da Korean language

For the folks at home who forget how serious I like to be.
It's another Deokjeokdo picture.

So moments like now when I try to watch TV and I hear Korean I'm just like, dang, I need to learn this.

But earlier today is a good reminder that being dumb can be good, too. I am two stops after Emily on the bus for school. I wanted to get near the side door so that I could have a fast exit. Unfortunately, I was "in the way" of the door shutting on the stop before mine and I could hear the bus driver yelling a lot. I believe some beeping started around the same time...it was all a blur. I kinda got the idea that he was yelling at me...seeing that everyone who wanted on the bus was on and I seemed to be the only one preventing us from moving along the road...so yeah, I kinda figured out that I was the problem and I move my bag but it only made it move in the way of the door even more so when the door tried closing it opened up again. All the while the driver is still yelling in Korean. I decided to step up on the regular platform instead of down on the first step down from the platform. I was on there because when the bus was packed last week a couple peeps stood on that step and the door still closed...go figure that I couldn't be as cool. All this to say...if I had known Korean I probably woulda felt bad from actually understanding the exact words the driver had been yelling. But in my favor of being dumb I got to stay dumb and as soon as the door closed I stepped back down on my step...hehehe....next stop was mine and I had a quick getaway without feeling embarrassed. But I know if I were back in Gainesville I woulda felt dumb...cuz the bus drivers speak English there. (Now I know you grammar fanatics probably think I used improper verbage in that last sentence with "were" instead of "was." But from my old days of French class I am getting this weird vibe that that sentence was subjunctive and I am supposed to use "were." But I could be wrong. You could be right. But in all honesty, I am too lazy to look that stuff up.)

Here's the many of us that went to the Chuncheon Hat Tournament.
We had some fierce games of mini on Sunday.
Saturday there were some Korean students to have a few games of 6 on 6.

This is a poorly thrown flick. But I think it made it to my target.

This is Linda. We got our hair done together in Bupyeong.
I got a cut and highlights for less than $30.
We were both wearing light colored contacts.
Opposite of Korean girls who wear black contacts.
But wait, we are Korean...

Fall League started yesterday for the Korea Ultimate Players Association...ballin'! It was fun.

I'd like to thank my friend, Nate, for allowing me to steal all his photos for my blog for the viewing purposes of my friends and family. This is in the subway station at Hongik University at 5:30 am when the station opens so we can all return to our home destinations. I'z unaware that there was an ad girl making a goofy face behind me. Sorryz Mommie. I know'll you disapprove of the length of my skirt...

So...did you think I came to Korea to teach? Yeah, me too. But this Friday is another holiday. I feel like one day the holidays will run out and I will be like, dude, I need a vacation. But until then...it's pretty sweet.

Before our first game of the tournament...didn't sleep enough the night before...awe I remember we were saying good-bye to a super sweet ulti player from Australia.

Do you like apples, apples?

This is a video of one of the 5th grade classes during the lesson about "Do you like apples?" It's a food lesson. But they only know a few like apples, oranges, bananas, chicken, ice cream, and pears. Pears? So random. Pizza they already know. There is a sweet potato pizza here in Korea. I tried it once. It's not bad....haha except I scraped off the sweet potato glob that was near the crust. And I picked off some chestnuts, or the like, on top of the cheese...

I tried uploading 3 videos but it keeps making a fuzzy sound every once in a while and disturbs the viewing pleasure. But they are on my facebook profile.

Video 1: (49 seconds) "Do you like apples, apples? Do you like apples, apples? Yummy, yummy, apples apples. Yummy, yummy, I like apples. " The next verse is "yucky, yucky, I don't like apples."

Here's a picture of the group of kids that came for extra English time.

Video 2: (19 seconds) is of the students doing an activity. It's called Happy Twins. They have to find 3 other students with matching cards. They ask, "Do you like....?" If the students say yes to the 3 matching kinds of food then they are twins! I wish I coulda filmed when they found a match b/c they screamed with so much excitement. It made me happy to watch them. Ha. There were a few students who were too shy or didn't know enough English but it made me happy to help them. Kids can be so cute when they aren't devious.

Video 3: (12 seconds) is what the students said after they found their matching classmates. There are so few students because this is a group that came to the English classroom after they had eaten their lunches quickly just to play with me! I walked in from my lunch and there were about 12 sitting in the chairs waiting for me patiently. They just wanted to do the class activity again. I don't remember if it was the same day as when I threw a frisbee with a group of girls. They were pretty good at throwing. Sadly one cried because her friend hit her in the eye.

Chuseok and the Beach

This past weekend was a 5 day holiday to celebrate Thanksgiving in Korea. Emily and I planned to meet up with some folks from ultimate frisbee to go camping at a beach on Deokjeok-do Island.

This is Emily and me waiting at the subway station to go to the ferry area. Those are our cheap sunglasses from the underground shopping that we bought a day before.

Friday my friend, Lucy, from my English Language Institute class at UF came to meet me. She was so nice to help Emily and me get a cell phone. I just got my Alien Registration card today.

We chilled with Lucy for dinner with Max (another ELI worker from UF). The next day Lucy and her husband were really kind in driving Em and me to the ferry station. I forgot I get motion sickness but luckily only one small portion of the ride made me freak out. After that incident Em and I fell asleep to my iPod. We woke up and we looked out the window just in time to see the island.

This is when we first got off the ferry. I yelled at Emily to take a video of this lady crabbing grabs. (I thought it'd be funny to have a little phonological substitution for the Linguists out there...holla...wait, maybe it's phonological exchange) The crabs were flanking like crazy and I kept jittering because I for serious thought she was going to get snapped!


We played ultimate frisbee on Saturday once the others arrived a few hours after I did. It was so nice to have my swimsuit on and feel like I was in Florida again. This picture is deceiving because there were quite a bit of foreigners in the area. I think I took this picture early morning.

RANDOM for visual effect: Emily and I are sharing a packet of Camembert but we couldn't find any french bread. All the bread we found was soft and usually sweet. Everything is so freakin' sweet in Korea. We bought these multi-grain crackers...they turned out to be coated with sugar. I realized that I could just buy regular bread and let it stale a day or so and it'd be perfect for the French cheese! Yum~

I had a tough time finding salt and I actually haven't found any yet in the grocery store. I found black pepper near soy sauce. I believe they sold them together not because they are spices and seasonings but because they are similar in color. True story. No salt in that aisle. So I have to find a white aisle to see if there is a possible container of salt.

This is our little camping area. There were about 15 of us. It's not a picture of all the tents but you get the idea. It was fun hanging our stuff on the trees. The sand was not quite as soft as I anticipated. I believe the sand was firmer near the trees. I contemplated sleeping in the open area of soft sand but I only had a throw blanket and no socks. It was hot in the daytime but quickly chilly at night.



The first evening the sky was a beautiful array of colors. The picture below is the second evening. But this is an image of the beginning of the sun setting...over the lovely building that housed the toilets. A polite way of putting this is that they did not have staff operating the building during the holiday. But at least our tents were closest to it so that was nice and convenient.


Here's Emily and me taking a chill break by our tents on the sand on Sunday. The evenings were nicely spent with some chill games and beverages. I found a nice combination of lemonade to satisfy my taste buds. There were several campfires. I briefly stayed by one and saw a girl with fireball chains doing tricks. It was cool and twas glad she did not burn herself.

My friend, Mallory, was at the beach with us. She and I had a good deal of a time joking about crazy life situations and people.

Monday night: This is Lisa and Linda. We got dessert at Can More. Lisa got ice cream with red beans. Linda got something that looked like green tea ice cream. I purchased a fancy chocolate mousse cake that was too rich to finish but was good. It's Linda's birthday tomorrow.

Teaching is good. I like my English co-teachers and the students are cute. So far I've taught 5th and 6th graders. Thursday is my first day teaching 3rd graders. Ha! They are the cutest.

My favorite memory and experience from camping on the beach...

I got to slip away by myself beside the water as the light of the full moon cascaded across the water to meet me. I retreated with my iPod away from the crowd. As I thought of the Flaming Lips song I remembered it mentions how the sun doesn't set but it's just an illusion of the world spinning around.

This is a few of us trying a bite of the large seaweed that washed ashore. We tried it with a sauce...

What a crazy time! I was journaling on an island in South Korea with a full moon. I hadn't realized how much of nature I missed until I was just staring at the water moment by moment and being perfectly content. As I glared at the beauty of the light on water I realized that I live among buildings and people and cars, buses, taxis.


I got to journal for hours yesterday on my last day off during the holiday. I found a cute place called Holly's Coffee. It's across the street from Starbucks but I've been avoiding the green store. I read some more of Catch-22. I'm going to be about halfway done this week.

I'm so excited about the hat tournament this weekend in Chuncheon.

I miss some random things in Florida such as: Gator football, Jimmy Johns, hugging family and friends, going anywhere in Gainesville with Jessica while I drive her Jeep, laughing with special people, and going to shows.

Entertainment

I finally got a copy of Catch 22!!! I have a book to read!!!

HOW IS EVERYONE IN FLORIDA DOING? I hope the hurricane doesn't hit central Florida...I heard it was a category 4.

I wanted to see if there was closed captioning on my TV and see if there was any way that I could put it on English. So there is not a button for it but as I was fiddling with the settings I accidentally re-programmed all the channels. Turns out my tv picked up an English channel...it's actually a channel that the military watch. Ha...there are so many military commercials. And a lot of "don't drink too much" advertisements. One was even made with the South Park characters.



We hit up 3 different places. The first one was a small bar with a cute lounge area. When I say

Today I got to play more ultimate...holla. I'm so glad Emily was able to find the park. She had to come by herself. She's told me that she doesn't pay attention when we go to places together. But she's a smart cookie and I was happy to see her walk on the field. I'm so proud of her. We missed the transfer for one subway line on the way back...again. It's one extra transfer on the way home than the way to the field.

Mom's always right.

I remember my mom always telling me and anyone about how cheesy the Korean soap operas are. There is more Asian PDA than I thought. Like couples are freakin' everywhere! A lot of advertisements are white guys with Korean girls. But never any white girls with a korean guy. Emily and I were laughing because a lot of "dorky" white gamer boys are dating Korean girls...it's just an interesting observation.

These are some of the people that I played ultimate with for like 5 hours on Sunday. It takes over an hour on the subway to get there, too but it was well worth it.

This meal is a Korean BBQ. It is so good. It's the best Korean food I've had so far. I made mine super spicy because of the jalapeno type peppers they had...whew! Blew me away but sooo good! And backtrack, during ultimate I caught several discs by getting on my knees or rolling on the ground after so it wouldn't hurt and it was fun. I made an awesome catch that resulted in me passing to the end zone. I can't wait to play this Sunday.

These two pictures are of our first day at school. It was tradition growing up that my mom would take a picture of us going out the door on the first day of school.

I tried getting small photos taken last night at a subway station...like a photo booth. They had some that were passport sizes. So Emily and I had exactly 7 of the 1000 won bills. Because they didn't take any other bills. And turns out after waiting in the machine and pushing buttons for about 6 minutes one of the lights was burned out. And so it said there was an error in the system and then it never returned my money. But thankfully tonight I was able to take some photos for a better deal. I needed the photos for my alien registration card...pause...this is really boring for you to read.

So tonight some of the EPIK teachers were able to meet together for food at Outback Steakhouse. This picture is Mallory and me. She's an awesome Canadian. Can you believe it? I thought Canadians only spoke French...silly me. Desiree: can you see my blue contacts? This picture is for you!

This is Eddie and Mallory.

This weekend I am planning on going to Mallory's apt. She lives near the Incheon airport and she has a big place and has been making a DJ playlist so she can host a dance party.

Oh, after Outback and after the photos a few of us checked out the underground shopping hallways and they had cute jeans for like 19 bucks and other things that were pretty cheap. Like things you find at Urban for 10 bucks or so.

I had some cool stories but I can't think of them right now...

This is what Emily and I see on our 15 min walk back from the subway station to our apt. I feel like this is what Vegas might feel like...kind of.