Waygooks Wandering

아 비  (A bi)
Abbi in Korean

아 비 가 일 (A bi ga il)
Abigail in Korean

지 안 니 (Ji an ni)
Gianni and Korean

My feet keep getting blisters getting used to my new shoes, so it's a good thing I can't wear shoes at school. I have some flowery slippers with cushion on the bottom, and I have to wear them with socks everyday. Today was good, I tried to amend my classes a bit from the yesterday and fix things that didn't work. I still have some more practice to do on that side of things, but everything seems to be going well. For one of my classes today, my co-teacher didn't come to class, so I taught completely by myself! It went well except that I had to punish a student by making him stand at the back of the room. I think it went just fine, but I think I'm going to change the game at the end because the students didn't seem to get it. I also had a funny group of high level students today who were very talkative and good. We had a conversation about favorite colors, and one of the boy's favorite colors was pink. He got teased a little by the other students, so I taught them about the expression, "real men wear pink." It was a highlight of the day for me. The classes seemed to really get into the game I am using to introduce myself to them also.

My old co-teacher who just changed schools contacted me to tell me they set up my new high speed wifi, and I was really excited to come home to see how it worked. Turns out it isn't much faster than it was, so I am going to have the technician come back when I am here, so I can show him the problem.

Gianni came over tonight, and we went out for BBQ to the same place Niall brought us to last week. It was really good, and the owner of the restaurant was doing her best to chat with us. She seems very sweet, and she and her son (maybe?) taught us a few Korean phrases. After our delicious dinner, we went grocery shopping. We think it's high time we cook our own food, and this means I get to have the closest thing to American food I can make. I food here is great, but I need a break. We spent quite a bit of money on food, but I think we're all set for a few weeks. This apartment is starting to feel like home! :) We also tried to do laundry tonight. My coteacher had shown me how to do it, and I made a video of her showing me, but it turns out that what she told me was not correct. After pushing a few buttons I got it to work. The first load is done, and they smell clean, so I think I did it correctly. If not, they at least got sanitized in hot water! Another thing is that when my laundry machine is finished, it sings to you. Another object that plays music! It goes on for a while too. Gianni and I were both surprised that it seemed not to end.

So tonight wasn't very eventful, but it was productive at least.

P.S. Something I've noticed about Korea is that they are very much obsessed with Paris and emulating Paris. Daegu is well known for its textiles, and so I think they want to be like Paris in terms of fashion. People have shirts with French phrases, and there are cafes and foods with French names just to be cool.

P.P.S. I have seen 6 instances of couples clothing now! It is common for people who are dating to wear the same outfits around, and I have been counting how many times I've seen it! It's the funniest thing.

So I just went to my first real class. I'm still a little high off of nervous energy, but I think it went pretty well overall. The students were late to the class room from their home room for some reason so my co-teacher and I were a little confused for a bit. Fortunately they showed up after five minutes. Unfortunately my co-teacher was missing the remote to turn on the projector so I couldn't use the introductory powerpoint I had made. I was kind of at a loss for a second and then just decided to wing it. I kind of went through the powerpoint in my head, introducing myself and lecturing for a little bit. I then tried to play two truths and a lie with the students. This went preeeetty well. Apparently this was the highest level class for English and there were definitely a few students who understood everything I said. There were a bunch of boys though who had a very hard time understanding the concept of two truths and a lie. After the students guessed which of the three things about myself was a lie, I had them come up with their own two truths and a lie and then play with a partner. Some of the students had a hard time coming up with stuff about themselves but they all managed after a little help. Apparently there is some event at the end of the day so the class was only 30 minutes, something I found out when the bell rang during the end portion of my lesson, but I guess I'll have them play the game as a class next time.

At the beginning of the day, I had to stand in front of the entire teachers' office and get introduced, in Korean, by the new vice principal. I have no idea what she said about me, but I bowed, everyone clapped, it went okay. Then I find out that I have to get introduced to the school on their TV announcement program! I felt like I was back in middle school. The kids who work there are the Korean equivalents of me at 13 years old. Adorable. Again, the new VP introduced me and the other new teachers to everyone on television. It went alright but it definitely made me more nervous before I started teaching!

Yesterday was my first day of teaching by myself! I was sooo nervous. I had four classes, but one got cancelled. I taught grades 8 and 9 culture topics and grade 8 from the textbook. I had more than enough stuff to fill the class, but I think I should play a few more games, especially in those culture classes, to get the kids more engaged. Overall, I think it went pretty well for a first day. I played a game to introduce myself to them, and that seemed to go over very well. With more practice, it can only get better from here.

A few notes about my school: there is a woman who comes around on Monday afternoons to hand out yogurt snacks to the teacher, so that's excellent! My fan club came back during lunch again today, and I got to name someone today. I feel like naming someone who is not your own child is giving me like WAY too much power. Anyway, as I said before, she wanted something unique and French, so I went with Yvonne. Also, the bells to announce classes are basically a little song. All the little tones at home are very musical in Korea.

So after school, I went to speak to the landlord about getting faster wifi. Although I do have wifi, I am completely missing out on the whole "South Korea has the fastest internet in the world thing." The landlord didn't understand me and mimed calling my co-teacher, so I broke down and called her, even though I was trying not to bother her. I actually just got a new co-teacher yesterday because my original one changed schools. I called my old co-teacher, which I feel awful about...probably should have just waited on the internet thing...oh well. I think we got it sorted out, and the guy will hopefully be coming to make it faster soon. I have to pay a little more, but I really need my internet to be faster. After a while, Gianni came over and we went to Kim Pasa for dinner. It's a 24 hours place that is basically like Korean fast food or a Korean diner. I wanted udon noodles, but they ended up being spicy, so I could only eat the noodles. We also got mandu, Korean dumplings, and kimbap, Korean sushi. We ate and watched shows as best we could with my wifi connection. It was a relaxing night.

Today is Friday and it's been raining off and on all day. I think that there aren't as many English classes on Fridays because a lot of the teachers don't seem to be here. Maybe there's a retreat or something. Aaaanyway I've been making powerpoints for my lessons which will probably start next week. My schedule exists now but it's in Korean so the head teacher said they'd give it to me once they have "organized" it. I haven't started teaching yet, although I did visit a class today to say hi. My co-teacher told me that the students have been very curious about me and when I asked to observe a class she told me that they were taking a test so there wouldn't be a lot to see. I stopped in before the test, said hi and answered some questions about myself. Every time I gave an answer they all went "OOOOOOOOOO". It was pretty funny. The girls were all sitting on one side and the boys on the other. I think half the time they went oooh the boys were mimicking the girls for a laugh. They keep asking me my height and I'm pretty sure they think I'm short. It's weird though because I am definitely just as tall or taller than most of the men here. After I answered some questions about myself I left them to take their class and headed back to the office. As soon as I had sat down the English teacher who has taken me to lunch at the cafeteria for the past two days arrived and told me it was time to go. I think his name is Mr. Sak but I could be wrong. Lunch was pretty good. It consisted of boneless fried fish, rice, soup, kimchi, and a little noodle salad thing. I feel very weird bout the fact that I'm the only person who doesn't brush their teeth after lunch. It's apparently a common cultural thing here. I'm not sure if I should start doing it or not. It'd be one thing if they did it in the bathroom but its like right in the office so they definitely know I'm not doing it. We'll see what I decide. After lunch my co-teacher finally gave me my new schedule. I will be teaching grades 1 & 3 on even weeks and grades 2 & 3 on odd weeks. Each period is going to be with a different English co-teacher and it looks like I'm going to also be teaching with the head teacher. After school Abbi came over and we walked around my neighborhood looking for a restaurant. I hadn't really looked around the area other than walking to my school and back, but it seemed pretty nice. Lots of small apartment buildings and restaurants. I also noticed a lot of stray cats and kittens walking around, rooting through the garbage. We saw a few BBQ places around, but ended up just walking into a little corner place. The woman obviously didn't speak any English and seemed to understand when I said two. After sitting for a little while, trying to decipher the menu, the woman came over with some jajangmyun. Jajangmyun is a Korean Chinese noodle dish, served with a black bean sauce. We had inadvertently gone for Chinese. I guess that when we walked in and said two whatever the woman said in response was "jajangmyun?" The food was pretty good, although not as filling as we thought it would be. We opted to walk around a bit and look for a convenience store. Luckily it turned out that there was a 7/11 right down the street from my apartment. We grabbed some cookies and ice cream, as well as a bag of shrimp flavored potato sticks. We then headed back to my apartment and ate snacks while trying to figure out how to set up my router. It turns out the instructions were all in Korean, however we managed to figure it out up to a point. I guess I'm going to have to ask the internet guy to come back and help me figure it out.  

I got to see Gianni's apartment for the first time on Friday night. It's really nice, although a lot different than mine. He has a whole washing machine area, a really nice bathroom that doesn't get the entire room wet when you shower, and a huge kitchen. His living space is a tiny bit smaller, and he has less furniture and space for clothes than I do also. I live in a really metropolitan area with a lot of shops and restaurants, and I'm really close to the subway, but Gianni is in a residential neighborhood. It has some restaurants, but nothing too huge. Still, it's a nice place. When I finally made it to his apartment that night after accidentally taking the wrong bus, we wandered around the area trying to find a restaurant. We inadvertently ended up at a chinese food place, and when we walked in, I just said two and help up my fingers. She directed us to a table, so we sat down. When we came in, I knew she didn't just say two people, but I had no idea what was going on. Apparently, she thought I was ordering two of jjajangmyun (a noodle dish in black sauce). It was good, but I hadn't meant to order food. After dinner, we went to the 711 and got some treats. We're definitely making our way around the Korean snack foods! We watched some shows and hung out in his apartment. I know that makes us really lame, but we're still adapting to all this change.

Saturday morning, I woke up in time to see that Gianni's mom was trying to get in touch with him because they had planned a skype date. So we talked to his parents and then my parents for a bit. The plan had been to go to Chilseong market because it has souvenirs and all kinds of things, but one of the people who was at orientation with us posted something about an International Body Painting Festival going on. We decided to go to the market for a bit to check it out and then go to the festival because the best time to go to that was in the late afternoon I heard.

Chilseong Market was a little much for us to take in at this time in our Korean explorations. We ended up coming out of the subway into the meat and fish area of the market and had no idea to get to the souvenirs section. The fish area I could deal with, the pig heads out for us to look at was pushing it for, but Gianni kept me from seeing some of the other (ahem!) "meat." We decided we'd had enough of that for now. We'll probably try again later, and maybe look for the proper area of the market. I'd go again if I decide I want fish too. That part was really cool.

 We made our way to Duryu park for the International Body Painting Festival, but first we stopped at an underground subway food court for some lunch. We ended up at a Japanese place at Banwoldang station and got some ramen. Banwoldong station is the center station and the only point of transfer between Daegu's 2 subway lines. It has it's own theme song! Gianni and I have no idea what it is saying, but instead of the announcement saying the next station, a song always plays when Banwoldong is the next one. It's cute. Korea is very musical yet again.

When we got off above ground near Duryu Park, a girl walked up to us saying we were the first foreigners she had seen. She also just got to Korea and works in a rural area outside Daegu. Her name is Michelle, and she's from South Africa. We spent the rest of the day with her. She thought she knew how to get to the park, so we followed her. We found the park but had to walk quite a long way within it to get to the location. It's a HUGE park, so it can be very confusing. When we first entered Duryu park, there were old men and women playing games and chatting along the edges of the street, and they all stared at us! I've never felt this way in my life. It was a totally weird experience. When we found the festival, there were a bunch of white tents set up. I walked around taking pictures of all the models being painted. It's very strange for Korea to host an outdoor event where everyone is basically naked because Korea frowns on showing too much skin, especially cleavage. The painting process was really cool though, and there were artists from all over the world. When we had walked around for a bit, the competition for fantasy makeup (which includes a crazy costume) began. There were professional photographers standing under a tent, and I got up pretty close to the front because one of them was being very encouraging of me with my own, smaller DSLR. I got some excellent photos I'm proud to say! Check them out on the photo page. The fantasy makeup took about an hour, and I can't even describe these costumes and makeup to you. You have to see the pictures to understand. Then, there was a short break before the body painting competition began. Again, I can't describe this paint to you, you have to see what these amazing artists did. Most were from Asian countries, but there was one American couple. They were the only people we could understand when the host of the show asked about their inspiration for their work. Their woman looked fabulous! The entire audience thought so. Their inspiration was "female empowerment in the age of aquarius." It was gorgeous! Most of the models were women, and you could tell which ones had dance experience. They were so fierce! There were like 4 male models, and all but one looked completely mortified to be on stage! Sooooo funny! The first guy came on and looked stunned to see people. The second guy tried to make a little bit of a show of it, but he practically RAN off-stage! Another guy tried to put on a show but just looked uncomfortable. The last guy was dressed to look like a clown, and he was the only one that had a little fun with it. We were at the festival from 3:45 to about 7:30pm watching all the competitors. It was a really really excellent time. Another note: It's starting to get cool in Daegu at night! Yay! Less humidity! On the way home, we took Michelle to the subway and pointed her in the right direction, and apparently neither of us focused on where we had to go. We went in the complete wrong direction on the train and only realized when we were almost at the opposite terminal from where we needed to be! We had to turn around and go all the way back!