Letters From Students

Three students left our hagwon today.  Three of my favorite students.  I’m super sad about it. Being that this is Korea and we have school 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, I don’t really ever deal with elaborate goodbyes or end of year sadnesses.  Most students just sneak out the door on their last day and don’t come back. Today was different. It was sad.  I did get a couple really sweet goodbye letters and a really sappy goodbye from an eleven year old boy though.  But for being Halloween, it’s been a really emotional day.

Both these girls are finishing up 8th grade. They are best friends and would come hang out with me often in between classes. Letter one is from a student name Kate.  She is smart but she was impossible to get to speak in class. All she does is giggle. She also works daily as the English/Korean translator for the author of the second letter.  (Click the pictures to make them larger.)

A 20-Kilometer Day–Part 2

After Becki and I finished our mountain 5k and picked up our awards, we grabbed a taxi over to the Shintanjin side of Gyejoksan.  Here we met Lee Ann and Lydia for the 7k Barefoot walk.  I did this last year as well but this year went much smoother. When you arrive, you check your shoes at the bottom of the mountain and begin your hike. It’s about 2.5km up to the ridge for the 7km.

A 20-Kilometer Day–Part 1

In all honesty, I’m a little surprised that an ambulance wasn’t called yesterday. I definitely over-scheduled myself.  Me being me however, I just assumed I could do it without really working out the specifics.  And I did it.  And then slept for about 16 hours.

First on the docket was a mountain 5k at 8am. We really didn’t know when we signed up for it whether that 5k was actually on the mountain or on the street next to the mountain.  I was happy to find out the race was on the mountain because I’m really familiar with this particular one and like it an awful lot. And, now I can say that I’ve done a race on a mountain. Who else can say that? However, I was forgetting one very major  obstacle.  To do a race along the ridge, you must first climb the mountain. A mere 300 meters.  For you none-hiking folks, that’s like climbing 1,685 stairs, or the equivalent of about 112 staircases, and then arriving at the top 15 minutes before you begin your run.  Awesomeness.

The picture is blurry, sorry.  My number was my birthday backwards. That could only be a positive sign, right?

School Lunches in Korea

This blog posting has been brought to you by:

Blogcrastination - noun.

The act or habit of, putting off or delaying blog posts.

Ex. She dearly loved to blog, yet her blogcrastination led to very sparse posting indeed.

definition “borrowed” from http://leeskoreablog.blogspot.kr/ 

*****

Onward to the subject of this blog.  Think school meals in America are rough?  Try Korea.  Yes, if you are Korean, or a foreigner living in Korea, this food seems quite normal and causes zero (or mostly zero in the case of foreigners) apprehension.  However, I thought this would be great for all you teachers and parents that read this.  Threaten your kids with this menu and see what happens!

E.T. & Teddy Bears

I lasted almost two full years but it appears that I’ve now almost completely fallen off the blog bandwagon.  My apologies.   I’ve been super busy studying for the GRE, running 10k’s, and planning and plotting.  I have photographic proof for those that don’t believe me about the running thing. If I wasn’t the one doing it, I wouldn’t believe me either.

Last weekend was rough.  I signed up for a 7k leisure walk with the Daejeon Walking Federation Saturday night.  It was a nice walk by the river with a few friends and a few hundred Koreans.  I did this with the goal of “loosening my muscles” for the 10k race the next day.  It was a great time until I had to wake up at 5am, still having shooting pains in my feet from the night before.  This was not my best idea but I survived. As I always do. I need to buy new shoes.

Ojeong Market

I’ve recently decided that it was time to try out this whole adult grocery shopping concept.  Personally, I’m the girl that will drop $200 on an impromptu visit to the grocery store but then forget I did it and not open my refrigerator for the next month.  Once I finally do, everything has gone bad.  That’s gross and an awful lot of wasted cash. 

Lately, many people have been talking about a market in Daejeon that is about 1/4 the price of super market goods.  And a fun time to boot!  The last few weekends a small group of us have been going on Saturday morning to collect our produce for the upcoming week. Now, to be fair, this is one of many open markets in the city. After a few accidental run-ins with identifiable, though dead, pigs, cows, fish, chickens, and more, I decided that the Asian market concept really wasn’t for me.  My heart can’t handle the little empty eyes staring back at me.  Many times the animals (fish and otherwise) are still alive when you are choosing what you want for dinner that night. I’m not built for that.

Things That Make Me Smile

Pop Culture Edition.

First, I love this commercial.  Love.  Korean advertising normally confuses me ever so slightly (probably because I can’t understand what they are saying) but this one is very straight forward.  And even though it’s for a diet company, who hasn’t felt like this?

I call him “fat baby” and I think he’s absolutely adorable! 

 

The second one is a new pop song that is making it’s rounds around the world. It’s called “Gangnum Style”, referencing an upscale suburb of Seoul, and sung by a gentleman named Psy.  CNN and other major news outlets have been covering it because of it’s widespread popularity. 

You can’t not love the “horse riding dance.”  Or maybe you can. I don’t know.  But, my students sing this all the time even though I think the lyrics might be a little PG-13.  Note: This is what ‘sexy’ means in Korea.  Everyone is fully clothed and no dirty dancing!  It’s such a nice change of pace.