Long time

So it's been kind of a while since I updated this blog, whoops. Nothing too exciting has happened really. I've been spending a lot of weekends at home just kind of relaxing. Last weekend I went to Yeoju to see my friend's band play, which was fun. This weekend there's a Van Gogh show in Seoul I might go to. I should do some more planning for my winter camp though.

So my winter vacation is from December 29th to February 11th. It was going to be from January 5th to the 11th, but some things worked out and I can teach my winter camp during the week of the 17th, when a bunch of the kids will be at English institutes elsewhere. I'm looking forward to seeing some more of the country in the first couple weeks, then I'll be doing some international travel afterwards.

I'm looking at going to the Philippines with some people toward the end of January, which will be fun. We've got a nice hotel for pretty cheap, and just found a cheap flight. We'll be there two weekends, so I think we'll have plenty of time to do some fun stuff. The fellow who has family in the Philippines has been doing most of the planning, but I hope to get a travel guide soon so I can pick out some spots that would be good for me.

Then I'll meet up with a friend from the US in Japan early in February. I might end up going a little early so I can tour the country a bit and get the most out of the two week rail pass I'll have to buy(for about $400). I need to study up on my kanji though, so it will be a little easier to get around. But I'm excited about the trip, I've wanted to go to Japan for so long it's hard to believe I'm only months away. Even if it turns out to be a horrible place, I'm sure I'll still be happy to be there.

So I'm thinking about those plans a lot, more than I should be. I still have to prepare for two more weeks of lectures and the winter camp. But I've gotten a little better about lesson planning, and teaching has been a lot less stressful lately. I've kind of relaxed my noise restrictions a bit, and let the students who talk in the back talk as much as they want. I just make sure they're quiet enough that the ones with desire to learn can still hear me. Even this can get out of control in some of my 2nd grade classes, but for the most part it's been pretty good. I just have to remember that I'm an assistant teacher and don't really have that much authority over them anyway. Also if I waste too much class time trying to get the groups of noisy people in line, the students who want to learn are going to suffer.

The picture is of construction on the subway line that's going to have a stop right outside my apartment. Unfortunately it wont be done until 2010, so even though I have to endure the noise at 3am on Sunday mornings I wont be able to reap the benefits. But it's kind of a pretty picture isn't it? I was hoping to catch it when the sun was a little less bright but in the same position, sometimes it's a really nice red. But this worked out I think.

Sunday Update

It's been a while since I've updated. I was having some trouble getting blogger to accept my photos for some reason. I hadn't done much the past couple weekends anyway, but this weekend was pretty good.

Friday - I had a good Korean lesson after work. My tutor says she learns enough English teaching me Korean that we'll be able to spend most of the time on Korean, meaning I get 4 hours of Korean instead of 2. After that I came back to Suwon, did a little Noraebanging(Karaoke room) for a friend's birthday.

Saturday - I meant to go see my student's festival, but I slept in. I went to the music store in Seoul again with a friend. We each got a acoustic guitars, then went to Cheongnam stream and jammed for a bit. I might go back next weekend, and maybe Yongsan too.

Sunday - I got to meet my co-teachers family, which was interesting. Her sister lives with her now, who was friendly and speaks a lot of English. Her two sons, who both speak Japanese, and I talked with the eldest one(about 19) about anime and computers a bit. I think he tried to sell me his laptop... But I may have misinterpreted that. Then we went hiking on a "small" mountain. It was a good hike, very pretty with the leaves all changing color. There were a couple spots coming down that I slipped cause of the leaves, but nothing serious. Then we had some salmon at her apartment and I came back.

Hopefully I'll get to go hiking again before it gets too cold, I need to bring my camera along sometime to take some pictures. Tomorrow we're heading to the coast in the afternoon for a place that specializes in what I think is rock bass(she called it rock fish), so that should be a good meal. I still have some more lesson planning to do tonight, so I should get to work.

Second Hongdae visit

After learning a little from our mistakes of the previous weekend, which involved standing around for hours, we(the Madison group) were able to do a little more exploring Friday night in Hongdae. Once everybody got the subway station went to eat, split off and went to some bars, then met up at another bar. I think that's probably the best course of action, to split up into smaller groups, it's hard to get 13 people to all do the same thing. Plus it's a lot less conspicuous.

We slept at the bath house, which was more like what I expected it to be like before I got here than what people seemed to say it was like. It was nice to take a shower and get a couple hours of rest, before heading around Hongdae for more shopping Saturday.

We were able to find a nice music shop in Jongpo(very close to Hongdae). It was a lot like Yongsan, with about 50 music shops all competing. I found a good accoustic/electric bass for $300(originally $455) with a little haggling, but I probably could have done better with a little more effort. It's a good bass though, I don't think I could have gotten it in the US for any cheaper. I was able to bust it out and play randomly when we were stopped a couple times shopping, which was fun and didn't seem to bother anybody.

I took the subway back around 5, got back around 7:30, and slept from 10:30pm-10:00am. A good weekend overall I think.

Overall the weekend turned out well. Friday I got my new cell phone activated. There was a Racing Model audition, so my friend Namu and I watched that for a little bit, then got something to eat. There was this awesome dessert drink that came in a little bowl, it was some kind of sweet rice thing. Then we went to a place that called itself a 'Family Beer Restaurant'. We drank and at some 'cajun' style chicken, that was really just fried chicken with a kind of mustard sauce on it.

Saturday I waited for the cable guy, who never showed up. Then I was going to go to this thing at the YMCA that offers Korean lessons to foreigners, but it turned out that would cost money. So my friend Namu said I should just come up with questions and he can spend some time with me weekly to specifically practice Korean. Around 2 I finally got on a bus to Suwon station so I could head up to Seoul on the subway for the Ssamzie Sound Festival. I met up with a friend from the Madison group, but he had to leave pretty quickly, then I met with one of my roommates from the workshop. It was really cool, lots of good bands, and especially some good heavy metal I wasn't expecting. But my cell phone died, and I got split off from my group so I headed back to Suwon a little early.

Today I went to a music shop I'd been meaning to check out for a bass guitar. They had three, they all felt pretty crappy and they didn't have any bass amplifiers for me to try them out on. I'll have to search more in downtown Suwon, or maybe even up in Seoul. Hopefully I'll get in touch with Jay, one of Rob's friends I met here on the first day, and he can help me out. He's a music major and plays the upright bass. I looked around the 'HiMart' for some computer stuff, but everything was overpriced. But I found some cheap yogurt drinks at the Lottemart, so that was pretty exciting.

Time to prepare my lecture for the week, I have no idea what I'm doing... But I know I want them all to pick out English names, then I'll do something to take pictures so I can try and remember them all.

Everybody spits

So here's a little something maybe you didn't know about Korea. Everybody spits. Absolutely everybody. While waiting at the crosswalk while I came home from school I was witness to 3 acts of spitting that struck me as unusual. First an elderly woman(60-80) standing next to me worked up a real phlegmy one and just spit right there at the crosswalk. Then there was a group of school girls at the other side of the crosswalk, and one just very casually pulled her hair back and spit to the side of her. Then a taxi cab driver that was turning left lead out his window and spit, without even really slowing down. Everybody spits.
Then it seemed like some sort of school girl gang war was going to break out. Because everyone where's uniforms it's easy to tell who is from different school. The girls with the grey button-up vests and white shirts were yelling and giving the finger to the girls with grey sweater-vests and blue shirts(my school), who then proceeded to spit more threateningly and give the finger and yell at the white shirts. When the crossing signal was given I really thought there was going to be some sort of Braveheart charge, but they just yelled louder and continued walking. Which is fortunate for my school, as the white shirts had reinforcements waiting on the other side.

Okay, I'll try to sum up the week I spent at the Labrador in a paragraph. First, La'Viedor(Labrador) is a resort that hosts the Gepik training program for new teachers. The presentations were pretty boring, I ended up learning more about how to teach just from talking to the other people at the resort. Most of the Q&A sessions were crappy, because people just complained about their own situations and how the ideas they were given didn't help. But my roommates were pretty cool, one of them spoke really good Korean and every time he did it gave me more motivation to study it on my own. Overall it was pretty uneventful, but a nice break from teaching.

Friday my friend Namu came over, a guy I met through my predecessor Rob. He brought some traditional Korean wine and we ordered some food. I'll have to come up with some words or phrases I want him to teach me, his English is really good and he seems open to teaching me some Korean.

Saturday we went to Seoul, which was pretty exciting. We stopped by a massive electronics building in Yongsan. It's 7 stories I think, with 20-30 shops on each level. It's like some kind of electronic village. I got a new cell phone, some CDs and a movie. Then we went into downtown Seoul, which was pretty quiet because of the holiday. Stopping by the folk village(a place with historical reenactments of traditional Korean life) we were able to see a traditional Korean wedding, with a big group of French tourists.

Ｏｖｅｒａｌｌ　ｉｔ　ｗａｓ　ａ　ｇｏｏｄ　ｆｉｒｓｔ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｉｎ　ａ　ｂｉｇ　ｃｉｔｙ，　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｉｔ　ｗａｓ　ｔｏｎｅｄ　ｄｏｗｎ　ａ　ｂｉｔ　ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｈｏｌｉｄａｙ．

Fixing things

Today I managed to fix a few things around my apartment.

1. I got the M key on my laptop working again, by simply taking of a panel and putting it back on again... I still don't really know what the problem was but it seems to be fine for now.

2. I took the faceplate off my PSP and cleaned the buttons, the down arrow was sticking a bit.

3. I managed to put a drawer that goes under my bed back together, with nails and a pliers because I forgot to buy a hammer, again.

Tonight I might go to a Jazz Festival, but since I don't really know how to get there and can't get a hold of anybody I'll probably end up going tomorrow. Should be fun either way though.