To Bangkok and back!

Hi everyone! I know its been awhile. We're all back from Thailand safely. Let me just say...it was absolutely amazing.

So I was thinking about how to possibly write this entry...and its going to be impossible for me to sum up the past 2 weeks concisely, but I will try to only mention the stuff worth mentioning and do my best to remember the details of those things that are. So...here we go:

On Friday (Jan 15th), me, Sara, Rebecca, and Anna all met at the airport. We took a shuttle bus to our hotel, and stayed the night out at the airport. We woke up bright and early for our 9am flight. Our flight stopped in Beijing, where we had to go through an international transfer with some not-so-friendly Chinese customs workers. Word of advice...if you can avoid a layover in China, do it. Its annoying. Once we got through their security checkpoints, we had some time to kill in Beijing (the largest airport in the world!). We found a restaurant and had a few beers. Our flight left Beijing around 2 that afternoon and we were off to Bangkok! Five hours later...we touched down in the gateway to Southeast Asia.

Bangkok: We arrived in Bangkok around 6pm. We took a taxi from the airport to Khao San Road - the backpackers' ghetto. In Thailand, they drive on the left side of the road, which was at first a little strange for all of us, but we got over it quickly (but not before Rebecca tried to climb in the driver's seat thinking it was the passenger side). We had no reservations, so it took us a few tries at several places before we found room for the 4 of us. After we were got settled in, we hit the streets! We ate dinner at a place near our hotel and ordered a tower of beer. Eventually we bought some grasshoppers from the bug cart guy, and enjoyed our snack.

The next day we took a tuk tuk (a little motorized scooter with a cart in the back for passengers) to the weekend market. Here they sold pretty much anything you can imagine. Little trinkets and toys, home decor, pets, food, and...well just everything.

We returned back to our hotel and then ate dinner at several of the street food vendor carts, which is always good. We also were somehow brave enough to attempt to eat a scorpion. I'm not sure what we were thinking, but we all somehow managed to do it.

The next day we took a tuk tuk to the big Standing Buddha, a monk hangout(?), and finally the Grand Palace. Unfortunately I don't know much about buddhism nor Thai history to fully understand what I was seeing, but either way, everything we saw was incredible. The Grand Palace contained several different areas, and we were able to see the Emerald Buddha, which is a small buddha carved entirely out of emerald. I couldn't take pictures actually in the temple, so I don't have a clear picture of it.

After stopping for lunch, our last stop of the day was Wat Pho, which is where the Temple of the Reclining Buddha is. The Buddha was enormous - he took up the entire length of the temple!

Reclining Buddha

After that, we headed back to Khao San Road and prepared for our last night out. Sara's friend Erin, who is teaching in China, met up with us that night and joined us for about a week of our trip. We went to a club in Bangkok where we met the top actress in Thailand. We didn't even realize it until someone pointed her out to us. She was incredibly friendly and from that point on we saw posters, ads, and billboards of her all around Thailand.

Tuesday we spent the morning and early afternoon on a long tail boat. Bangkok is kind of like Venice...its built on canals, and its sinking! We took the boat through several of the canals and were able to see an entirely different side of Bangkok. It was so interesting to see the houses and shacks built up on the water. Many of them were run down and it was strange to see such poverty among the high rise apartments and the growing modernity of Bangkok (a city of nearly 8 million people). It was also fascinating to see such strong tradition still holding its place in a city over run with tourists and westerners. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the river, and then went back to Khao San Road for a few last beers before we left. Anna's friend Casey, who is teaching in Korea also, met up with us, and stayed with us for the remainder of our time in Thailand.

Koh Tao: To get to Koh Tao we took an overnight bus to Chumphon where we took a 6:30am ferry out to the island. We were pretty tired when we arrived, but also super excited to finally be on beach and also having the knowledge that we still had a full week and a half left there, we let ourselves bake in the sun for the better part of the day on Wednesday. We had a bungalow right on the beach...the ocean was literally our front yard.

The view from our bungalow front porch

Enjoying my first day on the beach!

That night, sunburned and happy, we ate dinner on the beach. Every restaurant along the beach sets up a barbeque at night, where you are able to choose your own seafood or whatever you would like. All of the seafood is fresh from the ocean, and while I'm not much of a seafood eater, I did try some crab and prawn, and I admit, it wasn't too bad!

While we were eating, we were entertained by a little French kid playing with a Thai kid. It was actually so entertaining to watch their interactions because it was obvious that they didn't speak the same language, and neither of them had learned English (they were maybe 4 years old). In Thailand, nearly everyone speaks English - even more so than in Korea, because let's face it - people who "speak" English in Korea really suck at it. Thailand is so touristy that the only way to communicate is through English even though the majority of the tourists are European and don't speak English as a first language. There are also a lot of tourists from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but hardly any from America. I think over the duration of our trip we met maybe 2 other Americans. We were all actually ok with it though, because we figured that we're a pretty decent representation of America...we weren't doing anything that anybody should be ashamed of at least. And compared to the Aussies, we looked like angels :) Anyway, watching these kids play with each other was so hilarious because the only English the Thai boy knew was "hello" and so to get the French kid's attention he would scream "HELLLLOOOOO". Really interesting to watch.

The next day we went snorkeling. We hired a boat for the morning and afternoon and headed off to Shark Bay. Our boat driver snorkeled with us and pointed out sharks that were swimming right underneath us! I hadn't actually expected to see sharks, but there they were, swimming only a few meters below us.

Where are the sharks?

Sharks!

We also saw a bunch of beautiful fish! After snorkeling, we boated over to Koh Nangyuan. Koh Nangyuan is actually 3 islands all connected by sandbars. We were only allowed to be on the island until 5pm though, because then the tide comes in, and there's no way to get between the 3 little islands once the sandbars are submerged. This place was probably one of the most amazing and perfect places I have ever seen. We spent the afternoon there snorkeling, sunning ourselves, and finally ending with a quick hike to the top of one of the islands where we could look out and fully appreciate the place.

Heaven on Earth

The next morning we woke up early to do some more snorkeling and then went back to the ferry port to catch our next boat.

Koh Phangan: The site of the infamous Full/Half/Black Moon parties. We took a late afternoon catamaran over to Koh Phangan from Koh Tao. We checked into our bungalows and then ate dinner at the restaurant at our resort. We decided to go out on Haad Riin Beach, so we hopped in a cab and off we went. Haad Riin Beach is where the Full Moon Party usually is held. Even though it wasn't an official party night, the beach was still full of people selling buckets of booze and flame twirlers encouraging people to participate. Naturally quiet little Anna got sucked in...and she decided to blow fire?

We were all cheering her on though, and she did great! The next day we spent time just hanging out on the beach in preparation for the Half Moon Party that night.

Outside our hotel in Koh Phangan

Anna painted everyone's faces while I did everyone's makeup so we were all looking our best for the night! Its really common for people to get paint everywhere so we decided to paint our faces up nicely. The party was really crowded and was in the middle of the jungle? There were black lights everywhere which made our face paint glow in crazy ways, and pretty much the only way to get alcohol was in the form of a bucket...so naturally we each got our own :)

Erin, Anna, and me at the Half Moon Party

Sunday was spent recovering from the chaos of the night before by laying out and eating cheeseburgers at the resort. Talk about Paradise...

Koh Samui: Monday morning we took an early ferry over to Koh Samui. Koh Samui is the biggest of the islands. We took a cab from the harbor to Chaweng Beach and checked a few hotels before deciding on one near the beach. We took moped taxis to a temple where we were blessed by monks.

Tuesday we took a "safari" where we got to ride elephants, feed baby tigers, and experience the scariest trek through the jungle ever. After the animal portion of the day was done, we were supposed to go to the top of some mountain in the jungle that had a great view of Koh Samui and the ocean around it. Well...it was rainy time (i.e. it was pouring out) in the jungle and our 4x4 driver didn't seem to care. He was flying up and down the eroding clay paths that were supposed to pass for roads, taking turns too sharply and too quickly. We were in the back screaming for our lives as he calmly chatted on his cell phone and all the while a 3 year old French boy was sitting on TOP of the jeep with his parents giggling. Eventually, the rain subsided and we were able to return back safely. We never did get to the see that "great" view though...

Chaweng Beach on Koh Samui

Wednesday we had planned to leave for Phuket. This is when not having plans becomes incredibly awesome. Everyone we had talked to that had been to Phuket had nothing but bad things to say about it. But we had heard amazing things about the island of Koh Phi Phi. SO. We decided to stay another full day in Koh Samui to soak up the sun, bypass Phuket completely, and stay for 2 nights on Koh Phi Phi. Probably the best decision we made on the trip.

So Thursday we had booked tickets to get us from Koh Samui to Koh Phi Phi. And what an adventure it was. The day began at about 5:30am when we woke up. We packed up our stuff, checked out of our hotel, and were picked up by a van around 6am. From there we were taken to a ferry port, where we got a bus, which took us to another ferry port maybe only a few kilometers away (why we weren't just dropped at that one to begin with, we'll never know). We got on a ferry for about an hour and a half that took us to Surat Thani on the mainland. From there, we got back on the bus which was randomly letting people off. Eventually, we were made to get off the bus in the middle of a random town (still Surat Thani we're guessing), and made to get in the back of a giant tuk tuk with our luggage strapped on. We figured we were being brought to another bus station, but no. We were dropped off on some back road at an abandoned restaurant sort of place. We had no idea what was going on. After about 45 minutes of waiting, another bus came. We took that bus to yet another little restaurant place, where we were made to get off the bus, only to get back on 30 minutes later. This bus finally took us to the port on the other side of the mainland in Krabi, where we were able to catch our ferry to Koh Phi Phi. All in all, we had about 8 transfers, but we arrived on Koh Phi Phi at the time we had expected. Crazy. We found a place to stay on Koh Phi Phi and headed out for the night.

Koh Phi Phi: Koh Phi Phi is the island that was hit the hardest by the tsunami on December 26, 2004. Most of the footage from the tsunami you may have seen from Thailand was taken from this island. Basically, the island lost everything. Everything was flattened. As a result, much of the central town area is brand new and looks really nice. However, even 5 years later, they are still rebuilding and debris is still visible throughout the island. Its soo beautiful though. It was probably my favorite place along with Koh Tao.

Friday we spent the morning and early part of the afternoon soaking up our last day of sun on the beach. The beach was amazing and perfect and beautiful and I really can't even explain how great it was. Around 2, we got on a longtail boat that we hired for the afternoon, which took us out to Maya Bay. Maya Bay is a totally uninhabited island, where the movie "The Beach" was filmed in 2000. The tide was out when we got there, but when we left around 5, it was slowly coming back in. We watched the sunset from the boat after a quick stop on Monkey Beach. We got off the boat as the sun set on our last real day in Thailand.

Maya Bay - Where "The Beach" was filmed

Rebecca and me goofing around on Monkey Beach

Last sunset

Saturday we woke up early to catch the 11am ferry over to Phuket. We went straight from the port to the airport where we caught our flight to Bangkok. We had about 6 hours in Bangkok so we left the airport and went back to Khao San Road for some last minute shopping and a few drinks before we caught our 1am flight to Beijing. After transferring in Beijing, we arrived in Korea around noon on Sunday.

Overall, it was an unbelievable vacation with amazing people and I could not have asked for a better time. We joked the entire time that we were on the dream vacation people win in contests, and we talked about how lucky we were that not even a year out of college we were able to take and plan this vacation. Every place I go inspires me to go somewhere else. I feel like I need to see it all. Who knows where our next adventure will be...we still have some places in Korea we need to explore, and then we can begin planning our trip for this summer. Some places on the idea list...Indonesia (Bali), Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Exciting!

View of the beach on Koh Phi Phi

"I know, I know for sure that life is beautiful around the world." -- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Happy Christmas!

So you'd think I would've learned how to at least say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" in Korean by now...but I haven't. So English it is.

So last week I literally sat at school and watched an entire season of Desperate Housewives AND painted my nails (discreetly of course). I didn't have a single class because the kids had finals. Which meant that I still had to be at school but had nothing to do. Sort of sucked that I had to be there, but I also can't complain too much because I got paid to watch TV and skype my fam and friends. Yay!

Thursday was payday (!!) so I went with my friends Q and John to Myeongdong where we did some holiday shopping. Q helped me bargain with some of the people which was so nice, because they always raise the prices for foreigners, and with him being Korean and all, he was able to bargain them down to more reasonable prices. Woo!

Friday evening I hung out in Uijeongbu and snapped some pictures of the lovely Christmas decorations.

I bought myself a Christmas tree too :) Its about a foot tall and sort of resembles the tree from Charlie Brown Christmas. But all it needed was a little love, and now its beautiful (at least I think so!).

We had a Christmas party on Friday night with some of the people who live in this area - so we all exchanged gifts and drank Christmas punch and then (naturally) ended up at a noraebang where we sang lots of off-key and out of tune Christmas songs!

Werner, John, Q, me!

Bad Santas!

Holiday Noraebang!

Saturday we all just took it easy, since the holiday party the night before really took its toll on us all. Sunday I did some serious Christmas shopping. I know Christmas is only a few days away but it just doesn't feel like Christmas here for some reason. I think its the lack of snow. Or maybe its the lack of stress that I usually have this time of year as finals are finishing up. AGH. I don't miss those one bit, they were awful.

Monday I went to dance, as usual. I won't be able to go for about a month after this week, because I have some busy weeks coming up! Today I went ventured down to the COEX mall to get some last minute gifts. But just in case there is any doubt - here is proof that I have my gifts bought and wrapped before Christmas!

Attn Family: Gifts will be mailed Thursday at the latest - sorry they're late, but I promise you will get them (not to mention you'll be getting stuff from Thailand once I get back)! They're bigger than my little tree. Sorry about the lame wrapping/boxes/bags. I live in Korea. Christmas is sort of a holiday for couples here. Everyone celebrates, regardless of religion. So its not really all about family or Jesus. Its basically just commercial. Which is fine...but it sure does make finding certain things hard. Like actual Christmas boxes or wrapping paper. That's why your gifts have hearts all over them, and awkward Konglish phrases like "I love the fragrant" and "Sweet heart...you color my world with love". I'm not kidding, you'll see.

Next week I'll be on a ski trip with some of my teachers. The week after...Kelsey will be here! The week after that...Jane will be here! And we're planning to go to some dance classes at Soo Dance instead of the studio I usually attend. Willie Gomez is going to be here and is doing a week-long workshop, so we're going to try to attend some of his classes. Willie is a choreographer and is probably most famous for choreographing Britney Spears' most recent Circus Tour. He's really great and I'm excited to meet him and take some classes with him. And then of course the following 2 weeks I will be in THAILAND.

I'm starting to get really excited about Thailand. The 4 of us will be together the whole time, but a girl Sara knows will be meeting up with us for part of our trip, so we'll be 5 strong for some of it! We're really lax on our plans, except for a 3 night stay that we definitely want in Koh Phangan. We'll be there for the Half Moon Party. They have huge parties once a month for the full moon, but they rage for the half moon as well. I guess the full moon parties can attract upwards of 30,000 people. Half moon only brings in around 5,000 - but that's still a lot of people and I think we'll have a great time. You can look for Koh Phangan on the map - just click on the link! Can't find it? Look for Koh Samui (we're going there too!) and you'll see Koh Phangan just north of there. We're also going to go to Bangkok, Krabi, Phuket, and hopefully Phi Phi (but that's really a lot to do in the time we have). The only major city we won't make it to is Chiang Mai. I think if we had more time its a place we'd all love to go, but its just too far out of the way, and this really is more of a beach vacation than a touristy sightseeing vacation. So I guess that's just too bad. If we're lucky, we'll go back one day :) Can I also mention, with the exception of the flight, how disgustingly cheap this trip is going to be. Apparently for the bungalow we're getting on the beach in Koh Phangan all 5 of us can stay for 3 nights (with A/C) for 30,000won each. Yep. I'm paying around $27 for 3 nights in an air conditioned bungalow on an island in Thailand. I hope you all think about that when you're freezing in Wisconsin or Minnesota or wherever you are. The high in Bangkok was about 95 the other day. I win.

School has been a breeze this week. I'm doing like a 10 minute lesson on rhyming - explaining what rhyming is and then asking the kids to rhyme simple words (cat/hat, mad/sad, sing/Japan...wait what?). Yes, its true. I asked my kids to rhyme with the word sing. And they did well at first: ring, king, thing. But then some kid yelled out "Japan!" and I knew it was hopeless so I just started the movie. I'd like to give a big shout out to Dr. Seuss for helping me teach kids how to rhyme. Woo! The Grinch is a big hit, and even though they can't understand everything, they still get the story for the most part and I think most of my kids have enjoyed it. I love the Grinch myself, but after watching it 10 times this week, I may never want to watch it again.

We have another holiday party planned for Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day I'm not sure what the plan is. I think most of us want to Skype with our families and friends - so we'll spend much of the day doing that. Apparently its really common to go out to a nice dinner on Christmas, but we're a little behind on making reservations soooo maybe we'll just make our own dinner :) The day after Christmas, however, we have a fabulous holiday activity planned! So....in Hongdae where we always go out, there is a chain of bars called "Ho Bar". Sounds like a strip club or something, I know. But its not! Its just...a normal bar. Not sure how to explain it. Its just normal. It has been a dream of ours since we got here to do a "Ho Bar Crawl" because there's at least 10 of them in the Hongdae area, not to mention the countless others sprawled across the Seoul metro area. But, in the spirit of Christmas, we have decided to make this a "Ho Ho Ho Christmas Bar Crawl". We're smart right? So the whole gang and then some is getting together to celebrate Christmas and hopefully make to every Ho Bar within walking distance. Proper holiday attire is required.

Hm..I think that's all for now. Sorry its been so slow lately. But I swear, the next few weeks will be crazy and I'll probably have to make 2 posts for Thailand (or it will be the longest thing I've ever written).

Here's your K-Pop Song of the week! Not Christmassy (sorry). But popular! Its by a group called B2st (that's pronounced Beast). 2 in Korean is "i" pronounced "ee". The song is called Bad Girl. Not sure how old they are, I'm going to guess like...16. So again, Courtney and Meghan, they are all yours!

Missing you all and thinking about you during the holidays. To get into the holiday spirit - I've made a small donation to Amnesty International. For those of you who would like to donate somewhere, but don't know where, check out this website. The Life You Can Save website has a pledge you can take, as well as a list of charities and foundations you can give your money to. It doesn't have to be a lot - every little bit helps! AI is my charity of choice, but choose a cause that's important to you and GIVE! Merry Christmas (and Happy New Year!!).

"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." -- Sir Winston Churchill

Turkeyless

Hi everyone!

This past week was business as usual around here. I had the occasional cancelled class (which seems to be a weekly occurrence) but overall nothing too exciting. Last Tuesday I attended a meeting in Seoul about North Korean human rights. It was really informative and I plan to go again. Its a great place for me to learn more about the situation, but also to get involved. There are so many opportunities in Seoul that I wasn't aware of. Everything from protests and marches, to handing out information in central Seoul, to volunteering with those who have managed to escape. For those of you who don't know, people who attempt to defect from North Korea do not attempt to do so by crossing the DMZ. Its completely impassable, and so they generally go through China to Vietnam where they can claim political asylum at the embassy in Hanoi. If they are caught in China, they will be detained while they await repatriation to North Korea. Once they are returned to NK, they will definitely face punishment. Punishment is usually served out in one of the prison camps, which likely involves torture, and execution is even a possibility. I could go on forever about this and all of the injustices, but this isn't a human rights paper so I'll cut myself off. But please watch this video and read this article that was on CNN about North Koreans who are lucky enough to make their way to South Korea, and how their reintegration into society is difficult after being isolated and fed propaganda their entire lives.


Wednesday I went with Christine, a fellow Badger, to a dance studio in Seoul. We took the hip hop class and it was actually really good. It felt sooo good to get back into a studio! The staff was really nice, and did their best to speak English to us (naturally we were the only non-Koreans in the place). Our instructor was really nice as well and tried his best to explain things to us in English. Precious. But hey! They count in English! And not just for us. I was happy. I would definitely go back there again, but I think later this week we're going to check out another studio in Seoul that I was recommended to try, but this time for jazz. Both studios are pretty far though - about an hour and a half on the subway each way. Gah. But to me, its worth it.


Thursday I went to dinner with my friend John and several other native English teachers in the area. It was basically a welcome dinner for the teachers who have just arrived here. They were from all over the world - U.S., South Africa, the UK, Canada, etc. Most of the people had only been here for a week or two, and some only for a few days. Its amazing how much I've learned in only 3 months! From basic Korean vocabulary to cultural differences, I was able to answer so many questions.


It never ceases to amaze me how cheap things can be here though. There were about 13 of us at dinner, and our total bill was only 150,000 won! That's about $125. That included all of our Korean BBQ, side dishes, and beer and soju. Unbelievable.


This weekend I went back to Dongducheon where I hung out with my friends John and Q. We cooked ourselves a nice little Italian dinner and then proceeded to down 4 bottles of wine between the 3 of us. Of course we ended up at a noraebang (this one had free ice cream!) and noraebanged the night away.

John and Q

I look like I'm about to be kicked off American Idol...

So this week is Thanksgiving. I'm sad I'm missing it. Nobody here celebrates it, obviously. So while all of you are eating your turkey and enjoying your days off school and work, I will be sitting at school with people who don't have any clue that a very important holiday is being celebrated. Some of us have a get together planned for Thursday and probably another one for Saturday so more of us can get together since we're spread all over the city. Turkeys are hard to come by and even if we could find one...nobody here has ovens. How are we supposed to make turkey without an oven? What good is an oven on Thanksgiving without a turkey? That fact shocked me when I first got here. But Korea is so....Korean. And they don't make any food other than Korean food. And their food doesn't need to be baked..ever. Therefore ovens are not necessary to them. I asked what they do when they want to make cookies. I was given a blank stare followed by the reply "we buy cookies", with a silent but implied duh at the end. Well then. We may have to have a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with popcorn, toast, pretzel sticks, and jelly beans.


My flight to Thailand has been booked! Its official!! Sara, Rebecca, Anna, and myself are leaving early in the morning on January 16th. We have a layover in Beijing, and arrive in Bangkok around 6pm. We leave Thailand on the 31st, and are taking an overnight flight back to Seoul, again with a layover in Beijing. I'm so excited - I absolutely cannot wait. January is supposed to be the coldest month in Korea, but I won't be around for half of it to find out - I'll be loving life on a beach in Thailand. We don't have many specific plans yet. And it will probably stay that way. We will do the usual touristy stuff of course, but we plan to spend a lot of our vacation just relaxing and beach hopping. Eventually we'll need to book another flight from Bangkok to Phuket, but it will be extremely cheap so we're waiting until we get closer to the actual time. Can't wait. This is going to be one epic vacation. I'm also especially excited for January because not only do I get to spend half the month in Thailand, but I also have my friend Kelsey from high school visiting me from the 3rd-9th. She's living in the Philippines right now, and is making a trip up for a week to see me. I only have to work the 2nd week in January (as far as I've been told) and the rest of the time I will have free. Oh and I'm still getting paid. My job is ridiculous.


School is going well. I asked one of my students today what he did this weekend and he said "I ate kitchen". He meant chicken, and I knew that, but it still didn't prevent me from cracking up. I suppose...if you switch the ch and the k around, chicken does sort of sound like kitchen if you're a non-native speaker just learning English. Hee funny ^_^ The kids are still sort of all over the place (remember that immaturity I talked about last time?). Sort of annoying. If I had things my way, I'd bring them all to the U.S. for a few days so I could show them what high school life is like in America, because they just have no idea. Courtney sent me a few pics of high school life from her perspective, which I'll turn into a "high school in America" lesson for my students. Learning culture is important when learning a language so I try to incorporate it into as many of my lessons as I can. I showed some of the pictures to one of the other English teachers, and she was so surprised. I had to explain about every student having their own lockers "no, they're not for changing" and that there's an auditorium for performances "it doesn't take place in the cafeteria", and just...a bunch of other things that I would've thought was common knowledge but clearly I was wrong. She thought Fort's high school library looked like a university library...to which I had to explain that of course a university library is much much bigger and most universities have more than one. Wisconsin has a list a mile long.


Some of these things are just so difficult to explain that I wish it were possible for everyone to visit the U.S. so they could see for themselves. Inversely, I wish I could send all my friends and family over here as well so that you could all see for yourselves the cultural differences that I deal with daily. I'm getting used to many of them, but sometimes I still forget. I forget that when someone older than me is pouring my drink for me (alcohol is not poured yourself, someone else pours it for you) that I should hold the cup with two hands as a sign of respect. I forget to give a little bow when I pass another teacher in the hallway (as is customary). I usually smile and give a perky little wave before I remember where I am, and then sort of awkwardly give a little head nod, ashamed that after 3 months of living here I still can't remember to bow. I'm working on it. When I eventually go back to the U.S. I'll be bowing left and right and no one will have a clue what I'm doing. I do my best to remember every little thing about life in the U.S. but I know that after being fully immersed in a completely different culture for a year, or more, that reverse culture shock is going to hit me pretty hard. Coming home after an experience like this is always more difficult of an adjustment. Luckily...that is far far far away for me, so I'll worry about it later.


Here's some pics of me in the classroom. This is from an open class that one of the English teachers I work with, Choi Yun-Hee, had to do, and I helped her with it. Every now and then teachers have to give an open class where they are critiqued and evaluated by other teachers and the principals. Which is why you can see the vice principal and my co-teacher, Sang-Jin, in the back of the classroom. I figured I'd post this to prove that I actually do work over here, since facebook albums and blog entries probably suggest otherwise.

Helping a student read

Acting out a scene from Friends with one of my students

In my classroom I have a "virtual studio" which is like a green screen (but mine is blue) where I can place the kids in any number of scenes: the bank, post office, doctor's, etc. It is projected onto the big touch screen board I have at the front of my classroom. In this particular picture, although you can't see the scene, we're standing in an episode of Friends. We were discussing the differences and similarities between Thanksgiving and Chuseok, and watched part of an episode where Joey gets the turkey stuck on his head. Classic!


Here's your weekly dose of K-Pop. Its by a group called 소녀시대 (pronounced So Nyeo Shi Dae). They generally go by the English name Girls Generation or their acronym of SNSD. The song is called Gee, and we all go nuts when it comes on in the clubs, naturally. Its pretty catchy, especially the "Gee gee gee gee baby baby baby" since that's all we can understand really. In true K-Pop fashion there's about 30 of them all 18-20 years old. For all of you who can't read Korean - where it says 뮤직비디오 after the title...that literally just says "music video" phonetically in Korean. Easy.


Hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving! I will be celebrating by hanging out with people from all over the world who love Thanksgiving even though they aren't American, and I'll be watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving on youtube. But I'll be...turkeyless :(


"There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign." -- Robert Louis Stevenson