I have officially had a birthday in a foreign country. Though I wasn't able to spend it with family and friends from back home, my friends here set up an evening of fun for me. While at work, I was given a list entitled "Picture Scavenger Hunt." This list comprised of 22 things that I had to do around Mokpo and take picture of. So I started. I would do one here, walk around for a little bit, find another one I could scratch off the list, etc. It was a lot of fun! Naomi and I met up with Amy, Lisa, and Paul, and continued in my pursuit to do all 22 things!
Lisa made the list. Here it is:
1. If only you could find Lee Min Ho (Korean celebrity)...
2. Find or make a calendar of August. Try to find someone else who has a birthday in August!
3. Find a really creative hiding place that you would use in a game of hide and seek.
4. Catch a bus and say a prayer!
5. Find a stage or platform. Put on a show and take a bow!
6. Find the most outlandish ring you can and try it on for size!
7. Strike the most peaceful, relaxed, and happy pose you can!
8. Find balloons and have a contest to see who can blow their balloon the biggest in one minute (we changed it to 10 seconds)
9. Bust a move
10. Find something that clearly represents Tokyo or London
11. Find something bouncy to jump on!
12. Have you seen any "Queen" Mary's in Mokpo?
13. Find a Korean teacher and snap a quick photo with them!
14. Create a maternity moment.
15. Decide on a "true" color and create something using only that color
16. Drum up a parade
17. Vogue.
18. Find something that has the word "funk" in it and snap a photo
19. Find a sign in Korean saying "Do not touch."
20. Let's see some creative "shadow" art
21. Give us your best poker face. Must include cards of some kind.
22. What are three things that you are dreaming of for this year? Find a way to make a list using pictures.
So I had quite a lot of work ahead of me. I'll just say right now that I didn't finish Thursday night. Hunger got in the way. And the need for a birthday cake. I won't post pictures here, because there would be too many. Check Facebook. Anywho, I had a lot of fun, but we started to get hungry. We hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we went to a restaurant and ordered a chicken dish. It was ginormous! (Facebook pics) It contained chicken, cabbage, potatoes, rice cakes, ramen, cheese, and a red pepper sauce. DELISH. Oh yeah, we had some quail eggs too. That was interesting. It was really just like a hard boiled egg, but smaller.
After dinner, I was led to Baskin Robbins, where I got to choose an ice cream cake! I decided on a chocolate cake with a vanilla center. It was quite scrumptious! We took it to a coffee house and ate it there while sipping delicious caffeine goodness. We may have let some of the ice cream get to us, because we pretty much laughed the rest of the night. Before we knew it, it was almost midnight, and we headed home. I still had 7 things left to do on the list, so we decided that I would have the weekend to finish it.
Saturday evening was girls' night in! Naomi, Lisa, Yung Suk, and I met at MaRee's apartment. MaRee made the best pumpkin spring rolls ever! Then again, I've never had them before. Yung Suk made a noodle dish that was excellent, and we also had some veggies courtesy of Naomi. Everything was so good and we were so full afterwards! MaRee also made rice krispies treats and cut up a bunch of fruit. I was full for the rest of the night! We played picture telephone and hilarity ensued. And I kicked butt in Bananagrams ^^. I didn't end up doing any more of my scavenger hunt list, so Sunday would have to count!
And it sure did. But I'll get there eventually. I got a call from Jay's (one of my students) mom, who invited me to lunch. I had already eaten, but she insisted, so I said yes. She as well as Sally (another student) and her mom picked me up and we went for coffee. They are so nice! I was invited to dinner at Mrs. Jay's (I have decided to call her that) house on Friday. I'm pretty excited.
I went to church, and afterwards I did another objective on the list. I put on a show and took a bow. That was fun. We headed to Smoothie King and chilled there until I went to the Catholic Mass. After that, I met back up with Lisa and we continued doing the scavenger hunt. There wasn't much left. After much walking, we decided that there are absolutely no bouncy things in Korea. Unless we bought some kind of bouncy ball, which we didn't feel like doing. So unfortunately, I did not complete 1 item from the list. But it's the only one! I'll get a ball sometime this week though and finish the list. Otherwise it was a great weekend that went by way too fast! I'm not ready for another week of work!
On a random note: I got a card from my mom and little bro! I was beyond excited when I got them at school. For serious. It was fantastic.
Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
1 week down!
I have been in Korea for 1 whole week. It seems like it's been a long time already! I have done quite a few things already. I'll break it down by day:
Monday: After school, Director, Susan, and I had dinner ordered. I don't remember the name, but it was a noodle dish that had shrimp, mushrooms, and a few other vegetables in a dark sauce. It was really good! We also had a pork dish that was in another kind of sauce that was also very good. In Korea, side dishes come with meals automatically. Kimchi and pickled radish are always 2 of them, and the others vary. What's kind of neat is that when you're done eating, you set the dishes outside of your place and someone comes to pick them up! (the food wasn't put in to-go containers) That pretty much sums up that day.
Tuesday: Susan took me to dinner with a few of her friends (Lisa and Amy), who are also English teachers. We went to a place called Kirin, which Amy has been raving about. It's considered a bistro, but it serves Korean food with a few outside influences. It was also really good, and I'm so glad that I got to meet Lisa and Amy. We walked back to Susan's apartment and hung out for a while.
Wednesday: After school, Susan and I went to dinner with 2 moms of some of our students. They took us out (it was Susan's last day) to her favorite restaurant. It was one of those places where there are separate rooms with the really low tables and a door that you can close. The table had a grill, as well as a whole lot of dishes with toppings in them. We ordered a beef dish, and the server brought us a pan that had rolled up pieces of beef, mushrooms, and clams. You could use the toppings as you wanted them. There were lettuce leafs (so you could make a lettuce wrap) as well as square egg noodles. The toppings were: shredded cabbage, 3 sauces (a hot sauce, a traditional Korean sauce, and a oil-ish kind of sauce), pickled radish, kimchi, sweet potato, some kind of salad, cherry tomatoes, and garlic. Oh man, it was so good. And there was so much food! Just as we were finishing up the food on the pan, the server brought out another one that had roast beef and more mushrooms! Susan said "Yep. This is Korean style. Just when you think you're done, there's still more food to come." I was so full! Jay's mom and Sally's mom were both extremely nice and I had a great time.
Thursday: It was pretty low key. I cooked up some pork with rice and packed my things up to move into Susan's apartment. Naomi, my co-teacher, was going to be coming back, so obviously I couldn't be staying her apartment any longer. So currently I am staying at Susan's old apartment until Director finds my own place to stay.
Friday: We had a field trip for the kindergartners! We went to the children's library and they got a tour of the place. The last thing we did was watch a film. It ended up being Rugrats! Only it was the older version of the show, so it wasn't like the classic. Still. It was awesome. For lunch, we got to eat kimbap!!! Oh my goodness, I have an obsession with kimbap. It is sushi, but the authentic kind. Not those california spring rolls you can buy at the grocery store. I had a bunch of different kinds, and they were all soooooo good. Seriously, I can't get over how good it is.
I met Naomi in the afternoon, and after school, she took me to a chicken place. We ordered a chicken dish that had a sauce that is kind of like the sauce used for orange chicken, but a little different and a little spicier. It was good! All of the food that I've had so far here has been really good. After dinner, we were going to meet up with Lisa for coffee (*side note: there are 3 things to do in Korea hanging-out wise: get coffee, go to a noraebang - I'll explain later, or see a movie). The thing was that we weren't going to be meeting up for a while, so we went to go pay Naomi's phone bill. It started to rain, so we got a little soaked. We went to the phone place, but apparently they were closed. Even though the sign on the door said open. We still had time to kill, so we ended up going by the coffee place (Angel in Us) because there were a lot of stores near it. We ended up at smoothie king and had delicious smoothies. I found out that both Naomi and Lisa love Glee!! The three of us are also very interested in Korean dramas. I just finished watching one entitled "Boys Before Flowers." I liked it, but other Koreans think it's cheesy. We went to the coffee place, and were there for a while. Naomi was extremely tired since she wasn't quite used to the time difference yet. So we left and went to bed
.Saturday: I did nothing until 6. I lounged around the apartment until then. I went to dinner with Naomi and Lisa. We had kimbap! Afterwards we went to 11 am (a coffee house - Lisa has a coffee addiction). One of Lisa's friends, Paul, met up with us. Paul is hilarious. He's Korean, but he hadn't been in Mokpo for a very long time. But, he's pretty cool. We went to a noraebang, which is a place to do karaoke. It's totally different from doing karaoke in America. They have a bunch of different rooms with couches, so your group of friends all stay together and it's just your group that does the karaoke. It was actually pretty fun, despite how much I don't really care for karaoke. We even sang (well, tried to sing) some Super Junior songs!
Afterwards, we got poppingsu for dessert. It's a dish that has shaved ice on the bottom, topped with small red beans, sliced fruit, then with frozen yogurt on top, sprinkled with corn flakes and with a strawberry syrup drizzle. It was delicious! That concluded our night.
Sunday: Somehow I managed to sleep until 1:30 pm! Well, I guess it didn't help that I stayed up late talking to Kathy until 3 am. But still, I slept very late. Church was at 2:30, so I hurried to start getting ready for that. I went to a church that Naomi, Lisa, and Paul go to. It's a community church that has an English service, so I checked it out. It was nice. I liked the music and afterwards there was some food and fellowship. Everyone was very kind to me and very interested in getting to know me. I really enjoyed that. My only concern is that it wasn't a Catholic Mass, so there was no Liturgy of the Eucharist. I haven't found a Catholic church yet, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to end up doing. After fellowship, Naomi, Lisa, Paul, and I went to a new Angel in Us coffee house by the harbor. Sang-il met up with us. He's another friend of Lisa and Naomi and it was his last Sunday in Mokpo. A few other people joined us: Juan, Joshua, and 2 other guys (I feel so bad! I can't remember their names!). We hung out there for a while, then got some dinner. I got bi bim bop. It looked like this:
except it was a little bigger. Underneath all of the vegetables and the egg is rice. I also had some mandu, which are dumplings. We decided to go to the beach. On our way there, we passed all of the museums. There are a lot of museums! They're not ginormous, but there's a maritime museum, a natural history museum, a cultural history museum, a ceramic lifestyle museum, and at least 2 other ones. We got to the beach, but it really isn't too much of a beach. The slope from the road to the shore was a bit steep, so there wasn't a whole lot of room for sand. It was still really nice, though. We were there for a while, and then headed back. And that bring me to now!
Teaching so far is going well. I'm getting used to it a little now, and I think this next week will be a bit easier since the schedule won't be as funky as this week's was (there was testing and with susan leaving and me coming and naomi coming back, it was a weird schedule). I already have some favorite students and others that I don't like so much. It's not that they're bad kids! They just lose focus easily and it's frustrating trying to get them to do work.
That's it for now! Sorry for writing the longest blog ever. Maybe next time I won't wait a whole week before posting again. I miss everyone and I hope you're all doing well! I'm on Skype, so if you want to talk to me in person, feel free! My Skype name is mer637, and I'm 14 hours ahead of central time. So long!
Maria
Monday: After school, Director, Susan, and I had dinner ordered. I don't remember the name, but it was a noodle dish that had shrimp, mushrooms, and a few other vegetables in a dark sauce. It was really good! We also had a pork dish that was in another kind of sauce that was also very good. In Korea, side dishes come with meals automatically. Kimchi and pickled radish are always 2 of them, and the others vary. What's kind of neat is that when you're done eating, you set the dishes outside of your place and someone comes to pick them up! (the food wasn't put in to-go containers) That pretty much sums up that day.
Tuesday: Susan took me to dinner with a few of her friends (Lisa and Amy), who are also English teachers. We went to a place called Kirin, which Amy has been raving about. It's considered a bistro, but it serves Korean food with a few outside influences. It was also really good, and I'm so glad that I got to meet Lisa and Amy. We walked back to Susan's apartment and hung out for a while.
Wednesday: After school, Susan and I went to dinner with 2 moms of some of our students. They took us out (it was Susan's last day) to her favorite restaurant. It was one of those places where there are separate rooms with the really low tables and a door that you can close. The table had a grill, as well as a whole lot of dishes with toppings in them. We ordered a beef dish, and the server brought us a pan that had rolled up pieces of beef, mushrooms, and clams. You could use the toppings as you wanted them. There were lettuce leafs (so you could make a lettuce wrap) as well as square egg noodles. The toppings were: shredded cabbage, 3 sauces (a hot sauce, a traditional Korean sauce, and a oil-ish kind of sauce), pickled radish, kimchi, sweet potato, some kind of salad, cherry tomatoes, and garlic. Oh man, it was so good. And there was so much food! Just as we were finishing up the food on the pan, the server brought out another one that had roast beef and more mushrooms! Susan said "Yep. This is Korean style. Just when you think you're done, there's still more food to come." I was so full! Jay's mom and Sally's mom were both extremely nice and I had a great time.
Thursday: It was pretty low key. I cooked up some pork with rice and packed my things up to move into Susan's apartment. Naomi, my co-teacher, was going to be coming back, so obviously I couldn't be staying her apartment any longer. So currently I am staying at Susan's old apartment until Director finds my own place to stay.
Friday: We had a field trip for the kindergartners! We went to the children's library and they got a tour of the place. The last thing we did was watch a film. It ended up being Rugrats! Only it was the older version of the show, so it wasn't like the classic. Still. It was awesome. For lunch, we got to eat kimbap!!! Oh my goodness, I have an obsession with kimbap. It is sushi, but the authentic kind. Not those california spring rolls you can buy at the grocery store. I had a bunch of different kinds, and they were all soooooo good. Seriously, I can't get over how good it is.
I met Naomi in the afternoon, and after school, she took me to a chicken place. We ordered a chicken dish that had a sauce that is kind of like the sauce used for orange chicken, but a little different and a little spicier. It was good! All of the food that I've had so far here has been really good. After dinner, we were going to meet up with Lisa for coffee (*side note: there are 3 things to do in Korea hanging-out wise: get coffee, go to a noraebang - I'll explain later, or see a movie). The thing was that we weren't going to be meeting up for a while, so we went to go pay Naomi's phone bill. It started to rain, so we got a little soaked. We went to the phone place, but apparently they were closed. Even though the sign on the door said open. We still had time to kill, so we ended up going by the coffee place (Angel in Us) because there were a lot of stores near it. We ended up at smoothie king and had delicious smoothies. I found out that both Naomi and Lisa love Glee!! The three of us are also very interested in Korean dramas. I just finished watching one entitled "Boys Before Flowers." I liked it, but other Koreans think it's cheesy. We went to the coffee place, and were there for a while. Naomi was extremely tired since she wasn't quite used to the time difference yet. So we left and went to bed
.Saturday: I did nothing until 6. I lounged around the apartment until then. I went to dinner with Naomi and Lisa. We had kimbap! Afterwards we went to 11 am (a coffee house - Lisa has a coffee addiction). One of Lisa's friends, Paul, met up with us. Paul is hilarious. He's Korean, but he hadn't been in Mokpo for a very long time. But, he's pretty cool. We went to a noraebang, which is a place to do karaoke. It's totally different from doing karaoke in America. They have a bunch of different rooms with couches, so your group of friends all stay together and it's just your group that does the karaoke. It was actually pretty fun, despite how much I don't really care for karaoke. We even sang (well, tried to sing) some Super Junior songs!
Afterwards, we got poppingsu for dessert. It's a dish that has shaved ice on the bottom, topped with small red beans, sliced fruit, then with frozen yogurt on top, sprinkled with corn flakes and with a strawberry syrup drizzle. It was delicious! That concluded our night.
Sunday: Somehow I managed to sleep until 1:30 pm! Well, I guess it didn't help that I stayed up late talking to Kathy until 3 am. But still, I slept very late. Church was at 2:30, so I hurried to start getting ready for that. I went to a church that Naomi, Lisa, and Paul go to. It's a community church that has an English service, so I checked it out. It was nice. I liked the music and afterwards there was some food and fellowship. Everyone was very kind to me and very interested in getting to know me. I really enjoyed that. My only concern is that it wasn't a Catholic Mass, so there was no Liturgy of the Eucharist. I haven't found a Catholic church yet, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to end up doing. After fellowship, Naomi, Lisa, Paul, and I went to a new Angel in Us coffee house by the harbor. Sang-il met up with us. He's another friend of Lisa and Naomi and it was his last Sunday in Mokpo. A few other people joined us: Juan, Joshua, and 2 other guys (I feel so bad! I can't remember their names!). We hung out there for a while, then got some dinner. I got bi bim bop. It looked like this:
except it was a little bigger. Underneath all of the vegetables and the egg is rice. I also had some mandu, which are dumplings. We decided to go to the beach. On our way there, we passed all of the museums. There are a lot of museums! They're not ginormous, but there's a maritime museum, a natural history museum, a cultural history museum, a ceramic lifestyle museum, and at least 2 other ones. We got to the beach, but it really isn't too much of a beach. The slope from the road to the shore was a bit steep, so there wasn't a whole lot of room for sand. It was still really nice, though. We were there for a while, and then headed back. And that bring me to now!
Teaching so far is going well. I'm getting used to it a little now, and I think this next week will be a bit easier since the schedule won't be as funky as this week's was (there was testing and with susan leaving and me coming and naomi coming back, it was a weird schedule). I already have some favorite students and others that I don't like so much. It's not that they're bad kids! They just lose focus easily and it's frustrating trying to get them to do work.
That's it for now! Sorry for writing the longest blog ever. Maybe next time I won't wait a whole week before posting again. I miss everyone and I hope you're all doing well! I'm on Skype, so if you want to talk to me in person, feel free! My Skype name is mer637, and I'm 14 hours ahead of central time. So long!
Maria
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