Find The Dinosaur

I teach gym to the new English learners every Tuesday. Last week I did the maze game with them, and that was a relative success.

This week, I tried them out with a bit of a Simon-Says-Twister Mix. Next I showed them prepositions, 'on' and 'under', by using a pencil and a chair. Then we went over 'close' and 'far' using objects in the room. Then 'find', "find the pencil" I toss it, "find a book" they're in a library. Then "find the dinosaur" -dinosaur?

I walked away from the shelves, "far!". I walked towards them "close!". "On" I reached up and took down a triceratops, "Dinosaur". They really liked the toy dinosaur that I stashed their before.

The kids took turns hiding and fiding the dinosaur while I gave clues.

After every student had a turn we played some tug-o-war -I won against all five of them, but it was close.

We did some of our Knee-knees-hands game.

The reward at the end was sometime in the play room.

Always a great way to end the day.

Private Tutoring

Well, Scrabble caught on with my older elementary class. They're actually asking to play. We took sometime at the end of class today to play. I like these kids.

Working as a private tutor while on an E2 Visa is completely not allowed. However, it finally happened, I had a class with just one  student. There are usually three students in the class. One was there at the beginning, the other wasn't there -she was sick- the third one usually comes ten minutes late, but she didn't come at all -cause she was sick. So just one.

Debate class was pretty awkward just the two of us.

Yogiyo, Round 2

My lazy Sunday's only real adventure was another order off the delivery food website Yogiyo. It takes some careful translation, and a lot of faith, but it works for people who can't understand Korean.

I try to order from a different place everytime since Chicken places have magnetic menus and the pizza places usually have a magnet -I'm going to cover the fridge by the time I leave.

It was still far to cold to go outside. If I didn't have my heater on I would think that my window was just a hole to the outside world. So dmn cold.

Seoulmate: Shining Lights - Namsan Tour

Today I was greeted with snow. I stared at it for a good minute before accepting what it was. At first I thought it was some form of air polution, since it was actually travelling upwards. Then I saw how fluffy is was an looked around the neighbour thinking it was from a cottonwood tree -I now know there aren't any. Then, duh, it's snow. I haven't seen any since the Grouse Grind reopened in the Spring of 2015.

Saturday's tour was a visit to Namsan! A traditional village in the heart of Seoul.

We got to take a close look at the traditional homes of the Joseon dynasty. In the Southern part of Korea a channel it built under the homes to allow air to pass through cooling the house in the summer.  They're a little smaller farther up North here since the summers are not as hot. It's the exact same premise as a Queenslander. I think it's just another thing that humanity figured out, an easy way to keep your house cool, because this is found all over the warm parts of the globe.

The heating mechanism was a bit more unique. The floor is made out of a solid piece of rock, the kitchen oven is just a fire roaring in a hallowed out part of said rock. Eventually the heat is carry through the rock to other parts of the house. Meaning that in the Joseon dynasty Koreans had heated flooring. Puttin' on the ritz. That is also how it carries over to today where homes get their heating, not from vents, but from the floor.

We were lucky enough to be there during a performance. Yes, mum, with the hats. The MC of the whole thing recognised Seoulmate and posed for pictures with us and inevitably brought us into the dance. Check out some of the hats...

This is before we joined in.

I also got to hold the Seoulmate flag for a big chunk of the tour.

From Namsan we went to get an amazing meal nearby. This place had really good side dishes. As I have mentioned before, side dishes in Korea are free, and here we kept getting refills on them cause they were so good!

After the meal we were so warm and cozy we didn't want to go back out into the freezing weather. But we quickly caught a bus up to North Seoul Tower.

The clouds from the snow were still standing in the distance so the view could be better, but from what was nearby it was amazing. The North Seoul Tower isn't that tall at all, it gets most of its height from being on a small mountain. So, I didn't go up it, I should have plenty more chances to do that on nicer days. But I definitely enjoyed the view and being in the snow.

A good day, but very very much a cold day.

Art To Impress Mum

We have some Open Classes coming up in a few weeks where the paents will sit in and watch the class. It's mostly meant to be an opportunity to see their kids working in English -evwn if they themselves don't understand any English.

For my older elementary class we have started preparing in advance. Our assignment for today was to design a poster talking about animals homes and habitats. Last month we did describing animals and we had just taken those posters down last week.

Knowing that their parents would be in the classroom the theme of the work turned into, "impress your mum". The students then were then jokingly asking if my mum would come too. Unlikely, but just incase I worked with them. I usually do a demo as I've found it brings up the quality of everyone's work. The high achieving students are less likely to slack off when they see what they could produce and they get quite competitive about it. This also makes the lower achieving students try extra hard to keep up. I say lower achieving but that's not just test marks, these students just put in less effort generally and that is starting to show. But with this assignment everyone did lots of writing and drawing and I don't think you can tell who put in more effort since everyone tried really hard!

I think you can tell which one is mine though. You impressed mum?

The only animal I am truly scared of.

Cartophile

Gosh, I love maps. When I was at Ross Road Elementary I couldn't make heads or tails of what is was supposed to represent. I vividly recall being in the library and having teachers assist me with where to place stickers on the map of the word. I could get my head around this idea that the blue was water, the green was land, and some how this represented everything in a world too big for my own comprehension. There were pandas in the ocean, llamas in Europe, kangaroos in Asia, it was a mess.

Now I adore maps. The more I fill in the gaps of my mental picture of the world the more I get excited seeing maps and how they reflect the world. In school it just feel like random names that had to go one specific spots everytime and that was it. Especially maps of Canada seemed strange until I started to travel around. The dots for capital cities were always the same size, leading you to believe that Yellowknife is the same size as Toronto, which must be the same size as Victoria because all their dots are the same. NO! And I was convinced that Hudson Bay must be a centre for trade with ships crossing to connect big cities like Churchill and maybe even Ottawa! I thought that the Maritimes must be massive since there are so many provinces and cities in a small space. Oh how wrong I was....


Today's social studies lesson dived frther into the concept of maps. This lesson was only with The Democracy (the class that votes on things) I no longer teach The Dictatorship because of a schedule change -or a coup d'etat. We passed out blank maps and tred to see if students could get the right continents labeled. One student got 4, two got 2, and three got 1, and only one student got 0 because he used his time to colour the map istead.

At the end of the class we tried again. As much as I get a kick out of miss label maps, they had improved significantly.

But still, let it be known that most of the students believed that Korea was either in Europe or Africa.

Scrabble Lord

I was planning for a double birthday party for the 23rd of November. One class of older elementary students had two students with birthdays on the same day. I cracked a plan with my co-teacher to bring pizza in the second class.

The purpose of bringing it in the second class was so we could cancel the whole thing if one of the students wasn't there. And sure enogh, one didn't show up. None of the students knew about the plans, so when we didn't have pizza in the second class they didn't know what they were missing.

But I did bring Jenga and Scrabble to break up their writing assignment. We completed the pre-writing part, then played Jenga, then completed the good copy of writing and everyone was now curious about scrabble.

They had never played it, seen it, or heard of it. Which was awesome for me,

As close friends and family know, I am scary good at Scrabble. It's why we never ever play.

Even in a power outage I would approach mum with the box and be rejected. Especially in the last few years where laptop batteries usually last long than the outage.

Finally I had someone to play against, kinda.

I wanted them to like the game so if they were struggling I gave simple clues. For example we had been learning about plural forms and one student's best word was "mice" but he couldn't find it in the mix of letters. So I asked him what the plural form of mouse is. "Mice! ....OH!!!!! I see!!!". It was actually a really good game that everyone enjoyed. But especially me. I love Scrabble.

A-mazing!

My last class of the day was with the new English learners. This is their fourth week here and I was thinking over ideas for games with more talking. I had spare classes to prepare something.

In the end I came up with this gem:

-We started with everyone doing a maze on paper and making sure they all know it's called a maze.
-Next, we went over right and left hands by everyone following actions
-Then the student left the class room in a single file line where we practiced walk straight, stop, left turn, right turn, and so on.
-We walked to the library where I had set up a maze of cups.
-One student was blind folded and they stand at the entrance of the maze
-Before they start the maze everyone rearranges the cups.
-The we call out directions "left!" "right!" "straight!"
-If the student kicks a cup, they have to start again
-Eventually all students finish the maze

It was a wild success! i mean, not everyone passed the first time, but they got better and better.

Afterwards we played out own makeshift game of Stella-stella-ola. Tap knees twice and clap hands once repeating the pattern three times and on the third try 'hands' is replaced with something else. The say the parts outloud so it sounds like "knees knees hands, knees knees hands, knees knees EYES!" This time we went around the circle and let everyone try one.

I did yell at them at one point when suddenly everyone scattered and ran away from the mat after I just told one kid to sit down. It's because there was a fart. One clever kid who remembered "bum" knees knees hands was trying to explain why he fled the scene.

I bet he dealt it.

November Test

The high schoolers had their big monthly test today.

Typically there is a writing section and it takes two classes to finish, butno writing on this one. The girls finished early and typically we would sit around doing word searches -but this was not so typical.

I brought in a rip-off version of Jenga to play, hoping they were too old for it.

It was such a success. It got them talking, in English, a lot more than usual! I mean there is no language involved in this game, but the mood of it just got them talking.

The seemed a lot more lively. I'm thinking about doing a version of taboo where they try to get someone to guess their vocabulary words. I feel like that would go over well.

The Slowest of Slow Sundays

I feel obligated to write a blog for today since I have been using blog posts to count how many days I have been here. It always keeps my answer very exact when people ask how long I have been in Korea. Eight-nine days.

I slept in.

I skyped the family.

I made a visit bakc to Pizza School.

I bought a collection of groceries for the week.

I did some laundry.

I must be some kind of superhero.

I took some time to practice my ukulele. I've actually got a couple songs kind of down now!

Busy Busy: Part II

I woke up feeling great in the sleeping room, almost everyone had left and I had the freedom to sleep in.

Since Dragon Hill has a time limit of 12 hours most people checked in before the night rates come in (it's only 1000 won more, or like $1) at 8pm. Meaning most people had to leave before 8am. This early morning period was perfect for me.

But I still had that problem, with my phone having almost no battery. When I left the sleeping room I saw some fans up against the window, up very high, each taking up one outlet of a pair of outlets. Using my height advantage I plugged in there but still mulled around in case some tall thief came by.

Still, I only got up to about 60% or so.

I went to sit in some of the different saunas, I ended up falling asleep in the kiln again. Great way to start the day.

The purpose of staying in Seoul overnight was actually really a logical one. I had a Seoulmate tour today meeting at 12:45. So why spend time and money taking the trains, bus, and probably a few cabs to get home when I could spend that money staying at the spa? I feel good about this choice.

When I checked out of Dragon Hill I needed to meet my most basic need: food. I stopped in at the Lotteria after students had suggested I try a mozzarella hashbrown burger. It was incredible, suspiciously not salty -which is my comment on all non-soup foods in Korea. It must be my North American upbringing.

I also stopped to buy a new bus pass. Looking back on it, that was a good idea. The bus pass I had been using was just left behind from a past teacher, this was me starting fresh, being self-sufficient! Independent! And... discovering it's really easy to just buy one for like, 3000 won.

I caught the train to a more central location in Seoul. Like last week, the stations were packed with protesters. Sadly, I had been wondering last week if this weekend protest would be larger or smaller, does the movement still have momentum. No. We went from 1 million down to 500,000.

I met up with Seoulmates and we started the tour by visiting one of Seoul's largest markets! There was something incredible about how the businesses were arranged. It appeared to be for the convenience of the consumer: you could find a cluster of merchants all selling similar products in the same area. Meaning for the businesses, you would be in direct competition with all the other stalls in your area. I'm not meaning like a food court, I'm meaning like: everyone who sells donuts will be here, pancakes here, tteokppoki here, and so on.

You know me, I like flags

Lots of tasty things being cooked up here.

Before actually getting to try the food, we stopped into the section selling traditional Korean clothes, or hanbok. What we didn't count on was the size of this place, we got lost, totally, and even with directions we couldn't find our way out. We ended up leaving through a separate exit and walking around the outside to return to the market. 

A hauntingly beautiful labyrinth.

Our meal consisted of tteokppoki, tiny little kimbap rolls, a drink of maggeolli and some of these delicious pancakes make with meat and seafood:

The only thing it was missing was some damn salt.

From the market, we moved to a shrine, but not just any shrine, we went to the Jongmyo Shrine which is a UNESCO world heritage site! The fall leaves made this place look even more beautiful than its structures make it to be. 

The road down the centre is not to be walked on as it is reserved for spirits. The jimjilbang had already got me thinking about Spirited Away, and now this... must watch again and again.

Spirits get the middle, the king is on the right and his son on the left.

Those fall colors!

For such a stunning site it may surprise you to learn its main purpose is for memorial services. Everything from preparing the body, to cooking the food to honour the ashes with.

Nicest funeral home I could ever picture.

There are non-death related things here obviously, and I should clarify that the photo above actually houses tablets containing the teaching of famous Confucian philosophers who ...oh, had their funeral here.

After saying goodbye to the Seoulmates I had to speed off to head back to Ansan. My Korean co-teacher had given me and the other foreign teachers tickets  to Christmas Cantata.

I ended up taking the train (and another $3.00 cab) directly to the theatre.  I tried calling my co-teacher to discover my phone was dead, totally dead -which is why I took the cab from the trains station even though it was really close. Then I charged my phone in the bathroom enough to call her and find where she and her husband were.

Once we had all met up we sat down just in time for the show. My co-teacher spoken to me just before about how she was hoping to improve her English while working at our school. She then made an effort to the explain to me anything said in Korean. She even got in a little trouble for using a translate app during the performance, I really do admire her tenacity for communication. 

The performance way incredible! Very theatrical with a warm message of opening our hearts. South Korea is like the 4th or 5th country that leads charitable donations as a percentage of income. It's no wonder Korean are such generous people when they walk around with a mindset about opening hearts.

I know it's only November, but I was totally warmed with the Christmas spirit. My co-teacher said she had bought the tickets because she want us to have a memorable Christmas in Korea. Her husband even drove us home and we talked about going to a jimjilbang or a noraebang all together sometime! What nice people, I'm happy they opened their hearts and invited us.

Busy Busy: Part I

After a long and unusually tiring day I hopped onto the train and went directed into Seoul for a meet-up. Drinks and new friends made the time pass quickly and I was completely prepared to miss my last train: I had a plan.

That plan was to stay at the Dragon Hill Jjimilbang overnight.

The plan did not include me getting off at the wrong train station. Then walking to the next train station only to find I must've dropped my bus pass somewhere between those to stations. Unsuccessfully trying to flag down full cabs. People who know me know I will do anything not to have to take a taxi, but I was pretty committed to finding somewhere safe to sleep. I now know that when the light is off that means there are passengers in the taxi. I was fortune enough to have a woman get out of a cab directly next to me, so I just jumped right in.

I turns out at this point I was only like three blocks away, but a taxi here seems to never be more than $5.00 -this on was $3.00. 

I felt like my luck had turned around.

The stress melted away in the hot baths that were nearly empty just before midnight. It was awesome. There are many sleeping rooms to choose from; I went with the Aroma Woman's Sleeping Room. Let me be clear, most of you reading this would hate it: These are just mats on the floor with rectangular prism shaped pillows -mad out of the same stuff as the mat. There is snoring, cause there's probably like 50-60 people in that room. Blankets would be totally useless since the room is kept at Queensland-early-summer-heat. Toasty. This room also had some aromatherapy stuff that you pretty much got desensitized to instantly; but if there were farts, and I'm not saying there were, they were probably masked by that stuff.

The only downside was pretty much all my needs were met except I had no means of charging my phone. I think they wanted to discourage people sleeping with their phones (incase the light wakes people up or they get stolen) so they cut power to the electrical outlets in the sleeping rooms.

It would just have to be something I would deal with in the morning.

This Is Not A Cave

I felt pretty embarrassed about today's field trip at first.

I had been told we would be going to visit some caves. While we were riding in the bus the students were talking about caves and I was asking them if they were going to see a bear -since cave has been a vocabulary word they learned about through a story with a bear in it.

So imagine my surprise when we stop in the downtown area.

Then go through a back alley.

Then wait for an elevator to go to the tenth floor.

That was when I asked about if we were going to a cave. Turns out the cave thing was cancelled and we were going to a play place. Vancouverites and former Vancouverites: think Crash Crawly's.

The first obstacle was the elevator, and I am not afraid of elevators what so ever, but this instilled in me a small fear. The wait was long, and when we crammed the 15 children and 7 adults in there it was not-so-great. Only made worse by more people getting on at the next floor. Then going to the 7th floor, finding out that two of the other people needed the 6th floor, the elevator then went down for some reason. We dropped them off, it was just us, waiting to go to the tenth floor, but the elevator goes down again. It stopped at basement levels 1-4 on the way down and again on the way up -picking up no one, those floors were empty. Then finally, we got to the tenth floor. I thought I would puke.

The kids took off there shoes and we when wild for two hours!

First we went to an area of wall to wall trampolines. Unfortunately for me the ceiling was low, very low. I didn't hit my head, but I didn't want to chance it.

As soon as two of my students left to explore with the call of "Niki Teacher! Catch me!" I raced out after them and followed them through a jungle gym and up and down the tunnels and slides.

Soon after, the two students and I discovered a room full of Styrofoam building blocks. We stayed in there long enough to build a structurally sound house -yellow, with a slanted green roof and the name of the school on the front.

There was a tree made out of net-like hammock material that made a good chill spot for some students and teachers. There was lots of climbing possibilities and it feltlike you just couldn't get hurt in there.

It was awesome to see the students gravitate to what interested them most and engage in that.

Probably the most telling was one of my more gifted students who doesn't always get the social stuff so much but damn, he can use his mind. He set to work on a pretty complicated structure at a building table where all that was given was a picture based instruction manual. Everyone had wanted to help him, but he made sense of the pictures and could coordinate the directions faster than any teacher. It was his paradise.

We really could've spent all day there and had a great time, no fights, no tears, just endless fun.

Oh, except for the end.

Then we all realized how hungry we were.

Back at school we happily enjoyed our lunch, but it never quite felt sufficient. After work I went out for dinner with the other foreign teachers. We thought we'd try Korean BBQ. Since they're vegetarian I suggested the place where I had gone for my first meal. That time we had accidentally ordered only vegetables. But alas, that was summer and the place I was thinking of had since moved their operation inside where they have no grills. Instead they do hot pot! The mix we got did contain beef which I ate for their benefit -but really my own right? But it also had some delicious vegetables.

I still went home and had an ice cream sandwich. I'm still so exhausted from all the running around.

In other news I have mailed my passport renewal application to the Canadian Embassy. So for the time being, I am truly stuck in Korea. Glad that I'm happy here.

More About Food

I lost another student today. I only found out just before he was about to leave so I got to say goodbye. It's a little weird how little notice I get about these things as a teacher. That being said, teaching a class of just six students -as opposed to the eight I started with- will be refreshing. Still, I will miss his enthusiasm.

The elementary students pretty much had one bad apple per class. I ended up having to kick out, or nearly kick out, one student per class. Looking back on it, maybe I was just having an off day and they were looking to capitalise on that.

Anywho.

The highlight of today was the Tteokbokki I went to get after work. There's a place on the bottom floor of the building that sells this spicy tomato sauce containing fish cakes and rice cakes. I got a take home container of it for about 3 dollars which was an outstanding deal. I'm satisfied.

Only Forty Days 'til Christmas

I was kind of blown away by the school's enthusiasm for Christmas.

We hauled out all the decorations from storage and began setting them up in the lobby. The prospective parents -who've been visiting as a part of this registration period- seem impressed.

There's several large trees and reindeer in the lobby. We made a brick wall and surrounded the tree with fake presents. No Korean school holiday is complete without some fake presents. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, when celebrating a students birthday: a photo of them is taken at a table garnished with fake gifts. Christmas is similar.

The children will have their photos taken with the fake presents, but of course a real Santa.

I have often wondered what tiny percentage of my time in Korea will be spent preparing and posing for a photo.

That being said, the temperature has come back up in the last few days and I have found it to be pretty warm. I went on the roof last night to try and see the super moon, and I didn't need more than a sweater.

Christmas is coming, but hopefully not Winter. My Australianised body can't handle the cold anymore.

Indoor Shoes: A Lesson in Redundancy

Today I put my new indoor shoes  to the test. Yeah, their basically white crocs, made worse by a dark blue fur lining. They look awful, but everyone else was wearing like bathroom slippers.

Weirder still, we really only wore this for the morning, then the elementary students came in their sneakers and we could change back. I'm trying not to question it but why?

Is it a certain appearance of cleanliness we must give in the morning that isn't needed in the afternoon? DO we think that elementary students have cleaner shoes? Is it a lesson we want to instill in the kindergartners while their young -and we need a staff presence for solidarity?

This is not causing me much grief and it doesn't deserve two blogs, but today was fairly uneventful. Except for:

A couple high schoolers did a song and dance for speaking Korean in class -it was a perfect balance of humiliating but fun -like something from summer camp.

Oh! And that one kindergartner who I'd been trying to build trust with says to me "I have a secret." Then she whispers in my ear "I like Niki teacher". I gasped, she laughed, I high fived myself internally.

Check Out My New Place

Today I had more of an opportunity to tidy up and take some photos of the new apartment.

I also bought some fairy lights for the balcony, just as a decoration.

My living room part is quite spacious as yuu can see from the pictures.

I lit some candles just for the hell of it. My apartment came with so many candles.

I have a pile of origami paper and I have been folding paper cranes, saving up for a wish. I have 1000 sheets, but I've folded only about 60 so far.

The front hallway is where my bike lives, along with my only storage space for clothes.

The lock is a code, so I'll never forget my key!

The kitchen contains a hot plate, a large sink, and an increasingly frustrating dryer. I finally learned how to pause the process and open the door mid cycle. But only after I accidentally reset it to wash when I had suspected the clothes were nearly dry.

You like the lights?

The bathroom is probably the most controversial room, see if you can spot why.

Okay, probably a couple things...

The shower is just there, a shower head in a tiled room. You may ave also noticed the very technical looking bidet. I have tried it three times thus far -it always shoots cold water.

The upstairs part is pretty cute since the ceiling is exactly my height. You can see where I have put my upstairs fridge.

My beloved Pikachu on the bed.

Originally I had the bed pressed up against the rail, but on the off chance I rolled over the rail I moved it about a foot away. This may actually be the first time I have had two choices for which side of the bed I would like to get out of. 

The crowning achievement of this new place is that I successful ordered chicken for delivery here. I translate the website, and the menu, and my address, and then optimistically hoped it would arrive. 

It did.

박근혜 퇴진 and Seoulmate: Old memories in Seoul - Jeong-dong tour

This is going to be one of those days I will never forget.

I went into Seoul today for another tour with the Seoulmates -a group of friendly university students who run free tours for visitors.

I noticed on the way in that there was a lot of people. When I transfered at Seoul Station I didn't get on the first train I saw because it was packed in a way I hadn't seen before here. When I did get on, it was a tight fit.

I arrived slighly early and as I moved towards the exit I quickly discovered how many people were actually here. I was in a river of people. The bathroom was packed. The stores were packed. When I finally surfaced, I found this.

This is not for Pepero Day.

At first I couldn't tell if it was a festival-parade thing or a protest. If you haven't heard what's going on with Korea's president, Park Geun Hye, let me fill you in:

First off, you should know that the current president is the daughter of a former Korean president. He came to power by coup, survived many assassination attempts while manipulating policy to stay in power for 18 years -when he was finally assassinated. 

It's now coming out that during this mourning period a vulnerable Park Geun Hye was distraught and a close confidant, Choi Soon-il, began to groom her for future manipulation. Choi Soon-il is the puppet master who essentially indoctrinated Park Geun Hye to be used for her own benefit. She used a sort of shamanism to convince the president to do such unethical things as channel funding to non-profits that actually are jsut Choi Soon-il's pocket. Now, there's a web of corruption surrounding Park Geun Hye and Choi Soon-il is known to be at the helm.

The president was elected with a slight majority but now has an approval rating of less than 5% after making several apologies, reshuffling her cabinet, and restricting some of her own policies. Whether she is evil or just dumb is not the point, the people of South Korea no longer see her as a legitimate leader and without the mandate of the people she must step down.

Once these allegations came into the spot light, there was a small uncoordinated uprising. Next week a formal protest. Today it's estimated that 1 million people came from all over Korea to put pressure on her to step down. 

This is could be history in the making. I have never seen anything like this, so I can't make accurate comparisions, but I do want to paint a vivid picture.

This protest was so coordinated that I did intially believe it could be a festival, until I recognised Park Geun Hye's name on everything. There were screens, signs, stages, and concerts everywhere. The volume of people was incredible. At every protest I have attended there is a pretty visible divide between those involved and those spectating. Here there was no protestors, everyone was involved. There were all kinds of people here. Of course there were university students, and unions. But there were office workers, farmers from the rural areas, children, elderly people, men and women, religious groups, queer groups, middle school students, everyone. Even me, but we'll get to that.

The Seoulmates arrived along with our other tour participant and we began our walk around the area famous for, huh what a coincidence, being a site for historical moments!

The stone road is a favourite spot for couples, but with a bit of a mixed message. It ends in at courthouse, so you don't really want to walk to the end of the road because that courthouse implies divorce.

We went up this observatory, just look at the difference between the palace, with a 1,000 won entry fee, and the city square, with the first protestors peacefully sitting.

Now we did of course go into the palace area and the amazing thing is how many of the people in there were also at the rally. Since so many people came from outside Seoul, they might aswell check out the sites, too!

Visited a historic school set up by an American Missionary which ended up teaching many of the people who were involved in overthrowing colonial Japanese rule and establishing an independant Korea.

We visited the church founded by the same missionary where early meeting were held in the organ room to discuss independence. The church was handing out free food and tea to all the protestors, so naturally we joined the queue.

We visited the only part of the former Russia legation that still stands. The building housed the king after the queen was murdered by Japanese assassins in the palace.

We took a tour of a stone building that was used for diplomatic purposes between the emperor and foreign governments. Interesting, because, while he was an emperor he was infatuated with Western ideas. The building is a complete systemitrical, built in a classical style and furnished with articals from Britain. He even loved coffee, and the dining hall only served Western meals. There's some globalisation for you.

It was too difficult to get to the restaurant we had planned on going to since the the protest route consumed most of the surrounding roads. So we took a chance on a restaruant opposit the road and it was pretty good -I had some coconut curry.

When we exited it was easier to travel with those marching down the street. I suddenly recognised the where I was. I had been in this area before spotting embassies and I thought I had found the Canadian one when it turned out to be the Four Seasons Hotel. Right in front of me was that Four Season Hotel with the misleading Canada flag out the front. Immediately I had my bearings.

So when the tour officially concluded I asked the Seoulmates if I could tag along with them to the main rally site. I had my sense of direction, and a phone with data, and I wouldn't be a bother. They agreed, and the other tour participant joined too.

The emotions were real. Music, candles, everyone surging to the streets with a sense of duty. It wasn't a feeling of anger, in fact the people of South Korea should be very proud at the level of enthusiasm they greet politics with. Everyone cared.

After an intense week with the US election I was starting to feel as though people just don't care anymore. Not here. Everyone cares.

My Korean lesson for the night:

박근혜 퇴진

Pak geun hye twa jin

Park Geun Hye Resign

What a stirring feeling. The magnitude of it all. The singing and the chanting. The streets filled with people with signs and candles, just waiting for change.

Again, this was not necessarily a feeling of anger. Since they no longer believe she is fit to lead, it is attacking democracy for her to stay in power. Here's hoping she does the right thing and steps down.

I'll leave you with a little compilation of videos I took today.

Pepero Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, so when I heard that it was Pepero Day in Korea I was wondering if they were similar.

No.

I was very wrong. Remembrance Day is a day to reflect on the tragedies of war. Pepero Day is all about giving Pepero to people who matter to you. Pepero is like a Korean version of Pocky, a bread stick dipped in something sweet. So It's really more like Valentine's Day.

Pepero Day started out of basically nothing. Rumor has it that two girls exchanged Pepero with a wish that they would grow tall and thin (like the stick). It has significance with the shape of the number one, tall and thin. Thus to be tall and thin, one must eat 11 Pepero at 11:11am and 11:11pm (at exactly 11 seconds) on November 11th.


I was given about five boxes of Pepero, several single sticks, and a box of chocolate covered almonds from a kind co-teacher.

Since they're kind of like Valentines there's a space on the box to write a little message, like so:

goma woyo.

It's a cute idea. My only warning about it is that nearly all Pepero are sold by Lotte. Lotte already feels like it may own a big piece of Korea.Their fastfood chain, Lotteria, is more common than McDonald in my experience, Lotte had cinemas and super markets -even a whole theme park- and not to forget the tallest tower in Korea. Fifty percent of all Pepero sales happen on one day. It's not a hallmark holiday it's a LOTTE different! 

Indoor Shoes: A Lesson in Adaptation

I'm still feeling out cultural norms in Korea.

Today, the director informed the teachers that since the kindergarten students wear indoor shoes why not the teachers? Starting Monday everyone will have a set of indoor shoes to wear in the school (because the cleaning lady complained?). 

The kindergartners wear white crocs inside. So I kept thinking, does that mean we need to go buy white crocs, or just bring in a clean pair of shoes?

Then what about the elementary students in the afternoon? Aren't their shoes dirty too? Shouldn't we just sweep up after class? I think they do that in Japanese schools. And hey, why not just get a new cleaning lady? And ... and.. ugh.

I need to drop it.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned from Canada World Youth was about cultural adaptation. First off, I'm the guest, I adhere to the standard here. Second, this is completely harmless, why should I care if it doesn't make sense to me? Koreans take off their shoes when they go to someones house or even many restaurants! It's just the standard. A harmless standard. 

In Ghana, greeting people and offering to share food were so important even though it felt so meaningless and unnecessary at first. The perception of my actions were more important that any direct purpose they served. 

Invite people to the meal, 99% of the time they won't join you anyways.

Say hello to everyone, even if it seems fake, or you don't know them, they are waiting for you to say "good morning!" and you'll embarrass yourself more by not doing it.

Here: wear the shoes. Even if the floor is still dirty at the end of the day, it gives to perception of cleanliness and adherence to the rules.

So yeah, probably going to find a pair of white crocs this weekend.

Election Day

Expecting to not have internet I made breakfast plans with the other foreign teachers to watch the votes roll in. Even though I got internet, we kept the plans and I walked four doors down with pancakes and they made tea.

We were very confident about Hillary winning. We even avoided the Fox News Live Stream since they were the only station predicting a Trump victory -and how reliable could that be right?

Votes were just starting to come in when we went to our first class. It already looked bad. But it was less than 1% of the votes.

But it didn't get better.

Each class was a little paradise, an escape. Then the bell rang and I returned to my desk only to be reminded of the horror unfolding. It honestly really shook me up to know that was the direction the world was heading; that was the idea that resonated with people.

I guess it hurt me personally too, because -in a strange sort of way- it was easier for me to identify with Hillary. If I ever did want to follow a trail to politics it's paved by so many brave women before me. To see her fail really did hurt. Then to see who she failed to, was just salt in the wound.

I'm such an optimist, but this day just hit me like a truck.

I got take out.

I went home.

I heated up a hot water bottle.

I folded paper cranes while listening to Bob Marley.

Here's hoping every little thing is gonna be alright.

Cable and Internet!

I have a two class break every Tuesday and Thursday. Today I was asked to use this break to rush home to let the cable guy in. So I did just that.

I went home as fast as I could right after the class finished. So quick that I left my phone at home.

When I got to the apartment door the cable guy was already there. I mustered up all my Korean, and gave him the best Korean I have spoken yet.

"안녕" Hello!

Recognizing I left him waiting, "미안해요" Sorry.

Opening the door, "화냥해요" Welcome!

Then he spoke some Korean to me. I may have over promised.

I've got lots of movie channels and everything is setup in English! I will take some photos of the new place for a future blog.

Dude, Where're My Students?

Today, I brought some new things for the apartment at Daiso which is just across the road. I ended up biking along the once-thought endless road. I basically continued on this path until I was pretty sure I was about to enter a harbor so I turned back.

I met the other foreign teachers to watch Dr. Strange at the Lotte Cinema. It was all of our first movie-going experience in Korea. The experience was pretty similar to when I saw Spiderman in Shanghai. English movie with subtitles! Purchasing the ticket was also pretty easy as it seemed the titles were in English and everything was displayed on a screen. The price was slightly less than a Cineplexodeon and heaps more than South Bank cinema. The movie was great too! Lots of cool visual effects!

I biked home and picked up some groceries on the way. I returned to discover the dryng function on the laundry machine had failed me. So I sat down and translated the whole thing piece by piece. Unlike the rice cooker this one made a lot more sense. At least the words did, I still wasn’t confident I had put in the right thing until the clothes came out dry. Job well done.

For some reason I took my bike to school. Like I thought I would be late, but I was 2 minutes early. Since the move I’m pretty much less than a block away. I can see the sign for the school out of my giant window.

When I walked into my kindergarten class there were only three students –out of seven. Two were late and two were sick. It was a very very easy morning. This is the only age were sorting words as verb, adjective, and noun is fun. They go “Yay!” when I start moving their magnetized vocabulary words down to the height where they can come up and take turns arranging them.

The elementary students in the afternoon had a level test to do today, so that was four whole lessons for one test. Easy for the teacher and so hard for the students.

The day concluded with the high schoolers, which as of lately have been my most difficult class. They performed very poorly on their monthly test and have been speaking Korean more and more in class –sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t be interrupting them! Not cool when they aren’t supposed to be speaking English at all. I first went in and got their phones in the basket, which makes a big difference. I was more firm about the Korean thing, but I didn’t have any plan on how to fix this going into the class. It was only at the end of class that an idea formulated. The debate topic was activities you prefer to do in a single-sex group. The three girls came up with: showering, going to the bathroom, swimming, running, and then dancing. On the note of dancing one student blurts out that another is an amazing dancer. After trying to coax her into dancing we agreed that if she spoke Korean again before the end of class she would have to dance. To make her accept this, everybody was included. Now whoever speaks the most Korean in class has to dance at the end. Also I am included in this, so if they can get me to speak some Korean in class and they don’t, then I have to dance. Honestly, I would do it if they could prove to be that coordinated.

Just Like In The Movies...

I finished settling into the new apartment today, and, let me tell you, it is sweet.

For one, it has a giant window overlooking the curve in main road. Look to the right, there’s the school and the train station, look to the left and there’s this road that goes on forever. Well, that’s what I though yesterday because of the smog, but today was clear and the end of it is just another glorious mountain.

The giant window is important so that light can still pass to the upstairs. By upstairs, I mean, the loft portion of the apartment, with a ceiling a matter of millimeters higher than I am tall. I can feel the hairs shifting on my head as I walk through.

I brought the large fridge from my last apartment since Korea seems to have many of these small fridges with no freezer. Not here though, this place has a small scale version of a regular fridge. Posed with the awkward dilemma of having two fridges side by side, I moved the small on upstairs. I now have my upstairs fridge and my downstairs fridge. Maybe, when I get some friends I can keep drinks in the upstairs fridge!

The bathroom has a very unimpressive shower. It takes about 10 minutes to get hot water flowing, and the room is just tiled with a drain and the shower sprays wherever. BUT, butt… there’s a bidet. Somehow, I have a bidet. BUT, butt… I figured out today, that I’m just not going to use it because as I found out the hard way –as I said earlier- it takes about 10 minutes to get hot water. Unpleasant.

Moving Up In The World

No Seoulmate tours today, only moving.

Even now, I’m not done. I just don’t want to do anymore.

The day started with my sleepily packing up boxes and throwing out garbage. I kept putting off breakfast until the moving guy arrived. We communicated pretty well despite the language barrier. I was so impressed by how quickly and efficiently he worked. I kept thinking of those two guys Michelle and I used in Australia –armatures. This one guy is worth 20 of them. He used large reusable-foldable boxes and wrapped everything in tape before rolling it off to the next stop. He worked so fast that I had locked the door by the time the director had shown up. I cycled to the new place to meet him.

Biking is much faster on these streets so I had arrived with time for the other foreign teacher to show me the view and the roof. And wow.

The new apartment is incredible. Absolutely fantastic. The view alone is worth the move.

I spent the rest of the day sorting the boxes and unpacking. At about 5:00pm I remember I never had breakfast or lunch. I had also promised the other foreign teachers pizza for their help so we went and got one of my favorites, potato pizza. Yet another valuable lesson from Pizza School.

Unfortunately the internet service provider wasn’t contacted about the move and the director expects I won’t have wifi until Tuesday. So I am rationing was data I have on my phone to bring you these blogs. So sorry, I won’t be able to video call anyone for the next three days or so. And that means no pictures up yet either.

Five For Friday

Instead of focusing on the teaching part of the day I will try to focus on every other thing that happened in my day worthy of notice.

1. I had my last piece of birthday cake for breakfast. Which is insane really. I had one piece on my birthday, then one for breakfast on Wednesday, and dessert on Wednesday, then two on Thrusday, and bam one more -that's six pieces of cake. Plus! One of the Korean teachers celebrated her birthday this week as well, adding another piece to my total. Then a students mom dropped of two different piece of cake for each teacher. In four days, I had nine piece of cake. Wow.

2. My ukulele arrived in the mail today. It was a birthday gift I bought for myself for a number of reasons. First, I wanted something fun for my birthday and I didn't think so many of you would've made the effort (but you did, thank you!). Second, I always get in situations where I need to perform and I remember I still have no "performable" talents. Like I have talents, yes, but not like, stage talents. Second and a half: I was warned the the school asks the teachers to perform every now and then, and I would like some musical wood to hide behind. Third, I'm better at learning now, I figure I can get it. Afterall, dearest Roisin gave me her ukulele after she left Canada and in the month I had it before I left -I really enjoyed it (thanks again, Roisin!).

3. It finally happened. I left school only to realize that I had left my phone at school. Luckily I remembered while I was on my bike and I cycled quickly to catch the director before she got home. I caught up to her, and got the key. Then I went back to school and recovered my phone. Now I feel awkward because I still have the key and I feel like I shouldn't.

4. I couldn't resist testing out the ukulele when I got home. It was really the perfect time since it was my last night in that apartment, so I couldn't really piss off the neighbours to any consequence.

5. I realized I probably should have spent so much time with the ukulele since it was my last night in that apartment, so I really needed to pack.

Cookie Cars

My kindergarten class had their dreams come true today: we made the cookie car.

Since the semester began (coincidently on my first real week of solo teaching) the student flipped to the back of their science book and ogled an experiment  involving food. The idea is to take a piece of bread, smear it with peanut butter, place to oreo cookies to act as wheels, and then decorate the car with cereal and gummy bears to look like a car. This is because our unit has been on transportation.

They pretty much check with me weekly to see if we would be doing that experiment, and over the past 10 weeks it has been"no". In fact I didn't want to do it at all. It's too messy, it will mess with snack and lunch time, can we even get all the materials? Well, I asked yesterday and the answer is "yes". 

Midway through the construction of these cars I realized that once they were eaten, they would be gone, with no memory of what happened that day. The students were watching each other to make sure no one was eating the cookies, so I slipped out to get a Korean teacher to take some pictures.

Finally, I let them eat it. Only one student chomped right into the whole piece of bread. Most just happily started picking and eating the pieces they liked the best -and then, I assume, tossing the bread. Only one student didn't want hers, and she offered it to me. She is the one from this blog. I have been working hard to cultivte trust and friendship. Since I had seen her make it, and I knew they had all washed their hands. I ate a couple pieces "Mmmm!" 

"More" she says, shyly pushing the plate at me.

I confided in the other staff that I ate most of it, since I know she's not a nose picker.

Later that day. In front of the whole class. She was telling a story, and I noticed one finger up her nose as she was still speaking. What have I done?

How did it get this cold?

The start of November just mean the turn to winter very quickly.

I boiled water and poured it into bottles to heat my bed last night. I had my heating lamp looming over the bed and I used every blanket I own. I've been layering up daily as it seems it has just gotten insanely cold out of nowhere.

Probably one of the more emotional moments from today was with my top-preforming kindergartner:

He's brilliant but can't always control his emotions. He knows he has to sit in his seat and pay attention but he really struggles with it. The second I call him out on it, he looks at his body like it has betrayed him, apologizes, and sits down.

Today he had had a couple outbursts, unusual for him, so I was very cautious going into gym class. Sure enough he took it really hard when the other team kept winning and he started to cry.

After class, he was still very upset, and this is where we had our movie moment. I sat with him on the bench and asked him how he felt about the game of dodgeball. He said he was mad because two of his classmates are "more lucky" . I asked him if he thinks they're better at dodgeball, he says "yes, but what do you think?". I avoided this question and asked him
"Who do you think is the best at language arts?"
"Me" he says, "And who is the best at reading"
"Me" he says.
This continues for awhile, then I tell him "We do these things every day, and we only play dodgeball once or twice a week. How do you think the other students feel?" He seemed to get it, then he says "But I'm mad. I'm mad at myself."
He has his own high standards set for himself. We agreed it's hard to be perfect at everything, but let's keep trying. Then I asked him if he wanted to be a rocket, and a big smile came over his face. I rocketed him back to class where his classmates were silent expecting to stare at his tear-covered face. Instead he greeted them with a "The rocket is here!". Confidence temporarily restored. Mission accomplished.

My Birthday!

Honestly, I was preparing to just have a pretty bleh birthday. Seeing as I was working and I have still only been here for just over 2 months, I really couldn't put much together.

Thankfully it was put together for me!

I went to the bathroom between two classes and came back to the school's cook saying "follow me" and skipping to the library. I skipped behind her into the dark library where just the candles on my cake were illuminating the faces of my co-workers. BAWWWW! It wasa genuine surprise since I had only loosely eluded to my birthday at all.

They sung happy birthday, we took a photo and they passed the cake to me. I work with wonderful people.

What nice people.

They really just gave me the cake. Like no implication of sharing it. I felt like I did the right thing by serving it up to everyone during the break, and I still took home 1/3 of the cake.

After work the other foreign teachers treated me to dinner at the Indian restaurant. Fans of Niki know that my favourite food is curry, so it's the perfect birthday meal. Afterwards we went to their apartment and had some so-ju. I biked home to have a quick video chat with Michelle before finally going to sleep.

Crazy to think I'm 24 now. I can now start to forget which age I am. Especially since I will turning 26 this Jaunary -Korean age that is.