We had our school end of year dinner on Wednesday night, which meant going to a local Korean restaurant which served eel. This was my first time having eel, and I have to say it was really delicious. I'd always thought that there was something a little offputting about eating eel, which is probably silly because it's just another type of fish, right? Well I am definitely turned around on the subject, because it's probably about my third most favourite dish that I've had here.
School dinners are always a bit of a challenge to be anticipated with a vague feeling of dread. This is mostly due to the fact that nobody speaks English, so I spend the two to three hours trying to look interested in a conversation that I can't understand whilst desperately trying to find ways to make the floor a more comfortable place to sit. There's also a lot of etiquette to be observed, mostly regarding the drinks. I haven't quite nailed it to be honest, so I have resorted to just drinking water, which means that I don't have to worry about toasting people just to take a sip, and I can pour for myself and not have to worry too much if other people's drinks are getting low although I should probably still pour them a drink if their glass is empty - it's a definite pheux pas to leave someone's glass empty.
Finally there's the difficulty of actually eating the food; don't get me wrong, I think that I have become fairly accomplished with the use of chopsticks, but there is nothing quite like having to reach across the table with your chopsticks to pick up some jelly-like morsel that will just not stay on your chopsticks. Time slows, and you start to sweat as you become convinced that the entire table is staring at you as you struggle to pick the damn thing up, but instead you're just mashing it into an unrecognizable lump that you eventually have to spear onto one chopstick and pray that it doesn't slide off on its way back to your plate. Korean style eating means lots of small dishes on the table that everyone shares, not your own meal, so I spend most of the dinner holding my breath each time I go for another bite. I probably shouldn't worry so much; the other teachers are incredibly kind to me and I doubt that they ever think a bad thing about my chopstick exertions. That's what I console myself with anyway.
On another note I got another care package from the library guys last night, so exciting! The box was already falling apart, so I pretty much ripped it to shreds to get at the goodies inside. Thank you so much guys, I was so happy to be able to put some Christmas cards up and I was getting pretty desperate for something to read. I will have to pace myself on the lollies as about half of them disappeared in the excitement last night :-)
Friday, December 24, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Last week of school
Yay! It's the last week of school - can you believe they work right up until Christmas??? And who knew when we were at school that the teachers were looking forward to the last day as much as we were? The crazy thing about Korean schools is that the kids have all taken their final exams about 2 weeks ago, so they have been totally over school since then and have been a nightmare to do anything with. Pretty much every class starts with some kid asking "Movie??" to which I answer "Yeah right"; this causes some excitement until they work out that this means no.
The other strange thing about Korean schools is that this isn't considered the end of year; they will have five weeks holiday, then come back for two weeks, then the school closes again for Spring Break - and that's the end of the year, so goodbye grade six's then. I will be ecstatic to see most of them go, all except for this one class (in the photo) which for some reason is totally awesome. The other grade six classes are about as excited about English as I am to go to the dentist, but for some reason this class is a lot of fun. So in a ploy to get everybody's photo I made them make pretend yearbooks today and had everyone write each other messages in English in them (hey, it's kind of educational). We took a class photo and photocopied it and stuck it on the front of the yearbooks, which ended up being kind of cool. The kids totally got into it, and my favorites (yes, I'm not ashamed of it. I totally have favorites) all came and asked me to write something in theirs which was really nice. This does not mean by the way that I am in any way budging from my original opinion that kids are scary and ought to be kept away from, but some of the little buggers might be okay.
The other strange thing about Korean schools is that this isn't considered the end of year; they will have five weeks holiday, then come back for two weeks, then the school closes again for Spring Break - and that's the end of the year, so goodbye grade six's then. I will be ecstatic to see most of them go, all except for this one class (in the photo) which for some reason is totally awesome. The other grade six classes are about as excited about English as I am to go to the dentist, but for some reason this class is a lot of fun. So in a ploy to get everybody's photo I made them make pretend yearbooks today and had everyone write each other messages in English in them (hey, it's kind of educational). We took a class photo and photocopied it and stuck it on the front of the yearbooks, which ended up being kind of cool. The kids totally got into it, and my favorites (yes, I'm not ashamed of it. I totally have favorites) all came and asked me to write something in theirs which was really nice. This does not mean by the way that I am in any way budging from my original opinion that kids are scary and ought to be kept away from, but some of the little buggers might be okay.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Layering up
We had our coldest day yet yesterday, something around -11 degrees. The kids were telling me it was even colder, but I suspect that they like to exaggerate even more than I do. I do know however that it was -9 when I left work at quarter to five in the afternoon. I've become completely obsessive about checking the hourly temperature here - kinda like us Darwinites in the wet season, checking the rainfall patterns. Except here it's "wow, -5!" "Wow! -8!" or "WOW! -10!!!" only I'm not saying wow (insert expletive of your choice).
So I am becoming quite the expert at layering up - there are exactly 6 different tops on under that jacket that I'm wearing in the photo, and although you can't see it I'm wearing two pairs of tights under my jeans, which is a very tight squeeze, let me tell you. Also I finally found the answer to my predicament of "do I go for the beanie or ear muffs today?" Both dammit!! But then of course it was only -5 this morning so I got hot on my walk to work. Yes I know there's something not quite right with that statement but things have been turned upside down here in Korea. Oh and still no snow since my last post, which is the equivalent of waiting for a storm in the buildup; you know the weather would be that much better if it would just storm (or snow) already. Sorry for devoting this entire post to talking about the weather, but it seems to be all I think about these days!
So I am becoming quite the expert at layering up - there are exactly 6 different tops on under that jacket that I'm wearing in the photo, and although you can't see it I'm wearing two pairs of tights under my jeans, which is a very tight squeeze, let me tell you. Also I finally found the answer to my predicament of "do I go for the beanie or ear muffs today?" Both dammit!! But then of course it was only -5 this morning so I got hot on my walk to work. Yes I know there's something not quite right with that statement but things have been turned upside down here in Korea. Oh and still no snow since my last post, which is the equivalent of waiting for a storm in the buildup; you know the weather would be that much better if it would just storm (or snow) already. Sorry for devoting this entire post to talking about the weather, but it seems to be all I think about these days!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
School hike
This last weekend I had the end of year school hike with the other teachers from my school. As usual I'm not exactly sure of the details for exactly where we went - about 2 hours south of Seoul - but it was very pretty. The weather is kinda perfect at the moment - crystal clear skies most of the time, so nice for a hike even if it is freezing cold. It was a pretty easy hike too, given that we took a cable car for most of the way up there, something I definitely approve of where mountains are involved. I'd never been in a cable car before so that was lots of fun - although I'm sure they weren't originally designed to fit the 25 people that managed to squeeze in there. Kind of like taking the last train home from Seoul on a Saturday night; don't worry about holding on, you can't move even if you wanted to!
I was very amused to see how glamorous the other teachers were for a hiking trip - and slightly embarrassed for the "just-rolled-out-of-bed -wearing-last-week's-clothes-lucky-I-at-least-brushed-my-dirty-hair" look that I had going. I mean, I figured we're going hiking right? So yay, no make-up today, no point washing hair etc. Wrong. Not only did all the female teachers have full faces done, their hair looking like they just came out of a salon, and all wearing the latest in hiking fashion, they actually took every opportunity to duck into bathrooms or to pull out little hand mirrors to check their hair and make-up on the off chance that some stray hair might have dared get out of place. So there's some lovely photos getting around with all the teacher's of Maehwa elementary school looking great in the group shot taken on top of the mountain - and me, standing out even more than usual with my pale face, red nose and hair sticking out all over the place. Makes me miss the solidarity of the Ris cycling trips :-)
I was very amused to see how glamorous the other teachers were for a hiking trip - and slightly embarrassed for the "just-rolled-out-of-bed -wearing-last-week's-clothes-lucky-I-at-least-brushed-my-dirty-hair" look that I had going. I mean, I figured we're going hiking right? So yay, no make-up today, no point washing hair etc. Wrong. Not only did all the female teachers have full faces done, their hair looking like they just came out of a salon, and all wearing the latest in hiking fashion, they actually took every opportunity to duck into bathrooms or to pull out little hand mirrors to check their hair and make-up on the off chance that some stray hair might have dared get out of place. So there's some lovely photos getting around with all the teacher's of Maehwa elementary school looking great in the group shot taken on top of the mountain - and me, standing out even more than usual with my pale face, red nose and hair sticking out all over the place. Makes me miss the solidarity of the Ris cycling trips :-)
Thursday, December 9, 2010
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