Emily teacher

School has been going pretty well. I think I'm getting better at teaching at least. I took 5 years of school on how to teach kids, but teaching kids in a language that isn't theirs is a whole other story. I've had to get use to repeating things over and over, speaking slowly and clearly, and acting. I think my English has actually gotten worse! I dumb down my language a lot and then when I get together with my friends we all talk funny. We laugh about it a lot. Anyways, my school is rediculously active. They are ALWAYS having some kind of special event, most of which seem to involve English, which in turns means it involves me. For example, there was an English talent show I was a guest judge at and I had to give a speech. There was an English plaza at a park on a Saturday that I ran one of the booths for. There is a English fire safety speech competition for the district, so I've been helping the students practice and such. Anyways, about two weeks ago the school had a swimming competition. It was sooo cute seeing all the little kids in their swimsuits with matching swim caps. I was suppose to give a speech at that too, but luckily it was overridden after I strongly expressed how much I didn't want to do it. Also, for the month of October I have to come to school 20 minutes early and stand at the school gates and greet the students. The crazy vice-principle is out there with me too and she is constantly grabbing kids and forcing them to talk with me. It's mostly just "Good morning, how are you? I hope you have a nice day" and stuff like that.

I also got to go on a field trip with the 4th grade last week. We went to the National Museum of Seoul and then to the Changdeokgung Palace. It was a nice change of pace. The students took a bit to warm up to me because they were shy, but after about an hour, I had kids hanging off my arms for the rest of the time saying anything and everything they knew in the English language. It was rather funny really. The museum had a lot of stuff about ancient history, but it was hard to focus with so many kids. The Palace was really cool and we got to watch the changing of the guards. Fun time!

These last two pictures are just a little bonus!! The first one is my neighborhood at night. Aren't the lights cool! The second is the other classroom I work in. I work with two different teachers and they each have their own classroom. They are connected by our office. Just last week we totally redecorated both classrooms, so I will put updated pictures up soon. They look much better with stuff on the walls.

Food & Frisbee

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I've been playing ultimate frisbee on Sundays in Seoul since the first week we arrived in Incheon. Rebekah has played it for a long time and so I thought I'd give it a go as well. They started a league a few weeks ago, so every Sunday we have games. I'm not very good at it, so most of the time I just run around in circles secretly hoping no one will throw it to me so I won't embarrass myself. No, but really it is pretty fun. Last weekend was my break out. I had two games and I finally scored! Actually, I scored 3 times! So, I was pretty happy to finally have done something useful for my team. We started out playing at Yeouinaru park just along the Han River in Seoul, but just recently changed it to a park outside the World Cup stadium to have more space. I have a couple pictures there of Yeouinaru park. It is a really cool and popular park. There area always tons of people riding bikes and roller blading along the river. There are only 2 more weeks of games before the league is over. I'm thinking I will end my frisbee career then and maybe find a soccer team!


I've had a lot of people ask me what I actually eat in Korea. Even Koreans ask me. I actually had one girl tell me she had never seen one before (meaning she had never met a vegetarian before.) Well, during the week I eat the school lunch. I use to bring my own lunch, but then I thought it would be good for me to try more Korean foods and the other teachers thought it was impressive I was willing to try, so I kept at it. Much of the food has meat in it, but I can always be rested assured there will be 2 things I can eat: rice and kimchi (kimchi is with EVERY meal. its spicy pickled cabbage. Not my favorite by any means, but I eat it every meal!). They usually have a fruit for desert too. Korean meals aren't like meals at home where we have maybe 3 dishes. They have like 10. So, there are usually some kind of veggie side dishes I can eat. If I go out for dinner or something, my favorite thing to order in Bibimbap. It is kinda a rice mix with veggies and an egg. But, the thing that is eaten most commonly is Korean BBQ. It is where there is a grill in the middle of the table and you cook your own meat. I've been to many of these. I usually eat the side dishes and then order this spicy tofu soup (pictures below). And the spicy thing... I'm getting better. There are some things I just can't handle, but I've been eating lots of spicy things and I'm tolerating it pretty well. The love their red peppers here; it's in everything! Oh, and this first picture is me enjoying a meal at a Vegetarian restaurant!!! My friend Elizabeth who plays frisbee with me is also a vegetarian, so after a game one day we made a trek to one of the handful of vegetarian restaurants in the whole country. Living so close to Seoul is nice because it is so HUGE and has more diversity then most places. I can't wait to go back there.
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Oh, and of course they have pizza!!!

Takin' it back: China Town, Jayu Park, Sapaesan Hike

So, I've decided to start back tracking finally. These next few blogs might not be in exact order, but it's all stuff I've done in the last month or so since I last wrote. And, it's official, I've been here 2 months now!! I can't believe it. It has gone so fast. School has kept me extremely busy during the week and then every weekend has been jam-packed with exciting new things. I'll start off by telling you a couple outdoorsy things I've done lately.





The first pictures are from one Saturday afternoon me and my friends Candice and Lisa decided to go to China town in Incheon. (I tend to go to Seoul for all my sight seeing, so it was cool doing something closer to home.) The China town was actually pretty small, but still really cute. You ate Chinese food! (Well, Korean Chinese food!) Then we went to a nearby park called Jayu. We walked around, looked at a couple American monuments (my 2 Canadian friends were rather jealous they didn't have a monument!) We saw this guy doing Chinese calligraphy too. It was so beautiful.








I wanted to find some people who were into hiking or something of the sorts, so I looked online and found this hiking. It's about half foreigners and half Korean. I got 2 of my friends to come along and we went on one of their Saturday hikes to Sapaesan. It's a mountain just north of Seoul. It was really nice and we met lots of new people. The hike was pretty intense and it made me realize I need to go buy some hiking shoes before I do anymore. Hopefully I will find some this weekend as next weekend I plan to go again. Us 3 and about 5 more of our friends are going on a weekend long trip with the group to go hiking in eastern Korea. I'm super excited could tell a distinct difference between the China town area and the other neighborhoods. We even because the leaves are starting to change and I love fall colors.

Stuff I do

I know it seems like I talk mostly about what I do on weekends, but it's because I am starting to get into a routine at school and feel like it isn't as exciting to write about anymore. But, school is going well. 98% of the kids still find me a novelty and are eager to say hi to me, even when using the toilet, but there are those few who think I'm invisible and talk the entire time I am trying to teach. I don't teach really difficult things. For instance, in third grade I just finished a lesson called "Do you like apples?" It was basically teaching them some food vocab and how to say things they like. Grade 6, on the other end of the spectrum, is on the lesson called, "I'm stronger than you." It's about using things like: fast, faster, fastest. I do a lot of games, songs, and role playing. The book they have is pretty terrible, so I use it very rarely. To fill in time I like to do games like hang man, Simon says, letter Twister, and stuff like that. The teachers are cool still and everything is going good with them. Actually, today my principal came to me and in his broken English, asked me if I knew how to swim. My teacher started interpreting and the next question was, "Did you bring your swimsuit to Korea?" Then the next thing was, "The principal wants you to teach an after school class called "Learning to swim in English!" uhhhh. I'm not sure how this is going to work out, but I should know in the next week or so, so I will keep you updated on that one????



Anyways, these pictures are from last weekend. On Friday, after school, my friend Eddie and I went for a short hike up Mt. Gyeyang. It's the tallest mountain in Incheon, but not really that high at all. It took about an hour and a half to get up and back. There was great views of the city, though it was a bit hazy that day. It is only like a 30 minute walk from my house to get there too, so I'm sure I'll be back.










These other photos and video are from Sunday. I went to an FC Seoul soccer game in the 2002 World Cup stadium in Seoul. I went with my friend Lisa and some other new foreigners I met that day. It wasn't really a packed game, but I think it's because the stadium is so big. It was a lot of fun and cool to watch the die-hard fans cheer on their team. The video didn't turn out so well, but just imagine it being cool. They had fire works after each goal and they had really cool chants. FC Seoul won, woo hoo.

Changdoekgung

Over Chuseok break, (after the beach) I went for a day to Seoul to do some sightseeing with my friend Casey before having to go back to work. We went to one of the "5 grand palaces" of Seoul, Changdoekgung. It was used up until 1926, by the last Dynasty in Korea, the Joseon Dynasty. We took an English tour that lasted about an hour and a half. It was really hot, but super interesting. We took lots of pictures, and it was great to get out and see some sights. I spend a lot of my free time eating dinner or hanging out in pubs with friends, so I try to find adventure when I can. It takes only about an hour by subway to get to Seoul, so I can get there quite easily. These are pictures from the palace.

Last weekend and this one

Last Saturday I went to an English Festival in Incehon with my co-teacher Se-Jeong. We were in charge of the Beads! booth, but I didn't have to hand around that much and roamed more than made bracelets. It was basically a big carnival where everything was based around English. My friend Casey who is also an English teacher was there too, so we went around with our co-teachers and played all the games. We learned the cha-cha, had our Taro cards read, made buttons, got our faces painted, rode in go-carts, etc. It was fun just playing all day, though it was extremely hot out. I fell like I sweat all the time here. Not only that, but the school doesn't use the sir conditioning in the classrooms, so I am up there sweating like crazy while my teacher says, "you look a little hot." haha. I also met up with some friends on last weekend and we went to Bupyeong Underground Market. It is a crazy mobbed, maze of shops that sell anything and everything. It is all underground in the subway. I got a pair of sunglasses and a pair of shoes, each under $10.
This weekend I have a 6 day holiday!! I got Friday off and then I am off until Wednesday because of the Korean Thanksgiving called Chuseok. I didn't find out until Wednesday that I would have such a big break, but it was a pleasant surprise. So, on Saturday I went to an island off the coast of Incheon in the Yellow Sea. I went with Rebekah and our friend Mallory we met from orientation and a big group of people we met that we play ultimate frisbee with. We left Saturday morning and got back today (Monday). The island, Doekjoek-do, is apparently the unofficial Chusoek holiday place for foreigners to go. I didn't know this before I got there and was amazed by how un-Korean it felt. There were lots of foreigners, almost all of whom where English teachers. We camped on the beach with our group of about 20 that came and played frisbee, swam, hiked, and laid in the sand. It was really relaxing and it was really really beautiful. The first couple of pictures are me and Rebekah being goofy on the ferry to the island. The next one is of this lady who was selling crabs and she wold just pick them up with her hands. The second evening some of us went on a hike to the top of a little mountain where there were some amazing views. From the little gazebo we watched the sun set. The last few are of our camp site and such. The island was really beautiful and relaxing and I even got a little tanner!