So Much to Say...

Holy smokes time here has been flying by over here!

Part of my job is to correct all of students' English diaries twice a week. We have close to 130 students so that makes for quite a but of journals. I really enjoy doing this though some of them are written so bad that I have no idea what they are trying to say, this is common since Korean and English are completely different languages. I get some that are VERY well written, some of which I am sure are legit and some of which I am sure have been copied off of the internet. There has not been a time that I have corrected and not laughed out loud though. Two Thursdays ago (before our trip to Seoul) I was correcting these diaries and this is what one of them said :

- Tittle: Jessie teacher
I like the Jessie teacher because she is funny and friendly. she is my personal model to fallow she is very qualified as a teacher. The Jaci teacher are friendlier than I expected Jessie teacher is very very friendly! I love you Jassie I love you! -

How precious is that?

In another one that I recently read a student told me how pissed off they were. "I was very very very pissed off" all I thought was "where the heck did you learn that?" Another one wrote about how delicious fatback is and how much they enjoy eating fatback, I am not sure about you but I have no idea what fatback is... I later realized that it was just a bad translation but it was good for some laughs. The diaries might just be my favourite part of my job.

I have so much to write about... where to start.

After work on the Thursday before Ally, Michelle and I went to Seoul (October 2nd) I met Michelle, Trevor, E-Ru and Bu Kyoung downtown at Speakeasy (the local foreigner bar). We decided to participate in the Pub Quiz that they hold every second Thursday, each player pays 5000 won ($5) and teams of 5 compete in 10 categories of 10 questions. We thought it would be somewhat easy but it was actually pretty hard and we only scored 32%, I got really excited when they asked to question: what country holds the record for longest outdoor skating rink? I won't lie I felt proud. Good news was we won a pitcher of beer for our very creative team name "The Chugging Chugglers"- I think the guy felt sorry for us. After the Pub Quiz and a few drinks at Speakeasy Michelle and I went to my favourite place Wow and Joy, we go there quite a bit this night was not busy so the guy who works the door sat with us and had some pizza.

The plan was to leave for Seoul on the 7am bus the next day but Michelle and I stayed out too late and my cell phone died so I did not have an alarm clock to wake me up. I woke up at 11am in a panic thinking that the girls had left without me. They laughed at me when I called them and asked "are you in Seoul?" We ended up on the 12:30 bus. The bus ride was not bad at all, we went at a good time because our bus only had us and 4 other people on it so it was nice and quiet. We arrived in Seoul at about 4:30pm and took the Subway to Mushroom's (you remember Ally's friend?) apartment where we were spending the weekend while he was in Gwangju. It was nice to have a place that we could stay for free.

Seoul was great! There were so many people there. Anytime of the day anywhere you go there are tons of people. Friday night we met a few of Ally's friends from Gwangju who now live in Seoul. We went for dinner at a nice Italian Restaurant, something that you cannot as easily find in Gwangju. Then we did some shopping and went to a few differnt Soju restaurants. Seoul has everything, any store that I thought I might miss I am pretty sure I can find it in Seoul. I found a Lush, which was exciting because I was almost out of Ocean Salt. I paid an extra $10.00 but I figured that would be cheaper than having it shipped to me. Another nice change in Seoul was that there are so many more foreigners, many signs are written in both Korean and English and people don't stare and point at you like they do in Gwangju.

Saturday we did some more shopping at an undergroud shopping mall, I swear you don't even have to ever go outside in this city - it was kind of creepy. That evening was Jool's salsa competition (we later found out that Jool's group won 1st prize - 1 million won), it was held at Lotte World a big amusement park. The competition was really good there were a few group performances and at the end they had a number of dancers from all over the world perform it was very impressive. For some reason my boss called me twice on Saturday and asked me if I was in Seoul and when was I coming home, I wondered what this was about.

That night we went to this huge crowded market on the street, they sell everything food, clothes, handbags shoes. You can honestly get anything that you want at any hour in Seoul. We went to another mall where the hours were 7pm - 5am, or something like that. We didn't stay out too late that night because the plan was to get up early and go to Itaewon, we were all up and out of the house by noon, which was good for us! We went for lunch at a place called Gecko's, ally's friend Shi-Un met up with us. It was funny, shortly after we sat down at our table Amanda, the Canadian girl that I met in the airport in Toronto walked in - what are the chances of that? She lives an hour outside of Seoul and there are millions of people in Seoul. It was good to see her!

We left Seoul around 6pm on Sunday - it felt good to be home in Gwangju but I want to visit Seoul again and see more of the city.

My week after that wasn't too eventful - I think the most exciting part was the fact that I got up every morning and went to the track. I figured out that Mr. Kim had been calling me in Seoul because there were more problems with my plumbing and something was leaking. So the same plumbers from last time were at my apartment and drilling up all of my concrete floors by 8:00am on Tuesday. It was terrible I went to the track in the morning and then spent some time at Michelle's when I came home for about 10 minutes the place was a disastre, my living room, bathroom and dressing room floors were all destroyed so that they could get to the pipes... I guess, I never really knew what was wrong. When I got home after work at 8:30 they had just finished and the place was mess - dust and rocks everywhere. I spent two nights cleaning the place. I moved all the furniture and everything. I was not impressed at first but was happy to finally clean my place really well.

Later that week Mr. Kim told me that I would be having my voice recorded, I will read something and it will be recorded. He said "next Thursday I will pick you up at 12:20". I really had no idea what he was talking about but he told me that I would be paid so I agreed to do it.

That Friday Ally, Jool, Michelle and I decided to have a girl's night out. We went to Wow and Joy my favourite place - I met Ally and Michelle there, as soon as I walked in the guy at the door recognized me and said "Ah window, your friends" and pointed to Ally and Michelle. He knows us so well! We went to Buena Vista, another bar and then ended up at a Salsa bar with all of Jool's Salsa friends who I love, they are so much fun. We again drank too much Soju.

Saturday I worked my two hours, it was not easy... At 4:00 Cloudia picked me up by the little grocery store by my house. For a long time we had been planning a day for me to visit her sister-in-law's home and meet her nieces. We drove for about 20 minutes and when we got there we were greeted by three smiling young girls, Cloudia's sister-in-law and a very grumpy little boy who really loved yelling, screaming and stomping around. It was really nice they were so friendly and very interested in English and Canada. I showed them post cards and a book about Manitoba while we ate fresh fruit. I taught the girls how to play "Go Fish" (it has really becom my specialty) and they taught me a game with marbles, I don't remember what it is called and I was not good at it but it was fun. Then they took me out for dinner, when we go to the restaurant it was empty we were the only ones there but there was a playroom for children so it was soon packed with people. We had samgyopsal, pork that is cooked at your table with mushrooms, onions, kim chi, soup, all the many side dishes that always accompany Korean meals. I tried many new things - Cloudia insisted that I try an insect, so I did. I'm not sure what it was but I didn't like it, but like I said before I will try anything once. The soup was new to me too it had something that looked like a cow's body part in it, Cloudia insisted I try it before she tells me what it is, so I did - it was not very good either, they told me it was hardened cow's blood. I didn't even know that was possible. The rest of the meal was very good though and Cloudia's sister-in-law took charge and cooked for us and the children. On the walk back to their home the girls begged me to sing to them in English, so we sang what all Koreans know - Mamma Mia. I can't count the times that Mamma Mia songs have come up or the amount of times that people have asked me if I have seen it, which I haven't but Cloudia's sister-in-law wants to take me to see it. Next time I visit them I will take pictures!

That night we celebrated Sung Gyun's birthday at the noreabang that has all of the wigs and masks. I was stoked that they had a Michaelangelo mask since I have been trying to convince the girls to dress up as the TMNT for halloween, I don't think it's gonna fly. We were introduced to one of Sung Gyun and Seung Geun's friends who quickly drank a lot of Soju and was hilarious the entire night. He kept almost falling asleep and then next thing you know he was up dancing like a mad man. You rarely hear people swear in Korea, especially not in English - every so often you hear students swear but nothing serious. This guy would randomly yell "f@cking eat sh#t" (my apologies but it was too funny not to share). I was so embarassed because he later did this at the restaurant that we went to. This guy was so funny though, I think his name was Ju Ill and he is an instant party. On Sunday Michelle and I walked to Chosun University for a festival called Gwangju's International Community Day. There was a photo display, a bunch of different types of food, flea market, 1000 won beer, performances and a talent show. It was put on by the Gwangju Internations Center where I think I might take a Korean Language class. It was nice we had a few beers, ate some african food and watched our friend Mike perform a Barenaked Ladies song.

At 12:20 on Thursday I was outside of my apartment waiting to be picked up to go and record. A van pulled up and a Korean man jumped out and started talking to me really fast. I had no idea what he was saying and I tried to tell him that I don't speak Korean at all. He seemed to get really frustrated and then he wouldn't leave he hung out and kept trying to talk to me. So I called Ally and asked her to translate, turned out that this guy owns a gym and just wanted me to go to his gym. It really was not that important at all. Ha haha he was so worked up. A few minutes later a van pulled up and a woman jumped out "Hi Jessie, I am Rosie I will take you to record", "Ok". So we went to a recording studio and it turns out that I recorded some information for a popular cable car on Duryun Mountain. It was so fun. I had to read four pages of English so of which wasn't correct but it would have been too difficult to change so I just went with it. I got paid 200 000 won, I was shocked. They said that they really like my voice and that if they needed anyone again they would call me. That was exciting! I later met Michelle and Ally at Wow and Joy, we must go there way too often because they have started giving us free stuff!
Friday night we went downtown of course and later ended up in a noreabang in Sangmu. Saturday was the monthly Korean/Foreigner dinner, Mattie, Michelle and I went together after spending only a half an hour at the Kim Chi Festival. It was great we went for Shabbu Shabbu with almost 30 people. We met so many new teachers and some Koreans.

I am sure I have left out so much that I want to share, there is so much. It's so hard to stay on top of this - this update alone took three days to put together. I really make trouble for myself when I don't update this thing regularly, I will try harder to do that. I hope everyone is well!

Much love!