Seeoooul Train! =)

Wow, wow, wow! What a weekend! I must say I'm so glad I've found this awesome group of girls to travel with. Random and crazy things happen to us when we're on our own, but my God when we get together the possibilities are limitless lol.

Ok so let's start at the beginning. On Friday we had decided to meet at Busan Station at 6pm because our train was leaving at 6:45pm and we were told that we would have to board at 6:30pm. I got to the station earlier than expected, as did Kiara, so we decided to grab some food at the Lotteria (it's a Korean burger joint, like McDonald's). Puja eventually met up with us but Paulenna was still no where to be found and it was 6:17pm. That's when she called to let us know she had just gotten on the subway. The three of us thought there was no way she was going to make it on time. So we went to information to see if we could catch a later train instead. Unfortunately, the line was huge and there a was a fee and no guarantee of getting a seat on the 7pm train. With only 3 minutes left to 6:45pm we decided to leave Paulenna's ticket with the lady at the Info Booth. Puja was a genious and showed her a picture of Paulenna, and then we literally RAN to get on the train! This is when Kiara decided to stand in the doorway (we had to stall, we needed to get Paulenna on this train), literally holding up the ENTIRE train and she continued to do this despite the fact that a lady was blowing a whistle and yelling at her to get on the train! LOL. When the lady finally got to us, fuming mad by the way, I stuck my ticket in her face and asked if she could help me find my seat. HAHHA, she was sooo pissed. So she ignored me and that's when Puja starting pleading with her to hold the train for one more minute, pleading so hard in fact that she didn't hear Paulenna tell her that she had made it on the train! How did Paulenna make it on the train on time you're wondering? Well, the info lady recognized Paulenna when she got to the station, yelled out her name and together they RAN down secret passages, bypassing pylons, just to make it on the train right before it was about to take off!

Once we got to Seoul we went to straight to the bar for Kiara's friend's Will's birthday. All the while still holding all of our baggage. Luckily there are lockers in bars here and so we stashed away our things. The Monkey Bar was tons of fun, dancing and drinks in buckets till around 2am. Then off to the next bar, we were hungry though and decided to eat some mandu at a mandu vendor. Yummy! We finally made it back home around 4-5 am.

The next day we woke up bright and early and made our way to a palace. It was gorgeous, but best of all we had the opportunity to get into traditional clothing and take some pictures. While we were taking these pictures some professional photographers came by and starting snapping pictures of us! This ended up turning into a full on photo shoot that took about 30mins. I'm talking kung-fu, jumping and posed shots! The local Koreans must have thought we were important due to the garb and the photo shoot so they starting running up to us and taking pictures with us! We were like the palace mascots! lol. Then we were off to a traditional market, where I bought some cool stuff for super cheap! We went to a tea house which was really cozy and nice...not to mention relaxing! Then it was off to meet up with Kiara's friends for dinner and another trip to a bar for her other friend's birthday. At this point however, Paulenna, Puja and I were tired as hell and craving fried chicken, so we went back to Allan's place ( Kiara's friend whose apartment we were crashing at) ate some fried chicken and fell asleep. Kiara didn't make it home until 7am (she's nuts!)

On Sunday, our last day in Seoul, we took it easy. Got some breakfast and went shopping. Had dinner with the boys and then boarded our train home. This was honestly an awesome and jam packed weekend. Seoul is an amazing and large city, however it's a little too big for me and it lacks the beaches of Busan. The trip was a ton of fun but it also made me better appreciate how gorgeous and warm Busan is! I love Busan and I'm glad to be home =)

I Love My Kids!

I wanted to take my time out to talk about the students here in Korea. I have elementary school aged children so I can't really vouch for students older than grade 6, but the students I have are amazing. In particular the grades 1-4. 5 and 6 are alright, but a little harder to engage and excite as far as the subject of English is concerned. By the time grade 5 and 6 rolls around the students have made up their mind as to whether or not they think learning English matters, so because of that it's a little more difficult to put a smile on the faces of the children who quite frankly don't care. So far this is something I have actually been able to do, but I fear as the year goes on I will lose some of them.

Now as for the grade ones, I haven't started teaching them yet but I had the opportunity to watch the Bee Movie with them and I instantly fell in love. They are the cutest little things in the world and I can't wait until April when I get to work with them more regularly. I worked with the grade twos for the second time today and I was reminded of how lucky I am to have this job. Not only are they all little angels, but the excitement on their faces when I yelled out "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" was even greater than when they sang their ABC's with India Arie and Elmo! lol All it takes is a high five and Elmo to make these kids happy. They are adorable. My grade threes are awesome, I remember while working at Oxford I always enjoyed the grade threes best. They are all very enthusiastic and well mannered although they are children and sometimes get a little too excited. I can't help but have a favourite amongst the grade threes though. He is the class clown and just lights up my day. So the other day the grade threes had to go up in front of the class and sing group by group. Then the class clown goes up there with his group and just starts to wine...like totally full out shaking his hips with his hands on his head...omg...i died..i could not contain myself. I was in tears I was laughing so hard along with the other kids. And of course every time we play a song this kid is wining in his chair hahaha. I absolutely love him. The grade fours are well behaved and maybe a little less excited about English than the 1-3s but they are still relatively easy to make happy.

I am sort of excited to start my English Club in April. This is something I will have full control of and I have no cirriculum to follow. So I'm going to do fun things like make peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. I really want my club to be fun and I also want the children to conversate more. I hope I can achieve that, but I'll keep you posted.

Lastly, although some may find it slight;y tiresome I absolute love the fact that when i'm in the halls no matter how far I am, if the kids can see me the yell out, "Hello Namika Teacher, or Namika Saen Sing Nim!" But the best so far was when I was crossing a relatively large street and I heard one student from across the street yell out at the top of her lungs "NAMIKA SAENG SING NIM! SAENG SING NIM!" hahaha she was waving frantically!!! I mean she was screaming this! When anyone cares about you enough to yell out hello in that way it just feels nice. The kids love me and I love them. I have a wonderful, relaxed, sometimes tiring (since I feel like a preformer putting on a show at times) and rewarding job.

P.S. Korea and I have made amends =)

The honeymoon is over!

This blog is all about my experience as an immigrant in Korea. Culture shock...hmm I guess that's what i'm experiencing...but it's much more subtle and slow approaching than it's name suggests. Much like the various immigrant communities we see back home in Canada, us English speakers tend to stick close to one another and have definitely developed a sense of community amongst ourselves. In today's blog I just want to talk about how important it is to have that sense of community when you arrive in a strange new world.

I feel really lucky to have the friends that I have here. Last night I had an aggravating experience at the end of my night, which resulted in me wanting nothing more than to just go home. So I hopped into a cab and showed the driver where to go by pointing to a map and pronouncing it almost perfectly (my coteacher says I have a very good korean accent). Not only does he not understand but he says he has bad eyes. I live near a very famous beach and hospital...why the hell is he a cab driver if he doesn't even know his own city??? I find that to be a general trend with the cab drivers here. Also people in general, will stare at you with a dumb look on their faces if you don't pronounce everything 100% perfectly. Like really...take a guess DUMBASS! And i'm sure you'll figure out what I mean. I've been dealing with that since I got here and I think yesterday I was simply push to my limit. But today is a brand new day and one of the main reasons I feel a lot better is because after having heard or seen that I didn't have such a great end to my night, I had several friends call me in the morning to make sure I was feeling better. Last night I felt so alone, living in a ridiculous country where people, simply put, seemed retarded. But I woke up this morning to a slew of messages and calls reminding me that I'm absolutely not alone and that although I have only met many of these people a month ago, they have my back.

Still, having friends here is not the same thing as having family that knows you better than you know yourself, and this is why nothing comforted me more than having Flav to talk to last night and of course Wally as well. I love you guys and I'm so glad that even though we're miles away from eachother I can still count on you to be there for me during my weakest moments. I think things will be a lot easier on me once Walter gets here and it feels like I have some family with me again. I'm going to talk to my coteacher about the size of my apartment and try to see if there is anything bigger in the same building. If that's the case I will ask to move. I doubt this will happen but I guess it doesn't hurt to try!

Yesterday I was ready to hop on a plane and come back to Canada, today I'm still a little angry at Korea, but I'm sure we'll make up soon enough =)

GRRRRRRR!!

Ok so I know you guys were waiting for an update on all the cool/fun stuff I've been doing here in Korea, but quite frankly I feel like ranting. So that's exactly what I'm going to do. What am I going to rant about you may wonder? I'll tell you it's bus 155! This is the most jam packed mother @#$%^& bus in all of South, Korea. In the morning on my way to school I push my way through a sea of people just to barely make it onto the steps of the bus where I end up standing for at least 5 stops. After these 5 stops I have the "pleasure" of pushing through another sea of people just so I can finally pay and hear "Gamsamnida" (thank-you) the wretched voice that steals my 950 won! lol (actually the voice is quite pretty and nice, but i'm hey this is a rant). In any event this is the time where the bus driver nearly gets into 5 accidents because all korean drivers don;t seem to care whether they live or die. And of course i'm standing during all of this clinging to a hook for my dear life because of course there are no seats available. Then about 15 minutes into the bus ride a miracle occurs, we hit Tongmyong University, and all of those wretched university students occupying all of the seats, finally get off! and I get to sit down for 4 minutes before I arrive at school.

Then, there's the bus ride home. Lovely at first, the "gamsamnida" and the loss of 950 won don't seem so bad, as mine is the first stop and I always get a seat on the relatively empty and spacious bus. Then about 5 minutes into the ride we pass the wretched university and *Sigh* the bus is once again crowded in an appauling way. Today a first happened, and as they say there is always a first for everything. I was holding a box [thanks mom! =)] and was sitting just a little to far from the exit than planned. In any event I saw my stop comming close, so I pressed the stop button and got up. Despite shoving people with my box (ppl shove here..i'm not being rude... it's ok) I still did not manage to exit the bus. I even missed the stop after that! I was sooooo pissed, now I was going to have to walk ALL the way home, despite spending 950 won (95 cents btw) all while holding a box, with my backpack on and holding my purse??? I DON'T think so...luckily this stop was by the subway so pushed ppl hard out of anger, made it to the doors, touched my pass to transfer "gamsamnida" and hopped on the subway spending another 240 won (24 cents...it's cheaper when you transfer...it's usually 990 won). Only reason why I was super annoyed is that the subway has an unreasonable number of stairs to climb, the way down is fine but the way up is not fun when you are tired after a long day of work, have just beat down a few Koreans on a bus with a box, and are still holding that very same box!

But hey as they say "Korea is Dynamic". In reality I'd be lost without bus 155, and I slightly enjoy the thrill of not knowing whether or not i'll make to school alive each morning!