So, Friday was actually a national holiday in Korea, but for some reason, the 학원 (hakwon: school) I work at was open and the majority of the kids were there. After work, the head English teacher and I took the bus then subway to 부평 (Bupyeong), which is just a few subways stops from where we live. There were a lot of different restaurants, nightclubs, stores, karaoke clubs, and bars around there (just like every other popular part of Korea). There were a lot of 닭갈비 (chicken) restaurants so we decided to try that. It was kind of like chicken stir-fry; there are many ingredients that you can choose from to mix in, but we kept it simple and had spicy boneless chicken, with rice cake, and some cabbage. Oh, it was delicious! After dinner, we walked around for a bit, went back to the Bucheon station near our place and walked around there for a bit. From there, we decided to walk home. It was about a 30 minute walk.
Saturday, the head English teacher and I took the subway out to Seoul, specifically 강남 (Gangnam), supposedly a nicer, richer area of Seoul. I can’t remember how long the subway ride took, I think about 30-40 minutes – will have to pay closer attention next time.
Anyways, we wanted to eat some kind of stew or soup because it was rainy and chilly, so we decided on 부대찌개 (Budaejjigae). Literally translated, I think it means Army Stew (at least that’s what Andrew once told me – he said that in the army, they didn’t have much food, so they just mixed everything they had to eat into one stew). In ours, there were vermicelli noodles, spam, sausage, tofu, and kimchi, but there are so many other things that you can add in… cheese, ramen, etc. Again, so yummmyyyy!
The rain put a damper on walking around outside so we took the subway a few stops to the COEX mall. There were a lot of people in the mall; it had a variety of stores including the big Western brands to Asian/Korean stores and small stands. We even went inside a little art gallery. Here are some pictures from COEX mall:
We also sat down for some kind of performance. I didn’t know what or why this event took place (something about bridging China and Korean culture together because of the Olympics?), but the performance was really entertaining. It started off with an electric violinist. He was really good, and played one of my favorite Korean songs. Up next was some kind of Chinese mask-changing performance. It was really interesting to say the least, here’s a short clip, check it out:
Lastly was a lion dance. Also very entertaining. After the performance we headed back to Bucheon, and grabbed a bite near the Bucheon station. I had 회덥밥 (hedobab: rice, raw fish, seaweed, tobiko, veggies - mix it all together). It was… can you guess? Yep, suuuperrr!
Monday - not that exciting. Class, then came home, cleaned, and did a little bit of laundry. Tuesday (today) - I got internet installed in the morning before work. Today was an easy day for me, only four classes. I like Tuesdays and Thursdays' classes - the students are more responsive and are easier to engage with. But as their English teacher, its my responsibility to get them to start to understand English. Right now, I think most of the classes are using textbooks that are way too hard for them; the students are so clueless, especially when it comes to listening. Another downfall is that the textbooks are culturally specific to Western culture. For example, there was a question about sending the elderly off to senior homes, and none of the students understood it. Lastly, the English teacher before me was fired and had to leave abruptly, and a lot of the students didn't even know he was gone so there was no transition period for me. Well, I guess this is it! I just walked into the classroom as the new teacher, and that was that. This year is definitely going to be a challenge (that's an understatement... it's like saying Phelps is a pretty fast swimmer), but it'll be fun. I'm looking forward to this year!
The pictures take forever to load onto this website and it's hard to format, so I just chose a few. I'm going to upload the rest onto this website: PICTURES (If the link doesn't work: http://picasaweb.google.com/jessicajanehu3)
Miss you all, keep in touch!
4 comments:
hey that mask changing thing is really cool, and he threw that peace sign to you haha. It seems like you're having a good time in Korea. You're so lucky that you get to eat all those Korean food for cheap price.Well, keep it up and keep posting pictures and updating your blog!
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All the best!
Your pics and video are so cool! That mask changing guy was awesome, especially when he threw a peace sign at you. My favorite pictures are: second part of breakfast (looks so good), the Tsingtao Panda (go drunk pandas!), and the art gallery picture of the kid eating ramen. Keep the pictures coming.
wow, very cool. love the panda. the mask change was really neat. glad to see you are checking out the area.
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