It's all about the kiddies.

Well, I've pretty much covered the social side of my life in Korea so far, but considering that I came all the way here to teach English to some kiddies, I guess it's about time you met them!

So let me introduce you to....

Left: Lynne, Rachel, Amy, Martin, Jeff and Nathan.

This is my one and only Kindy class at the moment.  I teach them for two 40 minute classes a week and it is undoubtedly the hardest 80 minutes of work I do all week!!  I adore them, but they are exhausting!  I'm unfortunate enough to teach them for their last class before home time... and boy do they get ratty! Plus one of them is my boss's daughter which adds a little extra stress to it! 

Last week Martin got a blood nose in class and found it amusing to spray blood on everyone (worse still, they also found it amusing).  In the end I jammed a wad of toilet paper up his nose which, of course, all the others had to copy which, of course, ended in me having to fish chunks of stray paper out of Nathan's nose... colouring in was about all I had the energy for after that!

"Hip-Hip Horray Class" (named after their text book)

Back Left: Kelly, Cindy (or Cindy, Kelly... I'm never sure which one is which), Lina, Sara, Andy.

Front Left: Peter, Glory, Julie, Kevin, Candy.

Playing "What's the time Mr. Wolf?" with Hip-Hip Horray Class

Ah, the Hip-Hip Hooray class... what can I say about them?  They are really smart and so cute sometimes, but the are also incredibly difficult at others (read, almost always)!  Aside from two girls who are absolute angels, there are a lot of bad-eggs in this class .  The boys are particularly bad, although missing from this picture is their ringleader Danny, the cutest, baddest kid in school (who is also one of my favourites... oops, that's not very teacherly!)  When the boys aren't throwing things at the girls and calling them names, they're punching each other and having competitions of who can stand the hardest slap in the face without crying.  I've gotta give it to them though - there are rarely tears!

Sally and Sabrina... I believe you've met them before already though...

"Carnival" Class... (also named after their text book)

Back Left (standing): Adam, Samira (hiding), Love, Anna, Candy.

Front Left (sitting): David, John, Don.

These kids are awesome.  Usually eager to learn and almost always do their homework (some even draw pictures and maps of Australia for me as 'extra homework' I didn't even ask them to do!) In addition to teaching my boss's daughter in kindy class, I also teach my boss's son in Carnival class... but I only found this out last week after teaching him for a month.  Lucky I'm not into favoritism or anything...

"Reading class"

Kevin and Sam.

I love these two boys.  They crack me up non-stop.  I only get to teach them twice a week, but they are definitely one of the better classes to teach.  They are like little sponges who remember how to spell any word I teach them even if they've only seen it written once! While pretty smart, their vocab isn't huge, which means there is a lot of miming and pictionary on my part.  I can' t draw which they think is hilarious... and they now pretend they don't know the meaning of a word just so I'll try to draw it on the board for them while they sit back and laugh hysterically at my wonky stick figures ad crappy animals before coming up and finishing the drawing for me. They also like learning tongue twisters ("How much wood can a woodchuck chuck..." is their favourite) and they bring me lollies all the time, so I like them a lot.

"English Time 3" Class (with Harry hiding under the little pink desk for good measure)

Eric and Harry of E-T3 class

Wendy and Ginny of E-T3 class.

"English-Time" is definitely the best behaved class I have... In fact, they are positively nerdy at times! I think the smaller classes are by far the easiest to teach (except Sally and Sabrina, who are the equivalent of 12 screaming girls)....

Anyway, that's all my classes except one, who tell me they are too old and cool for photos (they're 11 - 13).  Funny kids though.  I really like teaching them - when I can get them talking that is!

I thought I'd also include a few pics of the Kindy Graduation from last week.  Seriously, this graduation ceremony was more impressive than my own uni graduation (which was not at all impressive by the way, but that was uni, and this was kinder!).  It was hilarious.  They all had to make little speeches in English... not in their own words of course, the Korean teachers fed them their lines which they rehearsed for weeks... "our time here at ECC was so so fun! we had many great experiences along the way..."  They wouldn't even know how to say that in Korean!!

  

Yup, they have little robes and hats on!! How cute!

They were singing "So long, Farewell" from the Sound of Music at this point...

My little Amy... a proud graduate.

Jeff (or, Jepuh as the Koreans often say) is one of the best kids at the school. Adorable.  How cute is his little bow-tie and suit!!!

Well, that's all for now.  I have a busy week coming up - a bunch of kindy classes have been hand-balled my way for the next few days and if they're anything like the kindy class I already teach, I think it's going to be a looooong week.

EngRish, strange signage and other random oddities

So, here are a few pictures I thought you may enjoy....  a bit of engRish, some interesting signs and, well, just some weird things I've seen around!

I found these placards on a nearby building site.  Yes, a building site - with real builders (not children).  Don't think you'd ever catch blokey Aussie builders on a site where the safety instructions come in the form of cute cartoons.

Mmm Steaky pan... rumour has it the don't even sell steak...

Oh, I see, the 21 TH... not the 21st business fox!

What exactly IS the story of MashiMaro and why is it on the toilet seat??  (and what's with the plunger by the way?)

Yes, it certainly looks that way.

Somehow I doubt that this is referring to the Nymphs in Greek mythology... this was taken down a dodgy side-street in dodgy Itaewon.

  

It is what it is.... 

(FYI, the Korean text reads t-u-r-a-n-s-u  j-e-n-d-e).

Heheh, this one is great...  It's a note book for school kids.  The cover suggests three topics that could be studied in this book; Music, Korean and English.  HELF!

Bahahaha! The clothes were worthy of the store title too.

I have put this one in before, I know, but who can go past a business club called Dumb and Dumber!?!?

This is my absolute favourite!  Aside from the random "I Love Study" and "Best of the Year" remarks that brighten up this pencil case, check out what the panda is saying in the yellow square to the bottom right... 

Mmm... my tissue are feeling me.  Nice.

These lovely words are also on a packet of tissues.  Sweet, but what the hell are they trying to say??

Could anyone tell me what this dog is doing to the other dog?  I can't figure it out and don't know why it was on my shopping bag.

Phew, I'm glad this is a live restaurant and not an inanimate one... the food is much better when it's happening live.

This building is... well, I don't know what the hell it is... but it's around the corner from my house.

I LOVE folding paper Granes, don't you??

Singin' and Snowin' the time away

The weeks are flying by! I've spent four weeks in Korea already... where has the last month gone??  

Everything is still going well... I'm really enjoying life here! I feel like I'm settling into a bit more of a routine now too, which is good , and I'm really enjoying living by myself (which I was a bit worried about before coming here)- I've even found myself getting a little crafty with some painting and origami (some of which I have even made into fridge magnets! NERD!!) 

After the new year break last week the kids at school were totally ferrel on Monday and Tuesday, which made this week feel a little longer than it was... and a lot more difficult work-wise.  Really, at times, I struggled to get the kids to even sit down let alone open a book and actually learn something. It was so draining and I felt like I was having to be the 'mean teacher' the whole time... there were no stickers given out and no games played in class. I even made some boys write lines (hahaha!!).  Being a hard-ass in the classroom didn't feel so good, but the tough love thing did pay off in the end and the kids were absolutely gorgeous for the rest of the week! I guess there's a very fine balance between fun teacher and push-over and I think I was starting to slide into the latter - which wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't actually have to teach them something. Ah, it's a steep learning curve I'm on, but it's definitely getting easier with every day.

Anyway, turns out that this learning curve is thirsty work, so friday night we headed out to Now Bar followed by a spot of Noraebang action.  Yes, you're probably noticing a pattern developing that involves Now Bar and karaoke on Fridays... I have no rebuttal to this - it's just what we seem to do on Fridays! Something about blowing off steam and singing cheesy songs (badly) with a bunch of other foreigners is strangely alluring for some reason...

Me with Jeff, Tania and Ellen - These are my co-workers. They're awesome. 

Noraebang time!!  Ellen and I peruse the song list.  As usual, we open with "Obla di obla dah" (We think we're pretty good at it... although, I wouldn't really know because you can't hear yourself sing in these places - it's just everyone around you that has to endure your howling).

Oh, geeze...  I don't even know what we were singing, but it looks like it would've sounded real bad.

Jeff, Ellen and I have adapted a few hand gestures which we use to communicate our drinking intentions to each other... 

We drank and noraebanged late into the night but skipped the usual Mandu stop on the way home in favour of a few hours of much needed sleep as we'd arranged to go snowboarding the following morning.... yeah, it's smart to go out drinking the night before strenuous and potentially bone-breaking physical activity...  

On Saturday morning, six bleary eyed foreigners headed to the nearby slopes- this was my first time snowboarding, and it was fun fun fun!  Only half an hour away from home and cheap too - $10 for snowboard hire and $40 for lift passes! Sweet! Although, I might add, that I am so sore today I can hardly move... every single muscle in my body is killing me and I'm covered in bruises from stacking it down the mountain a few times (read several hundred times).  Sitting down is particularly painful as my butt is somewhat tender after countless falls on my behind.  Entirely worth it though!

I was trying to get a snap of a couple in matching outfits, but unfortunately they skied away (in perfect unison of course) before I got the chance... shame.  A good photo of the slopes though!

Oh, hahaha, yeah, I'm all laughs and smiles on the lift up to the top with Ellen and Kit - this was, of course, before I attempted to actually stand and move on a snowboard.  I wasn't so smiley after my butt collided with rock hard ice several times.

I already needed a rest - and I was only at the TOP of the first run!  Trying to stay vertical was so tiring that that the prospect of navigating a negative gradient was positively exhausting!

Eeek!  That's a scary sight for a first timer!

My first snowboarding experience was a little like my first day as a teacher... once again I was thrown in the deep end.  No ski school or flat ground instructions for me!  Jeff and the boys (all with a fair bit of snowboarding experience behind them), thought this was an appropriate starting point for me. I pretty much fell over every meter of the run the first time I tried it, but it definitely got easier and by the end I was making it all the way down with only one or two stacks along the way!

Oh, we were having so much fun! But an outing for Ellen and I isn't really an outing without an attack from Dumb and Dumber... so of course, we accidently got on the wrong ski lift.  Rather than taking us half way up the mountain to runs that we could actually tackle, it took us to the very TOP of the mountain... the place where all the really experienced snow-bunnies go.  There is a reason they go there and we inexperienced people don't... because up there is a triple diamond/black run.   Great.  We only realised what we'd done when we were about a quarter of the way up the mountain, but it was too late to get off the lift.  

We got off at the top and looked down and I nearly shat myself. It was veeeeerrryyyy steep.  Like when I say steep, I mean that there was a section that was pretty much a vertical drop... we couldn't go back down on the lift and it was too steep to try and walk down, so we did what any other person would do in our situation (if any other person was dumb enough to get themselves into that situation, that is)... we slid down on our butts.  It was seriously scary - aside from being ridiculously steep it was also icy which meant that there were several times when we couldn't even stop our graceful butt slide.  There were definitely moments when I wondered if we were going to slip too fast and turn into giant snowballs rolling, with increasing speed, down the mountain  like in the cartoons, but because we survived I can say that bits of 'death mountain' were actually kinda fun (well, sort of... like in a "I think I may die, so let's make the most of it and pretend I'm having fun when I go" kinda way).

Ellen, butt-sliding down the mountain of death...

Aside from the near death experience, we had such an awesome day!  I'll definitely be trying to get to the mountains a bit next season (apparently the slopes close soon... which means it must get warmer soon too - whoop whoop!!!)  

The story of Dumb and Dumber

In the days leading up to the recent Lunar New Year break I'd been hanging to get out and see a bit more of 'traditional' Korea.  Aside from Thursdays trip to the Changdeokgung Palace, everything I'd seen of the country so far has been really modern and shiny and flashy (like neon flashy, not show-offy flashy)... and unless I'm mistaken and Dunkin' Donuts and Paris Baguette are actually remnants from the Silla Kingdom, I think it's pretty fair to say that at least visually, Yongtong isn't exactly dripping with traditional Korean artifacts and buildings.

The 5 day break provided me with the perfect opportunity to get out there and check out what else Korea has to offer.  On Saturday Ellen and I decided to head to the nearby city of Icheon- popular for it's ceramics, rice and natural hot springs. Mmm... hot springs...

And here begins the story of Dumb and Dumber (AKA. Ellen and Amy)

Our day didn't get off to the best start when we got a bus into Suwon city (north-west from here) to get a bus to Icheon (south-east from here) only to find that the second bus drove pretty much right past our apartment building (at least an hour or two wasted with that)... Furthermore, the bus driver on the way to Suwon was apparently training to be an off-road drag racer, which made for a bumpy and often hair-raising trip, some serious back jarring and sore behinds (this is probably why he was given the oldest, most rickety bus in Korea to drive). However, the bus ride was made all the more entertaining by a little man with very big shoes sitting a few rows in front (see below for the covert picture of the year award).... 

Now, I know the quality of the pic isn't the best, but unless this man is on his way to tap-dancing class (and hasn't attached his tappy bits yet), I am going to conclude that he is wearing high-heeled (and platformed) court shoes due to a severe complex about his lack of hight - a complex he has obviously harboured since childhood, ( a speculation I have made based on the agility and ease in which he mastered the aisle and stairs of the dirt-derby-speed-racer-bus as it barely slowed down to let him off at his stop). 

After arriving in Icheon we headed to the "Ceramics Villiage" (a village where ceramics are made, not a village made out of ceramics, I believe).  Getting off the local bus at the "Ceramics Village" bus stop, we were a little shocked to find a "Not a Ceramics Village".  

Yes, it's a paddock with nothing in it... AKA a "Not A Ceramics Village".

There were some shops (and cool statues) opposite the "Not A Ceramic Village"... selling ceramics (surprisingly enough)... although we decided we didn't really like clay that much anyway, so we just stood in the shops to get out of the freezing cold...  Really didn't bank on standing in a bloody paddock when I got dressed that morning.

Me, being cold (opposite the paddock).

We decided to have a walk around and look for the mysterious village of ceramics. This was scary as it involved walking down a highway with no pedestrian facilities. Plus we were having trouble feeling our extremities by this point which made walking somewhat difficult and painful.  The village would want to be pretty bloody good after all the effort we put into trying to find it... but we didn't. Find it, that is... not until we got back on the bus into Icheon city where we passed it about 5 mins down the road - we'd just gone the wrong way (Dumb and Dumber strike again!). Meh, it looked kinda crap anyway and upon re-reading the guide book, which pretty much said it was as crap as it looked (why neither of us read the entire article rather than just the misleading first sentence remains a mystery), we figured we hadn't missed out on anything much by not getting there.  Besides, it was a bit of an adventure... into a paddock... but we did see pretty mountains, a stunning sunset and some  interesting statues.

Umm, what the..??? If you look just above and below the sign that the carving is holding, you may understand my curiosity.  This statue was outside a building we found which could be named  "The Building That Was Closed and May or May Not Have Contained A Village for Ceramics".

The not-so-happy-campers... jaded with their trip to a paddock - even if it was a kinda 'pretty-surrounded-by-snow-capped-mountains' type of paddock.

Isn't this the dude from the video game Crash Bandicoot or something?

Arriving back in Icheon city after dark, we kept our fingers crossed that our attempt to find the hot springs would not be as disastrous as the ceramic village attempt... (thank goodness everything in Korea is open 'til late!) 

We stumbled across this picturesque bridge and and frozen lake on the way.  

Ellen's crafty camera work...

When we finally made it to the spa place we were suprised to find that what we thought would be a "bring-ya-swimmers" type of place turned out to be a room full of naked women greasing us off for wearing bathers. 

**Can I just add that I haven't run off to some hippy-nudist commune or anything, the nakedness is the norm in Korean bath houses (Jjimjilbang)... but we didn't expect in this place for some reason.   (I'll write about my experience at the Jjimjilbang some other time as it really does require a post of it's very own). **  

So we followed suit, or rather, removed suit, and did what we went there to do... we walked outside into the minus 10 degree night (yes, incredibly cold... particularly without clothes) and spent hours soaking in steaming hot herbal spas, mud spas, green tea spas, salt water spas, charcoal spas (although the charcoal one did smell and look a little like sewerage). We soaked away the cold that had frozen our bones in the paddock and soaked away all the memories of the "Ceramic Village" (still gets inverted commas as I am not sure it (a) actually exists or (b) is deserving of the title 'village')... we were hoping for snow, but when none came, we soaked and soaked some more until all fingers and toes were sufficiently prune like. Then, warm, relaxed and satisfied that the day had not gone completely to waste in a paddock, grabbed some dinner and headed home where Dumb and Dumber live to do dumb things another day.