My Moment of Fame in Korea!!

It's Friday morning here, and before we start our Holiday weekend here and I have even more to post about, I thought I would finish up the happenings of last weekend!

On Saturday we went to another baseball game, but this time it was packed with people! Crazy traffic getting in, because the team our team was playing is the equivalent of the Yankees back home, so they have a huge fan following. It was a lot of fun to be at a game like that, and the weather felt like a texas fall back home, so it was perfect. Here's some pictures of all of us there:

Bora, me, Cassy, Sam, and Kristin

Sam, Cassy, and I with the mascot

Oh and last time I posted about the baseball game I gave you some footage of the strange chants and dances of the cheerleaders, well this time they busted out a disco number complete with wigs and sunglasses! No videos sorry, but I do have some pictures:

Sooo very random. The game was really exciting and very close, but our team did end up losing sadly. Buuuut I came to school on Monday and one of my older students asked me if I had gone to the game, and I thought maybe he had seen me there but not said hello, so I was teasing him about being afraid of me. But he starts getting really excited and tells me he was watching the game on tv, and that's where he saw me! Apparently we were on tv a few times and for long intervals! Haha so there's my little claim to fame in Korea. I'm sure I was pretty funny looking, yelling all these Korean chants that I have no idea what they mean!
They also had a tribute to the foreign baseball players on Korean teams that night, complete with a nice cheesy video (The Calling, Where ever You Will Go song in the background playing haha). And they had fireworks, and they were so close! I love fireworks, oh and there were a few different sparkly ones I saw that I haven't seen in America before:

Anyways, after the game we went and ate some street food that's set up in tents right outside the baseball complex. They're supposed to be mimicking food tents you would find out in the country years ago, so they're very traditional in terms of food and drink. Because of this, instead of cups you get bowls to drink out of, since in the country to save money they wouldn't buy cups but just use bowls for everything. And we drank traditional fermented rice wine out of them (which has a slight yogurt taste) but is supposed to be healthy for you because of that. Minus the alcohol in it of course.

And here's a closer view of my bowl/cup:

And the rice wine we drank (also added a shot or two of soju in it):

And Cassy and I "enjoying" it haha:

In traditional Korean dining, you order a few main dishes and everyone eats off the same plate and shares, so following that we all shared a seafood pancake, which wasn't  like american pancakes but more of a chewy texture with shrimp, shellfish, and squid in it:

And yes you cut it up and eat it with chopsticks. I actually like this one, it didn't have a strong fish taste and the baby shrimp were yummy. We also ordered some sort of squid/octopus dish which was EXTREMELY spicy and I couldn't look at it for too long at a time because of the tentacles:

Om nom nom, right? Not so much! So it was a really great weekend, and now I'm so glad it's friday again and we have a 4 day weekend!!!! It's much needed, I've been sick this entire week so I need some R&R to recover. I'll be sure to let everyone know what I got up to on my holidays, have some really random fun things planned! :)

Free Beer!

Yes, you heard me, free beer on Friday! The Songdo International Beer Festival is still going on here, it actually lasts until September 9th, so Cassy, Sam, and I went over there Friday night after work. It's all held outside in these tents that are set up with a main stage in the middle with tons of tables and chairs. We walked around and sample all kinds of beer and rice wine, mostly Asian made but a few European beers were there also. They have all kinds of great street food there too, it all looked and smelled so good! We decided on Cass, a South Korean beer, and for 10,000 won ($9) we got 5 big beers. I mean it was soooo cheap! So let's just say that wasn't our only round. And the beers not bad. For dinner I got a Turkish Chicken Kebab, I had no idea how much I missed eating tortillas but it was so good.

Here's my beer and kebab:

The picture is a little bright, sorry, but you get the jist. And here's a photo of what they shave the chicken off of to make the kebab:

And then this is a really common street food in Korea, they're potatoes that have been sliced very thinly in a swirl and then fried, so basically potato chips on a stick!

And then I think this is pork on a stick, could be chicken, but pork is a lot more common here so that's why I think that's what this is:

Here's a shot of the stage, when we were first walking around a Korean guy was singing on stage with the most fakely high pitched voice I've heard, it would have been a joke in the US, but they seemed to really like his voice. Anyways, he was singing 'Memory' from the Broadway show 'Cats', it was just so random and funny.

They had a ton of different singers and styles, from a jazz saxophone playing Hey Jude, to a Korean Elvis, to a pop band singing Ricky Martin.

Here's a video of the Ricky Martin song, we were all singing along at the randomness (that's Cassy and Sam in the video btw):

Needless to say it was a great time and it was across the street from my apartment! I'll have to keep a look out for other things going on there, one of the teachers told me that they had traditional Korean wrestling one time, so I hope that one comes back! That's it for tonight, I'll have to write about this past Saturday another time!

Field Trip Friday!

This past week was crazy, report cards were do for each class, lesson plans for the next month on the computer, and we had phone teaching too (where we call the kids at home and ask them a bunch of questions). A lot happened too, Jemma's contract was up so a new teacher arrived this week to take her place. The new teacher is named Sam and she's also English (well actually Welsh) she's really nice and she's an actual teacher back in England so she's settling in well. On thursday night we had a going away dinner for Jemma at the Korean BBQ place (so delicious) and then went out for drinks after that, all on the director's bill! I also received care packages from home this week, really wonderful surprise, and I shared some of my twizzlers with the other teachers! So here's all my sussies:

I'm excited to hand out some of the candy as prizes, and I'm going to try to play Old Maid with one of my kindergarden classes this week! 

On Friday, we had a field trip for all the kindergarden classes to learn about Korean traditions. All the kids dressed up in the Korean Hanboks and we took buses out and learned about traditional dress, tea ceremony, bowing, games, and dance. The kids were sooooo cute, here's a few pictures from the trip:

Learning the traditional tea ceremony:

Then they played traditional games, the first being throw the arrow in the bucket:

Then kick the sparkly pom pom ball:

And finally a mixture between throwing dice/lots and a board game:

Then we all learned how to properly bow, boys first:

And then the girls turn:

Ok so every hanbok is different, and little Emily's had a red cap/hat to go with it. All throughout the day it kept moving around and sliding into her face, I was laughing really hard about it, and kept taking pictures. I tried to be discreet, but I think she caught me in the pic below. It was just so funny though!

So cute!

After learning to bow it was time to learn a traditional Korean dance! They put these weird white sleeves over their hands and kinda waved them about, as you can see in these pictures:

And then here are two videos of them dancing, the first one is the actual dance they learned, and the second is freestyle chaos dancing:

And then here are a few pictures of the outside grounds of the place:

As you can see, it's right in the middle of all these really modern buildings, so it was a very drastic new vs old scene, especially with all the kids in Hanboks. It was a really fun trip, and it was nice to get out of the classroom and do something different! Ok more posts to follow on what happened this weekend!

A View from Songdo

On Tuesday I get off work at 6, my early night, and since it's still light at that time I decided to rush over to the park across from my apartment and take some pictures! At the entrance to the park is the map:

Yes, that's my reflection in it. I was only able to go through half of the park before it got dark, so some other time I will bring my camera and take pictures of the other half. So The main entrance (and where I'm standing) is at the bottom right of the map, where the little red dot is. I did a loop right after the lake where the big tan circle is and came back up the other side. So you can see it is a pretty large park by my pictures below, and this is only half of it!We have some random sand digging machines below:

And a pirate ship playground for the kids, with my apartment complex in the background:

The beautiful lake, and again you can see my apartment complex:

This was the big tan circle on the map, you can't really see how large it is by this picture but it's massive, and they hold concerts here on the weekends sometimes:

Ah yes, there are these exercise machines all throughout the park, so not only can you get your cardio in on the track, but also your strength exercise:

There is a hill they built is the park, the one I see from my apartment, so I ran up there and took these pictures. This is my apartment complex, called 1st World, and as you can see there are all sizes of buildings in it. Mine is the minature rectangular tan one:

Here's a closer shot of it, you can see that the first floor is all restaurants and bars on the outside, this is how it is on every building in the complex that faces the outside block. My apartment is on the second floor, and yes, the noise does sometimes keep me up. At night they have tables and chairs set up outside on the sidewalk so people are out these until 2:30 am sometimes! It's all older businessmen though, because the business culture in Korea is all about going out with your bosses after work and drinking, and you literally can't say no if they ask you because otherwise it's a sign of disrespect. Kids also stay up much later here than at home, so even around midnight there will be young kids out there playing on tricycles while their parents eat and drink. Even with all of that there's so much I LOVE about my apartment that I would never move even if someone offered me a different one. But needless to say I look forward to when the weather is cold and they can't sit outside, and until then I've invested in some earplugs that do the trick.

View from the hill again, but this time in the opposite direction, you can even see one of the mountains that surround the city:

Oh and here is the Songdo Convention Center, and you can see the edge of my apartment complex, and it's on the next block over! So close! They were setting up the small tents you see right in front of it all week, because for the next 2 weeks is the  World Beer Festival!

So there's half of the park at least

This week at work is going to be slightly crazy and different, Report cards are due for every class, and I have four hours of phone classes this week. Which is where we call the kids at home after we finish up with our classes (so 7:30 pm on up for me) and ask them questions. Weird and don't understand it, but it's also only once a month luckily! Also, new teacher comes from America tomorrow so I'll let you know what she's like!