Shabbu Shabbu, Okpo and faulty sidewalks.

I forgot to put my photograph drive back into my camera, so I had to take pictures on the actual camera this weekend, but I happily found this picture of Joseph and I in the old teacher office on one of our first weeks of school. We have come such a long way ( and both of us have much longer hair now) But it was fun to reminisce and think how much has changed and how much we done and how much we have learned.

Us in early October, Picture by Sen.

Now onto this weekend. We decided to be Adventurous with our appetite. We stopped at a street stall and order a Japanese fad food item called "Unbelievable Taki Yako"...which is a piece of octopus tentacle cooked in a breading dough outside layer topped with Mayonnaise, BBQ sauce, Fish shavings, Seaweed pieces and vinegar... It sounds awful, but it is actually quiet tasty, but you have to wait for them to cool off a bit or it is more like octopus tentacle covered by LAVA.
We actually passed this octopus in a bucket near the Okpo fish market, he was still alive and blowing water bubbles, so I got a picture. WE ATE THIS!!!! VOLUNTARILY!

We did a bit of Shopping in Okpo before we went to dinner, and while looking for fun gifts to send to people we came across this coolest combination, Keychain, toenail clipper and bottle opener... I have to add this to the list of Mustard with Paper towels.

While doing our shopping an interesting thing happened, Joseph is so powerful he broke the sidewalk... Literally he was walking and the sidewalk gave out underneath him... just one brick though, which was really odd... here is a side view with his food exactly as it was placed when said collapse occured.

The offending brick. Crazy.

On our shopping adventure we stumbled arcoss a photo studio.

I still maintain that Koreans are weird when it comes to photographs. Here is a picture of a baby looking out the window at the rain, crying, completely naked and taking a leak all at the same time... I would have a hard time having this above my mantle place with company coming over..

This was right off the main street as a promotion of what kind of work they do... yeah....

And I love how the underwear stores do the same thing... Gee I guess Valentines day must be coming up.... I doubt many American boys would be caught dead in this get up!

We also found another bookstore (SCORE) with some aswesome english books, this one caught our Eye. The Obama story, he is so famous here, there were several biographies of him as well.

I like how the back cover makes it look like he had to escape Kenya via hot air baloon to live in American so he could be President.

We also found this comic book retelling American History in comic form, unfortunately these comics are not as funny as Calvin and Hobbes. According to the comic, the Native American Indians were peaceful hippies corrupted by Europrean Greed.

Here is a selection of the wooden tables to use for the Solar new year holiday, they also had a chart that told what kind of food you had to eat for a successful new year and the placement it needs on the table. Very traditional, and beautiful.

We actually had Indian food in Okpo but Sunday night we went out for our other favorite food, Shabbu Shabbu! I figured I would show pictures of this meal instead since indian food all kinda looks like mush!

They start you off with a big pot of beef flavored broth, and fill it with several different kinds of mushrooms and cabbage. They give you different sauces to dip the boiled mushrooms in. They also give you a big plate of thinly sliced beef, and you put it in the pot to cook it ( another place you cook for yourself) The you place the cooked meat on these already prepared rice balls on a type of lettuce. (they also garnish it with black seeds and crab meat.)

Plate -o- meat

Half of the mushrooms, the other hald are in the pot.

Here is the pot, the table acutally has a burner in the middle of it so you can adjust the heat as needed. Joseph is picking out some meat right now.

They also put additional things in the broth including shrimp, a weird bread/noodle thing and dumplings. All of it is boiled in a delicious broth.

After you eat your fill of all the different mushrooms, and the meat, they then take the leftover broth and cook rice in it adding seaweed, dried carrots and mushrooms, soy sauce and an uncooked egg to create a rice porridge so nothing is wasted. You can also get noodles, but they tend to put spicy kimchi with the noodles, so the rice is a bit more bland and more to Joseph' s and my liking.

It is so delicous, and we have gone several times, but this is the first time I have ever remembered to bring my camera.

Hope everyone is doing well and staying warm with all the Snow... we hope it will start warming up here soon!

Random Week.

This week has gone by terribly slow (mainly because it is the last week of our extra winter classes) so we are pretty much pooped for this month ... We just finished making and giving a huge array of writing and speaking tests, so now with the vast majority of the grades finished, we finally get to relax a bit .... Nope, just more stuff for February.

I took my camera to school and just captures a few images from our week ... just a few though.

This is Jenny, she used to be one of my students but after december all the kids switched classes and moved to different times so now she is in Joseph's class ... She is super smart and really cute. Jennifer (the sweet girl who worked in my position before me) asked for an updated picture of her, so I was happy to get one. Unfortunately when I went to school last week jenny was sick, and then I proceeded to forget my camera, and then finally remember on wednesday! She even said the customary "Kimchi" for the picture ... I miss her in my classes!

I also tried my hand again (this time more successfully) to make some pea soup. Joseph's mom sent us all kinds of beans, and this time the peas turned out much better than the other beans did. No idea why. I added some bacon, butter and seasonings to it ... it was still a bit bland, but at least all the beans were soft ... I think next time I will try some ham, and maybe buy some bullion cubes or something to try and give it a boost of flavor. It ended up being a good dinner.

We have also formed a habit of eating dinner in front of the laptop, since it is usually around 9 - 9:15 before we eat dinner (it takes a while to walk home and then I have to heat up the preplanned meal) we watch our favorite old shows like Muppet Babies and Salute your Shorts ... it is always funny to catch jokes you didn't get when you were little. We can appreciate the shows in a new way now.

And then Thursday we heated up the "Hobos" that Joseph loves, they are so easy, and I can make them the night before, and then when we get home in the evening, just throw them in the microwave oven and let them cook themselves . it is just Hamburger meat, potatoes, carrots, onions and steak sauce. It is almost like having a crock pot!

Mmmmmm. Delicious!

And just beacuse I like posting pictures of the kids, this is Kyle. He is such a trouble maker, but it is hard to get mad at him because he makes me laugh so much. He drew a picture that spanned 6 pages of paper, and when I asked him what it was, all I got was " teacher.... I don't know".... it was very detailed and looked like some kind of weird flying kite/zepplin/airplane/hot air balloon thing. He didn't want to take a picture, so I caught him off gaurd while pretending to talk to jenny.

The original class Kyle was in was Joseph's class. Joseph used to have alot of trouble with that class because Kyle and his friend James were little troublemakers. One day, James, out of the blue, quit the school. This left Joseph with a perfect opportunity to change the class dynamic. He came to school the next day (early November) and found some left over halloween decorations in the classroom, behind the dry erase board and randomly decided to tell the kids that James had been so bad, that he got turned into a fake rubber centipede. He put the fake centipede on James's old desk, and would still write his name on the board for not speaking English (I guess they are not allowed to speak korean or centipeded in class) and he would call on him to answer questions. Kyle thought this was hilarious, and in turn started talking to "james the centipede" like a real person, and would even help Joseph discipling him by pulling his fake legs off if he was bad, and even half melting him in the class heater. ( James is so bad, he didn't do his homework, now the heater!)

Ever since then Kyle has carried "James" around in his pencil case. He took it out today during my special winter class and started saying " Teacher, james need more homework... he bad", so I gave Kyle two worksheets to do... one for him and one for "James".

Our kids are funny.

4 months!

No cool pictures today, but I did feel it was worth noting that it is January 25th ( here) which is officially four months since we stepped off the plane in Busan. It feels like such a short time and yet it is all I have known for Four Months!!!! It seems longer... Sometimes I worry I will forget how to live in the states....

It is amazing to think about how drastically my life has changed these four months.

I have not watched cable in four months

I have not driven a car in four months.

I have not talked on a real phone in four months.

I have not hugged my mom and dad in four months. ( though I did try to hug the webcam one time)

I now eat rice almost daily ( and sometimes, even kimchi)

I walk to and from work.

I take the city bus to get out of the city.

I use chopsticks without any trouble.

I now spend money in the 1,000's.

I have not tipped a waiter or had to calculate tax on any item in four months.

It is amazing, and hard to believe... sometimes I don't feel that I live in a totally different culture, and other days my head explodes with the differences. Now, suddenly knowing that I am 1/3 of the way through my trip is very sobering and I am ready for some warm weather so I can start doing more with the time I have left.

See you all in 8 months!

Renovations.

To celebrate last weekend Joseph and I purchased one of the amazingly beautiful cakes we see all over the place at different bakeries. The woman told us "Much chocolate" so we figured this cake for 12,000 won was a steal, but it ended up having huge walnuts in ever layer of chcolate... so it was kind of a bust, but really you can't complain too much when there is chocolate, so we gutted up and picked out the nuts, and will know next time the korean for "nuts" followed by the crossing of my arms in a big "X" for no sign.... that move has saved my life a few times... But here is a picture of the cake in all it's chocolatey splendor before we found the aforementioned "nuts".

So beautiful against the 70's wallpaper in our kitchen!

Now on to the real reason for this blog. The renovations of the school are FINALLY complete...

( NO MORE PAINT FUMES)

This is where the front desk used to be, it is now just the Boss Graces office, the windows just got frosted yesterday, so for about two weeks she had NO privacy, and the kids would constantly press their faces up against the windows... come to think of it, that is probably why they frosted the windows so late... haha.

This is now where the reception desk is, if you come in the door and look straight ahead, the desk is right in front of you when you enter. It used to be on your left, but they moved it so it could be closer to the teacher room. Which is now in the old Canada room that belonged to teacher Jenny! The Bricks are supposed to add a "cafe" feel to the school. I think it actually turned out really pretty.


Inside the old Canada classroom that has now converted to the Teacher Room. Joseph and I sit in the back ( unfortunately away from the copy machine and heater... bummer) but we have nicenew shelves to put all our stuff in and they have our names on them too! They put up wallpaper, new desks all the way around the room and so much shelving room.

The Old Bookroom and teacher room were converted into two joined classrooms, so now this hallway has been created. The refridgerator moved out onto the porch area, and we have a bistro nook outside for the teachers ( which we will enjoy much more once it warms up!), but now the old book room and teacher room are two connected rooms with moveable doors ( I could not get a picture because Teacher Jenny was teaching when these photos were taken) This way if we ever need a school meeting, we can move the doors and everyone can fit comfortably!

The new floors are great too, really slippery, which is funny when the bell rings and all the kids Rush like mad to get to the door, some more successful than others.

And Just because this caught me off guard during class, I had to take a picture of it. I didn't really look over the material in the book because normally it is reallybenign and a functional use of the English language, but the authors of the book must have been cracking up when they made this example of future tense with will.

Oh, My Jimmy!

That made me smile! The kids of course didn't really get it, which is probably a good thing!

Lazy Sunday!

We didn't do too much today, we just went to Okpo in searh of something new and different.

We ended up going to alot of the same places, but found new things to be excited about. The book store, which we always frequent, had some new English titles... but even better was that we found some English books that had Korean translations in them, (which once we ask Grace if we can use them, we may be able to integrate real American literature to the cirriculum!!!!) Much nicer than articles in the Kids Times news paper about H1n1 ( I mean really how many times can you remind kids to cover their mouths when they cough and to wash their hands)

We also found a fantastic book called "Ugly Korean, Ugly American" which is all about the cultural differences and why each group thinks what they think. It is very recently published, and the author must be a very understanding of both cultures, because the few pages we read were dead on!

Here is a prime example of something Koreans Do:
"Make invitations or Important announcments at the last minute.
Korean Buisness or social schedules are much more flexible that those of Americans. While Koreans must frequently must accomodate the most senior person involved, Most Americans plan their time in Advance. While living and working in Korea, Americans may be quite surprised and unhappy to receive information about parties, meetings, or new work schedules just before the events take place."


And an example of things Americans do:
"Blow their Noses loudley in Public
This is extremely disgusting to Koreans, especially if done during a meal. Although some Americans turn away from the table and other people when doing so, it still makes Koreans very uncomfotable. Most Koreans would never do this in public."



I know both Joseph and I are offenders of the second one, because the food is so spicy our noses start running about three bites into the meal. We have learned though and try to excuse ourselves to go to the bathroom.

I will try to add more in the future, but right now Joseph is Hogging the book while I hog the computer!

1 week two boxes!

What a fantastic week, we were really feeling the love from our families back home! Not only did we get a box with all kinds of good western goodies, we got belated christmas presents as well (well at least I did, thank you Meredith and Bobby !!!!)

On the walk home from work we were in such a good mood we stopped to try one of the street vendor stalls selling food. We paid 1,000 won for three fried fish ... not real fish, but fish shaped pastries ... Joseph and I each ate one on the way home. They taste like warm funnel cake on the outside and you can get one of two fillings a custard (maybe banana) or sweet red bead ... we usually go for the custard, although the red bean ones are not a gross as you would imagine.

FISHIE!

We decided to wait to open Joseph's mothers box till after dinner, which was chicken that we also picked up on the way home. I usually make mashed potatoes, but we found this cool spicy rice cake side dish and decided to try it, but it ended up tasting Horrible, because it was supposed to be cooked a certain way in the microwave, but as I cannot follow directions in hangul, I just gave it my best shot, which was not really good enough, but it looked cool!

I heated up some green beans too, just in case it was a bust (which it totally ended up being, but the beans were fantastic!)

The Chicken is from a new restaurant that I swear opened up overnight. it is Delicious delight Chicken (or DD as they put on the sign). They use some red chili powder, but not so much you can't stand it. This may be our new favorite chicken place. The light yellow side dish is pickeled radish and the orangey stuff is some kind of mustard you put on the chicken. I think we had a rented movie so we started that while we ate dinner. But once we finished, we paused the movie, because we could wait no longer to open the box!!!!

First was the sweet letter explaining the contenst of the box as well as telling us how much we were missed ... awww.

We miss you all too!

I am smelling the letter because the taco seasoning exploded a bit and it smelled like Mexico!

A fun creative way to send Pretzels via Mail ... poke a small hole in the top to let out the air .... WOW .. Love the side view.

And Joseph saw his next Stephen King Book and was instantly happy!

More Treats!

This sheep is Hilarious, it makes sheep noises and everything, we call her Dolly!

And beans, Sen Teacher asked us what his mom sent us and we replied Beans ... she thought we were way weird, but I am going to cook this stuff up this weekend! No more noodles for lunch!

Not to be outdone, my mom also sent us some amazing treats from home ... which arrived the next day! Unfortunatly my camera was dying so I got as many pictures as it would allow before it died .. Marshmallows since rice krispie treats are a huge success here. (And the marshmellows here are crazy colors) Chex Mix (heaven, and being enjoyed as I write this) more fiber bars, * Joseph is a lucky guy! * And the best cough drops since we never know when we will get sick again (hopefully not soon!)

And for me a gorgeous sweater (well two actually but this is when my camera died) From my sister and brother in law who have excellent taste! (I am actually wearing this sweater now as I write this and got compliments when I wore the other one to school on friday!)

So we are two very lucky people with amazing families! It was a great relaxing week (after work of course) and we had fun chomping on all our goodies ... Our cubbord is getting full! (We now have a shelf for fiber bars, but really, there can never be enough fiber bars.)

We miss you all!

Korean logic....

So I have a few minutes of a break today, and I had a very interesting conversation with a co-worker. I just wanted to post this, because it still confuses me to a certain degree...

We had just come into the building from being outside on the walk to school, and it is freezing outside mind you, and my co-worker opens the window when we come in the teacher room to warm up....here is the conversation that followed...

Ali: "Oh, you don't have to open the window."

Co-worker: "No it is okay, you just came in you must be hot." (Why?)

Ali: But it is so cold outside.

Co-worker: Yes, but it is hot in here. ( really?)

Ali: well, the heater is on....

Co-worker: Yes, because it is cold outside.... (True!)

Ali: Why not just turn off the heater for a while?

Co-worker: *Confused look* " Because It is cold outside" (uh huh?)

Ali :"Ohhh ok" *confused look* (?!?!?!?!)



yes... I must be the wierd one..... Koreans also think if you sleep in a room with the doors and windows closed and have a fan running, you will die.... not sure I can explain that either.

Off to go sit next to the heater before my next class!

Masan

A few weekends ago ( yes, I am not totally sure when) we headed to Masan, to see what was there. Our friends Dani and Malcolm had told us wonderful stories of a huge mall similar to the ones in the states in Masan, so we wanted to do some shopping. We hopped on a bus in the early afternoon and about 2 hours later we were there.

Masan was actually quite a nice mix of big city elements (McDonalds, lots of english) as well as the small town feel we are comfortable with in Geoje. It was big, but not too big. We found ourselves simply wanting to walk around, much like our first few days here on the island. Just wanting to see the sights!

One thing for sure, the locals are very kind. This gentleman (I almost snapped the picture before he turned his head) was kind and wanted to help us find our way around the city. He said he spoke only a little English, but the more we praised his ability the more English he found he could speak. He asked us if we were from America, and we said "yes, North Carolina". With sudden enthusiasm he dove into a story in broken English, how he knew Marines ( he kept saying, "Army no, Navy no".... so I suggested "marines?", and he was so excited he screamed "YES YES") from North Carolina. With a bit of reverance, ( as anyone would have when remembering the Korean war) he told us "yes, North Carolina, very good"... "men are good" and at that point I noticed he had vibrant blue eyes... ( which is why I was so mad he turned his head)

He had to get going, but he pointed us in the right direction of a market place, and then leaned over and informed us that he " Has drink today" which I can only assume meant some kind of alcohol, because as we crossed the street together before we parted, he was having a bit of trouble walking straight. He was fantastic to meet.

Gotta love those public beer ads! this is for the City of Masan, guess what they are famous for?!?! Ask our new friend....

Cool statue we saw in Masan



There were more of them.


We walked around for a few good hours and never came close to finding the Mall we had heard about, I guess we will have to convince Dani and Malcolm to take us back to Masan and show us where to go. We spent the rest of the day walking around, just enjoying the new scenery. Stopped in a few shops and managed to eat a bite at MacDonalds.


Not a very exciting day, but better than watching videos on the computer all saturday. Maybe next time we go, I will remember to take more pictures!

More to come, we got two boxes this week, so we are fantastically happy, and completely stocked with western food...Big Thank you's to our families!

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday Joseph and I decided to hit up a few crucial stores in Geoje, and then go to dinner in Okpo. Not a wild and crazy fun adventure, but we needed some things from the foreign mart that you cannot buy in Home Plus, and since it was relatively nice out, we wanted to get away from the apartment! Our first stop was a small stop and shop on the other side of town (near the bus station). We had left early in the morning, so we needed some sustenance to keep us going. We stopped in a Brown and White Bakery (there are two apparently) and picked up what we thought was a vanilla creme pastry thing. Next we stopped at the family mart and picked up drinks! Then we took our spoils to a nearby park we had never been to before and we sat ourselves on a pretty patch of rocks under a tree and watched a group of kids playing basketball.


This was about 15 seconds before Joseph discovered the pastry we bought that said "vanilla" was definitely "banana"... it was still fabulous though. He really didn't want to share.


And My fantastic discovery. Mochacinno Milk tastes exactly like the Starbucks Frappachinos you can get in the glass bottles, but this is 1,000 won as opposed to 3,500.... Yeah!

"Ummm, this is banana flavored"


He also bought this little gem, because everything is so cutely packaged in Korea, and he needed a smidgen of chocolate to complete this pastry tasting.

We always love to try new drinks, this one was a "fiber and beauty" drink... Koreans are all about the vitamin/power/caffeine drinks, and most of them are terrible, but this one can only be described as "like flat orange Fanta mixed with Sunkist with a bitter aftertaste..." Well they can't all be winners.
After Joseph took the first bite this was me being way happy about accidentally buying the banana version!

And then I shoved it in my face! Yes!!!!

Uh oh Someone needs a napkin. He was really mad I took this picture, and is going to be even more mad I put it on the blog! Oops!

Here is the little Korean park we sat near. You can go sit in the Pagoda things, but they were both occupied by kids playing Pokemon cards. Very cute.

This was the tree we sat under, it looked like it had a bunch of pea pods hanging from it's branches.

We also did some shopping after our snack... The Awesome thing about Korea is they constantly give you free stuff when you buy something, we always try to buy drinks at the family mart and they remind us that it comes with a packet of cookies for free... Sometimes though the combos are very interesting... like this one.... for those students who like to write but end up with chapped lips...

One time I saw buy a bottle of mustard you get free paper towels (I know how easy it is to get crazy with mustard), and even napkins with free socks....(? no idea on that one) we have decided to keep a list of all the interesting combos and try to take pictures, and we will see which is the most odd or weird combo.

We ended up going to the bus station and heading to Okpo. We first went to dinner at Quiznos ( country chicken soup in a bread bowl was calling my name....) and then we stopped at the foreign mart to pick up some amazing Indian food and fiber bars ( because Joseph went through the ones Lindsey and Amanda sent already...which by the way the apple ones were awesome!)

With our tummies full as well as our backpack, we headed home... since it was only 8 when we got back to Gohyeon we stopped by the D cube and went to Starbucks to sit and chat for a while. We really like the Starbucks near our house, it has a very cool vibe to it and we can always talk, or sit and read, a nice way to get out of the house in the winter. I went down to the home plus for a minute to grab a few items I needed for dinner one night this week.

When I came back I found Joseph has ordered us a lovely dessert, a chocolate crunch cheese cake, which was very different from cheesecake you get in the us, but it was still really tasty. ( we usually don't eat this bad everyday, but we do splurge on weekends.)

Well with Saturday over, on Sunday we decided to go see the Movie Nine... which I kinda liked ( simply for the fact it was a musical, and had lots of theatre aspects, as well as a long list of famous stars in it) but Joseph didn't really like it... so instead of just going out to dinner, we wanted to save a bit of money ( and we could not decide where to go) so we came home and I ended up making my best attempt at chili. I had bought some salsa at the Home Plus the night before, so I added some of that to the chili so it would have a Mexican feel, and it turned out surprisingly well.

And I ended up making much more "Mexican chili" than I intended, so we will probably be having it for lunch tomorrow too!

All I did was throw together Some cooked ground beef and onions ( I should have added green pepper but I forgot to buy one), a can of sliced tomatoes, a can of Kidney beans, 1 cup of Pace medium salsa, some water and a bit of flour to thicken it, some salt and pepper and let it simmer for thirty minutes. Way easy to make and filling (yet still kinda healthy)

I still have a few pictures and a cute story about our trip to Masan, but I forgot to upload the pictures to the computer, but you can look for that post sometime this week.