Grand Openings in Korea are really interesting. A lot of times there will be these large flower arrangements out front (that look like funeral flowers to me), the air powered blow up guys that flail around or girls in short skirts dancing. This BBQ restaurant in Seomyeon (Busan) had all 3! It also had a very disapproving ajumma monk that had decided to sit down next to the scantily clad girls.
May 8th is Parents Day in Korea. I asked my 6th graders what you should give your parents on Parents Day. Most of them said a letter, carnations and money. Though some students said, “No! It’s my money!”
These little flower shops popped up all over town to sell carnations.
I have mentioned food delivery a few times in the past. This is a food delivery scooter. I took this photo as it was sitting outside the local Kimbap Heaven restaurant. If you look closely, you can see that the handle bars have gloves built in. This is really common because it gets pretty cold here in the winter. I have no idea if they are removable.
It was an absolutely beautiful weekend! On Sunday we went to Busan. We made stops at Gwangalli and Haeundae Beaches. I took this picture of Diamond Bridge from Gwangalli Beach.
I spent Saturday in Ulsan with Dave and his parents. We drove all around various parts of the coast and had a really nice day. During the drive we saw this pension. There’s nothing particularly special about it other than the Arial (from The Little Mermaid) logo. Copyright infringement is no big deal in Korea. You see it just about every single day.
For the first 4 weeks of my after school class with my advanced 6th graders I’ve been teaching games. On the 5th week, their project was to bring a game to class and explain how to play in English. One boy brought a game called Blue Marble Game. It’s almost exactly like Monopoly. This is a picture of him setting up.
Other games were dice games, chess and a weird version of rock, paper, scissors where the winner gets to hit the loser over the head with a big plastic toy hammer.
I post almost all of my photos from my phone, but the app hasn’t been working properly this week. I’m going to try to catch up on the posts I’ve missed in the next 24 hours. If you’re an email subscriber, I apologize in advance for flooding your inbox.
May just may be my busiest month in Korea yet. Dave’s parents are visiting from Australia so I’m heading up to Ulsan. Next weekend we are all going to Seoul. My birthday is on the 15th so Dave has graciously offered to have some friends over. And finally, the following weekend is a long weekend thanks to the Korean celebration of Buddha’s birthday so Dave and I are going to Tokyo.
I got a nice surprise this afternoon. Two of my former students came to visit me. I asked them about middle school and they really seemed to like it. Also, I asked the girl on the left about her pen pal in America (a project I did last year). She said now they are friends on Facebook (she made the account just for him). He doesn’t have a picture, but she thinks his brother is very handsome.
I went to Costco tonight with Jamie and Shanna and it was so busy! We only go on week nights because the weekends are crazy, but tonight was almost as bad as a Saturday or Sunday. We decided to add the 1st of the month to our No Costco days.
Life Outside of Texas 