Waygooks Wandering

Since they don't celebrate Halloween in Korea, I've taken the opportunity to teach my kids about it, candy and all. The kids really like it. The swamp me for candy all the time. Some of them forget about saying trick or treat and just say "give me candy." Then I get to talk about being polite. I've been teaching it all week. Yesterday was actual Halloween though, so I put zombie makeup on my hand and on Niall's. The kids were loved it. They all wanted to touch it. At lunch, two boys came in and noticed it. Then, they wanted me to put some on them. I started, and soon after, 3 girls came in and wanted it too. I applied zombie makeup on 5 kids hands in 15 minutes! It was nuts! Some of them weren't that good, but oh well. One of the girls kept saying hurry. I was like I'M TRYING! Anyway, it was really cute, and they liked it.

On Wednesday, we talked about Halloween at teacher class then two of the teachers at my school went to coffee with Gianni and I. One of the English teachers really wanted to meet him, so we went. It was a realy nice evening. First, we went to coffee for a few hours then we went downtown and ate at Traveler's during special Halloween Quiz night. Hyun Joo came with us, and as far as I know, she's the first teacher from our school to see Niall do trivia. We came in 4th place and only 2 points off of 1st! Hyun Joo even got one of the answers for us! We may not have won in the end, but we won both of the beer challenges! First was a costume contest. No one really dressed up, but Hyun Joo had a cute horn headband, so Niall gave us the beer. The second challenge was a monster music mash up, and we named the most songs in the mashup. It was awesome! It was a really fun night.

For Halloween, Gianni and I were going to go to Costco, but I had to get my nails done for our engagement photo shoot tomorrow and didn't get back until later. Instead, we ate at Lotteria (like McDonalds) at Home Plus and bought candy and snacks. We watched The Poltergeist and Hocus Pocus. It was a relaxing and fun Halloween evening :)

*On an unHalloween related not, today I saw the cell phone portfolio that the students put their phones in at the beginning of the day. They explained that they don't get to keep their phones during the day; they have to put them in the portfolio slots. There's a special, big portfolio-like case for each class! They were shocked  to hear that they don't take the students' phones in the US. They said Korea is bad for doing it, and I explained what happens in class when students have phones. They disagreed, but it was a cut conversation with me and the girls in class. I'm amazed and glad that they do this!

As it's starting to get colder in Daegu--moving into fall--my apartment has been getting colder. When I moved in, I never learned to use the heating system, and my landlord told me to call back when it got colder, so they could show me. Last night, my coteacher came over and talked to the landlord for me to help me work out how to use it. My thermostat is located behind a patched section of the wall, so that's a little weird. I have to pull it back to get at the thermostat and controls. When we first switched it on, the thermostat didn't seem to work for some reason. The landlord then told us that it only comes on at 11pm. I think that was just the first night though because it was still on this morning. I'm at least hoping it was just tonight because I'm going to need it when I get home from work as it gets colder. It was soooooo nice waking up to heat and not freezing cold for once! I have had no desire to get up recently, so this was helpful. Also, heating in Korea is a system called "ondol," which is under the floor heating, so I kept walking across the floor hitting warm spots. Lovely morning already, and I only have 3 classes today--all before lunch!

We had another fantastic weekend! A lot of it was spent doing Halloween related things with the foreign community in Daegu. They don't celebrate Halloween in South Korea, so the waygooks have to do it for them.

Lish came to visit from Jinju this weekend. She arrived Friday night, and we headed downtown to get some food. I looked it up online, and apparently Daegu is famous for some sort of flat mandu (dumpling). We tried to go to a famous restaurant for that outside of downtown, but it was too late, and the restaurant was closed. So we walked downtown to try to get some food there. Banwoldang was like a ghost town! It was insane. We were walking around and all the shops and restaurants were closed, and there were hardly any people walking around. I know it was late, but it was a Friday night! So weird. We ended up at this food stall that Gianni and I have been meaning to try. It's always really busy. They sell fried things and duk boki mostly.

Hotteok

It's Korean fast food. I got some hotteok, which is the Korean pancakes stuffed with nuts, seeds, and a sugary syrup that Gianni and I tried and failed miserable to make last week. They are selling it around town now because it's a winter food, and the weather is getting colder. We got some mandu, flat mandu, and duk boki before going to get some ice cream at a place nearby. They get confused on ice cream menus here. They keep writing "cheese" flavors, like "cheese and raspberry." They mean cheese cake or something, but they sometimes get it mixed up. This place was strange though. Some of the flavors said cheese cake and others just cheese. We tried the orange and cheese just to be sure, and it tasted like creamsicle ice cream, so at least it wasn't like cheddar flavored or something. That would be nasty! After dinner, we went back home to rest because we had to get up somewhat early the next morning to meet Maria and Matthew and take the cable cars up Palgongsan Mountain.

Yes, we know how cheesy this is.

Palgongsan is a mountain in North Daegu. It has a lot of hiking trails, and there are a few Buddhist temples on it. It takes about 2 hours to get to by public transportation from our house because we're in South Daegu. We took the subway to Dongdaegu Station to meet up with Maria and Matthew at 10am, and then we all took the hour long bus ride together to the mountain. Bus drivers in Korea are INSANE! They drive like maniacs, and you put your life in your hands getting on them. We had to stand up for the entire ride there and back too, so it was doubly dangerous. Still, the trip to Palgongsan was worth it. We got to the base of the mountain and were a little mixed up trying to find the cable cars. We ended up hiking into the woods for just a second before realizing we were doing it wrong. The area at the base of the cable cars has tons of hotels and restaurants. It was a pretty busy place. We actually got there right on time though because, as we were finishing up our trip, we noticed a huge wave of people coming in. We found the cable car place, and the line wasn't long at all to get on a cable car and buy tickets--much nicer than when we did this in Seoul at Namsan mountain. The cable car ride was great! It was actually pretty long and, at times, steep. You got to go up with people just from your group, which was really nice. So Maria and Matthew and Gianni and I switched sides on the way up and down, so we could enjoy the view from all angles. When we got up there, you disembark yourselves. The views of all the mountains was AMAZING, especially with the beautiful fall foliage! There are two paths from the top of the mountain that you can take. One is called "Love trail" and the other one "Healing trail." Love trail is a kind of wooden structure built into the mountain. At the start of the trail is a
wooden tiger statue. You're supposed to buy a lock with a key and put the key in the tiger's mouth to test your love. If the tiger doesn't bite you, it's a good sign. Gianni and I ended up buying a lock without a key, so we couldn't do that one. Along the trail were places you can lock your lock. There were different stations for different kinds of love-- healthy love, beautiful love, eternal love, happy love. Gianni and I went for Happy Love :) . Healing Trail was more of a steep incline with rock stairs built in. We didn't go down too far because no one was really up for a good hike. Still, all the foliage was gorgeous. The weather has been much nicer in Daegu recently--cool and crisp like fall should be. We had lunch at the restaurant on top of the mountain. The hot soup was really nice to have on such a chilly day, and the view during lunch was amazing. After lunch, we headed back down the mountain on the cable cars. Matthew wanted to stop at Donghwa Temple. There are a series of temples on the mountain, but this one is supposed to be the main one. It's pretty close to the bottom, so the walk wasn't too long. There were two gates, and both gates had 4 huge, painted statues inside. I'm guessing they are supposed to be the temple guards or maybe they are Buddhist Gods? Not too sure, but they were really cool. The temple was decked out with lanterns all over, and there was even a lantern tunnel. After we got some good pictures, we headed back down the mountain to catch the bus and head home.

Although I really liked Palgongsan and thought it was extremely beautiful, I thought that the buildup of tourist related building and the huge number of people who were visiting the mountain kind of took away from the natural beauty of the mountain. It reminded me of the Chinese poetry I read in my Asian Humanities class last year, all these people trying to get away and experience the beauty and serenity of nature and yet they were kind of making it impossible to truly get that feeling. I still had a very good time though and definitely want to go back in the winter to see the mountains covered in snow. 

people wanted to take pics with us

Lish and I went downtown for a bit on the way home, but Gianni was too tired. Lish loves shopping, so I showed her all the best places. We also bought a few more things to finish off the zombie portion of our halloween costumes for that evening's zombie walk. I found an easy zombie makeup tutorial, so I needed some glue and a little more face paint. As soon as we got home, we had to rush to get our makeup on in time. Gianni and I were both going to be zombie dinosaurs because we were also going to a onesie party afterwards. Using the information from the tutorial video, I made really awesome and realistic looking rotting flesh out of toilet paper, glue, and facepaint! It was awesome! Who knew it was that simple. I'm going to do it again on Thursday to freak out my students. I did some on my hand, and then I made my hand and forearm look kind of gray. Then, I did the same thing on my face, and I put my hair down, so I looked nuts. It was awesome! Gianni and Lish also did some on their hands. We had to rush though, or we all would have liked to do a bit better. We met up with the other zombie people by Daegu Station to start the walk to Banwoldang. It's not a far walk typically, but there were scaring stops, and we were zombies, so we had to slow walk. It was awesome! A huge group of people walking through the busiest area of downtown. Everyone was staring and wanting to take pictures. There were girls that were so afraid that they actually didn't want to stand next to me to take pictures. Their boyfriends had to coax them. Korean girls are so ridiculously easy to scare! Some people were going into stores and just staring at the people inside to freak them out. Ladies  actually closed and locked up their shops to keep people out. That's how scared they were! My scaring technique was to walk up behind people and wait for them to turn around. It was hilarious! They would turn around and just scream! Once, I went into a coffee shop. One girl scared the people behind the counter. I went up to a mother and daughter sitting down and scared them a bit. Then I leaned against a little wall. The people on the other side of the wall were only looking at what was happening on the street, and when they turned around and saw me, they freaked! It was so good. After the walk, we stopped in on the onesie party at MF Bar. The owner and all the bar staff had on cute costumes, and the owner was carrying an adorable little dog with pigtail. Typically, I don't like dogs like that, but this one was so darn cute. Then we went to Bunny's and had a drink in a bag and just hung out with some of the other zombies before heading home in a cab. Gianni and I had to get up mega early to go to Seoul with our Taekwondo academy the next morning.

It was really fun scaring Koreans downtown. That sounds weird, but rest assured they were also having a good time. I must be on a million different Korean facebook pages I took so many photos with people. I think the best part was watching some of the other zombies go into the shops and freak people out. A lot of people wanted to touch the wound I had on my hand and were asking us how we made it. The zombie walk was definitely some of the most fun I've had in Korea so far. There were so many awesome costumes and the reactions were just priceless. I wish there was a another one this week. 

Gym Hae Dong represent!

Grand Master Kim, Master Hwang's master, came back to South Korea for a visit, so all the gyms in his Taekwondo association came to visit, or sent people to visit, the main Taekwondo branch about an hour outside of Seoul. Grand Master Kim works in Boston now, so his English is very good. Before meeting with everyone, Master Hwang brought us to the traditional Korean area of Seoul called Insadong. We went shopping a bit and ate a noddle/bibimbap lunch. I learned that jeon is the name for the savory Korean pancakes. We had a spinach jeon and a kimchi jeon. It's still funny to me that you can't find stupid Korea souvenirs anywhere in Daegu, but they are everywhere in Seoul. Master Hwang also got us all ice cream horns. They are literally cones shaped like curly horns, filled with ice cream. They were delicious. The cone is just the right thickness that you can break it without it cracking into a million pieces and making a mess all over the place. After Insadong, we drove an hour to get to the Taekwondo gym. We arrived a half hour late, just as we were demonstrating chonggi to the Grand Master. Chonggi is the first and simplest form. After demonstrating, we split into small groups to practice whatever form we were working on. This next one is a bit harder because it involves a spin and then you do one arm with a high block and one arm with a middle block at the same time, and I always get mixed up about which arm goes where. Oh well. I am trying to learn to be more coordinated at least. After practice, we demonstrated the forms to the Grand Master. He said beginners need to work on having sharp, precise movements. Taekwondo is very much about quick motions. He did say that I looked like I had the right idea in that respect! After practice, we went out to a restaurant across the street. Master Hwang had some sort of taekwondo test with the Grand Master, which he passed! Hooray Master Hwang! I felt like I was sleeping the whole day because I was so exhausted. Every time we got in the car, I fell asleep. I did it again on the way home. It is about a 4 hour drive from Seoul to Daegu. We got back home around 11:30pm, and one of the other students was nice enough to drive us home.

Seoul was really fun. I feel like most of the trip was spent in the car, but it was still nice. We got to know some of the crew from Taekwondo a little better and ate lots of great food. Master Hwang is a really fun and nice guy so any trip with him is a good trip. He took us to lunch in Insaedong which was just so fun. Simple bibimbap and noodle soup, but there was so much bonchon and Korean scallion pancakes. Abbi accidentally introduced herself the way a king would and Master Hwang and the rest of the group laughed for a good ten minutes. 

It was another great weekend here in Korea. This week and next week, I'm teaching my students about Halloween, giving them candy and wearing zombie makeup. I'm very excited!!!

On Thursday, we had a talent show at school, and Friday was sports day. The talent show was very fun. Students sang and danced up on a stage that was constructed in front of the school. Some girls reenacted the video for that song my lip-gloss is "poppin," which was pretty impressive, and some boys did AMAZING break dancing. 

Sports day was awesome too. I didn't know when stuff was starting, so my co-teacher and I were a little late to the beginning of the events, but I still got to see a lot of cool stuff. First off, all the classes had their own team uniforms: team batman shirt, team mario onesie, team kill bill, team pajamas, etc. Each class did a coordinated dance together in front of a team of judges and then went on to do a relay race, jump rope contests, and lots of other cool stuff. 

 NOTE: I have videos to go with this

My sports day is during the spring semester, so I didn't get to see any of this yet. I think it's really cool that they do talent shows and sports days to give the students a little bit of a break in such a high-stress environment. A bunch of our friends' schools did sports day/talent shows around the same time as Gianni's school did.

I was very happy to get my first letter while in Korea today! It was a save the date for Emily's wedding! Fortunately, I think I might actually be able to attend. It's next August during our summer vacation. If I stay on for another year, that will be about the time when I will be coming home for a visit. If we decide not to stay, I'll be coming how around that time anyway. So really fantastic news! :) Congratulations, Em! She said the postage to mail a letter wasn't much worse than mailing from Canada to the US either, so that's good knowledge to have. Send me letter everyone!!!


For the last few days, students have been setting up their artwork all over the school. Today, there was a sort of festival where parents could come see the art. Let me tell you, these students are so talented! The artwork was beautiful, and I was really impressed. It was nice to have a bit of color to look at all over the school also, as opposed to the usual plain building. I wanted to share a few of the photos I took of the art. If you click the picture, you can see a larger version.

Today was also really cool because the home economics class made hamburgers and all the teachers got one! They were actually really good. Kudos kids! Keep that food coming. Also, I was asked to edit the students' articles for the English school newspaper.  They are interesting to say the least. Some part aren't that bad, but other parts you can tell that a student tried to use Google Translate. Oh well. Nothing too good to mention on that front yet. I'll keep you posted. I wrote an article about myself for the newspaper, so I'm excited to see the final product when it comes out.

Yesterday was my birthday! :)

When I got to school, I had a very sweet present on my desk with a card from my main co-teacher, Sun Mee. She gave me a cute pair of little earrings with shell in them. They are cute, and I have them on today. It was very thoughtful of her to do something. Later on, Niall gave me a brownie cake that he made, which was also really sweet of him. He hates it when I call him sweet or adorable though, so we coined the term "mandorable," so he can be nice and manly at the same time. Also, when I turned on my computer in the morning, Google's logo was changed to cakes with candles. I thought it was a coincidence, like my birthday was the same as some famous person's and Google was celebrating. Turns out, the birthday logo was for me! I put my cursor over the logo, and it said "Happy Birthday Abbi!" I was a little creeped out at first, but I guess Goggle was just trying to be nice.

I only had one class yesterday because I had to go observe someone's open class in the afternoon. It was nice to get a little break on my birthday. I spent some time during the day planning activities for the summer and winter camps that I will be teaching later on. Right after lunch, I headed out to the school I was observing at, and it turns out that it was Grace's new school. It was nice to see her again after we got coffee the other week. Sun Mee gave me very clear directions about how to get there, and it was no problem. It did take like 50 minutes on the bus though. Quite a hike! Chris, the teacher we were watching, uses the same book we use at my school, except he has a bit more freedom to teach the kids than I do. He has to teach the vocabulary from the chapter, but from there he can do activities that he wants to do. I have to stick with the boring activities in the textbook that my students and I all hate. Ugh! I'm trying to bend the rules a bit, but I've only been a teacher for a month, and I'm still getting adjusted. Hopefully, I can be more creative in lessons in the future. His was great though. The powerpoint was very clear and nice looking, and he played games that really helped the kids practice the language. They had to direct a blind-folded student from their group through a minefield. The activities in the book are okay for listening, but there are no real production activities to get the kids practicing on their own. It's all teacher-led stuff, which can get boring. Chris did a really good job giving the kids time to speak to reinforce the vocabulary, and I hope I can inject some of that into my classes--bending the rules, not breaking. After the class, we met with Chris and the DMOE representative and talked about how things went. Then I took the bus back with the Australian guy who was watching the class with me. He also lives near Sangin, and Chris and I will be going to his school next week. Both Chris and the other guy were supposed to be at my class last week, but Chris was on an overnight school trip and the other guy's school forgot to print the right paper to make sure he came to mine. Woops!

I got home only about 10 minutes before Gianni did, but he came home and surprised me with a Baskin Robbin's Ice Cream cake! It was yummy!!! It came in a Styrofoam box, and they give you dry ice with it to keep it cold. Honestly, I had more fun playing with the dry ice than eating the cake! They also gave us candles, some matches with pink tips, some pink spoons, and a pink party hat because Gianni told them it was a girl's birthday. Korea has such amazing service. The US really needs to get on board.

For my birthday dinner, I invited some of our orientation friends as well as some taekwondo friends. It was Niall, Sian, Maria, Matthew, Da Eun, Max, and Serena. I had a really great, but extra spicy dinner! We went to a place Niall suggested where you can have traditional Korean jjimdak, which is like a chicken stew, as well as curry. We ended up with those dishes and a salad pizza. The food was good, but even though Da Eun assured me she ordered the non-spicy version, it was REALLY spicy! Still, I enjoyed the flavors. My friends were good enough to pick up the tab for me, and splitting the three dishes, the price didn't turn out to be that bad per person. After dinner, Maria, Matthew, and Sian left, and the rest of us headed out to a place Da Eun suggested. It is mostly for drinking, but with the drinks you're supposed to get some food. This place is apparently famous for jeon (전)--assorted fried, savory foods. We had fried mushrooms, fried spam, and fried fish among many other things. Most of it was really tasty. Since I like fruity drinks, Da Eun suggested I try citrus makkoli (Korean rice wine). It was actually really tasty. We also got some plain makkoli, and Da Eun mixed it with cider (the name for soda that isn't coke, in this case it was something like 7 up), which was a really good combination.
It was a really nice birthday dinner. I hope everyone else enjoyed it too. I tried to make sure I was talking to everyone, especially Da Eun because she can speak English, but definitely not when a bunch of native speakers are talking together. I served as a bit of a translator. Still, it was awesome to have her there, and she was really great to help with translating the waiters and ordering food.

When we got home, I had one more piece of cake before bed. It was a lovely 23rd birthday! Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes :)

This past weekend was the weekend before my birthday, and we did all kinds of fun things!

On Saturday, we did some shopping downtown during the day. We went to a craft store someone had recommended to me called Esdot. There, we got some face paint for the Zombie Walk we are going to do in Daegu next weekend. Should be fantastic. We also went to my new favorite store, Hot Tracks. They sell a whole range of random things from stationary and cards to toys to accessories. It's a wonderful place. At the underground mall, I got a few shirts. One of them is gray with embroidered faces in all different colors. The faces have handle-bar mustaches and top hats. I also got a pink sweater with cat faces all over it and a stripped sweater with a cute cat face sewn on the pocket. At a boutique shop downtown, I got a plaid skirt that flows and is different lengths on the side than it is in the back and front. To go with it, I got a knit, wool, off-white sweater with brown, suede patches on the shoulders. It's an adorable outfit, and I wore it Monday just to show off. I needed to satisfy my urge to shop. There are so many cute clothes in Korea. I know my mom thinks I'm crazy for some of my recent purchases, but this is Korean fashion--I'm telling you!

That night, we scheduled a night hike of the mountain in the southern area of Daegu, Apsan. If you are driving on the highway, you can see an archway glowing on top of the mountain. Turns out that is a lookout point at the top of Apsan where you can see all of Daegu and the surrounding mountains. We planned to meet up with our friends at around 7pm. Gianni and I got there first because the train stop for the mountain is actually fairly close to our house as we live in south Daegu. You have to walk about 15 minutes to get to the entrance to the path up the mountain, and it feels like you're hiking just to get up there! When we arrived, Maria, Matthew, Jackie, and Stefanie were still waiting for a train from downtown, so we decided to go to a coffee shop to wait for them. There isn't much in the way of coffee shops up on the hill at the base of the mountain. Most places were restaurants. Also, the buildings around there were so weird! They were the least Korean buildings I've seen here. Some looked like they were Italian style architecture with red, clay roofs! They were also big places, normally spaced apart, and not very tall. It was crazy. I felt like I had been transported somewhere else! Gianni and I found kind of a shady coffee shop. It was upstairs, and we were directed to a private booth to have our coffee. We sat down and the host pulled down a shade so no one could see in. It was really bizarre. Sometimes you see this with restaurants, but is privacy really a concern with coffee? After sharing an iced coffee, we met up with 4 of our hiking group members. It then took us 40 more minutes to figure out where Sian and Marie were. They were the only two of the group to take the bus, so no one knew where they had gotten off. Turns out they got off at the wrong stop pretty far from the base of the mountain and had to walk a bit to get to us. While we waiting, we got to enjoy some nice outdoor music that some ajushis were playing at an outdoor seating area. The spectators were loving it--dancing and clapping. Eventually, we collected all the members of our group.

Then we had to find the actual trail to get up the mountain. It took a bit of doing, but we found it. It's about an hour long hike to the top of the mountain and was pretty steep almost the whole time. The first half of the trail is cemented and well-lit with street lights. There were people hiking along with us, so we weren't the only 8 people hiking at all. The half way marker is a Buddhist Temple built on the mountain. From there it got a little creepy because we had to pull out our flashlights and walk up an unlit, uneven stone staircase the rest of the time to get to the top. There were still some other people hiking, but it was a little strange at first. After a few stops and a good leg workout, we got to the top of the mountain where the glowing archway is. There were tons of people sitting up there, eating snacks and enjoying the view. It was an amazing site to behold! We could see all the lights of Daegu and all the mountains that surround it. You can see the mountains from the ground, but you can't fully appreciate that Daegu is actually in a valley until you see it from above. It was gorgeous. We could see Daegu Tower all lit up. I still really want to go there and check out E-World as well. Oh well. Plans for another time. We took some really nice photos and had a snack together before making the arduous trip down the mountain. Some of the group had bad knees, which made the walk down a bit hard. When we got down the mountain, we still had enough time to make it home on the subway before it closed.


On Sunday, I decided I wanted to go to Daegu Art Museum (DAM) where they were having a really cool exhibit. I'd seen some nice photos and wondered what the exhibit was about. We had to go kind of far to get there. You go to Grand Park Station, which is on the other subway line, and then get a shuttle from there to the museum itself. The museum is right next to a wedding convention hall, so at first we were worried that Koreans dressed up to go to museums. Then we realized that half the people on the shuttle were going to a wedding. Phew! It turns out that the DAM was only built in 2011, so it's new. It's a small museum that really only houses one or two exhibits at a time. We paid 5,000 won each to see the exhibit, which is a reasonable price. The exhibit we saw was called A Dream I Dreamed by Kusama Yayoi. She is a woman in her 80's who suffers from hallucinations and OCD, and her artwork definitely reflected that. Her work was incredible. There was a mixture of video, paintings, and sculptures. It was really interesting to be able to see the world as she does. Some rooms were an explosion of color and others were black and white. She also uses mirrors and light a lot to reflect and make space look larger than it is.

When you enter the exhibit, there is a huge open area with many different sized red blown-up plastic balls with white polka dots. Some of them are huge. Some were hanging from the ceilings and others were on the ground. One ball, you could look into. I believe there were mirrors and lights in there. Another ball, you could walk into. We went inside and it was made to look bigger than it was. Mirrors made 3 walls, and there was another smaller ball hanging inside the room.

There were a few rooms of paintings where Yayoi's OCD and hallucinations definitely came through. The patterns in her paintings were repeated over and over in such detail. In the middle of one room with all black and white pattern paintings was a case. You had to peak inside, and there were mirrors all over a box. Lights of different colors were being shown in to create different patterns inside, reflecting off the mirrors. It was really interesting--like a kaleidoscope.


There was another room set up to look like a normal living room in a home. It had polka dots of different colors projected on the walls and was in complete black lighting. Similarly, there was a white room with white, flower sculptures. The room was polka dotted in various colors as were the sculptures, so they kind of blended in with the walls.

One of the video art pieces was called "Addicted to Suicide." It was a video of the artist speaking (don't know what she was saying--not in English) projected on one wall. Behind her it was like a kaleidoscope again--different colors and patterns kept changing. The cool thing was that the video was on one wall, and the two walls next to the video wall were both mirrors, so it made it look like the video was tiled against a long wall and kept going on in either direction forever.


In the same room was a piece called "Stairway to Heaven." It was a ladder with lights on it that changed color. On the top and bottom of the ladder were mirrors so that if you looked up or down, it looked as though the ladder kept going on forever.

We then walked into a box completely covered in mirrors, even the ground had water on it, so that the lights would reflect. There were hanging colorful lights that changed colors all over the place in there, and they would reflect off the mirrors to make the box look bigger than it was. It was really beautiful.


Upstairs, she created a sculpture of 3 giant pumpkins with cool patterns on them. My favorite room was a completely white room made to look like a normal room of a house. Children could take a sticker and put it anywhere they wanted in the room, so by now, the room is completely covered in colorful, polka dots.

Infinity Net

Her colorful paintings were also really interesting. She uses similar patterns as with the black and white ones, and they are very repetitive. She has a whole series called "Infinity Net." They are all two different colors in a netting pattern, and all of them seems to have a texture in the paint. They are very cool.

There was also a room filled with the same sized shiny, metal balls next to a room housing a penis boat. It was literally what it sounds like. It was a boat made of penises and a picture of the penis boat was tiled on the walls around the room. Boy was it interesting. Geez!

The museum itself was really cool. I'm glad we got to see the exhibit. The DAM is located on a hill overlooking the city, so the views from the second and third floor of the building were stunning. You could see the mountains in the distance. It was a really nice way to end the weekend.

Friday was the second day of Korean class for Gianni and I. I asked to be moved into his class because it was a higher level. The first level class is just learning how to read, which I already know how to do. The teacher made me read a few words to prove I could actually read, but I passed! I'm MUCH happier in this class. I'm really dedicated to learning the language, and I actually think it's fun to be able to read an alphabet that is made up of different letters than English.

The topic of the second Korean class was introductions. We learned to tell someone our names, where we are from, and what our job is. We also learned some grammar points in relation to saying these things. There were several cases where if a word ended in a vowel you would then write one thing versus if it ended in a consonant you would write something slightly different. It reminded me of how the French language modifies grammar rules to make words flow more easily together.

So here's the basics of what I know about Korean. Every word is made up of syllables. Syllables have to go consonant, vowel, consonant. Sometimes they go ㅇ vowel consonant. ㅇ at the start of a syllable is like a placeholder, but at the end of a syllable it's a consonant that sounds like -ng. Other times, syllables can go consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant.

Here are the basic consonants: ㅂ(makes a B noise), ㅈ(makes a J noise),ㄷ (makes a D noise), ㄱ(makes a G noise, or a K noise if it comes at the end of a syllable),ㅁ (makes an M noise), ㅅ (makes an S noise, a T noise at the end of a syllable),ㄴ(makes an N noise),ㄹ(makes an R noise, an L noise at the end of a syllable),ㅇ (nothing noise at the start but an -ng at the end of the syllable),ㅎ (makes an H noise),ㅊ (makes a CH noise),ㅋ (makes a K noise),ㅌ (makes a T noise),ㅍ (makes a P noise).

The basic vowels are: ㅏ(makes an A noise),ㅑ(makes an ya noise),ㅓ(makes an aww noise--spelled in English here that's "eo"),ㅕ(makes a yaww noise--"yeo"), ㅗ (makes an O noise), ㅛ (makes a yo noise), ㅜ (makes a U noise), ㅠ(makes a yu noise), ㅡ (makes an eu noise--like "ehhh that's gross"), ㅣ(makes an E noise),ㅐ(makes an AE noise--like ay), ㅒ(makes a yae noise--like yay),ㅔ(makes a eh noise--like the E in pen),ㅖ(makes a yeh noise).

There are 2 number systems in Korean. One is straight Korean, used for counting and some other stuff. The other is based on Chinese, and it is used for money and other stuff. Numbers: 1- hana (하 나)/il (일), 2- dul (둘)/i (이), 3- set (셋)/sam (삼), 4- net (넷)/sa (사), 5-daseot (다섯)/o (오), 6- yeoseot (여 넛)/yuk (육), 7- ilgob (일 곱)/chil (칠), 8- yeodeolb (여 덟)/pal (팔), 9- ahob (아 홉)/gu (구), 10-yeol (열)/chip (십).

I find it easier to correctly pronounce Korean words when I'm reading the actual Korean letters instead of the romanized, English version of the Korean words.

To introduce myself, I say "My name is Abbi": cheo nun Abbi ay yo or 처 논 아 비 예 요. 처 (sounds like chaw) is the word for I, and 눈 (sounds like nun) is the Korean topic marker. It tells you the sentence is about the person saying "I." 아 비 is my name in Korea--broken down it is A (which sounds more like ahh than A) BI. The ay yo or 예 요  is like a "to be" verb. Almost like the "is" in the sentence. If the syllable before it ends in a vowel, like this one does because my name ends with an I or 이, then you write 예 요 at the end of the sentence. If it ends in a consonant, you write 이 에 요. If I want to say where I am from, everything stays the same in the sentence except that instead of my name, I write mi gook saram or 미 국 사 람 in the middle. Mi gook (the first two syllables in the last sentence) means America or USA. The last syllable in the last sentence is saram, which means person. So that's how you say American. If I just said mi gook, I would be saying that I am America. Because saram ends with a consonant, I have to then write 이 에 요 at the end of the sentence for the to be verb. The process is the same if I want to say what my job is. The sentence stays the same except for I take out mi gook saram and add yeonga seon saeng nim or 영 아 선 생 님. The first two syllables mean English--yeonga. The last three syllables means teacher--seon saeng nim.

So that's most of what I know so far. I'm excited to learn more. Korean is really fun! Next week's topic is ordering food at restaurants, so maybe I'll finally not have to sound like a bumbling idiot, pointing at things when I was food. Hooray!

It is finally getting to be fall in Daegu. The weather is colder, and I have to wear a jacket. It's nice not to feel like I'm melting every second of the day.

Today, I had 5 classes of the 7 periods of the school day, culminating in my open class. All day, my co-teachers kept asking about my open class and how I was feeling. It was sweet and very encouraging. They all said "Don't be nervous. You will do great." So it came time to teach my superstition open class, and there must have been some sort of miscommunication because there were no other EPIK teacher there! I believe 2 male EPIK teachers were supposed to come watch, and I have no idea why they were there. The only person who came was a Korean English teacher from another school who the DMOE set as a supervisor. At least she was there. Niall watched my class as well.

Despite the confusion, I think it went really well. I managed my time perfectly. We finished all the activities and the bell rang right on time. I also think the activities were good and the students understood the objective. My co-teacher, and I worked well together also. The DMOE person said that it was clear I have a passion for teaching. She said I could work on giving the students more talking time and explaining directions to activities more clearly and using demonstration. Both of these critiques I definitely agree with and have noticed in myself. Some of the topics don't lend themselves to student activities and things like that, but I'll try my best. There was one boy in class who is typically kind of a jokester but also really bright and talkative. I asked for examples of superstitions and all I understood was "fire" and "pee." I had never heard of a superstition involving those two things, but we got there eventually. Apparently in Korea, if a child plays with fire or matches, they will wet the bed at night. Probably something parents made up to keep their children from hurting themselves. I had never heard this before, and I think it made the boy feel confident to explain it to me, even if it took me a bit to understand. It was a really nice teaching moment.

Overall, I think the outcome was great. Now, I just hope that they don't make me do it again because no one came to watch it! UGH!

Today, I was lucky enough to get to practice my lesson for my open class tomorrow. I'm teaching a grade 3, which is 9th grade, in middle school. My classes get separated into A, B, and C levels according to the students' abilities, and I'm teaching a A level class. My lesson is all about superstitions around the world. It has to be a good demonstration of coteaching, which is the only tough part. At my school, the Korean teacher mostly helps with class management, which is helpful in itself. There isn't really a ton of team teaching going on though. But the teacher I am working with tomorrow and I have worked really hard planning this lesson and thinking it through. I made the rough sketch, and she has helped me fine-tune it all. I'm actually really confident in the way it has turned out. I think, as long as I execute it well, it will be a really good lesson. As I said, I was able to practice twice today. The first time was with a different teacher on a B level class. I went really slowly and barely finished any of the activities. After that, I had a class with the teacher I will be doing the real thing with tomorrow on an A level class, so it was a better model of what it should be like tomorrow. Having just taught the lesson and run out of time, I was worried, so I rushed a bit. We ended up with 10 minutes to spare at the end of the lesson! I had them play the final game one more time in a different way, and I had another game already planned just incase, but still, not the best time management either. So my thought is that since I had one class that was too slow and one class that was too fast, tomorrow's class will be just right! It worked for Goldie Locks at least. I have a skit planned with the coteacher where we talk about how the US believes 13 is an unlucky number, but in Korea, people think 4 is an unlucky number. After that, we brainstorm some superstitions. Then we do a matching game where I give them random superstitions, and they have to guess which country that superstition is from. I'm trying to demonstrate the cultural aspect of superstitions--every culture has at least a few unique superstitions. After that, we go into a BINGO game where they walk around the room and find another student who either believes or has heard of a superstition on the paper. The first student to get 4 different names in a row wins the BINGO. If there is still time left, I will play a game where I put a picture of a superstition on the TV screen. One student sits on a chair with his or her back to the screen, and the other students have to give him or her clues to guess the superstition. I hope it all works out well, but I'm feeling good about it.

Last night, Gianni and I went to taekwondo, and we had our belt tests. Master Hwang sat down in a chair in front of us, and we performed il jang or the first chapter poomsae. We also had to do easy no-contact sparring with a partner. There are certain steps you do. It's not just free-form sparring. We did really well, and Gianni and I both got our yellow belts! I'm so happy not to have a white belt anymore. It's nice to have at least some colored belt. After taking our test and passing, Master Hwang ties the new belt around you and shakes your hand and stuff. It's very cute and nice. The standards for passing the test to get yellow belt aren't very high because everyone is new at that stage, but even still, it's nice! After the test, Master Hwang taught us the proper technique for il jang--more than just the basics. It's good to know. Then, we practiced the other beginner poomsae, chongi, as it is used in self defense. All the moves in taekwondo can be used as self defense, but it's hard to think about that when you are performing the poomsae as a set of steps, almost like a dance. So he wanted to get us thinking about the moves as actual blocking and kicks and punches. It was interesting.

This is the first time we've seen Master Hwang since I got a text message completely in Korean last week from him. I discerned from the 3.6kg that his new daughter had been born. She's adorable! They are waiting for Master Hwang's father to give her a name. In Korea, the grandfather on the father's side gives the children names. This got us in a whole discussion about name meanings with kids in the class. One boy's first name means "talking" and his family name means "no," so his name means "no talking!" LOL! Good name.

Colorful Daegu is the slogan for the city. It is plastered around here on anything and everything. Yun Kyeong (Carrie) from Taekwondo told me about the Colorful Daegu Festival the last time we were in class. I was disappointed because I thought we were going to have to miss it because we were in Jinju for the lantern festival this weekend. I'm really happy that we got to go yesterday though!

We got off the train from Jinju on Sunday evening, and we went downtown to try to find the textbook for the new Korean class we started on Friday. Unfortunately, both of the large bookstores in Daegu were sold out of the book, so we have to order it online. I'm glad we decided to go downtown though because we got to see everything going on. We met up with Yun Kyeong by the Colorful Daegu parade route. First, we were hungry, so Yun Kyeong took us for dinner at a sushi restaurant. We got all you can eat sushi for one hour, and there was a buffet section with drinks, salad, desserts, and soups as well. The sushi was really good, and I'm glad we know that exists now. IT was only about 16,000 won per person. After dinner, we walked back to watch the Colorful Daegu Parade. Daegu is
really trying to promote multiculturalism I think. First was the Daegu Sharing Life Festival, and now, this parade was trying to demonstrate cultures from around the world. During the parade, dub step electronic music was played in the background and no one seemed to question it! So crazy. I had no idea what was going on during most of the parade. It seemed like a lot of things within Daegu were represented, including schools, other festivals, and organizations. It was definitely not a cohesive parade. There were so many kinds of costumes and floats and things happening. There were lights along the parade route, an MC announcing what was coming up next, and fake snow coming down all over the place. It was a pretty interesting sight to behold.


After the parade, we walked down to the small stage where Yun Kyeong's friend's band would be playing a few songs. The band is called JJJ, and they do sort of a funky fusion of Korean and Western music. Really cool to listen to. There were two Koreans and two Americans in the band. On the way down to the stage, we caught a street performance involving two people dressed as large aliens dancing to the music created by people playing different sections of what looked like a parade float they built. It wasn't part of the parade though! It was really weird, but cool. We also caught a comedy performance after JJJ played. It was a crazy dude that was sort of talking and singing and wearing a really wild shirt. I had no idea what was going on, but I still found it hilarious because of what he was doing. I'll post some videos from the festival.

After the performance, we walked down "art street" and bought some hand-made crafts. I got a pretty bracelet and a robot love necklace, and Gianni got some pins of the little characters from the space invaders game. I'm really glad we went downtown even though we were tired after just getting back from Jinju. The Colorful Daegu festival was a great time. I really love living here, and it was nice to appreciate that for a bit.

This weekend was the Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival. Nam is the name of the river in Jinju, and gang

is the word for river in Korea. Yudeung mean lantern. So this was the lantern festival on the Nam river in Jinju. We stayed with my friend, Lish, from my TEFL class, and she also had Michelle, who we met at the Daegu Body Painting Festival, staying with her. Gianni and I didn't have to get up that early on Saturday because the train was leaving at around 11am. We realized after booking train tickets that the bus is really the better way to get to Jinju, but it didn't matter too much. The train is comfortable and fast too. We arrived at the Jinju train station, which has a hanok style exterior, and we had to take a 7,000 won taxi ride to the Emart grocery store that is near Lish's apartment to meet her. We quickly dropped our stuff at her apartment and then went out for lunch. She took us out for dak galbi, which we realized is what we ate with Maria and Matthew before the movie. It is marinated chicken with fried rice and cheese. It was just as delicious the second time, but a bit more spicy. After lunch, we went down to the festival site by the river. Going to these festivals and things has made me notice a huge gap in the souvenir market in Korea. No t-shirts with Everland written on it, no mask dance t-shirts in Andong, and no lantern festival t-shirts in Jinju! This would NEVER happen at home. Very strange. I need to corner this market somehow I believe.