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.
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.
It’s amazing how quickly Korea turns green in the spring. Just a few weeks ago everything was brown and now everything is a brilliant shade of green. I wish this picture did it more justice.
Living in a foreign country has a lot of challenges… Like trying to work this remote to the air conditioner. I don’t know what all of these button mean.
Something I REALLY miss are blueberries. I only started liking them about a year before I left for Korea and now that I’m here, they are hard to find.
Last year I found them in my local grocery store for about 9,000 won, I think. Thats about $8. I finally broke down and bought some and they were majorly disappointing.
Today, Dave and I were at Hyundai Department Store in Ulsan and I was so excited to see blueberries again. Only this time they were 18,500 won ($16.50 for about half a pint)! That’s an insane price to pay for a few blueberries.
Every Friday afternoon I have teach an after school class to 5 students in 6th grade. They are really awesome kids and it is one of my favorite parts of the week.
Last week we were playing a game and I said the youngest person goes first. To teach them what youngest meant, I had to ask them all what their birthdays were. After I said mine, one of the boys decided to take note on his name tag. I thought it was really sweet.
Every morning I stand at the front of the school and greet the students. They are supposed to stop and read the dialogue on my sign. When they finish, they put a sticker under their grade level.
These two sisters walk to school hand in hand each day. In this picture, the older sister (5th grade) is helping her 1st grade sister with the dialogue.
Life Outside of Texas 