Venture to Korea with Amanda & Abi

To all our friends, families, and vistors - thank you for visiting. We will be updating this blog as our adventure develops.

To all our loved ones out there who check this blog, we wish you....

(and, by the way - we wanted for a foreigner to come our way to take this picture. Noel, a very kind Australian and David, an equally lovable LA boy, took this fine picture. We then spent a couple of hours sitting on the beach, enjoying the sun, fine conversation, and average beer from the local market across the street. )

Beers = 15,000 Won.

Camera = Free (thanks Dirk!)

Wanting to spend Christmas with our loved ones? Priceless!

Looking forward to the next one with all of YOU!

posted by: 2SKLadies at 21:52 | link | comments (2) |

It's been so long!!

Well hello again friends! Sorry for the long lapse in posts. As time goes by, life seems more normal and it's difficult to think of funny and interesting things to tell you all about. Here's a little highlight of our lastest adventures in the cultural warp zone....

Shopping in Nampo Dong yesterday there was a shirt for sale that had the logo for M&M's on it and below it was the word METHODIST...apparently that candy coated goodness now has a religious affiliation!

I managed to chip a tooth on some banana chips and have been experiencing the joy of Korean dental work. The first day I had thirty minutes of drilling without novacaine. I now appreciate the inventor and implementation of Novacaine on a much higher level. After many tears and another appointment I was laughed at for being "not strong" and for being American. Luckily I have only one more appointment tomorrow and although I'm terrified, if it doesn't kill you right? On a lighter note the dentist who claims to be "fluent" in English was unable to tell me to open or close my mouth. Instead he says "shut" and "not shut" (which took a while for me to figure out). They also use "bite" and "bite up", which was a bit confusing as well. It's amazing the communication you take for granted when you're in a country that speaks your native language.

There's a commercial that's on TV a lot. It's in Korean but it appears to be advertising apartments or interior design stuffs. It shows a happy woman in a beautiful house, putting blueberries on deserts and showing the place to her friends. Anyway there's this pretty little song in English that plays in the background. I always thought it was kind of a nice song until the other day when I listened closely enough to discern the words. Here they are..."I have a mandolin. I play it all night long. It makes me want to kill myself." Guess they didn't have a native speaker check that one. Hee hee.

We continue to be slammed into, knocked over, and pushed into traffic. On Friday we were at a dance club where the normal kind of bumping into people is to be expected. However, in a rather wide open space I suddenly received a slam from the back that caused me to dump my drink all over a friend and nearly face plant into a table (which would be horrible because I'd have to spend more time at the dentist!!). I turned around to check out the offender (admitedly I was a bit upset) and saw this rather small man who appeared to be Mexican who was apologizing profusely. Of course I excused him, no harm done really. Later while waiting for the bathroom I ran into him again and we spoke in Spanish for ages. You can go to the same place with the same people every friday and still have something completely new and out of the blue happen. It's one of the things I love about being here. It was also the first time since I've been here that Korean's AND Foreigners stared at me like I was from mars!

One of my students learned the word "damnation" from a video game. He asked me what it meant and I played dumb. Once they pick up this language, and if you respond, they'll tell everyone they know and repeat it daily. He tried to catch me off guard several times by shouting it out in class but eventually gave up. Fortunately one of Amanda's students has been listening to hip hop and has picked up and passed on the terms "ho" and "homo". *Monaca-Don't share that part with Gramma and Grandpa ok?* Even cuter than that is one of my prebeginner students who daily says "I am an iguana." He says it straight faced and dead serious. It's the only full sentence he knows but I'm not sure he knows what an iguana is. It's pretty adorable.

We had a Korean cabbie tell us that he hates Korea. He hates the food, he hates the people; he hates everything.It was really strange to hear it come from him. I assume that most of the time when I hate Korea it's because it's a culture I'm unfamiliar with, but to live here your whole life, have no other option for comparison and still hate seems strange....just like everything else here I guess.

I keep mentioning to Amanda that with the amount of cabs we take I wonder if we'll ever get the same driver twice. I really wanted it to happen because I like those moments where it may seem like there are a million people and you blend into the crowd but you realize that it's really a pretty small space. Yesterday we ended up in a cab and the driver kept looking at me and saying "eye". I thought he meant that I had blue eyes as Korean people seem to like to remind me, in case I forget or something. After a while we figured out that I had been in his cab before and had taught him where a rather important landmark is for taxi drivers. He thanked me for my teaching and I was happy all day!

We found patty melts. And they're good.

School is good. Our schedule changes to first shift for six weeks starting in January. I'm keeping all of the Intermediate students that I've had since I got here which is really great. I like being with the same kids and I think they like me. I also got another exciting assignment called "story". It's an elective class that I'll be the only teacher for (No Korean interference!!) where I teach the children to tell stories. I don't know what's going to happen and if it fails it's on my head but it will be fun I think. I got to pick out the books too and got some Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, and Amelia Bedilia! I wanted Strega Nona but my boss said it was too confusing, what with all the magic pasta pots!

We met with some Korean friends last night. One of them had just gotten back from Canada and told us what she thinks about Korean's. She said exactly this "if I'm being nice I'll say that Korean's are too honest. If I'm being honest I'll say that they are rude." She told us about how nice it was to not have to worry about her appearance and for people to be so kind and welcoming. She asked why we had come to Korea, we asked why she had left Canada!

Christmas is around the corner and it's actually really nice that it doesn't at all feel like Christmas. There's no snow, it's not really that cold, and the Christmas carols and decorations are kept to a minimum. I think if it felt more like Christmas I would notice more that I'm not home and can't celebrate like I always do.The other day in the subway I heard a strange and somewhat familiar bell ringing sound. Lo and behold there were salvation army red jacketed women, with the bucket, ringing that bell. I thought I could get away from one of the most annoying Christmas side effects. Darn it!

I know some of you want to send me some Christmas stuff and what I want most is books! I've been reading a ton and would love anything to whisk me away from reality!  Wishing you all Happy Holidays and asking that someone would please make a snow angel for me and throw a snowball at my brother! Much love as always!

posted by: 2SKLadies at 12:22 | link | comments (3) |

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