Waygooks Wandering

These past few weeks, we've had a lot of "lasts." I finished teaching on Gianni's birthday and the last day of school was the following day. Gianni finished his camp as well as a high school camp that week. This week, I finished my camp, which ran from Monday the 27th to Wednesday the 29th. On Saturday, August 25th, we had a "last" that I was really not excited for because it was the last time that our group of close friends in Korea (The Gu Crew) would be seeing each other all at the same time. Due to all of our different vacation schedules, that was the last meet-up we could really have all together. It's not too terrible because we will be seeing each other in smaller groups until we actually leave Korea. Even though it was marking an end of an era, we had a really fantastic going away party together. We planned an entire day doing all the activities we all love doing in Daegu.

Our day started out at 11am for brunch at the Lazy Diner. After that, we stopped at our favorite place

Ticket to Ride at Norita Board Game Cafe

 in the city: Norita Board Game Cafe! We split into two groups and played two games each. Gianni, Matthew, Marie and I played Settlers of Catan while Sian, Thomas, Maria, and Ben played Ticket to Ride. Then we switched it up a bit and Marie, Ben, Maria, and I played Splendor, and Gianni, Sian, Thomas, and Matthew played Carcassone. Just a quick few games before heading to the photo booth studio to get some sticker photos for posterity. We got 4 sets taken: boys only, girls only, couples, and whole group. It was really hard to fit all of us into the photo booth together, not to mention really hot! Daegu has been so humid recently, and the photo booth studio wasn't air conditioned. We scanned and emailed all the photos to everyone, but we also cut them apart and everyone got to take a physical copy of one of each set

Playing Bishi Bashi

home. The photo booth studio was really hot, but someone discovered an air conditioned arcade downstairs! Gianni and Matthew, Maria and I, and Sian and Marie went against each other at Mario Kart. Gianni and I are proud to say that we both won our matches. Maria and Matthew are really good at the Wii version, so it was a fabulous victory on our parts. Gianni and Maria played a zombie shooting game together. Matthew beat Thomas at the basketball game. I also got one last shot at my favorite arcade game ever: Bishi Bashi! It's a Japanese game where you have to complete a series of mini-games. You have three lives, and I never make it that far. Maria, Sian, and I started the game, but Ben subbed-in for Sian later on. Most

Glow Bowling at Star 300

 of the games are really easy. There is a demonstration beforehand. There are three buttons that you use to do certain actions and achieve whatever the goal of that mini-game is. You don't normally have to understand any of the spoken or written explanations because the games are so simple. We all lost our last lives on one that actually did require us to understand the Korean instructions in order to play. Oh well! After the arcade, we went bowling. I'm sad we only discovered Star 300 Bowling when we went for Gianni's birthday, but we were all happy to be able to go again. Star 300 provides free socks, free glowing bracelets, free popcorn, and even free nail kits you can use in case you break a nail while bowling.

Kimchi Jjim and Kimchi Jigae

They really do think of everything. You choose your glowing ball in whatever weight you want. It's a place for adults to bowl really because there are tons of different drinks you can choose from and the club music is super loud. You're definitely supposed to go there later at night, but whatever...we make our own rules! We played once girls vs. boys, but the girls lost horribly. I think I won for the girls, but that wasn't saying much. Our star bowler, Marie, who got tons of strikes at Gianni's birthday, hurt her hip a bit bowling at that party, so she wasn't up to her normal abilities. The second game, I played with Matthew, Thomas, and Sian. I didn't do too terribly with that either. After 2 games, we were getting pretty

Drinks in a bag at gogos

hungry, so we went to get our favorite Korean food: kimchi jjim. Kimchi jjim is pork slow-roasted with kimchi. You get a few pieces of pork and a big piece of kimchi on a plate. Usually, you also order the same number of portions of kkimchi jjigae (kkimchi stew served with ramen), but we demanded more portions of kimchi jjim than kimchi jigae. Thomas left after dinner, and the rest of us headed out to Gogos for a drink in a bag. I discovered in Korea that I can tolerate drinks with gin. I really hate vodka. After a little liquid encouragement, our last stop for the night was the multibang. We had planned to dance, but we were all so stuffed from dinner and drinks that we couldn't. We spent a half hour playing games of Mario Kart on the Wii and then

Singing at the multibang

 another hour and a half singing. Noraebang is so much fun in Korea-- a million times better than karaoke at home. Everyone had a great time. It was a fantastic way to spend our last day together, and it really made me remember just how close we all are to leaving each other and this country that we have called home for the past two years. I will miss all my wonderful friends. Thanks guys for making these two years even better. Love you!




It was a very social weekend for me what with our big going away party on Saturday and Serena's baby shower on Sunday. Serena has just about a month to go until the little one arrives. She's hoping for a boy, but they won't know until it's born. It was my first baby shower, and I was really glad to be able to celebrate with Serena, another great friend I met in Korea. I brought drinks and some brown sugar cookies that I made on Friday night. They looked absolutely perfect--magazine worthy! That being said, I did measure the butter a bit wrong, and they ended up tasting a bit too buttery. Still, it was a really good recipe that I would try again. Everyone else at the party had husbands in the military and their own children. But they were all very nice. They also all cook really well. The desserts and fruit salad were lovely. I ate much more than I should have, and we got to all take some things home afterwards. One person brought a sheet cake, and the apartment was decorated with baby shower decorations sent from one of Serena's friends, Deb, who is back in the States at the moment and couldn't make it to the party. As my gift, I didn't give Serena something from her registry, but I got her something that I hope will be really useful to her and the baby. A few of my friends have really enjoyed using baby wraps. It's a long, circular piece of fabric that can be twisted in different ways to carry the baby on your front or back in many different positions. It seemed very comfortable in photos, so I hope she really likes it. One of the other women organized a few games for us to play. We each got 3 small clothespins to put on our shirts. If we said the word "baby" and got caught by another person, we had to give up a pin. The person with the most pins at the end got a prize. I came in

The baby shower games

second for that game, but the person who won the first prize had already won another game, so she let me have it. I got a nice, big makeup case. The other games were written games. For the first one, we had to write a baby-related word for each of the letter of "congratulations." I am so bad at word recall, I couldn't even get all the letters. I didn't do too badly though. In the second game, we had to write the baby versions of all the adult animals on the paper. That one I really did not do well on. All the words just escaped me completely. Both of the winners of those games won a large, plastic travel mug. We also wrote some notes of advice for Serena, mine being the best advice I could muster as I am not yet a mother myself. It was a really nice party. I'm glad I will get to see Serena and Max's baby before leaving Korea. He or she is due on August 15th. One of the last games was to guess the gender and birth date of the baby. I guessed that a boy will be born on August 17th. That's my brother's birthday, so I hope that brings me luck. Congratulations Serena and Max!

Gianni's 24th birthday was Tuesday and to celebrate we went downtown for dinner and bowling with friends. We planned on going to What Barbecue for dinner, but the restaurant was being refurbished for the week, so we couldn't go. Thomas knew of another BBQ restaurant in the area, so we went there instead. The restaurant had a statue of a shovel with meat on the end of it outside as decoration, and the grill that we used to cook our meat on shovel-shaped. We ordered lots of delicious pork skirt meat. Marie was good enough to make Gianni a brownie cheesecake with chocolate fudge as his birthday cake. She used her remaining birthday candles to spell out just the word "birth" on the cake. We didn't have enough to spell out the complete "happy birthday." We've been bowling a few times in Korea, but not at all like this! Star 300 Bowling Alley is right above our favorite crepe restaurants. As you walk up the stairs to get to it, there are murals of superheroes bowling. Thor was shooting a laser beam out of his eyes at the pins...I don't think he can do that. When we got inside, we saw that it was glow bowling! It was dark, things were glowing, and club music was playing. The bowling is a little bit expensive (6,500 for one game per person), but you get a lot of freebies. They gave us free socks and glowing bracelets, and you could take a pair of socks if you needed to. Bowling shoes were also included in the fee. The bowling alley is also a bottle bar, so there were coolers full of drinks that you pay for as you want one. There was free popcorn to eat while we bowled. Even the balls, imprinted with Helly Kitty faces, at Star 300 glowed. We only played one game since it was a school night, but we had a really great time. We split into two teams: Gianni, Marie, Maria, and Thomas against me, Sian, Matthew, and Ben. My team lost to every player on Gianni's team! We were definitely losers. The bowling alley also has a few pool tables and an air hockey table. We all decided we want to go back before we leave. After we finished, we put our bowling shoes in a giant sanitizing cabinet like they use for the metal drinking cups at cafeterias here in Korea. Instead of using a spray for the shoes, they just put it in this cabinet under hot UV lights. Gianni's birthday party was a big success. I'm so glad we discovered Star 300. We all had a great dinner, some tasty cake, and a really fun time bowling.

Poor Gianni has been working really hard this week between his camp and the high school camp he's been working at. He has about two hours of each camp per day, and he even comes home late from school because of the high school camp. On Wednesday, he will be finished with his camp, so at least Thursday and Friday he is down to one camp.

My last day of school was Wednesday (today), and I got to go home early. I taught my last class of the semester, possibly ever, on Tuesday. For the rest of the week, I will be desk warming and making sure everything is ready for my three days of camp next week.

Gamcheon Culture Village is a small village built into a hill right near the southern coast in Busan. It is called "The Santorini of Korea" because of all the colorful homes, buildings, and roofs. There are murals all over the place, so you have to spend quite a bit of time walking around to really see everything. It is a photographer's dream. Gianni and I visited Busan in the Fall but weren't able to make it to the Culture Village, so we decided to take a special trip to see if before we left. We spent the afternoon there on Saturday. 

Things We'll Miss
Living in the same city as all our wonderful friends (Korean and other waygooks)
Salary and contract benefits allowing us to have money to save
Free housing
Traveling around Asia
Inexpensive public transportation
Comfortable intercity buses
Cheap food
Cheap utilities
The cost of living being low in general
Korean snacks at convenience stores (kimbap triangles, caramel/maple puffs, ice cream bars, peppero, choco pies, etc.)
Korean food (kimbap, kimchi jjim, jjim dak, dak galbi, BBQ, etc.)
Board game cafe
Taekwondo with Master Hwang, Jo, and everyone else that made the gym such a fun place!
Fake legos
The beautiful mountain scenery
Funny English clothing and stationary
Bingsu
My funny students and excellent coworkers
Inexpensive health care and medicines (at least the ones we have needed)
Reserved, comfortable seats in really clean movie theaters
Cheap movie tickets and concessions (caramel popcorn)
Unlimited data phone plans
Free delivery food and the yogiyo app
No tipping
Traditional markets with interesting, cheap foods (hotteok, jeon, etc.)
The keypad and code that lets me into my apartment
Having lost items return to you because people are honest and theft is low
Safety and security
The fact that my pale skin is considered very beautiful


Things We Won't Miss
The air conditioners or heat not being turned on at school when you need it
Korean education system (though all countries have their problems in this department)
Korean drivers and driving laws (parking on the streets, speeding, running lights)
Being a pedestrian (dodging motorcycles and deliverymen)
Taking the bus (drivers taking off right as you get on before you even hold on to anything, making you sick because they drive really fast and immediately put on the breaks)
Constantly being noticed (being referred to as a "waygook" in a very overt manner, people wanting to take pictures with and of me)
The tomato sauce on Italian food
Not being able to eat good foreign food in Daegu most of the time
Holidays away from home
Living on poop street and randomly getting whiffs of bad smells
Walking past vomit on the sidewalk on Monday (or any) mornings
Not flushing toilet paper
Summer allergies
The zoos
People not paying attention when they walk on the sidewalks (hello!? Someone is behind you, don't just stop walking.)-- it seems worse here than it was at home
Avoiding spit on the sidewalks because spitting is more common here
Not fitting into most of the clothing nicely ("free size" or one size fits all is a total lie!)
Principals and being completely at their mercy


Things We're Really Excited For Back Home
My family
My dogs
Getting married
Anna's Taquerie
Mark and Mary's cooking
Mom's baked apple pancake
Italian food with Grandma's sauce
Brunch at a real diner
Boston
A bathroom with a shower stall
A kitchen with counter space
A bigger bed
Driving
The variety of restaurants
Shopping for clothing that will fit me
Affordable and delicious CHEESE and ice cream
Sandwiches and deli meats
Holidays at home, especially Christmas
Trader Joe's
People giving you space and apologizing for bumping you
Easy communication

Our last semester of teaching English in Korea is coming to a close. Gianni's semester will be finished this week, and he has camp next week. In 2 weeks, he will teach an additional camp at a high school near his middle school. I don't have any extra camps. My school semester finishes next week, and I have my own camp in 2 weeks. I like to give my kids a reward at the end of each semester, so I usually show a movie during the last class. That's what I've been doing this week. Before I start the movie though, I'm saying goodbye to my kids, taking a picture with each class, and asking them to sign the papers I prepared. Most of them have been cooperative and some are genuinely sad I'm leaving, especially since they know they aren't getting another foreign teacher, at least for a while. I've given out my email, so I hope I have a ton of little Korean pen pals soon. Teaching really isn't my favorite job of all time, which is why I want to go home, but interacting with my students makes everything worthwhile. In addition to saying goodbye to my students, we have also been saying goodbye to the other teachers at our schools. On Sunday, I made a ton of banana and pumpkin bread to give to all the teachers. Despite the fact that they kept getting stuck in the pan and crumbling, I managed to make enough for everyone. All the breads got rave reviews at both schools!

My camp schedule has been changed a lot. All of the previous camps I've done were 5 days with the same group of kids each day. I usually had one theme per day or one theme that built throughout the week. This semester though, my camp schedule is only 3 days, teaching for 3.5 hours a day. Each day, I will see a different group of kids, so I only need to plan one day and then use it again for the other two days. I'm planning a movie camp this year. Originally, I was going to have the kids make their own short movies, but I don't think 3.5 hours is enough time, especially if I have to do an introduction and explain the concepts and all that. I'm going to take some of the same ideas though. I'll teach the kids about the basic parts of a story, movie careers, and movie genres. They will come up with their own movie characters and plots and create a movie poster for their ideas. I hope it's fun. There are a lot of video clips, and we have snacks to give the kids, so that should keep them entertained.

We are getting closer and closer to coming home! We might need to send one more box home once we get closer to leaving, after I've packed a bit and seen what will fit and what won't. 2 of the 3 boxes that we mailed home by boat have made it home thus far, so that's good. I'm hoping that the box I sent by air with all our souvenirs and breakables will make it soon. We've been selling some of the items that are not coming back with us on the Daegu Flea Market facebook group, getting about half what we paid for back for the items, so not terrible. We will probably donate some things to a new charity in Daegu for unwed mothers.

Hanji Shop and Factory

down to the hanok village. It's funny how much we remembered from orientation, even though it was raining, and we were mostly focusing on staying dry. We checked out the old city wall gate and the church where the hanok village begins. The main street of the village was closed to most traffic, so it was nice to be able to walk around freely. There were a lot of people and some sort of small craft fair was going on. Although I took a peak at some of the stalls along the way, I knew that I would find exactly what I wanted at the Hanji Center where I bought the first fans. It's the only place in Korea that sells the 100% hanji fans in all kinds of beautiful patterns and colors. I have looked in all the cities I have visited since summer vacation, and I haven't been able to find fans like the ones I gave as gifts. We found the Hanji Center really easily. I was very proud of myself for remembering how to get there because I'm usually terrible at directions. The Hanji Center is down a really small alley between the hanok guest houses. There's a wooden arch over the entrance, and you have to walk around the back of a small building where they produce their own hanji in order to get to the small shop that sells (in my opinion) the best hanji in Korea. I found exactly what I was looking for there, and we left with 4 beautiful, new fans with all kinds of designs. I plan on hanging them on my wall someday soon. By the time we finished our shopping, we were both getting really hungry. Not only that, but the weather in Korea has been super rainy and humid since it's now monsoon season. I don't remember it being this bad last year, but I heard Korea was in a drought before, so I guess it needed the rain. 

Raw Beef Bibimbap

A famous bibimbap restaurant in Jeonju

Anyway, Jeonju was even more hot and humid than Daegu was. The air was so heavy, and I was pouring sweat as soon as we got off the bus. It was really uncomfortable. I don't care what people say--Jeonju, not Daegu, is the hottest city in Korea. Both times we have been there now it was extremely hot and humid. We decided to get out of the heat and go get lunch. Jeonju has another famous product besides the paper, and that is bibimbap. Bibimbap is a traditional Korean food. It is rice with a raw egg, mixed veggies, and a little spicy sauce on top. You can get it in a stone bowl or the traditional metal bowl. Jeonju has its own style of bibimbap that is really popular in Korea, so we decided to find one of the famous restaurants in the city to get some. Just a short walk away from the hanok village, we found the restaurant recommended to us by the women at the information booth. It was on the second floor of a building. The restaurant was not showy at all and looked a lot like a cafeteria, but it was plenty busy. We were strategic and sat directly in front of the air conditioner. Gianni ordered the traditional bibimbap, and I ordered a special kind that had small strips of raw beef in it. Both were delicious and came with all kinds of side dishes on a platter. We didn't rush through our meal as we were in no hurry to go back outside. When we finally did finish our food and go outside, we almost immediately decided to head back to the train station and go home. Neither of us could handle the heat anymore, and I had got the bibimbap and fans that I came for. We didn't have a long time to wait before the bus back to Daegu departed. We ended up staying in Jeonju only for about 3 hours. Oh well! 3 hour bus, 3 hours in Jeonju, 3 hour bus again.

Happy Independence Day fellow Americans! I'm a bit late on the post, but I thought I'd write about what we did to celebrate July 4th this year.

Last week, I finished off the textbook lessons with the second grade students, and I taught a special July 4th lesson to the 3rd graders. I taught them the basic causes of the American Revolution and how we celebrate the day today. It was a lot of talking on my part, but I threw some good videos in as well to keep them entertained. I hope they learned something because I really think it was a great lesson about American culture, which they don't really learn about in school except from me.  It was very vocabulary and history based. So as incentive to listen and understand, I told them that if they finished their July 4th worksheets during class and gave it to me, I would choose 2 winners per class for a special prize (a pack of gummy bears) at the end of the week. I forgot how much I enjoy history. I've missed it since I've been out of school. It was always my favorite subject.

At the end of my July 4th lesson, I told the students that if they want to celebrate Independence Day and see some fireworks, they could go to the area around Camp Walker, the military base in Daegu, last Saturday night. Not sure if any of them did, but Gianni and I definitely went! The military base is one of the three American bases in Daegu, and our friend, Thomas, actually lives right next to it. Like last year, he and Sian planned a roof-top BBQ and party despite the fact that they are South Africans. They kindly allow we Americans to celebrate the holiday just like we would at home. Gianni and I showed up early to help them set up and to take a quick dip in their small blow up pool. It was kind of a gray day with patches on sun here and there. Sian and Thomas and Gianni and I had gone the night before to buy all the necessary supplies for the BBQ at Costco. Once everyone showed up, Thomas started grilling our hamburger patties and hot dogs. Everyone contributed to the

The landlord's adorable kids!

cost of the food, and most people brought an extra dish to share as well. There was watermelon, bacon mac n' cheese, hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, cheetos, potato salad, and some apple pie for dessert. Everyone was stuffed by the end of it. Throughout the day, we kept getting visited by the landlord's adorable kids who had a great time playing with Thomas's friend's water gun. At around 9pm, the fireworks show began. Thomas's house is so close, the fireworks look like they are right in front of you. It was a really beautiful, if a little short, show. Some people left after that, but the others stuck around to help clean up. We brought everything down to Thomas's apartment and played a few rounds of a really funny and raunchy game called Cards Against Humanity. We've played it a few times with our friends before.

BBQs and fireworks: the only way to celebrate Independence Day. Being surrounded by our nearest and dearest friends in Korea made me think about how different next July 4th will be. Gianni and I will be married, and we'll be home with our families. As much as I'm excited to go home, I will definitely miss living in the same city as all our wonderful friends.