Dear Mama.... Vacation, Birthday, New Year, Graduation...Now Back to Business

January was a very jam packed month after winter camp ended. There was my long awaited winter vacation, my birthday, a Seoul homestay and touring and Chinese New Year aka Soellal. On Seollal, we went to Ashley's restaurant for the dinner buffet which was "South American Soul Food" lol. What is that? They definitely meant Southern Style Soul Food but didn't know how to say it (or cook it) correctly...nice try though. Vacation was wonderful even despite the cold, rain and snow. I went with Anakaren to the Trick Eye Museum in Hongdae, Seoul for my birthday and the Gyeongbuk Palace for Seollal. So what better way to recap those moments than a video and some pictures: My vacation Part 1 and Part 2. I hope you enjoy. 

Dongdaemun

Traditional Crafts I made in Seoul (Anguk Area, Gahoe Museum)

KBS Studio Tour

 

Gyeongbuk Palace

February just ended and not much has happened at all…just a lot of unproductive desk warming and teaching my after school class. It was nice to be able to take the time to watch the Superbowl during that time.

Valentine's Day was the 6th grade graduation. It was nice to see how a Korean graduation ceremony is held. There was a lot of talking, some singing, dancing, saxophone playing (by the principal) and really cute photo montages. It was in a small narrow space so it was a little sad that most of the parents could not fit inside so they stood outside peeping through the windows. I was expecting year book signings and pictures with friends afterwards but everyone just straight left! So much for getting all beautified lol. One of my favorite students did shout out, "THANK YOU ERICKA TEACHER!" before he walked out. That was touching.

I have been here 6 months and I feel like it is going by super fast. I don't feel like I have really done that much yet. I am still figuring things out like just this weekend I figured out that I can get garbage bags from the convenience store down the street instead of the grocery store where they never understand what I am asking for when I try to get them. Next week school starts again so here come the nerves...wish me luck!

FYI- My cooking has gotten better...I made some Beefaroni recently and it was actually good!!

Dear Mama.... English Winter Camp is OVER! Yay!

During Christmas week I had to rush planning for an unexpected camp and during New Year's week I had to rush buying and preparing materials for the camp in the middle of moving to a new building because of the construction. Then, the next week was camp. This past weekend I was invited by another teacher to her house for dinner so it was a nice break from the chaos of planning for winter camp. She was so nice to invite me. She said, "Everytime I see you around school you look so lonely so I wanted to invite you." (lol) Her oldest daughter who is in high school spoke English pretty well and they are a generous Christian family that volunteers their time and home to handicapped and less fortunate children. There were two deaf children that were also there for the day. The oldest daughter showed me around a very large and popular market called Moraenae. I had some Korean street food for the first time: bungeoppang and hotteok. It was really tasty! They had a really big apartment in Lotte Castle, one of the biggest apartment complexes in Korea. For dinner we had bulgogi and we talked and the daughters played the piano and violin. I stayed there for 7 hours! The youngest daughter at the end was like "Are you going to spend the night?" Her mom asked her, "Do you want her to?" and she said "Yes." Awww...

 

Then, before I knew it, it was time for winter camp. AAAHHHH! On Monday, I was running around like my head was cut off. It was a very stressful week. I even lost my precious USB that had so much important information on it, especially for my portfolio. :( On top of winter camp there was also after school class that I had to do. I had to prepare so much by myself. I expected my head co-teacher to be there to help me but she was M.I.A. the whole time except for the times she popped in to take pictures or drop off the end of camp gifts. I had a circus theme so one day was clown day. I expected the students the paint their faces like a clown and I thought it would be something they would enjoy because most students in America enjoy that. They were having no part of it. Talk about frustrating because that was supposed to take up a significant amount of the class time. Thankfully the last class of the day participated. After all is said and done, I think the kids enjoyed the camp and the male co-teacher that was "helping" me complimented me that I did a great job! Of course, I am hard on myself and there are many things I wish I could have changed but what can you do. If this was hard and it was only a week, I better mentally prepare myself for how hard the summer camp will be because it can be anywhere from 2-4 weeks!! I already started thinking of themes for that now.

* I forgot to take pictures of Animal and Trainer day where they made animal masks and whips.

Now, I can finally focus on my vacation and birthday plans which are fast approaching. Japan here I come!

Dear Mama.... Christmas and New Years in Korea

Ho Ho Ho and Happy New Year!

I am have been M.I.A. for far too long so I think it's finally time to update you on how my holiday in Korea went. 

First, to start of the week of Christmas I went to see The Nutcracker. I always wanted to see it back home so I thought I would take advantage of seeing it here. It was a beautiful show but of course I got a little sleepy and dozed off on some parts. The music was just too relaxing lol. Since I was in Seoul, I decided to see what else was going on and found the Design Festival at COEX exhibition hall. It was interesting to finally be around the Korean artsy fartsy crowd for a change.

I also decided to throw my after school class a Christmas Party on Christmas Eve. The only unfortunate thing was that the day before the party, my co-teacher informed me that the winter camp they kept reassuring me was cancelled due to school construction was now going to take place and I would have to give her the plan for it the next day. Arrrggh! My mind was already checked out in Christmas mode, especially since I am not used to working on Christmas Eve...so all I brought in the next day was the theme. Right before my Christmas party, I had to come up with the schedule of the camp on the fly. The good thing was that it would only be for one week (as later I was told it was shorter because of construction and is normally 2-4 weeks). Luckily, this did not hinder me from having a good Christmas party. I put up some decorations, brought in drinks, cake, ice cream and cookies, brought presents, put on Christmas music and had fun Christmas games planned. The kids even helped make and put up decorations. The only thing that was a little disheartening was when the kids opened their gifts and some gave me the impression that they didn't like them. I took a lot of time picking out all different gifts based on their Christmas lists that they wrote to Santa and improvised for the ones that did not give me a list. Only one student said thank you...I probably should have let them open them at home so I wouldn't see their reactions.

On Christmas Day, I was fortunate to spend it with a really sweet American family...and eat American Food!! They were so nice to give me take home plates, bags of candy and let me borrow a blow dryer with a comb attachment  (I needed so bad)! They had such a nice, big, warm in cozy house out in the boonies of Korea. It was torture getting to them but it was worth it. Then, I met up with Anakaren and her friends and we all had drinks and snacks while we talked. Her studio is much nicer than mine and she had put up Christmas decorations her mom sent so it was really nice.

Thank you for my gift too mom!

New Year's Eve, I had one thing in mind...to see my favorite Korean group: Dynamic Duo! But like always I did not know anyone who wanted to go. The tickets were about $50 but I didn't care because it was a big New Year's Eve celebration, like NY Times Square but inside a mall in Seoul called Times Square. Anyway, I waited too long to buy tickets and had to find something else to do. At first I thought I would just stay in my neighborhood, go watch the fireworks and then come home and go to bed. After a lot of coaxing, I met up with Anakaren in Bupyeong to hang out at Shelter, the bar that a lot of foreigners and English teachers frequent. Standing in front was another teacher from our orientation, John, and we just hung out until the countdown. For some reason I forgot that I am in Korea where New Year's Eve is not a big deal and they don't really countdown so of course we missed the countdown by 1 minute and did a late countdown lol. It actually turned out to be a fun night as a 60 year old man told Anakaren that he loved her and kept trying to kiss her on the cheek. After the bar we went to eat and there was guy that kept trying to talk to us through his translator app on his phone. It was the most hilarious sentences ever that made no since whatsoever. But you gotta love him for trying! The next day I went to Seoul to see a musical play called Bibap. It was a comedy show about two chefs competing to be the best. There was beatboxing and breakdancing. There was also audience participation and for the last act they chose me! So I had to come on stage and be the judge of the last dish the two chefs made, bibimbap. It was a lot of fun and I got an autographed book from the actors and took a picture with them.

 

 

Overall, I had a wonderful and special holiday!

Dear Mama.... Love from Korea (First Snow)

This is the first week it has really snowed! It's funny to see how excited the kids get when even a little bit of snow falls. They even make snow men with small patches of dirty snow from the street. ewww....lol. I am glad that last weekend I went on a bus tour around Seoul before the weather got bad. It was really cool to learn about the different neighborhoods within Seoul. I feel like now I know my way around. One spot in particular seemed really interesting, Dongdaemun.

 

 

This weekend I have pretty much stayed inside because of the drop in temperature. It's times like these that remind me of going to college in New Rochelle and wishing I knew someone with a warm car to drive me around!








P.S. - I wore my hair natural for the first time this week and everyone was sooo surprised. They all kept asking me, "Did you get a perm??" When I said, "No, it's my natural hair" they looked so confused!

Dear Mama.... Love from Korea (Busy November Continued)

November 23, 2013

Outside of school, many things have happened. I finally took my first Korean taxi ride, on November 8th, because I had to bring my extra large package home from the post office. I quickly learned how important it is to be able to say my own address in Korean. It was definitely a struggle trying to direct the taxi driver with random maps I found in my purse, the address written on the back of my ARC card and by shouting out random landmarks near my house (in english).  Finally, though, I made it home! The taxi driver was a bit of a rough driver but nothing compared to the craziness of the bus drivers. I almost fell off the bus one day when I was standing to get off at the next stop and the bus came to a screeching halt. The little dangling ropes they have are of no help either. The are not sturdy and serve no real purpose.

One day I wanted to go bowling around my house and invited Anakaren to come. Once she got here, I was so busy showing her around Art Center because she had never been. We didn't even end up bowling. We did try to eat a samgyeopsal restaurant but we were scared because we had no idea what we were ordering. Then we went to a trendy bar/lounge called White Angel where you can write on the walls. Of course, I had to doodle a little something.

Another weekend, we went to Hongdae for some delicious mexican food (oh how I miss Chipotle). Then, we walked around and explored an art market. We went to Gyeongbuk palace too but, unfortunately, we got there too late to walk on the inside of the palace. We walked around the museum instead where I learned a little something about placenta jars. After that, we went back to Incheon to eat at a sushi buffet. It was sooo good! Then, we stopped by the bar, Shelter, for a birthday get together for one of the other English teachers from orientation. That was a long fun day!

Finally, I decided to take action and look up used phones for sale on Craigslist. I found a white Samsung Galaxy SII that looked like it was in great condition for a good price. I decided to buy it, so me and Anakaren went all the way to Itaewon to get it. Before paying the seller, I made sure it could call and use data properly. When I got home, I started really looking through it and noticed there were hundreds of pictures of a Korean family on it. The seller was not Korean or in any of the photos so I started to panic because I thought I had bought a stolen phone! When I got to school the next day, I told my co-teachers that I was nervous that the police were going to track me down and come to the school to demand the phone back. They just laughed at me and said that it would not happen. One of my co-teachers' husband is a cop and told her that the phone would not operate at all with my SIM if it were stolen. So, for now, I am relieved.