Today was pretty relaxed. I only had 3 classes, so I had time to think about next week and try to plan out some things. Next week I am teaching the same culture topics that I taught this week because I only see my culture groups once every other week. The only class I had to change things for is the textbook classes because I see them once a week. Apparently before I arrived, the students checked to see if I was going to be a female or male teacher, and some of the boys asked Niall if I was sexy!? Oh god. These kids are pretty funny. Also, I was telling the kids about my favorite movie and book (Harry Potter, naturally!), and I got compared to Emma Watson! Korean kids like to compare you to celebrities. Some are flattering, others not so much I hear. Did I tell you what my name means in Korean? I forget if I did or not. My name written out in hangul is one way to say "father" in Korean. I think that's pretty coincidental because my name (Abigail) means "a father's joy." Cute. But it makes the kids all laugh when I write my name in hangul for them. Oh well!
After school, I went home to wait for Gianni for a bit. We were going to cook tonight, but instead went out to get shabu shabu. It was delicious! The woman working at the restaurant probably thought we were idiots because she kept coming over to help us. We had no idea what to do. She put the broth on our table stove top to boil, and she mixed in some of the vegetables for us first. Then, when it boiled, we mixed in the thin cuts of meat, which take only a minute or so to cook. We also mixed in some hand-made noodles. It was soooo tasty. As we finished up, she brought over some rice with and veggies with a raw egg in it. She kept speaking Korean to us and pointing, but she realized we had no idea what she was saying, so she did it for us anyway. When you're done eating everything, and you only have a little broth left in the pot, you are supposed to put the heat on low and mix the rice, eggs, and vegetables in to cook for a second. You then get to eat that as a kind of small, creamy soup. So it's almost like the meal has two courses. It was delicious. Definitely one of my best meals in Korea so far.
We walk by this "riceteria" all the time on the way back from the subway, so we decided to go in and check it out tonight. They have all kinds of desserts all made of rice. A lot of the food and desserts, especially, are very gelatinous. We ate something like a chestnut jello thing as banchan (side dishes) at dinner, and these rice things were all gelatinous and very chewy. We ended up getting green tea Korean shaved ice (pabingsu). It has shaved ice at the bottom with green tea ice cream, red bean paste, and nuts on top. It was really tasty. We also got a blueberry rice cupcake. It looked the same as a normal cupcake, except it was cut open, like an orange, into sections for display. Because the cake is made from a rice base, it was really dense and chewy, not like regular cake. The last thing we got was a somewhat gelatinous rice cake with a brownie wrapped around it. It was good, but the rice cake center didn't have much taste. The rice cake at the center of the brownie was more like the normal rice cakes that are used in a lot of Korean meals--very dense and chewy. The actual cupcake made was not like regular cake; It had a similar chewy quality as normal rice cakes, so you could tell something was different.
As we left the "riceteria," we ran into one of my students! He full on bowed and everything. Adorable. He's a good kid who I've met a few times in class already. He contributes a lot in class and is pretty funny.
The First Week is OVER!!!
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