The Last Days of Summer

The leaves haven't started to change color yet, and the afternoon sun still gets pretty hot, but one day, the season changed, and you can feel it in the air. The weather is so beautiful right now, the air is cool and there is no longer that hanging humidity sticking to your face. I've been told that Fall is a short lived season, so take advantage! I am absolutely going to be doing exactly that and in a few minuets I am going to go to one of the new parks in Seoul. There have been major reconstructions in the city to beautify and modernize the image of Seoul and it is very noticeable.  They (the government) have also begun to restore many of the ancient relics, that, until now have haphazardly been build around, so there is this really wonderful juxtaposition of the old and new.

I am discovering my new hometown and finding that I really dig the place I am in. Seoul is a kick-ass city. There is so much to do, there is so much to see! It's not just industrial, it's made to be beautiful and structured to dissipate some of the pains of urban living. Nature isn't very far away, spas are dirt cheap, and the fashion is unbelievable. I love the styles here. I have made a few friends who have taken me out, shown me around, and gone touristing with me. It's been a lot of fun! I don't have anything to complain about really, though I am still finding my own rhythms here. I do feel a bit  homesick every now and then, I missed my sister's 21st birthday, and I wished I could have been there for my family when my grandfather passed away.  And, as the culture shock wears off, and simple acts are still just plain difficult because of the language and culture barrier, it is sometimes wearisome and lonely.

But then I think about how everything in life can turn around completely in just one day and that there is so much potential ahead, just waiting for someone to grab onto, that I get a little excited to find out what that may be, and head for the door.

Here are some photos of a hike I went on.

Love-
E.

Weight machines provided for you along your nature walk!

You can weight lift on your hike and in the serenity of nature!

Grave yard I passed by on my hike.

Pangyo

As I mentioned earlier,  Pangyo is a very new town, it is still being built around me everyday. The speed with which it is being built is astounding. When I first moved in, there was an empty lot across my window and less then two weeks later, there is an apartment building. I have seen a restaurant being built and then open, while I have been here. It's amazing. Even with the speed of the expansion, however, it is still a small place and doesn't take long to walk from one side of town to the other. More then half the the city is in the process of being built. The school I work at has only been open for two months, and that's because the building that it is in, didn't exist two months ago. This city is being planned by the government to absorb the crowds in Seoul.  Since the origins of this city have been so purposeful, nothing is random or out of place. Everything is planned and designed for beauty and efficiency. The architecture of the buildings are really interesting, visually entertaining, and each one is different. Even the landscaping of the place is aesthetically pleasing. The leisure areas of the city have also been planned and are nice to walk around in. Even amongst the chaos of the construction, it is easy to see the organization and beauty of the place.  Here are some promised pictures and a few of my apartment building. (I will post pictures of my apartment after I have finished decorating it, but this may take a while)

These photos are of Pangyo's public library, government offices and gym/community center . They are my favorite buildings in the town so I added a lot of them. The hiking trail starts behind these buildings. 

Church being built

My apartment! I am on the lower level, that's my window on the corner. 

I live above this restaurant : Hotsun Chicken. The sign says "Woman's Style Fired Chicken! Best Experience! No Oil!" What does that even mean?

Sweet Outfit

My Rooftop

View from my roof

I work in this building, 6th and 7th floor. The number 4 is considered bad luck here so all the buildings use the letter F to stand in for that number. 

I work above a 7/11, can you believe it?! They are all over the place here. 

IN-N-OUT! When I saw that I lived within walking distance from an IN-N-OUT in Korea, I almost flipped. Turns out it is too good to be true. It's not actually a burger place, its just a convenience store. My friend took a picture of this sign also, and a person ran out of the store and asked her to delete the picture.  When my friend asked why, the owner said that  the logo was being used illegally but that , and I quote, "it is what we (asians) do." "what, steal labels?" "Yes, now delete photo." hmm. nope. 

I have more pictures of the town that will be added to the next post.

Fish Adventures

This weekend I was finally able to get some of my house shopping done. I went out to get those things that would really make my new home here feel like home. Actually getting to the store and buying those things I needed was, in fact, completely different in reality then it was in theory. In short, I am completely illiterate in this country so figuring out which side of the street to stand on to wait for the bus is nearly impossible to figure out unless being specifically told. The bus system is actually pretty well laid out here, but all the bus maps don't mean anything to me  since everything is in Korean. And unlike the highway signs, the bus maps don't add the translation of the Korean symbols into the Roman alphabet. I've been learning how to get around by rote and land markers. For example, there is a huge swastika painted on this one building that lets me know I'm getting close to the supermarket. On my way home, I know I'm getting close when we go through:  the glowing glass tunnel, and then past the flower wall, and then over the second river. The numerical system used here is the same as at home (thank god) so once I know what bus I have to take to get to a certain place, I usually don't have a problem finding it. The one problem about getting around like this (yes, the one problem about getting around like this...) is that if any little thing gets in the way of my planned bus route to the store and back, I have no way of knowing which other route to take. So, I have collected every number I can get to use as a "Help Me! I'm lost! Figure out how to get me home!" number.  And yes, I have used two of them already. They were very helpful.

 Learning how to use the bus system has been really important because Pangyo is still a very new town and doesn't have a lot of the things a normal town would. i.e. a grocery store. Of course, I do have the local 24 convenience store close by and the fruit and vegetable stands, but neither place has the selection or appliances one needs every now and then. Like a broom. Which I had to to go Bundang, the next town over,  to buy, and then take on the bus with me back home. Speaking of taking your groceries back home with you on the bus, I learned fast how NOT fun this is. Mostly because I am used to driving everywhere and haven't yet figured out the city-bus-grocery-bagging system. I've seen some grandmas move through these bus stops with more food on them then my two trips and I am just in awe. Anyway, I quickly realized that I could only carry 15 items or so with me when I had to carry everything back with me on the bus. I had to make several trips to the store and and back home this weekend. The 15 item limit greatly decreased when I needed to buy things like that broom, a mirror, and fish tank.

Yes, I bought a fish! (I don't know its name yet.)  It's a goldfish, nothing fancy, or so I'm told. As I was taking it home with me I realized that I really didn't know how to take care of a fish. I bought it shelter and food and it came with its own small amount of water, but that was it. What do I do about giving it more water?  I vaguely remembered some tricks or tips about de-chlorinating the water before putting your fish in it and having to acclimate the fish to the different water temperatures. However, since I (still) don't speak any Korean and could think of no way to mime "de-chlorination drops" to the pet store worker I left without them and bought distilled water for my new fish on my way home. (I've become a mime. On my last trip to the grocery store I had to mime: mirror, candle-holder, broom, and water color paper. I'm sure that the Korean workers at this store now actively avoid me and have sent out the word that should I look like I may approach them, to not walk, but run away from me)  The store I stopped at only had refrigerated distilled water. My fish couldn't wait all those hours it would take for the cold water to reach room temperature! So I boiled some of the water and then put some of the cold water into it and made it into a nice fish temperate. Or so I thought. As soon as I put my new fish (still in its bag) into the new water in its fish bowl...I began to worry that I hadn't added enough cold water and I was going to boil my fish. I anxiously watched for at least ten minuets to make sure my fish was going to be ok. After I was satisfied,  I set it aside for a bit while I worked on decorating my house with the new things I had bought.

One of the things I bought was this awesome old fashioned 'Regulator' clock with the pendulum and everything.  I also bought this blue watering can to use as a vase for two reasons : 1) It's a pretty sweet watering can and I don't have any vases, and 2)  It has this saying printed on it - "P-Pot ~ It Assists to Enjoy Your Life". (!?!?) In addition to these new items, I also got a black board. So far, this black board has been the most fun new thing I have got yet. I definitely spent an hour last night playing with it.  I just couldn't decide on what I wanted my black board to say or look like! After finally settling on something for the moment ("She refused to be bored, chiefly because she wasn't boring." - Zelda Fitzgerald) I turned back to the fish situation.  I decided that it had sat acclimating to the water for long enough, so I cut open the plastic bag it came in and slowly slipped my new fish into its tank.

It immediately began to freak out. So I immediately began to freak out. 'Oh my god. What if I accidentally cut a little piece of the plastic bag off and it fell into its tank and now its going to die. What if I didn't rinse out all the soap I used when I cleaned its tank? What if the chlorine residue from washing out the tank is enough to kill it? How long did I wait till I added my fish to this new water? Did I wait long enough?! Oh no poor fish, please don't die on me!' My fish chilled out after a few minuets, luckily. This was good for me, but I was still worried about it. 'Is it too big for its tank? What if I bought a fish too big for the small tank I could afford? I don't want it to be uncomfortable. What if it jumps out of its tank and kills itself?' I hovered over it for a few minuets with a plate in my hand contemplating using it as a lid for the bowl.  I wondered if my fish was happy. I thought about googling 'How to tell if you have a happy fish'.  And then decided not too. I also thought that I should stop feeling stressed out over a fish. So I followed the example it had set, and chilled out also. So far he's doing good. He likes to flop around a lot but doesn't seem to have any suicidal tendencies.  Hopefully he will make it though the night and enjoy the sky I made for my room.  I bought some glow-in-the-dark stickers of the universe and have put them all over my ceiling and down the wall by my bed. I still think glow-in-the-dark is so super cool and I don't know why I ever stopped using them. I probably thought it was time for me grow up and leave those childish things behind me. Except now that I am a good measure past the halfway point to actually being all grown up, I'd like to have some of that childishness back again.

Day 7

It has been a super long day. I've been at work for twelve hours. I know the hours spent working on one's project that makes you money doesn't mean much to a seasoned work veteran but I am not such a seasoned worker! I just graduated college! And, since I am not on hourly pay anymore, I am just realizing that the time "they say" you can leave for work is just more of a suggestion of when you should have the work you have to have done,  finished by. Doing the office work and class preparations takes up most of my time, but isn't as draining as being in the classroom. Teaching the five, six, and seven year old students is so exhausting! The energy you need is amazing! I made the HUGE mistake of throwing one of the six year old boys off the stage onto a matt in the gym because suddenly I had a line of six year olds wanting to be picked up and thrown. At this point in the class, I still had twenty minuets to teach in a class that they were finding to be not that interesting, so if picking them up and throwing them would keep them occupied and kill five to ten minuets, then I was going to pick up and throw every student. Don't worry mothers and fathers out there, I made this educational. Every Korean child in my class now knows how to say "My Turn!" and "Pick Me Up!" and "That was fun!" in English now. (We are still working on Please.)  Before it was just, "Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher!" Over and over and over and over and over again. So. I am now going to 'hit the hay' (an idiom I had to teach to one of the more advanced classes) and get ready for another day.

Some Quick Korean Quirks:
- the sidewalk is made up of astroturf,  and it is as cool as it sounds. Soft Sidewalk-ing! The government must be big on healthy knees.
-sidewalks, like the highways, are divided into on-coming and going bike and pedestrian lanes. And like the  highways, I have found this exacting order for traffic and foot-flow to be totally suggestive to the public at large.
-they add brown rice to their green tea to make it less bitter and I'm totally addicted.
-Small towels are the standard favor to give at any celebratory party. Births, birthdays, bridal showers, tea parties, etc. Just embroider your name on it and it will become a perfectly acceptable gift for any occasion.

Day 6

In order to keep the E2-Visa that the Korean government has given me, I had to go the hospital to get a health exam. I had my blood taken, I was given a drug test, I had an eye exam, I was tested for color blindness, my blood pressure was taken, I was weighed and my height was taken, I had an upper body x-ray done, my waist was measured, my hips were measured, my bust was measured, I was given a hearing test, they took a picture of me and then I paid them seventy dollars. After all that, we, me and my not-so-happy-school-administrator-turned-translator, left the hospital and got back into our car parked in the coolest parking garage ever. To get to the parking garage you had to drive your car into an elevator and then the elevator would take you up (or down I suppose) to an available parking lot inside the building. And then to get back to the ground level, you drove your car back into the car elevator and it took you to the street. I thought this was awesome. You mean I can be in a car and in an elevator at the same time?! wow. Korea is cool like that. The doctor said that it would take two days before I got the results from my tests back, after which point I could move forward to getting my Korean Alien Registration Card. Having this card will help me do things like transfer money from my Korean bank to my American bank. Or help me join a gym. And just having a Korean ID will probably have benefits that I cant even think of right now because I don't know them. Speaking of things I don't know, I don't know, I never knew that dried squid, steamed garlic stems and fish cakes would become several of my favorite foods. All the teachers at the school eat lunch together every day and the school orders in lunch for us and the students. Because I don't know what any of the foods are or taste like, I always put a little bit of everything onto my tray. Most of the time the food is pretty good or alright. They always serve rice with beans and dried seaweed. The seaweed is one of my favorite parts of the meal, it's dry and salty, and more like a super thin chip then anything else. I've discovered that if you fold the seaweed around a ball of rice you can eat both the rice and the seaweed easier that way and its tasty! There is also this meat and potato dish that is really good along with all the soups and several baked and fried fish dishes. Every now and then there will be something that I really, really, like and one of those dished was the dried squid. It doesn't look like squid at all. Its clear and cut into these short thick strips and it is sticky and kind of gooey. And it is so good! The streamed garlic stems were also really delicious! I didn't know what they were so I had to ask, like most of the food I have placed in front of me. As is bound to happen, sometimes I eat something that I don't like, and when this happens and I don't know what it is, it's usually pretty bad. For example, for dinner today, one type of sushi was ordered in for all of us to eat ( many of the teachers have to stay late to teach later classes and others don't get off till late so many times we will end up having dinner together) which is really popular here, so they didn't get anything else. I tried it of course, and ehhh, wasn't that into it. I asked what it was, but no one would tell me (always a bad sign). Eventually one of the teachers told me it was rice (mixed with something, since the rice was black) stuffed into an intestine and then cut up into sushi shapes. That thick chewy outer intestine layer is really hard to get down the throat. The "sushi" also came with fish cake soup that I enjoyed so I did get to eat something. Utensils as we know them are a bit hard to find around here so I am so thankful that I am not a complete klutz when it comes to using chopsticks. (Thank you Chin family!!! I always think of you when I pick up my chopsticks, and am grateful that I'm not just learning how to use them!) I think that its a good thing that I don't ever know what I am eating as it gets me to try absolutely everything once. If I knew what some of the foods were I probably wouldn't even try them. And you never forget something you didn't like! However, the foods that I do recognize, (ie. breads!) are everywhere! I get fresh baked bread for my house everyday. It has to be that just-out-of-the-oven fresh taste because I have never had bread as delicious as this bread. And the fruits are so sweet, juicy and huge and fresh, cheap and convenient. Farmer's Market is not just one day a week, its everyday. And I'm still not used to it. You mean this fruit stand will be here tomorrow? Really? And the next day? Yes? This is awesome! If the school didn't feed me lunch and sometimes dinner, I would living off of a diet of fresh fruits, fresh bread and Carmel coffee. (Thanks Side Street!)

The Koreans

Are the Friendliest, Kindest People I have ever met. Period. I have been given peaches, rice cakes, and three thousand won (equivalent to 3 USD) by people walking past me on the street that want to talk me for a moment and then give me a gift. Or sit next to me on the bus and talk to me for a bit and leave me with some food. I have been given tours of libraries and gyms by just walking in the building. I only have to look at a map before someone stops to ask me if they can help me find my way. One of the teachers I work with heard me say I needed to go grocery shopping and went way out of her way to take me to the store, help me shop, then get me back on the right bus back home and even made sure that the bus driver and several other passengers knew to get me off the bus at the correct stop. None of these people really speak English by the way. Its amazing what you can get across to someone through body language. Every now and then someone will come along who speaks English and satiate everyone curiosity through translation. I learned to say hagwan, which means private school and that usually answers any lingering questions. I have REALLY got to learn some of this language!

My New Job

My first day teaching was today! Less then a week after I arrived and I already have a class to teach. I have absolutely been thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. Its a lot of work, mostly because I do not know what I am doing, since I have never taught before, but the other teachers are helpful and I've been given a ton of reading material to do to get me into the swing of things. It is pretty stressful. This school I am working for is still really new and they do not have a curriculum. So I have no material to be guided by. I just have to create class material out of thin air. At first this was absolutely terrifying. I have no idea what to teach a class let alone where to find material for classes. This isn't anything I have ever done before. And without anyone to guide me or tell me what to do I totally freaked out. Inside. But after sitting and reading and reading and going through old lesson plans and last months class materials, I began to get the outline of things. Still, Im not out of the woods and have a lot of learning to do inside and outside of the classroom. For example - I have a teacher's meeting to go to tomorrow, where I am supposed to present some material? I don't really know what I am supposed to be doing most of the time but so far have been able to pull it together at the last minuet. I'm guessing this will last for the next few weeks or so or until I am able to get into the rhythm of the work. Its hard enough starting a new job with a lot of responsibility and expectations without having to figure out how to live in a foreign country. Besides the obvious stress of not knowing what to do or how to do something while getting ready to stand in front of a class...I actually really enjoy the work. Once I am in the class and working with the kids, it's not stressful at all. And the other teachers that have observed my classes have given me really great feedback and suggestions. So, in time I may actually be a pretty good teacher! The children I am working with are ages 5-7. Half of my classes are absolute beginner who don't speak any English and I am working with them on their ABC's. The other class speaks more English but it is still pretty basic. All the kids are in kindergarten. And into my second class, I realized that its really only about having fun for them. So, thats what I do! I teach kindergarten skills, music class, social studies, Speak Out, listening and phonics. In other words I do arts and craft class, dance class, learn-about-other-cultures class, repeat-after-me-class, read-them-a-book class and ABC class. The kids actually really seem to like to me and listen to me, thankfully, so hopefully my classes continue to unfold in this positive manner. Anyway, much more to come on that subject.

Any teacher's out there reading this have any suggestions?! I could absolutely use any advice/tips/suggestions you have.