Night Out with the Teachers

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Thursday, March 17

Last night the English teachers from my school went out for a night of food and bowling. We ate at a shabu-shabu restaurant. This was, by far, the best food I’ve had in Korea. If any of you come visit, we must go eat at this place. They bring out a pot of seasoned broth and you boil the broth then cook very thinly sliced beef in it. You are also brought loads of veggies and rice paper. You wet the rice paper then fill it with veggies, meat and sauce and then wrap it. It’s so good! The girls said that it’s like Korean/Vietnamese fusion.

After dinner, we walked to the bowling alley, which is located about a subway stop away inside of Home Plus. Bowling was such a blast. There was tons of high fiving going on, even for gutter balls. The ladies I work with are super sweet. I was in second place the whole game, but I had a comeback on the last two frames and won.

Something I thought was really neat about the bowling alley was the way you rent shoes. The shoes are actually distributed through venting machines. The fee is 1,500 won (about $1.40). You insert your coins into the machine with your shoe size and the shoes drop out of the bottom. So cool.

After the game we walked around Home Plus to buy some snacks and supplies for the English teachers’ office. My two co-teachers shared a taxi back and JuHye and I took the subway. I only live two stops from where we were and I wanted to find out where the subway station was so I could come back on my own sometime.

I look forward to many more teachers nights in the future.

Open Class

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Wednesday, March 16

March is kind of a crazy month at my school. It seems like there’s always something going on, like first day ceremonies, student elections and placement tests. Today’s distraction was Open Class. Back in the states it’s called Open House and the parents come up to the school at night time. Here it’s a little different. All parents are invited to school during the day. There was a ceremony in the auditorium at 10:00am. I was required to attend because all of the new teachers were introduced. I sat while all of the full time teachers were announced, then the contracted teachers were introduced. My friend and co-worker, JuHye, cued me when it was time for me to stand. I bowed as the principal called my name and said a little bit about me. Afterwards, I asked JuHye what he told the parents about me and she said that he told them that I am the new native English teacher and I graduated from the University of Texas. Hmm… Close enough? I told her that he basically told them that I’m cooler than I really am. I thought it was funny.

On Wednesdays I usually teach 5 classes, but because of the Open Classes I only really taught one class today. I taught at 9am and then at 10am I had the Meet the New Teachers thing. My co-teacher taught that class alone, but I made it back in time to play the game with the class. Third and fourth period classes were cancelled because the students had to stay in homeroom for the Open Class. The parents are allowed to stay and watch the students while they are in class. I thought I was going to teach again at fourth period, but I just found out that it’s cancelled too. The students get to go home after lunch so I don’t teach fifth period either. I don’t have a computer in my new office so I don’t have anything to do. It’s going to be a long day!

Earlier I asked my main co-teacher if she was going to wear green tomorrow for St. Patrick’s Day and she had no clue what I was talking about. After I explained it to her she said I should teach the students about it tomorrow. So I get 15 minutes to explain St. Paddy’s Day to the 5th graders tomorrow. Should be fun!

Tonight I’m going bowling with some of the teachers from school. We planned it last week for this Monday, but we had to reschedule because my co-teachers forgot it was White Day. I Korea, Valentine’s Day is split into three parts:

Valentines Day, February 14 – Women buy the guys chocolate
White Day, March 14 – Men buy their ladies candy
Black Day, April 14 – The single people eat some kind of noodles with black sauce

I think tonight will be fun. The teachers are all pretty nice. I’ll post all about it tomorrow night.

Shark Attack

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Life at my school is pretty good. We moved offices not that long ago. It was nice to be able to have my own desk, but I soon discovered that I’d be sharing an office with this…

One of my co-workers and I ended up carrying that darn shark all over school. Our new office is on the 3rd floor so we carried it down to the second floor science lab to see if they wanted it, but they didn’t. Next, we carried it down to the first floor to take it out to the trash. The man we took it to said he actually tried to throw it out before, but they didn’t want to. Oh well. It’s gone now.

Yonggungsa Temple – Part 2

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Yesterday, I left you wondering what crazy thing I could have possibly done as I was leaving the temple. Today is the big reveal, but I’ll let the pictures tell you…

We ate silkworm larvae.

Can you believe it?!

It was disgusting!

Pancake Day

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Tuesday, March 8

When my friends talked about having pancakes on Tuesday, I honestly thought it was just because they were missing pancakes. I had no idea there was a reason behind it until that night. I stopped by the store on the way and picked up real maple syrup, which was super expensive (18,000 won, which is about $16.50 USD), but you can’t have Pancake Day without syrup, right?? Apparently there’s a super cheap Korean version of syrup that isn’t bad. I’ll know for next time.

Anyway, Pancake Day is an actual thing. My friends from the UK all celebrate this day. They didn’t really know how to explain the significance other than on Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) you get together with your family and eat pancakes. Apparently, many people in the UK really only eat pancakes on this day.

So about 10 of us all got together in Beth’s apartment and had pancakes. We ate them British style, with a squeeze of lemon and sugar sprinkled over top. We also had chocolate chip pancakes and we had regular pancakes with syrup. It was such a great time.

* Click on the pictures above to see the full size image *

Food in Korea

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

When I told people back home that I was moving to Korea, one of the questions that was asked the most was, “What are you going to eat?!” I really didn’t know, to be honest. I knew Busan was a coastal city so there would be lots of seafood so I was just hoping that there would be options for me since I am not a seafood lover. I do tend to take a lot of pictures of the food here because I know everyone back home is curious about what I’m eating.

I’ll have to admit that when I first got to Korea I was worried that I was going to starve. I wasn’t impressed with the food at orientation and my neighborhood didn’t really seem to have a lot of options. I definitely craved Western food.

I do have a few options close to my house. I have fallen in love with a bakery called Paris Baguette. The one by my house is quite small in comparison to other locations, but I have found some things there that I love. There is also a Caffe Bene close by. They have tiramissou!

I have become great friends with one of the English teachers from my school. She took me to Home Plus to help me find some things I need for my apartment and treated me to dinner in the food court afterwards. It was different, but pretty good. We had some sort of fried pork. It was nice. The salad was good also. I still don’t know how I feel about the rice stuffed omelet thing, but it was a nice meal overall. The longer I’m here, the more the food grows on me. There are a lot of really great restaurants in Busan and it’s fun trying new things.

I was pretty pleased when I went to the movies in Korea for the first time. I saw Rango (in English with Korean subtitles) and enjoyed it quite a bit. It was also quite lovely because I got to eat nachos!

My friend Faith and I went to Seomyeon one Friday night to meet up for dinner. Seomyeon is like the city center and has loads to see and do. There are also many restaurants, including several Western options. We opted for TGIFridays. It was so yummy. I had a burger and Faith had fajitas.

I don’t just eat Western food here. There’s a lot of really good Korean food, as well. One weekend I got together with my friends Cilla and Sonal and went for lunch. We ate at a really great chicken place. The chicken was lovely, but it was quite spicy. The waiter scared us a bit because when we ordered this dish, he did his best to warn us that it was spicy and even pointed and something different on the menu. I really enjoy the spiciness here. We all shared the spicy chicken and then did some walking around before we dropped by Angels in Us Coffee for some dessert… hot chocolate, cheesecake and a blueberry waffle.

Korean Lesson

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

My co-teachers want to help me learn Korean. They taught me a few words today and they told me I had to remember them tomorrow. I thought I’d teach you, too. Keep in mind that I wrote the words phonetically, not properly.

eye – noon

ear – gwee

nose – co

mouth – ib (you can also say ib sternly when you want someone to be quiet)

Trick Art Museum

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Sunday, February 27

We finished orientation just in time to catch the last day of the trick art exhibit in Busan. It was a blast. This was actually the first time I took the subway. I was very intimidated at first, but it turned out to be really easy to navigate the subway. And somehow I ended up in the same subway car as 2 of the people I was meeting. It was pretty crazy.

The exhibit is full of paintings that are designed to look like you are a part of the art. I read about the exhibit online at Busan Haps before I came to Korea. I was so excited that my friends wanted to go too! Here are some of the pics we took (as always, you can click on any picture to see the full size image)…

Honey, I shrank the waygookens!

*waygooken: foreigner

“Teacher! Your face! ……….Beautiful.”

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

I finally got to teach on Thursday and Friday (March 3rd & 4th). My co-teacher spent about 20 minutes introducing the class and the rules and I had the other 20 minutes to introduce myself and my country. It was so much fun! The kids’ reactions were amazing. I’ve noticed that gasping is pretty common in Korea and my presentation got quite a few gasps, like…

When I told them that Texas is so big that it takes me 4 hours to drive to my dad’s house.

When I showed them the picture of the World’s Largest Pecan in Seguin.

When they saw the picture of Dallas at night and again when I told them there’s a restaurant in Reunion Tower… And it turns around in a circle!

But the biggest gasp came when I showed them the picture of my family… And they counted all 20 of them.

The kids loved seeing pictures of my family members. I showed pictures of…

My dad

My mom

My brother & his girlfriend

My brother & his wife

My niece & nephew

Nana

They loved my dad’s grey hair, that I look like my mom and thought my brothers were handsome and their significant others were beautiful. They also really loved seeing my niece and nephew.

Here are some of my favorite comments…

From a boy: “Teacher! Your face! ……….Beautiful.”

From a girl: “You are….. very.” (I took it as a compliment)

Also, one student said the boy sitting next to him thought my niece was cute. The whole class giggled.

Overall, the first week was great and it made me feel a lot more confident about teaching.

Pictures of my School

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

Here are some pictures of the elementary school I teach at in Busan, South Korea…

My main English classroom. We have a Smart Board!

The main entrance

The English hallway… and a student that really wanted to be in the picture

The back of the classroom

Curious students

English story books

Our school doesn’t have a cafeteria so each class eats together in homeroom. The food is kept in these lunch carts.

Together We Can Do It

Students are responsible for keeping the school clean

Entrance to the bathroom

Bathroom sinks

This is one of the toilets. You have to bring your own toilet paper.

The stairs… no outdoor shoes are allowed upstairs

More stairs (keep right)

The students leave their shoes here. The pink shoes are the girls’ indoor shoes/slippers and the blue ones are the boys’.

Character Building Room – I’m not sure what they do here, but this is the best named classroom at my school. First time I walked by this room there were students fighting. Talk about character building!