Yellow Dust, Volcanic Ash and Rain Equals....

THE DARKEST SKIES I have ever seen. The rain has been off and on the past couple of days and yesterday around 6pm it seemed like the middle of the night. Apparently some left over volcanic ash from Iceland has mixed with yellow dust in with the rain. The skies to close up and it is a little unnerving to see just how dark they get.

On to lighter news, I wired home money today, paid some bills here and have placed my first internet order. I bought a pair of shoes, a gorgeous sweater and dress for 60 dollars. Insane. I'm in trouble.

I don't know what else to say really. Kids are good, school is good. My weekend options are becoming more and more diverse. Busan, mountain climbing, staying home, movies... so many options. I love it here. I really do and I know this is a short one but when I compile some more crazy Korean lifestyle tidbits I'll write a longer one!!

xoxox

Sangmu Props!

Last night was a big deal. I had food that tasted exactly like how it would in Newmarket. Surprise, surprise... a cheeseburger and chocolate shake from, you guessed it- McDonald's! Oh it was pretty darn good. The McDonald's in Sangmu even delivers! I tried to take a picture of the delivery bikes but my camera was missing the memory card. Next time I go I will make sure to take a picture, they're are pretty awesome. Sangmu also reminded me a lot of Toronto. It's actually what I envisioned Gwangju as before I came here. Not at all like my middle-of-nowhere area, Shinchang-dong. In Sangmu there are so many bright lights, big malls, outlet centres, hotels, penthouses and the list goes on. Holli calls Sangmu home and I am a little jealous.

I am currently sitting in the teacher's office waiting for everyone to finish a meeting so we can all go eat. I eat lunch for free and dinner on Friday free too, if I decide to stay late with the other teachers. Today is just a meeting but KErri wants to keep me around so that she can improve her English. She is getting crazy obsessed now. She just doesn't understand that her English will only improve if she just speaks it all the time, watches North American shows and reads in English.

I can tell that recently Kerri has been really upset with her lot in life. She's 29, has a 2 year old, a husband and I desire to do anything but be a mom or a wife. I am not saying for a second that she doesn't love her daughter, 'Yay Won' (phonetic), like crazy but all she wants to do is travel. She is a pretty ambitious character. Her most recent goal is to start her own afternoon school/ daycare. The plan is to teach here in the morning and then teach at her own private place in the afternoon. I don't understand how that is going to enable her to free up her time to travel but... I don't ask questions.

I get paid tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited. The last real 'challenge' I have to face is getting money wired to BMO back home. People do it all the time. I am not worried so much about sending it home, I am just concerned that it may not be the best option. I have heard of some other methods like using paypal or withdrawing back home from an international debit card but I have yet to meet anyone who has done either. Word of mouth isn't always the best around here. I am so hungry! Pegopah! Chicken tonight!

All of my kids are finally realizing that the teacher from Canada doesn't speak Korean. They are using what they know and incorporating some Korean to communicate with me and it is so cute. I end up repeating the Korean and they freak out. I'm not supposed to talk with them in Korean but I just ask them words here and there and as I mentioned before they are always willing to help out.

My internet at home wasn't working when I left for the gym this morning, it better be fixed when I get home. I have a little bit of an addiction.

That's all I got, I just wanted to really talk about McDonalds haha.

byeee

Imagine for a second that you're traveling in a cab flying down a busy 4 lane road. The cabbie honking madly at the small motorcycle that just cut him off, talking on the phone and watching t.v on his built in GPS. It's terrifying but that's my cab ride experience in general. Korea has a free standard television stream via satellite that all GPS units can receive. My directors husband catches his favorite shows, baseball and church on t.v. while he takes the kids home in the bus. Koreans can even watch t.v. on their cell phones. Their cellphones can also be programmed, like MasterCard's Paypass, to tap-and-go at many big chain stores and some smaller convenient stores as well. Technology here is just so cool. I don't want to say it's more advanced than home but it is definitely more fun.

(this isn't supposed to be underlined... I just can't fix it!)

This weekend was a mess as usual. Friday night started off innocently enough. Molly came over to help me lift a beer pong table from the trash. We set it up on the roof top and it made a perfect addition to what I am calling my new patio. We had dinner, some fruit soju and then decided to go check out the scene downtown. We started off at Speakeasy's so we could try and look for my sweater that was left behind. We sat down and just shot the shit for a bit and then wanted to go say hi to Song, our favorite at German bar. He always gives us free drinks! What followed next was all accidental. There was a Korean girl visiting home from Aussie and she has this crappy Australian friend who was just an arrogant jerk. At any rate I found out that she had been in Australia for four years and I was totally surprised because her English was awful. Molly and I talked with her for a bit and randomly she bought us tequilla and beers. At the same time Song, my favorite bartender made us Vodka crans. We left German bar a little tipsy! The next stop before home was Bubble and we just checked out the scene there and left to go home. I ended up at Molly's, getting there really late. When we woke up we headed over to grab a burger, gathered the girls and bought the necessities for beer pong. Saturday was just gorgeous! We all soaked up the sun with some good company and didn't move until the sun had set. Hunger as our only motivation we left my rooftop and headed downtown. The four of us, Fliss, Holli and Molly opted for some North American goodness and went to Underground. I had a chicken caeser wrap! By that time we were all a bit rowdy and definitely put a smile on the owner, Mike's, face. Mike has been in Korea 11 years! He's been married to a Korean for 5.... I think. At any rate we were all falling fast after dinner so we needed a change of scenery. German bar was packed! The monthly foreigner dinner had just finished and their were so many new faces in the bar. We sat around for a bit, I watched Fliss and Molly crash and Holli recruited me for Bubble Bar. After Molly and Fliss had left us we went over to Bubble with a Korean friend, Lucy. I met some new people and then headed back to my apartment to call it a night.

On Sunday I woke up and cleaned my apartment. Checked up on how the girls faired after we parted and made plans with Molly. We decided on an all-you-can eat seafood place. Molly and Fliss had gone the weekend before raving about it and I spent my whole weekend looking forward to trying it out. The food was pretty good! There was a lot of sashimi and sushi, king crab legs, snow crab legs, soups, dumplings, pasta and shrimps. I had to eat a lot of things I didn't like but next time I'll know better!

We decided to do a movie after. We watched Bounty Hunter and it sucked but it was nice to get a little America. I miss the trees from home. There are no big green maples here! But there were in Jersey lol. After the movie was finished Molly and I parted ways and I went home. I somehow managed to spend a lot of money this weekend so I am thinking next weekend will have to be slow... but I have FOMO (fear of missing out as dubbed by Molly) and if everyone is out having fun it will be next to impossible for me not to tag along! I have no will power haha!
Oh, and in case you were wondering these are all photos of downtown Gwangju taken from the 9th story of Lotte Mart. The Mega Box theatre is attached to it. It was a really rainy, crappy day out. I'm looking for the weather to be really consistently nice! I get paid Thursday! Soo excited. Looking forward to the gym this week and just taking it easy.
That's all for now... happy birthday mommy! love&miss you

One Month Anniversary

Yup, it's been a month. One awesome month. Let's recap.

-Flew to Korea March on March the 13th

- Started work

- Met Molly on the 3rd day I was here

- Then Felicity and Holli

- Bars- Bubble, Speakeasy & German Bar

- Ate a lot

- Went to Seoul

- Went to the zoo

- Finally controlled my kids

- Love my job

- Have a nicely furnished apartment

- Learned to ride the bus

- Got a my alien registration card, gym membership bank account and cellphone

- Just spent my first weekend camera-less

There are the highlights I think. I was in at 2am last night, by far the earliest of any of my weekends. Molly, Felicity and Holli came to see my apartment on Saturday, I'm tied with Holli for smallest apartment. Fail. We sat up and had some Saturday afternoon drinks on the roof. It was overcast but still nice to be outside, relaxing. We had dinner at a place close to my house, it was the fried up pork I can never remember its name. I had met Molly earlier for some Burger King! We had spent the day shopping and I was able to find some converters for my plugs here. After a month I can finally straighten my hair after I blow dry it!

Anyway back to the night, we finished dinner, cabbed downtown and just hit up the regular spots. Molly, Felicity and I decided to shut it down early and Holli stayed behind. Trooper.

I am learning more about Korean history and you'll have to forgive me, besides high school I have never taken a history course in my life so I know nothing so if I seem a little preschool-ish you'll just have to deal.

Oh big news!! I did karaoke for the first time ever last night. I sucked but I made Molly sing with me so she covered up most of the badness. I had been missing out. I didn't bring my camera last night. Probably a good idea, we all looked, well, not our best. It was just weird not having it there, the excitement for downtown has died out a little bit. I met a girl last night who is best friends with one of my old residence neighbours- that was pretty crazy. She has been here for 4 or 5 months... I can't remember her name though. Small world.

On Tuesday I had my first kid/blood incident. Leo smacked his head on a pole and there was so much nose blood everywhere. His nose wouldn't stop bleeding and it was all over his clothes and the floor. I got him to lie down and it was fine after. I have also neglected to mention that kids are obsessed with poo here. I don't know why they just are. I'll draw animals to help them understand a word, or I'll have my flash cards and all they want to do is draw poo coming from the animal. I have also discovered that hang-man is the best phonics game ever. I get paid on the 22nd and am so excited!

I have friends coming to visit next weekend and that's about it. Today will be go back to sleep, wake up (hopefully lol) gym, and dinner.

Ta! xoxox

oh and Mandy I love you, there, now you're in my blog! :P

I'm sitting at the front desk at the school waiting for Paris and the Director's husband to come back with the kids so I can say hi and get on with my day. I'm sipping on instant black coffee (that's the only barable way to drink it) and am pretty tired from this past week's activities. I started going to the gym this past Tuesday morning and have been everyday since for a total of 3 mornings! lol. Monday, Jacob's mother brought us a Baskin Robin's icecream cake. I was so excited until I took the first mouthwatering bite and discovered that icecream here is pretty different than home. Just didnt't hack it. Mind you, it was good and I still ate it all up, lol but I was expecting home!
Tuesday, Paris and I took our Morning Kindergartens to plant trees! They were so excited (I was too). We all piled up in the bus and drove out to, what I am assuming was a tree farm. We found a small plot to start digging up and then doesn't this old Korean man, and I mean OLD, come out from nowhere yielding his spade and waving it around! The director's husband had to calm him down and explain that the two teachers and 3 kids weren't trying to steal his trees... we wanted to plant more. I just stood there, in awe taking it all in. Hilarious. The best part was during the old man's rant the kids werre trying to hold this man's hand and say hi. At any rate, we got the plants planted and the seeds hoed, the kids had a blast and we took a lot of pictures!
On Wednesday the director and her husband took all the teachers out for dinner! We had Tuck-ki-be Gwangju's claim to fame... it's ground pork and beef mixed into almost a hamburger like patty. The pattys are glazed and BBQed. The appetizer is this crazy good soup made of beef ribs that just simmer and simmer all day and then fall off the bone! So you eat that first and then the Tuck-ki-be come on a small platter and you take your piece and wrap in in a lettuce leaf with a bit of rice, chili pepper paste, a jalepeno slice and some garlic, wrap it up and devour. So good. After dinner we went for coffee and dessert. I got home around 10 30 and crashed!
Ohh I almost forgot the best part of my week. I received my alien registration card, I got a bank account and a cell phone! I am a truely landed immigrant now! Haha.
Immigration card was pretty simple, bank account I just asked Kerri to write down all the essentials in Korean and then the manager knew some english so we made it work. The cellphone was by far the biggest pain. The guy must've been new becuase it took, combined 50minutes for him to actually hook up my cell phone. Then it wouldn't work so I had to bring it back and he made it functional. I still haven't made a call but I have received msgs so I know it works.
Tonight my closet arrives and I am so excited, I think I dreampt about it last night. Might test out my roof top this weekend if the weather is nice and I think that's all I got.
Missing everyone!
xoxoxox PLH

Nice and easy let the videos say it all... my school! About 2 months old.

First video is of the entrance to the school. shoes off in the entrance slippers on once you get inside.

The teacher's lounge lol... our office.

The hallway, at the end is the playroom.

And the most recent video of my classroom!