Hi Korea, I'm Here!

I really like presents :p Especially from little kids. It makes you feel all warm inside. So my kids had introduced me to "Peppero Day" the week before November 11th while they were playing with me in my office. Once I heard that couples give each other peppero I immediately thought of Valentine's day. What did we do as children on valentine's day?? We gave the teachers and each other valentine cards and candy!!!! So that meant, I'd be getting free snacks ;D And indeed, look at my stash!! I continued to get a few more on the 2nd day too.. I was in heaven :D

Talking about snacks.. I give out candy to winning teams whenever we play games in my classes. One of the candies is yellow so a boy kept on asking me "lemon? lemon?" in a really cute voice!! I was like ;_; I'm sorry, I have no idea!! I should try out the candy before giving it to them. I'm really glad I'm teaching elementary school. They can be monsters but they're cute monsters :D

Continuing where I left off on the last post..
November 1st was my first day of "Saturday English Program." The class for the 3rd and 4th graders went really well. I spent many many hours and lost a lot of sleep preparing the powerpoints and activities for them so if it bombed, I would've been sooo disappointed! My co-teacher had originally thought that the books we bought would have movies or animation for the children to watch on the TV.. even though I already informed her that it was only a sound clip reading out the stories in a very boring and slow voice. I don't think she was expecting me to have to put so much work into the classes. My class for 5th-6th grade was really boring. She wanted me to teach them from these boring educational Discovery science books and since I was an Astronomy major, she wanted Astronomy related. She rejected my airplane book. It probably would've been more interesting to boys, but at least it was a story and girls still have fun doing activities.

We went with a book on Stars where I had to create a bunch of activities and required specific items that ended up being substituted with other items that made the experiments not work lol. I wanted them to make a kaleidoscope but since mirrors were potentially dangerous, the idea was rejected. I then wanted them to do an activity with a glass bowl, water, foil, black paper, and a flashlight, but instead of glass bowls I was given plastic cylindrical tubs. It didn't work at all :( I felt bad that the students had to sit through the boring reading and explanation of the book and do an activity that didn't work out in the end. Fortunately, for the class yesterday, my coteacher decided to just do a super quick summary of Chapter 2 and move on to the activities rather than to actually read the book lol. Yesterday I had them make constellations out of foil, glue, and black paper so it was simple :D It took a lot of time so class ended 30 mins past time but the kids had fun! Now I need to find glow in the dark paint/glue for the next class. The 3rd and 4th graders are working on making a "moving tiger." My prototype 1 Tiger turned out really.. weird. He had uneven skinny legs, his body was really fat, and his ears kept drooping lol. Prototype 2 came out ok but some of the holes were misplaced and he had too many stripes so it would take forever to color. I'm proud of the final tiger :D He's cute!

Anyway, back to what I've done for the past few weeks..

11/5: Teacher's field trip! Jang abandoned me when she found out we were going to the sea rather than going hiking... I was left to talk to the male "pragmatics" teacher in her office for the whole bus ride. Going there was fine, he just explained some stuff and pointed out locations and showed me where we were on the map.. but coming back was horrible. He wanted to discuss religion and politics. Two of the things I probably hate "discussing" the most. Real discussions are ok, but people forcing their opinions on me is not ok! My life is just going to be filled with forced opinions when it comes to religions and politics. Other than that, the 4th grade teachers saved me by accompanying me on our walk around Sangam Dong Sky Park. They are really nice :) I love their students too :p The park used to be a waste area but the government eventually cleaned the area and planted a bunch of plants there so now its a huge field high up :D The other teachers pressured me in walking on the red balls in the picture above.. it hurt like crazy but it was "good for my health." right.....
The next destination was the Sorae Port of Inchon (dunno if this is an official name). I was warned by one of the 4th grade teachers to not have any expectations and really, it's not a pretty area lol. We did get to explore a bit and did have a really good seafood dinner. We had sashimi (I don't really like Korean sashimi.. theres bones...), steamed crab, and a spicey fish soup. The steamed crab was awesome :D I didn't try their octopus sashimi though.. after it's cut up it STILL moves.. it was creepy O_O The 4th grade teacher said it sticks to your mouth while you chew it too @_@

11/8 : Anthea and I decided to go exploring in Guri for Homeplus and Lottemart. I had found them on a map online the day before but we only had time for Homeplus. And boy were we disappointed. It was a Homeplus Express. It was only a grocery store and the store was tinier than my local grocery store. After Homeplus Express we headed off to get Ashley a cake and to Gangnam for her birthday dinner at Dos Tacos. To get to Dos Tacos you go out exit 6 and walk really far down until you see Tous Les Jour. Turn left down the alley before Tous Les Jour and you'll see Dos Tacos. It's a tiny but good Mexican restaurant. I had a chimichanga as usual and as every restaurant makes their chimichangas different, this one was also different and I am unable to compare. BUT it was still yummy. After dinner, we headed off to sing (Noraebang?)! Ashley picked some really scandalous songs.. bad Ashley... it was fun though :D After singing we took some cute sticker pictures :D It was a pretty cheap night! We each chipped in about 20k~ The night ended with Ashley coming to sleep over at my place :)
11/9: Ashley and I went on another expedition to Costco and back. This time I think we bought more than when I went with Anthea. I was in a lot of pain from carrying stuff when we got back to my apartment :x We got some yummy Swiss Miss hot cocoa, Dole peaches, more bagels, ground beef, glass lock tupperware, Nature Valley granola bars, and a bunch of other stuffs. After Costco we went to find the Northface and Redface near my place and to find a place to eat. Ashley and I had some good bibimbap (sp?) for only 4000 won and she was able to try on her Influx jacket :D I'm probably going to go to that bibimbap place again since it's so cheap!!

This past Thursday my school was closed because Anthea's school was hosting important high school exams. It was kinda annoying because they forced me to use a paid vacation day and didn't allow me to just come in and sit instead. But that day Anthea and I finally went to Lottemart! It was pretty large and we only explored one of the buildings but I was still kind of disappointed. I didn't find a good towel, no filter for the faucet, and no lint catchers. Butterknives were way too expensive to buy as well >< After Lottemart, we met up with Ashley in Gangnam so she could visit the Northface over there and check for her jacket. She ended up buying a small size black influx jacket :D The guy gave her free socks too haha. We had Quiznos for dinner that night but it wasn't what I expected. The combo (6500 won) only included a soda and a sandwich. The rosemary mozarella bread was also an extra 300 won :( I was having a bit of a hiccuping problem from the soda too haha. After dinner we headed down to the Kyobo bookstore and to Hottracks to get some more pens :D I need to stop buying pens.. I left a bunch at home because I was too lazy to bring them.. now I've bought more :x

In case anyone is reading this from Guri and wants to know how to get to Gangnam-- you take bus 1115-2 or 9-3 to Gangbyeon terminal station and hop onto the subway for line 2 (green line), then you ride all the way to Gangnam. Any of the 9 buses will take you to the station too but they all take a roundabout way besides 9-3.

To get to Costco from Guri, take bus number 201, 2227, or 2228 from Doldari stop and get off at Mangu Station bus stop (you'll hear it announced). After you get off, cross over the street twice (so you make a diagonal line to the other corner). Walk further and you'll see Costco on your left. Emart is also nearby and you should be able to see it from the bus stop. After that bus stop, the bus will loop like crazy. If you miss Mangu Station, stay on it all the way until Sangbong Bus Terminal stop. It'll be one of the median bus lanes and Costco will be on your right (the bus loops in a full circle before going back to Guri). To get home, just hop onto one of those buses and it'll take you back home.