Street Eats

Today was shaped around two important events, the other foreign teacher leaving and the street festival outside the window.

The morning was centered around yet another departure of a foreign teacher. Flowers and photo ops trying to lure out the tears. I shouldn't judge, it will be me in 11 months.

The street festival had been setting up most of the morning, and no one thought too much of it. However once it got going it became a serious distraction for my grade 1 class. Then it became a distraction for my older class. Then, it my eldest class -two students failed a vocabulary quiz and blamed the Peruvian flute music blaring through the windows.

One teacher called the police to have them turn it down.

The turned it up louder.

I moved my eldest students to the library were the four of us lay on the story-time mats and went through the book like it was a slumber party. They really liked it, and they actually worked better too. I loved being off my feet and watch them do more talking. You can't subtly speak Korean when everyone's heads are that close together.

When we finally left, we explored around the street festival. There was all kinds of things, mostly food. The flute players were there. Turkish ice cream vendors, carnival games, steaming vats of this larva thing, and almost everything served on a stick. We actually went to a restaurant nearby famous for being the flagship restaurant for Korea's masterchef (or some similar title). I ordered my food by which photo looked good. It turned out to be a plate of various sausages and chips on a syrupy plate with cheese fondue in a bread bowl -all strangely dusted with powdered sugar. Amazing.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and I have my fourth Seoulmate tour booked. However, I am also kind of moving to the apartment two floors down. The departing teacher has the largest apartment, which should go to the couple who just arrived. They will move in there, but their old apartment cannot be sold as easily as mine (different landlords) so I am taking theirs. Bigger bed, two windows, so it's worth the hassle.