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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