Another Year Older

Last Friday I celebrated my birthday! It was strange to be so far away from home and miss celebrating with my family, but I want to say a huge "thank you" to everyone who sent cards, emails and packages! It made my day extra special. Since my birthday fell on a Friday I decided to make the most of my school day and planned "cookie parties" with some of my classes. This is what they call it when we let them bring snacks to eat during class, usually only on special occasions. I also brought a Korean treat called "choco pies" for the kids. It's pretty much like a Little Debbie snack cake with marshmallow in the middle, but they love it! Unfortunately, my birthday was not a good enough reason for the students to modify their behavior at all, so it turned out to be a frustrating evening. Holly and I went out to eat pizza after work with two of our coworkers, which was a nice way to finish off the day.

Saturday we planned to spend the day exploring Dongdaemun Market in Seoul and doing some shopping. As I said in my previous post, the torrential downpour kind of made this a challenge, but we didn't let that stop us! Thank goodness for underground shopping malls!! We also found a nearby Starbucks to take a break from the wetness. For dinner, we met all of our coworkers and Korean friend, Joey, at an Italian Restaurant called "Mad for Garlic." We'd heard good things about the food, which turned out to be true. In my opinion, the meal didn't seem extra garlicky tasting, but they did go a little wild with the "garlic" decor of the restaurant...garlic bulbs attached to huge pendant lights, custom sconces in the shape of garlic cloves, random strings of garlic hanging from the walls, etc. Actually, it was all very nice and I'm glad to have such great people in my life to share it with. See below for a photo (from the internet...I forgot to take any pictures that evening).

Summer in Full Bloom

Summer is officially here, and I'm sad to say the weather is much the same as the Midwest this time of year. The days have turned hot and muggy. As an added bonus, we've been told that monsoon season is fast approaching. Now, I'm not really sure what that is going to entail or how long it will last, but it sounds ominous. Saturday we got a taste of it - a downpour all day long that made our day of shopping in Seoul a little less fun.

I'm amazed at the array of plants and flowers that are always in bloom here. Recently, the giant rose bushes that cover many of the fences and line the sidewalks on our way to work were covered in thousands of flowers. It was so pretty! Below are a few pictures that give an idea of what it was like, but it was hard to really capture the full effect.

Korean 101: 저는 엉어 선생님 임니다

As you can probably guess from the title, I'm starting to learn Korean! The translation basically says "I'm an English teacher" and it's one of very few things I've learned so far. In order to assimilate more into Korean culture we decided to join a language class for beginners, along with co-workers Lee and Nicki, offered by our church. The class is on Saturday mornings from 10:30 - 12:00. Every day of the week is a sleep-in day since we start work at 2pm, but Saturdays were our "no pressure" days - with no job to get ready for we were free to take our time getting around. We were really excited and motivated the first couple of weeks, but now some of the attraction has worn off and it's not as easy to get out of bed for. However, I know in the end it will be a decision I won't regret.

We started out by learning how to introduce ourselves and give our job title and phone number. That was followed by the basic vowels, consonants and structure of Hangeul - the Korean system of writing. Words are written in syllables, with characters grouped together to form the different sounds, rather than one letter after the other as in English. Our teacher, Cindy, is very patient but it is hard for our mouths to learn to form some of the more unfamilar sounds. I don't seem to retain much from week to week but hopefully things will begin to sink in more as we go along. In an attempt to supplement my learning efforts I downloaded a cool application for my ipod that lets me practice the Hangeul alphabet flashcard style.

Last week we had a cooking lesson - how to make a traditional Korean dish, bibimbap (비빔밥). It has a base of rice followed by layers of different vegetables and topped off with hot chili paste. We learned the names of the ingredients and how to say phrases like "please give me some...", "put it in", and "please mix". The final test was getting up in front of the class to assemble our dish using only the Korean words. It was pretty intense, but I now know the words for cucumber, carrots and lettuce! As a reward, we got to eat our bibimbap...it was good, but not my idea of a perfect breakfast food!

Diary: "the nature is good"

In honor of Earth Day today here is a genius diary entry about protecting our planet!

Today is Arbor day. We plant tree on Arbor day.
But, I didn't plant trees. So, I was protecting trees.
If I have small tree I plant tree. But, I hadn't
tree. I think many of people didn't plant tree because
many people didn't afford to plant trees. So, many people
just protecting trees.
Nowdays, many people damaged nature. So, many of the
trees and flowers vanished. If many people vanish
plants constantly, maybe all of plants become extinct.
So, I think all of people protecting plants.
When all of people protecting plants well, the plants
grow up quickly. After, the nature is good.
-by Ron, 7th grade