments, so we decided on a meeting spot and would make our way from there. Well, as we met up, it started to rain. The forecast said that it was only supposed to rain that night...WRONG! We hoped that it was just a little rain cloud and that it would pass, so we went for lunch. Still raining. We took the subway to where we had to catch the bus. Still raining. No, scratch that. It was pouring by this point. We wandered the subway and shopped for a while, still optimistic that it would pass. Nope. POURING!!!! Sigh. By this point, we finally succumbed to the reality that this wasn't a simple rain cloud and that we were in for a rainy, rainy day. Is there really any point in going to Everland? Not so much. We tried to catch a movie, but nothing was playing until several hours later. The only upside is that the area were were wandering has a great bookstore with a huge English section, so the day wasn't a total disappointment. It was early evening by the time we got back home, but our spirits were low and the rain was depressing, so we all went out seperate ways. I spent the rest of the night reading, which is probably the best thing to do on a dreary, rainy day/night. As luck would have it, Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day. Of course it was! (I'm not bitter at all!), but it ended up being a do-a-whole-lotta-nothin day. Oh well. All this to say that my weekend wasn't all that awesome.

Monday was a good day, nothing horrible to report. Tuesday...*shudders* My last class of the day (I teach them Tuesdays and Thursdays), the one that I like to refer as my Devil Class, was actually painful. They've never been that out of control before and so by the end of the class, Mean Teacher took over. I spent most of the class either basically talking to myself, or repeating the same things over and over again. There's not listening, then there's just being downright rude and ignorant. My typical reaction to frustration is tears, but I was so beyond frustrated that I was shaking. I actually made one of the boys stand in the corner for the last 20 minutes of class because I couldn't stand looking at him anymore. Nothing angers me more than a student who's smirking and acting like we're having a party when I'm giving a class crap (Not yelling at them mind you. I've found that speaking to them in deathly calm voice with zero expression is much more effective, not to mention scarier...). So at that point, it was either send him in the corner or throw a book at his head, because I couldn't stand to look at him anymore. This wouldn't be so ridiculous if it wasn't for the fact that these kids are 10 and 11. I shouldn't have to place 10/11-year olds in the corner!!!! Anyways, I left them with tons of homework and a promise that if it wasn't done, there'd be hell to pay. I was still shaking from anger 30 minutes after the class had ended. GRRRRR!!!!!

Wednesday... STRESS-ALERT! STRESS-ALERT!!! I had an open class for my 6-year old pre-schoolers, meaning that parents were invited to come in and watch the last 20 minutes of class. Yeah... terrifying much?! The kids practiced what they'd be doing on Tuesday, plus we basically practiced all of Wednesday before their parents showed up. So it wasn't exactly reflective of what we'd really be doing in class, but I wanted them to do a good job! Plus the preschool teachers had been told to prepare activities in advance (we actually had to hand in a lesson plan), so I think the parents were expecting something pretty structured. I had the kids start off by singing 2 songs, then we played the matching game. The matching game isn't a game at all, more of a match the picture with the word, but I've learned that if you had the word game to basically anything, they'll think it's the best activity ever. I love that quality in younger kids! We then did storytime. I'd read and they'd repeat what I'd just read, plus I asked some basic comprehension questions that had more to do with the pictures in the book than the actual content. It was the longest 20 minutes of my life and I was scared at one point that we'd finish the story before our time was up, cause I thought I had planned too much so I was having a mental freakout that we were getting through everything so quickly! Which is basically why I asked them random questions as a time-filler! Thankfully when open class was over, we were at the very last page. Whew!!! I barely glanced at the parents the entire time, so I'm not sure what their reaction was. It was less nerve-wracking focusing my attention on the kids! But so far I haven't received any feedback from my supervisor, so I'm thinking no news is good news. Either way, I'm SO glad that's over and done with!!!! The rest of my day went very well and I left school feeling very happy and relaxed.

Today was an ok day. It's the first day that actually feels like Fall, which is kinda strange. It's been soooo hot, still in the high 20's until today, so it was weird being chilly when I've been dying of heat since arriving in July. The day felt long, but I survived. I know I've mentioned this in the past, but Tuesdays and Thursdays are most definitely NOT my favourite days to be a teacher. I was dreading my last class, especially with what happened Tuesday, so I went in there all business. I think I smiled maybe twice and didn't joke with them one single time. If I have to be Mean Teacher to get them to listen, so be it. They have their end-of-month test on Tuesday, so we did review, plus a few activities in their book that we never had a chance to complete, because their crappy attitudes usually make the simplest of tasks take 3 times longer than normal. Everything was to be done individually and if they'd so much as say a word to each other, I'd give them a look that would shut them up instantly. SUCCESS!!!! I actually hate having to act this way and although we accomplished more in a day than we normally do in 2, not to mention didn't leave class with a massive tension headache, but I don't feel satisifed and am definitely not happier. I love having fun with my students; Joking around and keeping the atmosphere open and light, but the second I give this class any freedom they lose total control and it's nearly impossible to rein them in again without having to become a total bitch. It actually really, really sucks and I wish we could reach a happy medium, but as of right now, they haven't proved to me one tiny bit that that's possible. :(

Now on to a happier note: PRE-SCHOOL FIELD TRIP TOMORROW!!!! YAAAAAY!!!! This is my first field trip and I'm obviously excited! We're going to the Museum of Natural History and while I'm anticipating some stress, since I'm in charge of my rambunctious 7-year olds, I think it's going to be fun. And it sure beats being in class!!! Fridays are automatically good days, one because well...it's Friday(!), and also because the classes that I teach in the afternoon are fun and for the most part, relatively stress-free. TGIF!!!!!!!

I'm maybe going to see HellBoy 2 on Saturday, but no other big plans as of yet for that day. On Sunday, 'Big Bang' and 'Wonder Girls' are going to be across the street at SBS, so a few of us are planning on joining the rabid fangirls and we'll be making some ridiculous videos. I'm anticipating a whole lot of screaming and hysterical laughter!!! I figure I complain about the screaming girls every Sunday, so might as well join them if the bands are actually good ones! And since we'll probably be the only foreigners in the crowd, the odds of our being seen are even greater which could lead to some interesting (aka hilarous!) footage!

So I shall let you know how the weekend goes, as well as the field trip (Once again...YAAAY!!!!) once they've come and gone.

Jan ^__^

Chusok

2008-09-20T02:22:00.000-07:00

Korea celebrated Chusok this past Sunday, September 14th. Chusok, also known as the Korean Thanksgiving, is refered to as the Harvest Festival and coincides with September's full moon, the Harvest moon. The day preceding and following Chusok are also holidays, so I technically should have been back at work on Tuesday. But SLP is awesome and gave us Tuesday off, so I was very happy to have a 4-day weekend!!! We had activities organized for the preschoolers the Friday before Chusok, so that morning was pretty fun. The kids wore traditional Korean clothing, called hanboks, and they were adorable! I now want a hanbok of my own, because they're so beautiful! For some strange reason, wearing hanboks made them all ridiculously well-behaved, so I was very pleased! We made "songphyun", rice cakes that are made of rice and filled with beans, sesame seeds, and chestnuts. They look like perogies! Luckily there was a helper teacher showing us what to do, because I had no idea how to make songphyun, although I now know that it's super easy. We then had manner class, where the kids learned the proper (and respectful) way to bow. They were so awkwardly cute! It was great to watch! Both of these activities were spread out, so in our freetime we coloured and played some games. I somehow ended up staying with my 7-year olds ALL morning, so needless to say I was exhausted by the time 12:30 came around. And I'm not even exagerating when I say that the second their hanboks came off, they were back to being their silly/hyper/frustrating selves! Guess I should be happy that they were well-behaved for at least an entire hour. That NEVER happens!!!

On Saturday, I went to the Yongsan electronics market with some friends and bought myself a lovely iPod nano. My MP3 player went kaput a few weeks ago and I NEED music in my life, especially when I'm walking home or grocery shopping, so it was a necessary purchase. I have no idea about electronics, but everyone agrees that I got an awesome deal for it. Yay me! It was my Chusok gift to me! We then went to the Express Bus Terminal where there's a gazillion shopping stands and bought a few W5,000 shirts and 2 cute pairs of heels for W20,000. That's basically $10 each. Where else can you buy cute shoes for that cheap?! SWEET!!!

Sunday morning, met up with some of the girls and traveled to Everland, an amusement park outside of Seoul. It took us nearly 2 hours to get here by cab and bus, but it was totally worth the trip. The main reason for the trip was to visit the zoo, then the amusement park, but I don't think any of us realized how MASSIVE Everland is! I now know that it's Korea biggest amusement park and one of the most popular in the world. I can see why! It's an amazing place! There's 5 basic divisions to the park: European Adventure, Magic Land, American Adventure, Global Fair, and Zoo-Topia. It was around 1pm by the time we got there, so we figured we'd have tons of time to see it all. WRONG! It took us over 4 hours just to explore Zoo-Topia! It's a wonderful zoo with a gazillion animals, many of which made me laugh because Korea and I don't necessarly share the same views on exotic animals. Example: Dispays showcasing skunks (Yes, SKUNKS!), guinea pigs, hamsters, budgies, rabbits, chipmunks, beavers, as well as a few other animals that I've seen either in my backyard or in a local pet store. Hilarious!!! The monkeys, living in the appropriately named 'Friendly Monkey Valley', were adorable and they had many different breeds, some of which I'd never even heard of! I love monkeys! They also had 2 stunnig white tigers and some gorgeous Siberian tigers, which made this cat lady happy! Oh! And there were bear cubs and tiger cubs and baby monkeys! CUUUUUTE!!!!! There was an African Safari that we REALLY wanted to go on, but the line up was over an hour long and we didn't want to wait. We kept going back hoping the line would be shorter, but it just kept getting longer! *pouts* With all of this animal viewing, it didn't give much time for going on rides. A few of us rode the 'T-Express', the self-proclaimed steepest wooden roller coaster in the world. It has an incline of 77 degrees and I'm not gonna lie...it was intense! When we'd go down this part of the rollercoaster, I felt like I was eating my heart!!! SO MUCH FUN!!! I laughed hysterially the entire time and bought one of the pictures that they sell because my expression is hilarious! Two of us went on this weird viking-type ride that I really can't explain, but it was tons of fun. Not even close to being as terrifying as the T-Express, since it was more of a midway ride, but still fun. Then all of us rode the ferris wheel which gave us an amazing view of Everland. Only then did I realize just how humongous this place is! The last thing we did was visit the Four Seasons Garden and Rose Garden, which were beautiful because it was now dark outside so there were electric candlesticks illuminating the flowers and sculptures. The full moon was also gorgeous, so the overall effect of these gardens were amazing. We left Everland at around 9pm and managed to make it home before 11pm. Bedtime quickly followed.

On Monday, Amanda and I attempted to catch a movie, but the nearby theatre wasn't showing anything new. We found another theatre and made the treck there, but the only English movie that was playing was sold out. Sigh. So no movie. That night, the girls got together at Jess' for some drinks, then we headed out to Hongdae to go clubbing. We went to 3 different clubs and they were totally dead. Maybe 5 people max! Very depressing. By 1:30am, most of us were ready to call it quits and head home, but we decided to try one last spot. Well, it seems that everyone in Hongdae were at this bar because it was packed! Literally wall to wall... what the?! The music was great and it was fun for maybe an hour, but then having that many people around got to be a little much, not to mention 3 guys kept trying to dance with me all at once, so I was being bounced around a little too much for my liking. It was kinda creepy! Thankfully I spotted one of the girls and her boyfriend dancing by the stairs overlooking the dance floor, so I was happy to escape to a place where I could actually dance without getting grabbed every 2 seconds! We basically all got tired of that place at the same time, so we headed home at around 3am.

Tuesday... LAZY DAY!!! I spent the day reading, watching movies, and didn't leave my apartment once. Wonderful!!! I figured I'd arrive at work feeling rested and rejuvenated on Wednesday, but not so much. It totally felt like a Monday! It's always that way though, isn't it? First day back at work, whether it's a Monday or a Friday, will always give you a case of the Mondays. Strange!

2 months!!!

2008-09-08T05:21:00.001-07:00

I was so good at getting my weekly posts out, but seem to have dropped the ball last week. Ooopsies! But here I am, back again to update you on Seoul living.

Sunday marked the 2nd month of my Korean adventure. If my first month went by quickly, this second one FLEW right by! It's crazy how fast time is going! But again, as I've mentioned before, I'm torn between feeling like I've just arrived and having been here for ages. It's a very strange. *nods knowingly*

Slowly settling into my new routine as a pre-school teacher. Turns out that working mornings isn't as painful as I thought, although I'm still having a hard time getting to bed before midnight. Stupid night-owl tendencies!!! I do enjoy the walk to work in the morning though, as this helps to wake me up.

My first day of pre-school, which was last Monday, was stressful. All of the pre-school classes have fruit names, so I teach Apple, who are first-year 6 year-olds, and Kiwi, first-year 7-year olds. Both classes were uber hyper on that first day and hard to control, which wasn't very encouraging. I was exhausted by the time 12:30pm came around! Thankfully they've been better behaved since then, so I think they were just excited to have a new teacher who was obviously a wee bit out of her element. I was warned prior to my first day that Kiwi are the worst 7-year olds in the school and that everyone hates teaching them, so I was obviously worried. It's true that they're a bit unfocused and have a bad habit of fighting amongst each other, but they're actually great kids. I'm learning new ways of getting them to focus and have made it very clear that only good, nice behaviour will be tolerated. This, in the most part, has worked so far and I think that it'll only get better the more I get to know them. My Apple kids are totally adorable, although some are like saran wrap and enjoy clinging to me as much as humanly possible. I love being loved by them, but try teaching when you have 10 kids wanting constant attention all at the same time! My #1 rule with both my classes is that if you want my attention, quietly raise your hand. If all I hear is you yelling and whinning "JANIQUE TEACHER! TEACHEEEER!!!!", I'm going to pretend that I don't see, nor hear you, and will only pay attention to those who quietly have their hands raised. This rule has been harder to instill than I originally thought, but they're slowly getting the hang of it. My head is certainly grateful for this, because there's nothing more irritating than 10 high-pitched voices yelling "JANIIIIIQUE TEACHEEEEER!!!" over and over and over again. >__<

My new afternoon classes aren't that bad, although I'm still not happy at having to learn almost 70 new names. YEEEESH!!! Strangely enough, even though my Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are longer work days, I enjoy them much more than my Tuesdays and Thursdays. I even teach less classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but for some reason those classes stress me out more. I think it's because they're all low-level classes and I was comfortable teaching the higher-level kids. My last class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is especially painful, since in a class of 10, there's 8 prepubescent boys. That many boys of that age, together in one class, might lead to a potential breakdown. I feel horrible for the 2 girls in that class, cause they look terrified 99.9% of the time. There's 3 Kevin's in that class, and 2 Harry's, so that in itself is confusing. But they just DON'T LISTEN!!! They were fine on Tuesdays, but I nearly bolted out of the classroom when the bell rang on Thursday. They put me in the worst mood! They were all over the place and would not settle down. Their English is very basic and you can tell they don't want to be there, so I understand their behaviour, but come on!!! I shouldn't complain too much, since all of my other classes are pretty awesome, but this class kills me! I'm hoping that Thursday was just an especially hyper day and they'll be better tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath. I had been warned about them before I started teaching, so I know it's not me, but them. Sigh.

So I survived Week #1 of pre-school relatively unscathed and am enjoying it quite bit. I especially love being off work by 7pm everyday. My work day is just as long, if not longer, than it was before, but it seems easier somehow.

One of the girls, Michelle, headed back to Canada on Saturday morning, so we all got together on Friday so that she'd have one last night out in Seoul. She comanded that it be a theme night (YAAAY!!!) and so the theme was: Cougar/Hound Dog. Not the animals but refering to older women and men who dress WAY younger and chase after men and women who are MANY years their junior. Not many of us actually pulled off the cougar/hound dog look (I was totally 80s...), but it was pretty hilarious nonetheless. Although we did fail our mission: To have a Korean ask us what the hell we're wearing. People dress in the most random of fashions in Seoul, so we hoped to dress so insanely that we'd have someone question it. No one did. I don't even think any of us received a second glance. Either way, it was a great night and it's ridiculously sad not having Michelle around anymore. *tear*

On Saturday, I visited the Amsa-Dong Prehistoric Settlement Site. This represents the largest neolithic settlement site in Korea and is the first known in south Korea. It's presumed to have been inhabited in 3,000 or 4,000 B.C. Pretty cool! Amsa-Dong is a good hour subway ride from my place, but it was well-worth the visit. There's a fair-sized exhibit with artifacts that were uncovered and information on what life would have been like back then, plus reconstructed pit-houses that give a very good idea of what the living conditions were during that time. The area itself is gorgeous, as it has paths leading around the grounds which are heavily surrounded by trees and rocks to sit on. If you ignore the sounds of the traffic coming from the nearby highway, it's easy to imagine yourself in a secluded forest, with only the birds and locust to keep you company. I could have easily wandered around all day and was sad to return to the concrete world that is Seoul. I'm always so happy to find these delightful patches of nature within this massive city!

Saturday night I stayed in and was lazy, since I had woken up early to go to Amsa, but had gone to bed VERY late for Michelle's going-away night. I happily slept in on Sunday, did laundry and read. Yay relaxing! Last night I went to the movies and saw Mama Mia with Tara and Amanda. It was cheesy, as is a definite must with musicals, but not surprisingly... I LOVED IT!!! I've had ABBA songs in my head all day (Mainly Mama Mia and Dancing Queen) and am currently in the process of downloading the soundtrack. If only life could be a musical so that I could constantly induldge in my desire to spontaneously burst out into song! Hahaha!!!

I'm DEFINITELY looking forward the weekend, since it's yet another long one: 4 days off! On Sunday, it's Chusok, the Korean Thanksgiving. Everyone gets the day before and after Chusok off, but since it falls on a Sunday this year, the school's giving us Tuesday off since we don't work on Saturday. Thank you SLP!!! Another reason why Chusok rocks: We receive a $300 bonus! WOOHOOOO!!!! Us girls originally tried to plan a trip out of Seoul, but everything was too expensive for such a short trip. A few are still taking 1-2 day trips, but I've decided to stick around Seoul and do the touristy things that I never got around to doing during my summer vacation. Plus it'll be nice not to spend my bonus right away. A trip to the zoo is in the works, as is a day at Everland, Seoul's oh-so famous amusement park. I'm ridiculously excited for that, since I haven't been to an amusement park since high school and can't wait to make myself dizzy on rollercoasters!!! I'm thinking that Tuesday will be spent sleeping though, because what's the point of a holiday if you can't spend at least one of those days being lazy!

I'm determined to be in bed my 11 tonight and seeing that it's already 10:20, I'm forcing myself to get offline now. Good timing though, because I do believe I've written enough thoughts for one day!

Jan ^__^

Pre-School Teacher? Me?!

2008-08-26T06:38:00.001-07:00

Last week was a fairly tame one, other than officially being told that I'd be teaching pre-school as of September 1st. This began with my observing classes as of Thursday morning, which lead to that work day lasting well over 10 hours. I felt bad for my last class at 7pm, since I was pretty brain dead by that point. I got to observe the two classes that I'll be teaching yesterday and today and the kids are way too cute. The one class is apparently a handful, but Laura (who I'm replacing) has given me some pointers on how to handle them. The other class are adorable and most of the teacher's agree that they're sweet and awesomely well-behaved. I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed!

I knew that my entire schedule would change upon Adam's return, since I've always known that he'd be taking his classes back, but I didn't expect to do a full 180 (full 360...? I'm having a total brainfart as to which is the right one to say!) switcheroo in the types of classes I'd be teaching! Since starting at SLP, I've been doing afternoon/evening classes, mostly with more advanced, older kids. But as of next week, I'll be starting my work day at 9:45am and will be teaching IP1, which is the first level of pre-schoolers at SLP. EEPS!!! Morning pre-school is from 9:45-12:20, and the FTs share 2 classes with KTs. So my first group is 7-year olds (In Korean years, mind you, so they're actually 5-6. While I'm on the topic of Korean years, here's the downlow on that: In the Western/European cultures, newborns start life being 0-year's old. Once you've been alive in the world for one full year, you're 1-year old. In Korea, and I can't speak for other Asian cultures because I'm unsure if they do this or not, newborns start at 1-year old, and they add one year at the passing of each New Year, rather than their birthday. So some people might actually be 1-2 year's older in Korea than they'd be in Western parts of the world), and my second group 6 year-olds. I've observed several 6&7 year-old IP1 classes since Thursday, including the 2 classes that'll be my own and I think it'll be ok. The classes are very structured, which might end up being constricting later on but I'm happy to have some direction right now!

I totally have mixed emotions about all of this! I'm excited to teach pre-school because the kids are super cute. The lessons are very basic, I'll have the same group of kids every morning, plus I'll get to go on the monthly field trips. Bonus! On the other hand, I've really enjoyed teaching the older kids and have gotten pretty attached to some of my classes, so that'll be hard. Although I won't miss teaching things that I myself haven't given a second thought about since junior high, nor will I miss the gazillion essays that I've had to correct these past few months!

My afternoon schedule will also totally change, although I was told that I'll be keeping one of my current classes, which is one that I took over from a teacher who left late last month, although this is my lowest level class at this point, other than my afternoon pre-school. Speaking of which, Adam gets to take back the less-than-popular project writing afternoon pre-school writing classes! SWEEEEET!!! I hate teaching that class just as much as the kids hate having to take it! It's impossible to make it interesting and while I've won over most of the kids by this point, teaching it certainly doesn't win you any popularity points.

The upside to this schedule change (Other than having to deal with morning again....NOOOOO!!!!!) is that I'll be done teaching at 6:20pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, as opposed to 7pm (Hmmm... ok, maybe this change isn't all that great...), and at 5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is a VAST improvement from my current 8pm checkout time. I also have a long break between my morning and afternoon classes on most days. Right now, the earliest that I start is at 1:10pm, except for Wednesdays and Fridays where I only start at 2:40pm, but I have maybe three 10-minute breaks, which are every 80-minute block, and that basically just gives me enough time to race to my desk, change my books, fill my water bottle, and if I'm lucky, bathroom break.

So there's definite pros and cons to this whole schedule change, plus the warning that things might change slightly come October. I'm just curious to see how this whole teaching pre-school thing is going to go! Excited, yet terried, not gonna lie! The kids are so little!!!

Other than school, not much has been going on around here. It was Alisha's birthday on Sunday, so a bunch of us went out on Saturday night to celebrate. We went to Garten Beer for dinner and drinks, where we watched the Olympic's baseball finals between Korea and Cuba on the restaurant's big screen tv. Most of the restaurant's patrons were there for that reason and it was a LOUD and exciting game (Not that I paid much attention, but it was still easy to get caught up in everyone else's excitement) and the excitement was magnified when Korea won the gold. Whoot!!! Most of us then headed to Hongdae, the bar/club area of Seoul that we tend to gravitate towards, and ended up at Ho Bar3 for more drinks and a dance party. Not that it's an actual dance club, more of a sit-down bar, but if there's music there will be dancing when it comes to the girls in our group! Good times. The rest of the weekend was spent doing a whole lotta nothing. Oh! The Goonies played Saturday afternoon! I turned on the tv and it was literally just starting. I haven't seen that movie from beginning to end in AGES and it totally made my life! "Hey you guuuuys!!!" Hahahaha!

Today is Amanda's birthday, so almost the whole crew met up for dinner at the 'Fish and Grill', a great restaurant located in our building. So handy! It was a beautiful night (We only met at 8:30 since any of us were teaching until 8:00), so we sat out on the patio. Susie and I bought her a cake on the way here and it was cute! It was a teddy bear head and most likely meant for a 5-year olds bday, but it was cute and looked yummy, since it was coated in chocolate and the ears, eyes, and nose were pieces of white and milk chocolate. Sadly we ate the appendages before we could take a picture of its cuteness. *tear* The best part, it tasted like the Joe Louis snack cakes. Delish! Oh, and try eating cake with chopsticks. Good times. It looks like we massacred the poor thing.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to a show called Nanta with some of the girls. According to the Nanta website (http://nanta.i-pmc.co.kr/en/nanta/intro_synopsis.asp), it's "A Nonverbal performance integrating Korean traditional "Samulnori" rhythm with comic and drama! Audiences of all ages and nationalities can enjoy! Everyone is welcome! " Not really sure what to expect, but I'm always up for a show!

On Saturday, we're going out to celebrate Jon and Rob's birthdays (SO MANY BIRTHDAYS!!! Thankfully I'm a fan of birthdays and birthday celebrations!). The guys haven't quite decided what we're doing yet, but I'd imagine dinner, drinks, and the usual shenannigans down in Hongdae.

I'm curious to see what the next couple of weeks will bring! There's some huge changes a-comin!!!

A best-friendly visit!

2008-08-19T04:55:00.000-07:00

Week #5 in Korea started off VERY well, because Celine came to visit me! YAAAAY!!! She arrived on Monday night, so after work I bused it to the Incheon/Seoul International Aiport to meet up with her. I remember how exausted/nervous I was when arriving in Seoul, so it was super important to me that she have a smiling face greeting her upon her arrival. By the time she got through customs and found her luggage, it was nearing 10pm (Luckily her flight was early, since she was originally scheduled to arrive at 9:35pm, so the wait would have been MUCH longer otherwise!). She looked a little disheveled, but after traveling for nearly 24 hours, can't say that I blamed her. I know that I wasn't at my cutest when I arrived! We cabbed home, chatted for a bit, then passed out at around 1am.

I hated leaving for work on Tuesday, but did and of course the day draaaaaaged on. Turns out that Celine had slept for most of the day (Jetlag hit her pretty hard), so I felt less bad about abandoning her. I took her out for some delicous Pizza Maru, her first experience of Korean food... which it isn't at all cause it's pizza! Hahaha!

The rest of the week went this way, me sadly leaving for work, feeling as if I was abandoning my friend. Sigh. I was happy to hear that she went out exploring on Wednesday, then once Amanda got off work on Thursday, she took her out shopping. Ce and Amanda had met at dinner on Wednesday night, since a few of us almost always go out for dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. When a meal's less than W5,000j and you get a massive serving, it's hard not too! This was in reality Celine's first Korean meal: We went to a restaurant that mainly serves guk (Pronounced gook), which means soup. It was actually more like a rice porridge though, and while it was kinda bland (which was SHOCKING considering everything's so spicy!), I'd go back.

On Thursday night, Susie had a belated (As in, 7-months belated) Housewarming Party. The whole crew was basically there and it was fun to have Celine see that I'm not totally friendless. We stayed at Susie's for quite a while, then decided it was time to go out. As it in the norm with the group, it was impossible to choose one location that would suit all. Most of the group went to a bar where they could sit and chillax, but Ce, Susie, Tara, and myself made our way to a club because the urge to have a dance party was too loud to ignore! It was a hip-hop club, so we knew most of the songs and had a total blast! There were tv monitors all over the club showing hip-hop videos and Ce and I were thrilled to see that some of the videos were being broadcasted from 'Much Music'. It was liking being back at home, except for the fact that our group were basically the only Foreigners in the entire place! Hahaha! Us 4 girls danced our little hearts out and only made it back home at around 4am. I LOVE that Korean clubs/bars are open so late!!!

On Friday, a bunch of the girls met up at 11:30am to laze around a pool all day. The only problem: The clouds and wind. We were determined to go anyways though, so we made the treck to one of the bigger water locations in Seoul, where there's 3 pools. It literally started to rain the second we arrived... NOOOO!!! The fee was only W5,000 so we went in hoping that it would pass. We quickly realized that this was no passing rain cloud, as the sky was getting darker by the minute and the wind just getting stronger. After a good 25 minutes of sitting in the rain in our bathing suits, Ce, Amanda, Jaimie and I decided that going to a movie sounded like a bunch better way to spend the afternoon, We left the others (who ended up leaving not long after) and made our way to a movie theatre. Since none of us had seen it, we saw the new X-Files movie, which was slightly disappointing (The plot wasn't all that paranormal, which you expect from the X-Files), but still entertaining, because it did keep the weird 'What the?! Did that just happen?!' element that made the show so popular in the first place. By the time the movie was done, we were all exhausted from the late night/early morning partying from the day before, so once we got back to the apartments, we parted ways. Celine and I had dinner, then vegged for the rest of the night and went to bed relatively early for a Friday night!

On Saturday, Celine requested that we do something touristy. Celine, Amanda and I met up with JM and Ce's friend, Jackie, at Seoul station and then went to Changdeokgung, which was built as the secondary palace of the Joseon Dynasty. If anyone remembers my last post, Gyeongbokgung was the primary palace of the Joseon Dynasty, so the architecture of both palaces are very similar, but still gorgeous in their own right. The only downside was that it was yet again an overcast day, so many of my pictures look depressing and gloomy. :( My pictures from Gyeongbokgung definetely turned out better since last weekend had been so sunny. Oh well, can't control the weather! Changdeokgung only does guided tours, so we somehow made it for the last one which was at 3:30. It lasted an hour and a half and I'm not gonna lie, the 5 of us often drifted behind the group, especially Amanda and I who were once again camera happy. It was a really great tour though and we had a blast! After the tour, we went for dinner at a typical Korean restaurant, meaning it's tiny and only serves a handful of meals. I had pibim naengmyon, which is basically a cold noodle and vegetable mix. Simple yet satisfying! JM was going to stay with me and Celine that night, so after dinner we headed over to where he's been staying since his return from Canada. He's between apartments right now, so he'd been sleeping in hotels and at his office since Wednesday. Poor guy! Once we got back to my neck of the woods, Amanda decided that she was sleepy so she went home to nap. Which of course means we didn't see her for the rest of the night! Ce, JM, Jackie and I chilled in my mini apartment, got our drink on and chatted. Not sure what time it was, but we decided to go to a noraebang (Pronounced: No-ray-bong), which is my new favourite thing in the ENTIRE universe!!! Noraebang basically means karaoke room and instead of doing karaoke in front of an entire group of strangers, you rent a room where they have tv monitors set up, microphones, fun lighting, a book full of English and Korean songs, and...wait for it... tambourines! While I didn't originally believe JM when he told me that there's at least one noraebang on every street, I'm now a believer as there's one 2 seconds from my apartment! You pay W15,000/hour which is so cheap! We had such a ridiculously good time that we ended up staying for 2 hours! So much singing! So much laughing!!! When we finally wandered back to the apartment, we ran into a couple of the guys were hanging outside of Family Mart, our unofficial hangout. We were still giddy from the noraebang, so we joined them and chatted for who knows how long. What I do know is that when we finally came upstairs, it was getting light out. Poor Celine didn't know what to do, staying up that late! Hahaha! I love you Ce, you old memere you! At that point, Jackie decided to head home since the subways would be runnin and didn't really want to sleep on my floor. JM wasn't so picky, so he, Ce and I crashed soon after bidding Jackie adieu.

I don't think any of us moved until I heard JM, stating that it was 1:10pm and that maybe we should get up if any of us hoped to sleep that night. Hahaha! We got ready, hit up Pizza Maru for a late lunch, then headed to the subway station. Celine wanted to witness the wonder that is the crazy shopping at Dongdaemun, but sadly realized that she had very little cash left and couldn't withdraw money from her credit card from an ATM because she didn't know the PIN. There's not really any point in going somewhere with hundreds upon hundreds of stores and street stalls if you have no money, especially considering most of these places only accept cash :( So we said our goodbyes to JM and headed back home. Celine was leaving me that night to spend the remainder of her trip with a friend in Incheon, but wouldn't have to go for several hours. So when we had to decide what to do, we came up with the most logical conclusion: More noraebang! Hahaha! We paid for an hour, but I think we were entertaining the man who works there because he kept adding more time to our timer. We took the first extra 15 minutes, but then worried that he'd start charging us so we left. Once again, we had a blast! Especially since we could sing our sappy ballads and silly songs! After noraebang, we went for dinner, then shortly after Ce's friend called and it was time for her to go. *tear* I was SUPER sad having to say goodbye, because it was so nice having one of my BFFs here with me, even if it was for only a week. I'm pretty confident that she had a good time and hopefully she'll encourage the others to save their pennies and come visit me too! That would be AWESOME!!! *hint-hint-nudge-nudge*

It's now Tuesday and I'm still trying to recover from the weekend. Hahaha! I'm supposed to talk with Dayna via Skype in a few minutes, so I'm super excited for that! And I'm calling home tomorrow, where quite a bit of the family is supposed to be, including Mitch and Memere. I haven't talked to either of them since I left, so it'll be nice to hear their voices.

Not sure what this week will bring, but I do know that a bunch of us are going out for Alisha's birthday on Saturday night. So much for having a weekend to relax! Oh well, it's worth it!!!

Jan ^__^

A month already! WOW!!!

2008-08-10T03:06:00.000-07:00

Wow, today's my 1-month anniversary of being in Seoul (Well, it will be at approx. 9pm). CRAZY! I have conflicting feelings about that time frame though. On one hand, it feels like I've just arrived; At the same time, it also feels like I've been here forever. Not sure how that makes sense!

This week went fairly well. Nothing overly exciting happened, except for the return to class. I'm starting to lose patience with one class in particular and am hoping that they smarten up. I teach these kids every single day, so in a way they're my favourites because I know them better than any of my other students. But, they're hands down my hardest class to handle, mainly because they can't shut up and sit still for more than 2 minutes at a time, so I felt like I spent the majority of the week trying to get them to chill out and pay attention. What's frustrating is that they were pretty good before vacation, but it's almost like they were abducted during vacation and have now returned to school as evil hell spawns! I'm discovering that I am capable of being a stern teacher and am mastering my 'I am NOT happy!' look of death, which seems to be working. I honestly didn't think I had it in me to be a hard-ass, but I was apparently wrong! I'd rather be able to joke around and give them treats, but they now know that it's serious Janique Teacher until they can prove to me that they can behave. I'm curious to see how this week will go...

The weekend was really great. A few of us hit up Pizza Maru after work on Friday, then Amanda and I headed off to the Dongdaemun Market, which is stated to be the biggest shopping district in Seoul. It was well past 9pm when we arrived, so the department stores were closed which was fine by us; we wanted to hit up the street stalls. Street stalls mainly have clothing, shoes, purses and accessories, but they're dirt cheap! I can't wear flipflop sandals to work, so have been looking for a pair of Birkenstocks because I'm tired of wearing my sneakers when it's a gazillion degrees outside. I bought a knockoff pair of Birkensticks (Yes, you read that correctly: BirkenSTICKS! HAHAHA!) for W12,000 (Approx. $12). They're identical to the real deal and super comfy. Score! I bought 3 shirts and a dress for less than W20,000, and 6 DVDS (Gotta love Asia for those bootlegged American movies that aren't even on DVD yet!) for W20,000. Yes I spent more money than I probably should have, but it's so easy to do when you leave with so many items! I don't know that I'll ever be able to pay full price for anything ever again! We left Dongdaemun around 11:30pm because we wanted to catch the last subway home (most subway lines stop running at midnight) and could have easily stayed for several more hours because there's just SO much to see! I will definitely be going back there in the future!

On Saturday, I spent more money (it's been an expensive weekend!), but this was useful shopping though: Grocery shopping! I'd only been to the HomEver down the street, but wanted to check out the other department/grocery stores in the area. It's a good 20 minute walk, but it's bigger than HomEver so the extra variety will be nice on those days that I'm feeling energetic. On my way back I hit up the Dollar Store where I bought some VERY cheap, but useful things for home and for work (Including a Hello Kitty soap dish and toothbrush holder...the dream to have a Hello Kitty-themed bathroom is coming true!). I also bought some wall stickers (kinda like wallerpaper, but better!) so that I can attempt to pretty-up my walls. I've been going crazy trying to think of ways to make my walls less ugly without having to spend a fortune! Afterall, I'm only here for a year, so don't want to put to much money and work into the apartment. But I finally have a Janique-esque, but easy/cheap decor idea. Whoot! I also went to HomEver and bought padding for my bed (plus the heavier groceries, since I didn't want to lug them from the other store), so it no longer feels like I'm sleeping on a wooden board. YAY SOFTER BED!

For some odd reason, insomnia kicked in last night and I slept horribly. I was exhausted so went to bed at around midnight, but tossed and turned and probably didn't fall asleep until 5am. Sigh. It didn't help that there were people camped out in front of SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System), so I could hear female voices laughing and singing for most of the night. 'Big Bang', a Korean boy band that is MASSIVELY popular, were doing an appearance at SBS, hence the girly camp out. I woke up to them screaming at around 9am. If I car pulled in, they'd start screaming hysterically until they'd realize that it wasn't Big Bang. This is the norm and will continue until the actual celebrity shows up. A few of us had talked about joining the masses and making a silly fangirl/fanboy (because some of the guys were more than eager to join! Hahaha!) video, but it didn't happen. There'll be a million other chances though because there's someone popular that shows up at SBS pretty much every weekend!

I met up with Amanda at 10:30 and we ventured over to Gyeongbokgung, which was the main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty (Constructed in 1395, destroyed during the Japanese invasion of 1592 (But not by the Japanese, interestingly enough. When Japan invaded, the king and aristocrats fled Seoul, abandoning its people, and so an angry Korean mob burned it down!), and reconstructed in 1868). Within the palace gates are numerous building and they're all stunningly beautiful. Most of the buildings are painted in such rich, vividly bright colours unlike anything I've ever seen before! I definitely took over 200 pictures of not only the architecture, but of the landscape which is equally as stunning. You can see the mountains in the distance (not sure which ones...sorry!) and there's so many gorgeous trees and plantlife. It's crazy to think that people once lived there, but they were so lucky because it truly is beautiful! What I find the most interesting is that Gyeongbokgung is located in downtown Seoul, so the constrast between the old and the new in the backdrop is strangely fetching. It's going to take me a while to sort through those pictures and while I plan on making an album (if not several) on Facebook, I'll ensure to post some of them in here as well in the near future. The pictures are definitely worth sharing! We also visited the Korean Folk Museum, which was interesting, but we were pretty tired from touring the palace by that time, as it took us a good 2 hours to see everything (I'm not even convinced that we saw it all!).

An added bonus is that it was a gorgeous, sunny day, with very little humidity and smog. It was finally sunny this week (YAY! SUNSHINE!!!), but the smog has been so thick that I haven't even tanned in the slightest. You die of heat and feel the sun's rays, but they can't actually penetrate the thick air. But today I totally burned, which I didn't expect, especially with being downtown! I was wearing a tanktop with interesting straps, so I'm going to have some funky tanlines once the burn dies down. Haha! While I'm less than pleased that I burned (Thankfully it doesn't hurt and I'm hoping I don't peel too badly!), I'll be happy to at least have a bit of a tan! I don't tan as easily as some people that I know, but this is the least tanned that I've been in forever. I like being fair, but like to look like I spend some time outdoors! So I'm happy that I'll finally have a bit of colour and not be so pasty!

It's now 8pm and I'm sooo sleepy! It's a national holiday on Friday, so 4-day week! YAAAY!!! Which works out perfectly because my friend Celine is coming to visit! I'M SO EXCITED!!! She decided last week that she wanted to visit before September (she's a teacher, so she's off until then, lucky girl!) and within days had bought a plane tickets! She arrives tomorrow night, so I'm going to go meet her at the airport. I'm hoping that someone can stear me in the right direction, since I'm not really sure where I'm going! We'll cab home, but since the international airport's in Incheon, I don't want to pay cab fare both ways (Yes taxis are cheap, but I've also become cheap! Hahaha!). Plus she's only arriving at 9:35pm, so that's more than enough time for me to take public transportation there, assuming I figure out what subway line or bus to take. I'm sure someone at work will know. It'll be so unbelievably nice/fun/exciting to be in Korea with one of my best friends! So I'm sure that I'll have many fun things to talk about in my next post!

Jan ^__^

Summer Vacation! - Part Deux

2008-08-04T06:10:00.001-07:00

Hello again!

Yoga was great, by the way. I'm now feeling much more relaxed and will be ready for bed once I'm done with the second part of this update. Yoga is looooove!!!!

As I was saying, yes there was LOTS of laziness during my vacation, but it did get more entertaining later in the week. I ventured over to the COEX Mall, which is reportedly the largest underground shopping centre in Asia (as per Lonely Planet's Korean guidebook). I don't think they're wrong, because this place is MASSIVE!!! I spent a good 4 hours wandering around and probably only saw 10% of it. I had checked out the COEX Mall website prior to my visit (http://www.coexmall.com/, for anyone who's interested) so I knew what stores that I definitely wanted to check out. I'm glad I did, because it's easy to become overwhelmed in there! I somehow managed to find all of them without even having to try! It was one of those 'la-la-la...wandering around...Oh! Store! YAY!' things. One of the must-see stores on my list: Sanrio Store, aka HELLO KITTY GOODNESS! I immediately became giddy when I saw it and it took all of my self-restraint not to zoom over. Inner dialogue: "Breath Janique. You're an adult and don't need to make a scene" "But, but...HELLO KITTY!!! SQUEEEEE!!!" "I repeat: Breath Janique and at least pretend that Hello Kitty doesn't make you revert back to your 5-year old self!" "But...HELLO KITTYYYYY!!!!" "I know you don't actually feel very mature right now, but stop grinning and giggling like a maniac because that old lady is staring at you and looks terrified that the foreign woman is going crazy." Basically it's the scared old lady that made me snap to my senses. Sorta. You'll all be very proud to know that I didn't spent all of my money in that store! I actually only bought 2 things. Yes, you read that correctly: 2! And they're actually useful! Go me! I have a stainless steel water bottle, which was cheaper than most stainless steels bottles back home. Not to mention it's SO me, plus a few things about it remain me of a few friends. And because I'm a nerd....

LOVE! I also bought a floor mat for my bathroom. Although...

It's obviously meant for the kitchen, if the chef's hat and other kitchen items are any indication. The thing is, I desperately needed a bathroom mat and really wanted it to be Hello Kitty, not to the mention that there was only 1 actual bath mat and it puts the Hello Kitty name to shame. Ick. Plus I like being different and confusing people, so I will welcome the 'What the hell?!' comments that I'm sure to receive in the future!

Ok, so once I finally, albeit tearfully, departed the Sanrio store, I made my way to the COEX Aquarium. You know a place must me huge if it has its own aquarium! Aquariums (and zoos) bring about a whole lot of conflicting emotions, because as much as I love seeing so many species that I probably would never see, I also find it very depressing that these beautiful creatures are behind glass and in cages. Sigh. Anyways, I tried not to think about it too much and just enjoy myself. It took a good hour to see everything and took many pictures, but most of those will be posted on my Facebook account (It takes forever to upload them to this journal). But here's a few of my favs:

Or not... They don't seem to want to load right now. I shake my fist at you!

Another store that I NEEDED to visit was Bandi & Luni's, which I read was a large bookstore. My immediate thought: Big bookstore = English section!!!! YIPPEEEEE!!! I hadn't seen an English novel (Other than the few I brought with me.) since I arrived, so the simple thought that I'd be able to buy some books made my life. Their English fiction section wasn't massive, 2 and a half bookcases or so, but that didn't stop me from buying 7 books! So I should be set for a few weeks... Whew! I was going through reading withdrawl!

I had also intended to catch a movie, since the mall has a large movie theatre, but upon arriving at said theatre my lack of Korean knowledge once again got the best of me. The movie listing was in Hangul (Korean writing), so I didn't know what was actually playing. I was hoping to find an automated ticket teller so that I could just buy a ticket according to the picture of the movie poster, but no deal. Maybe that's just a North American thing? Kinda hard to buy a ticket if you don't even know what's there! I wandered the theatre for a good 15 minutes, trying to find any clue as to what was playing, but ultimately gave up. By that point I was exhausted from my shopping and had a good hour trip ahead of me to get home, so I figured that was a good time to head back. So I came home and watched a movie here instead (I can't remember what though...). I plan on going back to COEX in the near future, now that I don't what to expect. I now understand why some people say you can spend a good 2 days there!

By Saturday, most of the girls were back from their various trips so 5 of us met downstairs at noon for a shopping expedition. I'm not exactly sure where we were, but it was streets upon streets of various shops and outdoor stands, mostly clothes and shoes that are for the most part, dirt cheap. FUN! We spent a good 4 hours wandering around and all did quite well for ourselves. I was shocked though, since I left with the least amount of things; I didn't even get shoes or a purse, which is typically unheard of for the self-proclaimed shoe and purse addict! Most of the girls left at that point, but Amanda lead the way to this MASSIVE electronics store, which has 8 levels, each floor selling something different: For example, the first floor is ALL cameras, another floor ALL computers, and the one we wanted, the 8th floor, which is where the cell phones are sold. I couldn't buy a cell phone until I received my alien card, which is my Korean ID, but I received it before vacation. People kept mentioning this electronics market and I wanted to wait until someone could show me where to go. I bought a used cell which is in remarkable shape for W50,000 ($50) and you don't buy a plan, just add minutes à la Pay-As-You-Go. Very easy! They added W10,000 for me so I was able to use my phone within minutes of buying it. I feel safe and sound once more! It's very unnerving wandering a city that you don't know without a cell phone, especially when you have a habit of getting lost. I love Amanda for helping me out; She was the new teacher before I showed up and from my very first day has been my self-appointed helper. I love her for that!

When we got back to our hood, Gangseo-Gu, we attempted to meet the other girls at Pizza Maru, the local pizza shop. Sadly we passed them on our way there, so we just decided to take it to go. Pizza Maru has AWESOME pizza. They only have 1 size, which is between a medium and large, and it only costs, wait for it, W6,000 ($6). SWEEEET!!! They have a veggie pizza that is fabulous and my favourite ingredient actually caught me off guard the first time: corn. Corn on pizza, who'd have thought?! I love it though and will be sad when I go back to Canada and can no longer order a veggie pizza with corn! I hadn't had takeout Pizza Maru yet, but was delighted when I received it. So much so that I needed to take a picture (Assuming it'll let me upload it...):

(Oh yeah, NOW the pictures work!) Anyways, I love it because the box is wrapped! My friend Crys had told me that Korean Pizza Hut does this, but it made me ridiculously happy to see that Pizza Maru does it too! Yes, I'm easily amused.

The reason we took our pizza to go instead of eating there was because one of the girls, Jess, was having people over at 9:00, then we were going out. It was already well past 7:00 by this point so it made more sense to eat while getting ready. So I ate half of my yummy pizza (probably could have eaten WAY less than that, but it's so good!), got ready then made my way over to Jess'. I bought myself a bottle of soju in the store downstairs (I LOVE having a convenient store in my building! It's, well...convenient! Hahaha!) and absolutely love that you can buy booze basically anywhere. Definitely not the case in Canada, well, other than Quebec I guess. I didn't know what to mix with soju, but figured since it's almost like vodka, grape juice would work. Plus it reminded me of Alice and my vodka/grape juice mixes from back in the day! A half a litre bottle of soju plus 2 bottles of grape juice cost me less than W10,000 ($10). Again, I love how cheap drinks and food are here!!! None of the guys were back yet, so it was the 5 of us who'd gone shopping, plus Alisha's bf Jimno. Poor guy! Hahaha! We chatted, played 'Never Have I Ever' (I hadn't played that in AGES!), then a fun drinking game which I'll happily teach everyone once I get back home. Easy but fun! Then came the dance party and silly pictures (Again, poor Jimno, but he's a good sport!). Not sure what time we headed out at, but we headed to a district which is known for its club and bars (Can't remember where, although I do know it's near Hongik University, wherever that may be!). Our first location, get this: Ho Bar. Yes, that's the actual name of the place. And to make a funny name even more funny, there's numerous Ho Bars within Seoul (They even have a website: http://www.hobar.co.kr/), so we went to Ho Bar III. HAHAHAHA! It wasn't a dance club, more of a bar (And not ho-like at all, fyi), so we just sat, had a few drinks and chatted as well as we could over the Korean music. We were there for probably a good hour, hour and a half, then decided to venture over to a very americanized dance club. Oh! And on our way out of Ho Bar, a few of us noticed this sign:

The first thing you probably noticed is 'Absoult', which should be spelt 'Absolut'. The fact that it's spelled incorrectly isn't a big deal, considering I've seen the spelling of many English words totally butchered. What kills me is that 'Jagermeister' is spelled correctly! SERIOUSLY?! You would think that 'Absolut' would be the easy one to spell, not 'Jagermeister!'. We laughed for a good 5 minutes over this and Jess had to take a picture. I'm glad she did, because it would be sad to forget about this!

Alright, back to the dance club. I'm sure it's probably a very fun place and I was loving the music, but it was ridiculously crowded. That usually doesn't bother me, but it was so hot and just...ugh. We were there for maybe 30 minutes before we all started to get annoyed. Not to mention we had several persistent guys who would just NOT get a clue. Nothing worst than a guy who comes on super strong and doesn't understand how that'd be such a massive turn-off! Jerks. By that point it was easily nearing 4am (Many of you will be jealous to hear that most clubs/bars are open until 6am in Seoul), so we didn't feel like bailers. We stopped for ice cream at our lovely convenient store (open 24hrs, because I didn't already love it enough!), then each went our separate way. I finished the rest of my pizza, checked my email, and passed out near 7am. Good night indeed!

I would have been happy to sleep a good 12 hours, until high-pitched shrieking woke me at around 11am. There's a radio station right across the street and from what I've been told, musicians and random celebrities often make appearances for radio interviews; The shrieking was dozens upon dozens of excited girls! Hahaha! No one that I talked to today knows who was beign interviewed, but I literally listened to them shrieking until the mid-afternoon. So high-pitched!!!

Needless to say I was pretty sleepy and cranky yesterday, not to mention I learned the hard way that soju gives you quite the day-after headache. Tylenol, which is usually my friend, was no help to me. *sob* So I didn't do a whole lot. Read mostly. Then Mom and Dad called last night which made me SOOOO happy! I talked to Mom for a good hour a few weeks ago, but that's it, and hadn't talked to Dad at all since I'd been here. I'm used to talking to them at least once a week, so not having that has been hard. It was so great to hear their voices! It makes the crazy distance that much easier to bear. They now have a great international phone plan and I've discovered that using Skype for international calls to landlines is awesomely cheap, so it's a HUGE relief that we'll be able to keep in touch fairly easily. The time difference makes it a bit tricky, but I'm hoping that we can set-up a phone routine, similarly to what I had when I was in Ottawa. Getting to speak with them was definitely ended my vacation on a ridiculously happy note!

And today, Monday, meaning back to school. I was worried that I'd fall back to square 1, but it was much easier getting back into the swing of things than I'd anticipated. I'm still feeling awkward about teaching, but am glad that I didn't revert back to the way I was feeling during my first week. I'd like to think that come September, I'll be an old pro at this! One can hope, right?!

Wow. This is my longest entry yet! It's now ridiculously late and I'm surprised that I still have enough brain-power to continue writing. I'll probably find a million typos and parts that make zero sense that next time I read this! Hahaha! Tomorrow's one of my looooong days, so off to bed I go so that I can survive it!

Jan ^__^

Summer Vacation!

2008-08-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

I was incredibly happy when I found out that my one-week summer vacation would be taking place 2 weeks after I arrived. YAY! Although in a sense I was a bit disappointed since that didn't give me time to plan a trip outside of Seoul, but considering I hadn't really seen much of Seoul yet it didn't bother me that much.

Vacation started off fabulously: After work on the Friday, I met up with my friend Scott for dinner and to deliver his precious deodorant. I can't say that I've EVER seen someone that excited to receive pit stick, but it's not like it's hard to find back home. Anyways, on my subway adventure to meet him, I realized that he doesn't live in Seoul at all, but actually in Incheon which is just outside of Seoul. I actually didn't realize I was in Incheon until I met up with Scott and he told me that's where we were. I'm a little clueless about geography! He's actually in Bupyeong which is an INCREDIBLY social district. Bars and restaurants everywhere! It was pretty intense actually, but really interesting. And I was very captivated by all of the neon signs and music and people bustling around. Very cool! He originally wanted to bring me to his favourite restaurant but remembered when we walked in that I don't eat red meat; At this restaurant, you receive a massive slab of meat and cook it yourself on the grill that's in the middle of your table. I felt really bad because he'd been so excited, but he told me that there was nothing on the menu that I'd actually want to eat (meat, meat, more meat...), so we moved on. It seemed like a typical Korean restaurant, until we looked at the menu and realized that it was quite eclectic. We we ordered california rolls, this crazy looking sushi roll that looked like lasagna in the menu's picture (it wasn't lasagna-like at all, but delicious!), and carbonara; So basically, Japanese and Italian food in a Korean restaurant. Yes, we were entertained. This didn't seem like alot of food for 2 people, but we couldn't finish it. VERY tasty though! I always forget how much I like california rolls! From then, we slowly (I repeat: FULL!!!) made our way to Rock Bar, which I was warned was seedy but that they had cheap beer. Oh my god I love that place! It was seedy, but it was playing the best (aka cheesiest, which is why I loved it!) 80's rock music. I can't remember what songs, but I do know that I sang along to most of them and was very entertained. A few of Scott's friends were already there, so we sat with them and drank massive king-sized pitchers of beer. Ok, this is what kills me: Back home, you'd EASILY pay $30 for one of those. At Rock Bar: W10,000, which basically amounts to $10. Scott's group were all complaining that the price went up, because the day before a king pitcher was W6,000, but I was too amazed to say much of anything. Alcohol here is SOOOO cheap!!!! It's insane!!! Scott's friends left after a while to go elsewhere, but we had a pitcher to drink so we hungout for a while longer. One of his friends showed up and chatted up the waitress, so she ended up bringing us a free bottle of soju. Score! After Rock Bar, we went to a dance club and I swear it felt like I was just transported back to Canada. They were playing American dance music and there were very few actual Koreans. Kinda weird, actually. There I met Val, one of Scott's friends, who was anxious to meet a fellow Frenchie. I was also excited when Scott told me that she's french and from Ottawa. Anyways, she and I started chatting and she asked me where I was from. I told her that I've been living in Ottawa for nearly 6 years, but am from North Bay. When I said this, she gave me a weird look and asked if I knew Nat S. I, in turn, also gave her a weird look and answered yes, Nat was my roommate 1st year of university and is one of my closest friends. Val: Oh my god! You're THAT Janique?!?! Me: *light bulb moment* Oh my god, you're THAT Val?!?! Val and Nat did their Teacher's Ed together at Ottawa U and as many times as Nat tried to get us to meet, it never seemed to work out. I've heard SO much about this girl, and her about me, so it was insane that we'd meet in Incheon of all places! Crazy! It was great to finally meet her (Again I repeat: CRAZY!) and I hope that we get to hangout while I'm here, even though we live pretty far from one another. Anywho, Scott and I didn't stay there too long because it was already quite late by that time, so we wandered back towards his neighbourhood. But first, the required stop for fast food after a night of drinking. We ended up at McDonalds, which after pizza and KD is my prefered post-drinking snack. For any of you who have access to my Facebook account, you've seen pictures of this outing. We had a HILARIOUS times and since Scott is quite possibly the most social person in the universe, I had fun taking his picture with many random strangers. And we found a few people who spoke a fair amount of English, so we chatted it up with them. Oh, and my favourite part: The drunken middle-aged men. It's common to see them passed out in public locations late at night. They work like crazy during the day, but it's basically the norm for them to go and get blind-drunk after work, especially on weekends. So if you take into account a +12 hour workday, combined with mass quantities of alcohol, it's not shocking that they'd take a nap (or totally pass out) in a restaurant or anywhere with a chair and/or table. I've come to realize that sleeping in public is a pretty common occurence here, as I've seen at least 5 people around me totally passed (and not necessarly because their drunk, just sleepy) out on the subway, no matter the time of day. I refer to my favourties as "the Bobbers", because their head will be bouncing around like a Bobble Head toy. Oh, and the ones who's head droops onto their neighbours shoulder is also hilarious, especially when you see the "What the hell?!" face that the neighbour is making as they try to shrug them off without being a total jerk about it. I've been immensly entertained during my Seoul subway rides!

Vacation started off great, but took a much lazier turn from that point on. All of my coworkers were gone on various trips and while I had created quite the jam-packed itinerary for myself of things hat I wanted to do/visit during the week, I barely did any of it. I'm a bit disappointed in myself, but on the other hand I think it was good that I took that week to relax and recover from my jetlag. I've been on the go for months now and it was nice not having anyone around so that I could get lazy guilt-free. If people invite me to do things, I have a hard time refusing, so this gave me the opportunity to sleep in everyday, wander the neighbourhood a bit and watch a gazillion movies; The few American channels that I have here are ALWAYS playing a movie, so that's awesome. I don't think it helped that it rained most of the week and was crazy hot, so staying in was an easy decision. Another bonus: I'm not tired 99.9% of the time anymore! No matter how much I slept during the 2 weeks prior to vacation, I was still always exhausted. So I feel like my normal self again. Whew!

The end of my vacation was more interesting (at least for those who are reading this!) than the beginning, but I just noticed the time. I'm doing yoga with the girls in 10 minutes, so I need to get ready and head over to the building next-door. Yay yoga!!!

Meaning, this entry is to be continued.....

Dirt, grease, grime... OH MY!!!!

2008-07-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

As some of you may remember, in my first entry I talked about 'Operation: Clean Stinky Fridge'. At the time, I figured that'd be my only marathon clean-fest. Oh how I was wrong. So very wrong.

While doing some late night dishes (It was around 11:30pm, but I wasn't tired enough to actually go to bed yet), I pondered on the state of my hot plate and decided that it could use a quick scrub. And hey while I'm at it, why not wipe down the wall behind it? That'll give the dishes time to soak for a few minutes. Well, a few minutes turned into approx. 2 and a half hours. Ah yes, another clean-fest was born. When I sprayed the wall, it took maybe 5 seconds for me to realize that "Hey, you're not beige. You're... bright white...." My next thought was a resounding "EWWWWW!!!!" I have never sprayed a surface before and have the cleaning spray drip down a muddy brown. The walls were discreetly camouflaged in grease and grime and only god knows what else and I quickly discovered that washing by hand wasn't enough to combat the filth, but it would require the assistance of my trusty scrubbing brush. I can almost guarantee you that my arms will be sore tomorrow, because I was putting everything I had into getting the 2 tiled walls in my kitchen back to their former whiteness. What's most discouraging is that there's still sections of the walls, mostly between the tiles, that are stubbornly refusing to let go of their beigeness. This can only mean one thing: Round 2 in the near future, which I'm hoping wont't lead to Round 3.

Oh but wait, there's more! While standing on a chair to aid in my mission of cleaning the top section of the wall, I caught a glimpse of the top shelf of the shelving where I've been keeping the little food that I have. The top shelf is quite high and I only started using it the other day when the box of cereal that I bought wouldn't fit on any of the others shelves. Well, now that I was face-to-face with it, to my great horror I saw that it was coated with a good half-inch of dust and again, god knows what else. And once again this lead to a resounding "EWWWWW!!!!" My precious, almost impossible to find cereal has been sitting on that shelf! Ok yeah, it's in a box and thoroughly protected from contamination, but still!!! So this lead to my scrubbing the entirety of that shelving unit and it turns out that even the sections that I believed to be clean still left my paper towelling a disgusting brown/black.

When I finally get around to taking pictures of my apartment, you'll notice that my kitchen is far from large. But with my 2 lenghty cleaning missions, I've used nearly an entire bottle of cleaning spray, close to an entire roll of paper towelling (I hate using paper towels for cleaning, but I quickly discovered that a rag just wouldn't cut it since I'd be rinsing it out every 2 seconds), and 3/4's of my package of antibacterial wipes. Am I crazy, or is that RIDICULOUS!!! The fact that I've used all of that for such small, but overly disgusting spaces boggles my mind!!! To make matters even more fun, I had a good look at the walls throughout the apartment this week and what I once believed to be a pattern in the wallpaper isn't a pattern at all. I'm thinking that one of the past tenants used to smoke in here which would explain the random dark swirls throughout the place. I did a spot test to see if it would come out and so far no luck, which in a sense is a bit of a relief because I wasn't exactly excited at the prospect of washing the walls. I may need to look into some posters though, because the walls look dirty, plain and simple.

Now I'm not a neat-freak, far from it; Mind you I'm not a total slob either, but I don't freak out over dust and dirt and have been known to live in it for probably longer than necessary. But this, this is beyond anything that even I can comprehend. I've believed my past apartments to be dirty when first moving in, but they were pristine compared to this place! How can such a tiny apartment be so filthy?! What I find even more disturbing is that someone lived in that! I honestly don't think I'd be exaggerating if I were to say that this apartment hasn't been properly cleaned in over a year. How did Adam go through his day-to-day without seeing how disgusting this place was?! I know that some people can be ignorant to filth, but come on!!! I'm already having a difficult time not sending him a snarky message commenting on the state that he left this place. It might be impossible for me not to do so when he gets back next month! The whole time I was cleaning tonight, images swam through my mind of my sticking Adam's face in it, like some people do to their dog when it makes a mess. I know, those aren't very kind thoughts (And if you're reading this Adam: 1) HI!; and 2) Bad Adam! BAAAAD!!!!), but you spend hours cleaning someone else's mess and then you tell me that the only thoughts you have in their regard are happy and positive. Someone has to teach that boy some housekeeping skills. And no, that person most definetly WON'T be me.

You'll be proud to hear that I have found a silver lining to all of this. Not that there was ever any serious though (or any thought all, for that matter) on one day becoming a housekeeper or joining some form of cleaning support staff, but I can now officially scratch those jobs off my 'Future Careers' list. And as an added bonus, I got in a pretty intense upper-body workout.

Wow, I just realized how much I've written on such a boring topic. Leave it to me to ramble on about cleaning! I promise that my next entry will be about something actually interesting, for example: My vacation, as somewhat disappointing as its turned out to be. But hey, I still have a few days left before it's officially over so hopefully I'll have something phenomenal to report back to you all! And if not, well, it can't be worst than this entry!

Jan ^__^

Week #1.5

2008-07-24T07:10:00.000-07:00

Befriending my co-workers has been easier than anticipated and I'm SO happy about that! I've realized that if I spend too much time alone in my apartment with only my thoughts to keep me company, I start to get homesick. I mentioned this in my last post, but it's hard to really talk at work so while everyone's been really nice, I hadn't actually hung out with anyone outside of work.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was one of the girl's birthday so a few of us went out for dinner, then for drinks later on (I finally had my first taste of soju, will discuss in a bit) and I finally got to see how their personalities are. Everyone's really laid back and the humour, oh the humour! When I first meet people, I always feel like I have to censor myself, meaning: hide the crazy! But I've been told my several of them that insanity is encouraged and everyone loves to poke fun of one another, in a good 'silly not actually being offensive' kinda way. I think I'd go insane if I had to be polite and reserved 24/7. Obviously I've proven that I can be when the occasion calls for it, but it's nice to just let loose and say what's on your mind when in a casual setting.

This is mostly with the FTs (Foreign Teachers) though; I haven't actually spoken to many of the Korean teachers yet, other than the ones I share classes with. The fact that us foreigners live so close to one another obviously helps form frienships. Honestly, it's like being in residence again because no one's living more than 2 minutes away from each other. At drinks last night a few of the girls and I were talking about the gym and how it's just plain evil. Most of the FTs are gym obsessed, but to say that I'm not a fan is such a major understatement! I can't even count how many trial memberships I've had and have never started an actual membership. I don't know what it is, but gyms just don't do it for me. I can't get motivated, let alone make myself care enough to actually go! So a few of us have decided to try and kick each other's butts to do group yoga. We squeezed 4 of us in a room tonight and while hilarious (We used my yoga dvd and for those of you who have done it with me in the past, you know how hard it is not to giggle!), it was productive so I hope that we can keep it up. Plus another one of the girl's used to teach yoga back home so we might try to escape to the roof once in a while for a change of pace. And, if group yoga fails, a few of us have committed to our second favourite exercise: shopping! What?! You get cardio and weight training all in one!

Ok. I promised to explain soju. Here's a definition, courtesy of 'Lonely Planet's Korea' guidebook: "Soju is the local firewater (at least 20% alcohol) and is often liked to vodka in that it's clear, nearly flavourless and cheap to produce. For sale even in grocery and convenience stores, it comes in many flavours, including lemon, maple, cherry and bamboo." It doesn't mention it in this guidebook, but I've read elsewhere that soju is made from fermented sweet potatoes. I can totally see why it would be likened to vodka because you get that same "I'm drinking rubbing alcohol" burning in the back of your throat when drinking it straight, although I didn't convulse quite as hard as I do when doing shots of vodka. In mixed drinks though, TOTALLY another story; you can't even taste it! Last night we drank these yummy peach and pomegranite/apple mixed drinks and I swear it was just juice. But I know that it wasn't because we also ordered a few bottles of plain soju to add to it and honestly, no matter how much we added all I could taste was juice! This is saying alot because I'm typically really sensitive to the taste of alcohol and even though others swear they can't taste it, my alcohol detector goes off and that's all I can taste. Luckily we were drinking from small glasses, so things didn't get out of control, but I now better understand the hilarious stories that I've been told by people of what they've experienced/done/woken up to after a night of drinking soju.

Another thing I've noticed about Korea is that the LOVE spicy food. Even if it's a food that isn't typically spicy, they'll find a way to make it hotter than anything you've ever consumed. I've never had issues with spicy foods, but this place pushes the boundaries! I've formed a great love for ramen noodles in the time I've been here and was happy when I found some in the grocery store that were mild. In Canada, mild means, well...mild! Not hot, just a wee bit of spice for flavouring. Here... totally different ball game!!! Even with my AC on, my nose starts to run and I totally break out into a sweat. Meaning if the food says spicy, prepare to feel like you're licking the flames of hell, where no amount of fluids will make the excruciating burning disappear! Honestly, my lips still tingle hours later. If you think I'm exaggerating or just being dramatic, I dare you to come to South Korea and try it yourself! I DOUBLE DARE YOU!!! I'm told that I will get used to the extreme spiciness of all Korean foods, but I'm not convinced. But you never know; Maybe by the time I go back home I'll be the crazy woman who can eat the hottest of hot sauces! Or maybe I'll be so traumatized that I'll run away in fear if anything spicier than medium is served to me.

I just noticed the time and realized that it's well past the bedtime that I'd given myself. Surprise, surprise. Upside: Tomorrow's Friday! YAAAAY!!! I love Fridays because I only teach for 4 hours. Which is a very nice change of pace from my looooong Thursdays. I have a few plans set-up for the weekend, so I'm sure there'll be another entry posted in the next few days. And sorry, no good pictures yet. Again with the rain/clouds/overall ick weather! Next week isn't supposed to be any better, but I'm hoping for at LEAST 2 days of sun. PLEAAAASE!!! I feel like I haven't seen the sun since I left Canada and it's starting to get a wee bit depressing. So come on sunshine! I know you wannaaaaaa!!!!

Jan ^__^

Week #1

2008-07-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog!

I decided this weekend that a blog might be a better method of keeping you all up-to-date on what I'm up to in Seoul. Emails are great, but it's hard to individually keep in touch when I'm basically rewriting the same email over and over again. This way, you can know all of the details (As pointless as some of them might be) while emails can be more of an everyday, 'How are you?! Today I'm feeling blah, blah, blah' thing. Plus I get to write, which I ADORE doing!

So, let the blogging begin!

I arrived in Seoul last Sunday night (July 13th) after nearly 24 hours of traveling (19hrs of that in a plane.). Honestly, I thought the trip would be hell but it wasn't all that bad. Now that I say that, I'll probably have a hellish trip home! Haha! The trip from Chicago to Tokyo was the worst (I flew Ottawa to Chicago, Chicago to Tokyo, Tokyo to Seoul), since the flight was nearly 13 hours long, but each seat had its own built-in tv so I got to watch a few movies (Fool’s Gold, Horton Hears a Who, and Smart People) and of course I read (Only 1 novel though!), so that helped pass the time. I'm happy to announce that the airplane food wasn't horrible! Here's what they fed us: 1st meal: rice with chicken and vegetables; salad with chicken; bun; carrot cake. 2nd meal: ramen noodles in a cup, which weren’t very good because the water wasn’t hot enough to actually cook the noodles. 3rd meal: Not sure, cause I slept though it! Yes, you read that correctly: I SLEPT!!! YAY ME! I’m notorious for not sleeping while traveling (My greatest example was the road trip to Daytona Beach. We drove straight through, so 24 hours there and 22 back and I slept maybe an hour the entire drive. Not cool!), so I was very happy that I slept quite a bit. Although my sleeping maybe 4 hours was nothing compared to the guy sitting next to be; I'd say he slept for 98% of the trip. He was passed out 5 minutes after we boarded the plane! Maybe he was awake while I slept, but I do know that in nearly 13 hours, he never got out of his seat. I know this because I had the aisle seat so I’d have had to move if he had. I have NO idea how he managed that, because I had to stand up a few tmes to stretch my legs, not to mention use the washroom!

Anyways, back to my little story. Once I arrived at the airport in Seoul I was a bit panicked, because my flight leaving from Ottawa had been delayed meaning my entire itinerary had been changed prior to my departure. I had a driver picking me up a the airport, but since I arrived nearly 3 hours later than scheduled, he wasn't there. After waiting maybe 20 minutes, I started scrambling for my phone card in an attempt to use a Korean pay phone. Thankfully a cute little old Korean man stopped by and asked if everything was ok. (His English was quite good and I found out that he visits Toronto a few times a year). I sheepishly explained the situation and so he pulled out his cell phone, grabbed my driver's phone number and called him for me. He then stuck around until Mr. Kang (driver) showed up. So nice!

Mr. Kang brought me to a hotel near the school, since I wouldn't be able to move into my apartment until Thursday. I met Mr. Kim (The school's general manager) where he checked me in. Whew! I was worried about that! From the outside, the hotel looked pretty grungy and that made me a wee bit nervous, but my room was really nice! The hotel has several different types of room (elegant, japanese, etc.), but mine was the modern type so everything was, well, modern! A king-sized bed, a big screen tv, a computer with internet access, a Jacuzzi tub (Which I didn't use. There's just something about hotel Jacuzzi's that creeps me out!) with a built-in shower, and my toilet was super fancy with random buttons. One of those was for the bidet (A spray of water that washes your downstairs) and another button blew a stream of air out to dry. Not gonna lie, I tried it once, but it was weird! A one time thing.

Monday morning Mr. Kim met me at the hotel and showed me how to use the subway to the school. Seoul's subway system is super easy to follow as everything's writtin in Korean and English, so as long as you pay attention, it's pretty fool-proof. The hotel and the school are maybe 20 minutes apart, so painless!

Now it's time for the 'meet my school' portion of this post. It's a private institution, called SLP, founded by one of Seoul's universities, Sogang University. My school is one of many in Seoul (I get the feeling that they're a pretty big deal) and is called Gangseo SLP. It's in an office building on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors (Classes are on the 3rd and 4th, the teacher's lounge is on the 5th). Its sole purpose it to teach Korean kids (preschool to junior high) English, so the #1 rule of the school is no Korean speaking allowed. Korea, like most Asian countries, is pretty hardcore about education (Mainly because it's so highly populated that universities can only take so many kids, hence why schooling is intense, not to mention insanely competitive, especially the moms.) and many kids go to regular Korean school PLUS English school, which is why there's such a high demand for English teachers. It's insane to think that many of these kids spend 12+hours at school during the week and are at times also atttending weekend classes. The school has, give or take, about 12 North American teachers and around the same amount of Korean teachers. Most of the classes are 80 minutes long, so the Foreign teacher teaches for 40 minutes and the Korean teacher for the other 40 minutes (But even the Korean teachers teach English). Anyways, as for my schedule, I took over all of the classes of one of the other teacher's, Adam. He just finished his year, but is signing a new contract and will be back in September, so he'll be taking his classes back at that time. Meaning in September, I'll be having a whole new schedule. Monday I started doing observation, which means that I sat in on other teachers classes and took notes so that I can see how they do things. Tuesday I did the same, but mostly shadowed Adam since I'd be taking his classes. Wednesday, I taught 20 minutes for 4 of the classes and since that was Adam's last day, I started teaching alone on Thursday and Friday. Yeah, needless to say I thought I'd have a panic attack. I was insanely nervous and honestly, I still am! Here's a basic breakdown of my schedule:

-Mondays: I teach from 1:10 to 7:00pm and that consists of 7, 40 minute classes.

-Tuesdays: 1:10 to 8:00pm, 7 classes, one of those lasting 80 minutes and my last 2 lasting for 1 hour.

-Wednesday: 2:40 to 7:00pm, 5 classes, all 40 minutes.

-Thursday: 1:10 to 8:00pm, 7 classes, one lasting 80 minutes and my last 2 lasting 1 hour.

-Fridays: 2:40 to 7:00pm, 5 classes, all 40 minutes.

My first classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are with pre-schoolers, so they're 5 and 6 years old (Give or take... Ages are determined differently here than they are back home. Will explain another day when I understand it better myself!). The rest of my classes have kids anywhere from 8 to 13 years old (Later classes mean older kids), so I deal with kids of all ages. The school is super structured and there's different types of classes, so it's pretty stressful because you have to ensure to cover the right section on the right day, otherwise you're scrambling to play catch-up. It's nice to have some direction, but it doesn't leave much room for mistakes. Which I happened to do on Friday, because I prepared for a lesson that the kids had already learned. When I looked over the next lesson in their book, I needed all kinds of photocopies and handouts, so I couldn't even skip ahead. So basically we reviewed their homework and I let them start on the work that they had to do over the weekend. Adam left in a bit of a panic and I was in total information overload-mode, so I only realized on Thursday that I was wasn't quite sure where he was at for a several of his classes. Not good! The co-workers that I mentioned this to told me not to worry, that they've also done this in the past, but I still really hate feeling like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm excited for the day where I don't feel like I'm frantically scrambling to be organized! You know me, Ms Perfectionist, especially when it comes to my job, but I'm trying to relax and just go with the flow. Anyways, good news is that the co-workers that I've had the chance to chat with (Everyone's so busy that it's hard to sit and really talk during school) have been really nice. And the kids (for the most part), are sweet (Especially my first preschool class on Thursdays. By the end of the class they were all hugging me and telling me they loved me. Cute! My 2nd preschool class...little demons!!!). I've been told that I need to work on my class management skills (meaning, I need to be mean for a while, then can ease into being nice), so I'm trying to play stern. Not really my strong point, but I seemed to instill fear in one of my louder classes on Friday and they actually behaved! Weeeird!!! Oh, and the kids here don't call you Miss or Ms. They call you by your first name followed by Teacher. So I'm Janique Teacher! It makes me smile! It's funny though, because even though I have many of the more advanced classes, I still need to dumb down my speech alot and use my hands. Thankfully, as we all know, I have no problem talking with my hands! By the end of the day it's almost hard to talk like a normal adult and I've noticed that even when we teachers talk to each other, we're using our basic 'talking to Korean kids' speech. I'll need to make sure to read alot so that I don't forget how to speak properly! Hahaha!

Oh yeah, on Friday morning I had to go for a medical exam. EEPS!!! It was pretty intense, having to go from one station to another, overall stressful. I had a chest xray, answered questions on my medical history, gave blood, peed in a cup, did a quick seeing and hearing test, and had my teeth checked. WHEW! I'm assuming everything went well, because I have zero health-issues that I'm aware of, so I should be applying for my alien/residence card in the next few days. Once I have that I can open a bank account and get a cell phone, which I totally want because I wouldn’t care so much about getting lost while wandering if I had a cell handy. I feel panicky without one!

Adam left on Thursday, so that morning Mr. Kim met me and checked me out of the hotel. So when I left work on Thursday night, I was able to come to my apartment. It's about a 20 minute walk from the school and all the foreign teachers live in 2 neighbouring apartment buildings. The neighbourhood is very Seoul-like, so lots of building and restaurants, but not even close to being as busy as the hotel's neighbourhood. I've noticed alot of little parks in the area as well, so I'm looking forward to visiting those! The apartment itself is actually quite nice. Small (Nothing like my apartment in Ottawa!), but compared to what I've heard from other people who have lived in Seoul, I'm pretty lucky. It's a bachelor apartment, so everything's in plain view, but cute and not a tiny box. I'll take pictures/videos of it as soon as I'm unpacked, but in the meantime, here's a description of it:

The door can be unlocked either with the key, but there's also a key pad where you can put in a code. I only have the key at the moment, but am hoping that my key pad will be activated soon just cause it sounds like fun! I also have a little monitor on my wall that shows me who's at the door. Not sure how to use it just yet... I need to either ask another teacher or translate the Korean. When you walk in, there's a little entrance area where the lights automatically turn on. This is where you take off your shoes, because Asians don't wear their shoes inside (Although this is nothing new, because I rarely wear my shoes inside either!) To the left is my closet/clothes area which isn't very big, but I'm working on figuring something out! To the right is my washroom and it has an actual closed-in shower; Many apartments have a detachable shower head and you have to shower in the middle of your washroom. And an Western-style toilet, so no squatting for me (Asian toilets are kinda hard to describe, but it's bascially a urinal on the ground. I'll take a picture the next time I see one!) Past the bathroom is the rest of the apartment. Kitchen to right with a fridge, a microwave, some cabinets, a hot plate-type stove (No actual oven, just 2 elements), and where the oven should be there's a washing machine. The rest of the apartment is my living room/bedroom, with a table and twin-size bed (The mattress is HARD, but I received a new comforter when I moved in, so I'm going to use the one that Adam left behind to use as a mattress cover). My favourite part: It has air conditioning!!! It's been RETARDED hot, well in the mid-40C's with the humidity, so having AC is awesome! I also have a pretty nice view. Well, relatively speaking... I can see the sky and am not facing a wall! Since I not only took Adam's classes, but also his apartment (which I'll be keeping all year; He's moving into another apartment when he returns to Seoul), the tv (There's a handfull of American channels, with Korean subtitles of course. Yay!) and phone are already connected. I have NO idea what my phone number is though, but plan on finding out. Downside to taking over Adam's apartment: He's a guy and obviously wasn't keen on cleaning. Someone came in before I moved in to sweep and mop and clean the washroom, but other than that... ick. The fridge, while empty, was so grimy! And stinky! It didn't look that bad on Thursday night, but by the weekend I didn't even want to open the fridge. And I really didn't want to put food in there because I felt that the stink would transfer over! So since I ate all of the food that I bought during the week, I mainly only ate ramen noodles (Mr. Noodles) over the weekend, courtesy of Adam's leftover food. He also left several boxes of KD! YAY! I made a box my first night, but the cooking pot is old and made it taste nasty. So I bought a new pot so that I can have yummy KD! Also, the water from the tap has a funky smell. (I've been noticing many new smells since being in Korea!) I've been told many times NOT to drink it, so thankfully a 2L bottle of water costs less than a dollar.

Hmmmm... what else. Oh! I saw my friend Jean-Marc (We've known each other since high school) on Friday night! He had several pieces displayed in an art exhibition, so like a big girl I made the hour-long subway trip and only got a little bit lost. But not on the subway, that's actually pretty easy (You just have to pay attention to make sure you don't miss your stop, but everything's labeled really well and in the subway there's typically something that lets you know what station you're at), it was the walking part that messed me up. JM's directions were good, but I got confused right at the end (And I had been so proud at how well I had been doing! Oh well.). Anyways, it was SO nice to see him! Erica, one of my theatre buddies from high school, also showed up so we had a mini freakout-happy-fit. She's been here for 4-months now and gave me the downlow on her teaching experience thus far. Turns out that there were a few people there that night who are either from, went to school or now live in North Bay (When not living in Seoul, of course). SO WEIRD having that many North Bay people in Seoul! It was really, really nice though. And I was so happy to see JM's work. That boy's got talent! He's going home for 2-weeks as of next week, but when he gets back he's moving apartments and will be closer to where I'm living. I love having a friend from home here! It's just so unbelievably comforting! I was also hoping to see my friend Scott (Him and JM keep fighting over who'll hangout with me next. I feel so special!), but that didn't work out. Hopefully next weekend. Especially for his sake, since he had me buy him some deodorant before I came and is now completely out! He's turning into the stinky Canadian boy! Deodorant here is hard to find, which is messed up considering how hot it gets. Although that does explain some of the smells I was referring to...

Saturday I was supposed to go to the Boryeong Mud Festival with some of my coworkers. Every year, the city of Boryeong (About 3 hours from Seoul) throws a weeklong festival which celebrates the fact that the city gets really muddy. So they have all kinds of activities centered around this, like mud wrestling, mud slides, mud obstacle courses, etc. It’s basically a huge drunken party where you’re encouraged to get covered from head to toe in mud! I was really pumped to go, but by Friday I was exhausted. We’d be staying in Boryeong all weekend and I decided that since I’d be out late Friday night/Saturday morning for JM’s exhibit and would be leaving really early Saturday morning for Boryeong, the smart thing to do would be to stay home and chill since I haven't stopped since I got here. I haven’t really had any intense jetlag yet, but I am feeling more tired than normal (Not to mention stressed out) and didn’t think I should go away my first weekend. It rained all day and was overall crappy outside, so I stayed in my pjs and watched movies, read, and napped. It felt great! I'm still kinda bummed that I didn't go to Boryeong and will probably be even more so when I hear about it, but I highly doubt that partying all weekend will help with the tiredness!

On Sunday I adventured over to HomeEver, which is a MASSIVE department store next to my apartment building. There’s about 5-6 levels and you can basically find everything in there, from food to electronics to clothes to kitchenware, etc. I bought some cleaning supplies, a kitchen garbage, soap dish, toothbrush holder, a cooking pot, a hairdryer (The hunt continues for a diffuser....My poor frizzy hair!!!), and other random apartment items, plus some water and a bit of food (My arms were pretty loaded with things by that point and I wanted to clean the fridge before doing real groceries, so that'll be happening sometime soon). That took me a good 2 hours; Everything’s in Korean, so it’s sometimes hard to know what you’re actually buying if there’s no pictures! Plus since this was my first time at HomeEver, I had a hard time figuring out what floor sold what. Again: everything’s Korean! I'm going to start learning their alphabet, hoping that that'll make things easier for me. When I got back, sweating like a pig may I add (I repeat: it’s freaking hot over here! It’s deceiving because my AC works really well, so I don’t realize how hot it really is until I get outside!) I spent a good 2 hours scrubbing every inch of the fridge and freezer which are now their original white colour and stink-free. I do want to see if I can find a box of baking soda though, just as an extra touch!

And that sums up Week #1 in Seoul! I apparently have the internet in my apartment, but the internet cable doesn’t stay plugged into my laptop. Thankfully there are people in the building who have unsecured wireless connections, so I’ve been bumming off of them. Muwahahaha!!! I probably shouldn't press my luck too long though, cause one day I'll wake up and won't be able to get online!

More updates, including pictures (I hope! It's been rainy most days, so that doesn't make for prime photo-ops!) to come soon!

Jan ^__^