Hiking, McDonalds, Church, and Dog Cafe.

This week has been pretty good. Last weekend Whitney and I went hiking. (a popular thing to do in Korea..it's like a Korean past time) We realized that there was a hiking trail right behind our apartment complex. We pretty much live in the mountains. The hiking was fun, it was really just a bunch of steps up the mountain and then just a trail on top of the mountain. The view is pretty and they have these little work out stations with pull up bars, etc..and also these twisty turny things that you exercise on too. I'm defiantly going to try to start hiking more, since the mountain is right in my backyard.


Saturday night we went to dinner with a lot of the other foreign teachers to a restaurant we've been to a few times. It's really good, but really spicy. We met the new kinder teachers who just got here, who are replacing the other two that we've been working with for a month. Yea, so there only 4 kinder teachers me and Whitney and the other two are leaving, so now we have 2 new teachers, and they are going to be asking us how to do everything...ha. We are pretty new too, and are still a little confused on everything. This will be interesting. So, anyways after dinner we went downtown and went to a few bars, then we went to this dog cafe. This was one of the strangest things. It was a place where they had about 15 dogs and a few cats all running around in this room with make-up on, some were dyed different colors and some were shaved in funny ways. And you could just play with the dogs! Apparently you could get coffee also. So we went there and played with the dogs just for a few minutes, I think you're supposed to pay, but we weren't there for very long, and the koreans didn't say anything when we left. It was fun, just very odd.

Sunday I went to church with Whitney and two other English teachers from our school. It was an English speaking church. There were about 7 Americans there and the rest were Koreans who attend the English service to help them learn English I guess. The church wasn't bad. I don't know if I'll go back though. The pastor really creeped me out. I can't really describe him, but he is just creepy and Whitney said the same exact thing. Everyone was really nice though, they had sandwiches afterwards, and they gave us both a loaf of bread. After church we walked around downtown for a while, and did some shopping. We also found the McDonalds in our town! :) And ate there of course. They have a few American resturaunts here....Outback, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Baskin Robins, Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme, and thats about it I think. Some of its kinda expensive though - especially Pizza Hut. So, if I get too sick of Korean food I have a few places I can go :) I eat at school everyday though. I ate something today that looked and tasted like grass..it probably was seaweed..again.

Well, I get a break in October for 5 days and Whitney and I are trying to decide what we are going to do. I think we may go to China! :)

Busan :)

So, last weekend my roommate Whitney and I went to Busan. We had Friday off, so we figured we might as well take advantage of the 3 day weekend. Busan is a city about 3 hours west of where I live, it's known for its beaches. So on Friday we packed our backpacks and hopped on a bus. The buses are actually pretty nice. They have a cheap one and a more expensive one. We usually go on the cheap one for only 15,ooo won (which is roughly 13 dollars), but we decided to take the more expensive one (which is still cheap for only 22,000 won - about 20 dollars) because it was leaving at a better time. The nice bus has wider seats, foot rests, and you can lean your seat back far. So pretty much like first class. Both of the buses have TV's also. Anyways, once we got to Busan, we automatically got on the subway to head to our hostel. And oddly enough we met this korean guy, (who was helping us) who had just been in Orlando working at Disney for 6 months. He was so excited to find out that we were from Florida. He was also just visiting Busan, but lives in Seoul. So we exchanged facebook info, and now we have yet another friend in Seoul.

We got to the hostel and checked in. It was a little different from the hostel we stayed at in Seoul. And by that I mean it had signs saying it was a hostel. But it was still just this guy's house, which was on the roof. He had actual rooms though and a kitchen and a common room. He also had a dog :) Once we checked in and everything we decided to go check out the markets. So we got back on the subway and found the markets, which is a whole street of shops and little carts of people selling stuff. Tons of socks, shirts, jewelry, hats, food, fake purses, and lots of other random stuff. It was fun. For dinner we found a pizza hut! It was good, but it defiantly was not like pizza hut in the states. We ordered a potato pizza and when it came out it had everything on it! Potato, onions, peppers, sausage, peperoni (or i think it was just ham), bacon, corn (yes corn), and this weird white paste on top. It actually was not too bad, I was just not expecting that. It was really expensive too, most of the American food is pretty pricey here.

The next morning we went to Haeundae beach. This was the popular well known beach, where everyone in Korea goes during the summer. It was extremely crowded to say the least! When we got to the beach, we had to buy an umbrella (there is no room for you to just lay out your own towel somewhere). I think the guy was asking if we wanted to sunbathe and we said yes apparently and so he put us away from everyone else in a sunny area where we could lay out. Because koreans do not sunbathe, they don't want to look dark. We were told that Koreans don't want to be dark because that makes it look like they are lower class and working in the fields all day, so the whiter you are the higher the social class. But anyways, so we were the only ones not under an umbrella and away from everyone else..so we get stared at on a regular basis anyway, but this was just like putting us on display. The beach was sooo much fun though. The water was crazy crowded. I had never seen anything like it in florida. There weren't many waves so these boats would drive back and forth to make waves. So everyone was packed in the water and the waves would knock you into someone. The Koreans are so friendly though, they would just laugh and keep going. We actually met these other American guys who teach English in Seoul. One was from New York, so he talked our ears off for about 2 hours. We were supposed to meet up with them later that night but we never did.

After that beach, we got back on the subway and went to our hostel and took quick showers so we could go to the other beach which was just a short walk from the hostel. That beach was less crowded, but it was also later in the day. That one had a really pretty bridge over the water too, that lit up different colors at night. We walked along that beach for a while, took some pictures, and had a few Koreans come up and chat with us. It was fun just people watching and there were all sorts of mini concerts, dancing soju bottles (which was pretty funny), and different things along the water. Then we kinda just hung out on the beach all night and watched the bridge change colors, it was really relaxing.

Overall, it was just a nice weekend. I defiantly want to go back.

mini update

So, I've finished my second full week of teaching. And I'm still a little confused on what I'm doing. Whitney and I have decided that it has been way harder for us to adjust to how they teach, then it was for the other American teachers. Because we are the only ones with an Education major..therefore we have been taught stuff that is completely different than what they are telling us to do. We also can't really tell what level the students are on, because the material that we are teaching these kids is way beyond where we think they should be at. I'm also still getting used to all the differences in the school. Such as how all the kids take off their shoes when entering the classroom. It's just kind of odd to have all your students running around with no shoes on. Well, the Kinders have little bootie/slipper things that they wear. Another thing is that there are no grades. We check stuff like workbook pages and journals but we don't record any grades.

I was supposed to go river rafting and paintballing this weekend with all the co-workers, like a school trip. As was said in our meeting (translated) "We need to have one in harmony". Their translations can be quite funny sometimes. But anyways, it was canceled (or I guess postponed) due to the rain. Which I think would have made the water rafting more fun. Oh well. So, Whitney and I have just been hanging out. We walked to the World Cup Stadium yesterday, which was fun. It took us forever to walk there..it looked a lot closer on the map. I'm still not sure what World Cup was there. Once we got there we found a big mall outlet/groccery store. The mall was huge and had lots of stores: Guess, Levi, Fubu (haha), Calvin Klein, Polo (or a knock off of polo), etc.. There were also tons of shoe stores. And ice cream shops.

Ok, well this was just a quick update. I'll add more later. :)


Few things I've learned about Korea:

1. The kids LOVE stickers. My name tag at school will probably be covered in stickers at the end of the year. We even use stickers in their workbooks.

2. Most men ranging from 18-30 wear man purses. Don't really know what they carry in those. Many of them are designer bags, like Louie Vuitton and such.

3. Almost all Korean women wear heels. Even just with shorts. The Korean teachers at my school wear them for a few minutes on the way to school, just to take them off and wear slippers all day.

4. They love ice cream here. There are a ton of Baskin Robins and little ice cream shops everywhere! This is one thing I love about Korea! :) oh and they have Dunkin Donuts everywhere too. They have just about as many Dunkin Donuts here as we have McDonalds in America.

5. Koreans are all super friendly! :) They love to help lost Americans and will do anything to help you. The Korean teachers at my school are so nice too. The other day one of them ordered us a pizza and had it delivered to our apartment.

I'll have to add to the list...

Trip to Seoul

So, we had our "summer vacation" this week. Worked on Monday and then had the rest of the week off. After quickly trying to figure out where to go, Whitney and I decided to go to Seoul. On Wednesday we somehow made it to the bus station and bought a ticket to Seoul for only 16,ooo won (which is a little less than 16 dollars). The bus ride took about 4 hours. Once we got there we had to figure out the metro, and had about 3 different people try to help us (koreans are soo friendly! -we think that they just want to use their English, and so when they see us looking lost, they jump for the chance to talk to us) This one lady went totally out of her way and walked us to the right metro line. We got to the right station and from there we had to find this hostel we were going to stay at. We only had the address, so we just started walking down the street and realized there was no way we are going to find this place. We decided to walk into a Starbucks and ask someone in there if they knew where it was. No one knew where it was, after the piece of paper with the hostel address got passed around like the whole place, we finally found 2 Koreans who spoke English and wanted to help us. Actually came to find out that they went to college in the U.S. - one went to the University of Illinois and the other went to Berkley! They helped us find this place, which took forever to find - no signs or anything- and they walked up and down streets helping us find the place. (once again - soo nice! most Americans would never do that) So we finally found the hostel, they walked us right to the door. And well..I had never stayed in a hostel, but Whitney had, and she said this place was not like a normal hostel. We knocked on the door and this Korean guy answered, and it was just his tiny apartment. (like just a bedroom with a wall of kitchen stuff and a bathroom) It had 3 bunkbeds and a little table with a computer. Soo..yea that was an interesting experience. If there wasn't anyone else staying there..I probably wouldn't have stayed there with these strange korean guys. (they were pretty nice though) There was another couple staying there that were from Switzerland, and there was also these 2 guys, one from Georgia and the other from Columbia, who had just been in China for 3 months. So the hostel was sketchy, but we decided to stay. After we "checked in" it was already around dinner time so Whitney and I decided to get some dinner and then shop around our little area.

Since we were both a little tired of eating Korean food, we luckily found a ton of American resturants. So for dinner we had Outback! :) They had pretty much the same food..didn't have a bloomin onion though, which was kind of upsetting. The sweet potato was a little strange too - it was white inside but it wasn't a baked potato, it tasted good though. After that we walked around all the little shops and enjoyed just soaking everything in. Went back to the hostel slept on the hard beds with tiny bean bag pillows (weirdest thing). Oh - and it was like 90 degrees because we can't sleep with the air on here. In the morning I took a shower and asked for a towel and he gave me a washcloth. Yea they don't use big towels here.

Anyways, Whitney and I decided to go on the bus tour that day and the two guys at the hostel joined us. We got on the bus, but we didn't stay on it for long, we just got off at one stop and went to one of the palaces. The palace was so pretty, and just an awesome aspect of Asian culture. I couldn't take enough pictures. The palace was huge! It had like 12 different sections, all with beautiful views of lakes and mountains in the background. It took pretty much the whole day to walk around the palace. After that just Whitney and I went to the Seoul tower. We were told it was better to go at night, because then you can see the whole city lit up. We got up there by cable car and then went to the very top. It was such a great view! I took pictures, but my camera doesn't really like night pictures for some reason, so the pictures I took don't do it any justice. That took all night to do, so we were pretty exhausted when we got back to the hostel. Oh I think that night we had McDonalds for dinner :) That was a good day. Even though Whitney and I got squished in the subway doors when running to get on it/trying to catch up with the guys who walked super fast. It was so much fun hanging out with the guys from our hostel though, and having other "forigners" with us.

The next day we wanted to go on the DMZ tour with the guys but we needed our passport and well our passports our at our school in the process of getting our alien cards. So I defiantly want to do that next time, it's the tour of the North Korean border. So instead of that, we we went shopping in well known cheap shopping area. We met my friend Beth there who I went to school with at UWF. We did a little shopping and then go figure ate lunch at an American bar and grill. There were lots of Americans around the shopping area because it was right outside the military base. So it was strange to see so many other Americans. Shopping was fun though, most of the vendors spoke a little English, so many of them were a bit pushy on buying their stuff, kinda like in mexico. You can bargain too, so I need to work on that. Although I did get a little lamp for 20,000 won which was originally 35,000 won.

After shopping, Whitney and I decided to try and get on the military base. (She used to live here, so she has an ID card) My ID was expired, but I was hopping that they would let me in anyways or not notice. I was wrong. Since it was expired they had to confiscate it :( ..oh well. He was nice though and let me on anyway. So that was the first and last time I'll be on base. We walked around base for a while and Whitney found her old house and her elementary school. The base was huge, so we eventually caught a taxi and he took us to the comissary. Unfortunatly, we did not realize that you needed a ration card to get in and buy stuff :( That was very disappointing. So I guess it doesn't really matter that they took my ID card, because I wouldn't be able to buy stuff at the commisary anyways.

That night we couldn't stay at the hostel so we stayed at my friend Beth's place. She was nice enough to let us stay in her tiny aparment which just had one bedroom and just enough floor space for me and Whitney to sleep. The next day we went to the National Museum of Korea. It was kinda cool, but we couldn't read any of the descriptions of things, so we had no idea what we were looking at. After the museum we hopped on the metro (for the millionth time) and went to the bus station to head back home.

Overall, I had such a good time in Seoul! I love it there! I can't wait to go back, there is so much to do!! And some good cheap shopping! :) I tried to keep this blog a little shorter, it's hard to write everything.

Hope everyone is doing well. :)

Oh - good news: We found peanutbutter here! woohoo