An Overdue Update

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My apologies for the lack of updates lately. I need to do some legit catch up on here, but I'll at least start with some point form of what I've been up to.


• had a wonderful birthday. My students brought me gifts, and I had a really fun night out with some of my teacher friends. We went to the local pub, and then went to the basement of that building for some noraebang (karaoke). It was a late night, but it was a blast! The next morning came really early when it came to teaching. I was grateful that it was a lighter teaching day for me.



• went into Bundang last Saturday with Griff for date night. We went to an American place called Suji's, so I could enjoy a western-style brunch. I'd been craving brunch food for ages, so it really hit the spot. We'd planned on going to the movies after, but we would've missed the last bus back to HAFS.



• On Sunday, we went into Seoul and met up with our friend Brad, a Canadian-Korean who has lived here for six years. Griff taught with Brad during their camp. He was an excellent tour guide. We had originally planned on taking the Seoul City Bus Tour, but decided to run our own version of it, considering that all the major attractions were on the subway line, the subway runs every few minutes, and it's only 900W (80 cents). The Seoul tour bus cost 10,000W for unlimited stops, but only ran every half hour. I think we only ended up spending about 6,000W each or so, and got a lot more done. We went to the Korean War Memorial, which was actually much better than anticipated. It was okay, but not on my top ten list. They had some really interesting stuff about Canadian soldiers and about the United Nations. We also went to Itaewon, which is like America-town. It felt sooooooo weird to be around all these white people (and Nigerians, randomly) and hearing a lot of English being spoken. Seoul Station (Seoul's equivilent of Union Station) is gorgeous at night. I definitely owe this blog some photos in the near future. It makes Union station look tiny.



• Marked like crazy on Monday to finish up before classes ended Tuesday. I played games with my classes on Tuesday and we watched videos on Youtube. Thanks to them, I am now familiar with the videos "People are Awesome" and "The Annoying Orange". I'm definitely going to miss (most of) those kids. They were so well behaved. A couple wanted my e-mail. One wants me to visit her if I'm near Lotte World.



• Conducted student interviews on Wednesday. They were mock entrance interviews for HAFS Overall, I interviewed 27 students, including four of my own. It was nice to chat with some of my quieter students. A couple interviews were hilarious (e.g. me: what would you do if you caught a student cheating? student: do you want my honest answer? I'd hit him! me: *tries to keep a straight face*). Many of them were nervous. I really wish I'd just had a couple couches and some cookies in my interview room, rather than a table, an interviewer chair, and a hot seat. I also received an awesome birthday parcel from Woolsey!



• Thursday was supposed to be a marking day, but because we got everthing done Wednesday, I had the day off. Griff and I went to COEX, this massive shopping mall. I didn't buy much (only postcards), but easily could've spent money there. By the time we made it to the aquarium (yes, the mall has an aquarium) it was about 5pm, and we'd planned on getting back to the dorm at a decent hour to pack. We might go in February, when we can enjoy our money's worth (about 18,000W/person). We also booked the rest of our flights, be it with challenges (the airline told me it was Visa's fault why my payment wouldn't go through, and Visa told me to call the airline...lovely). Between booking challenges and packing, it was a late night.



• got paid this morning. I am officially a millionaire! A millionaire in Korean Won, at least. It felt really cool to hold a million won though. We got shuttled in to the metro station, and adventured to the hostel, Kim's Guest House. It's so relaxing here! Griff and I have a private room with a soft mattress, double bed and a kitchen. I kinda want to cook tonight just because I can. I'm exhausted though. So is he. I might pop out later on tonight for a snack, but that's about it. There are two buildings adjacent to each other. I think we're the only people in the building right now. Our friend Ryan is in the dorm room beside us, but he's out partying for the night.



• I mailed home my laptop and other souvenirs this afternoon, since I had extra space in the box. I'm glad I mailed things home because I wouldn't have wanted to lug it all around for the next month (it ended up being 9kg!), but I definitely paid a price to go with it. Trying to think positively, I'm trying to remind myself that I'd probably be on pace to have overweight luggage if I didn't mail it. Then I'd be paying overweight baggage fees multiple times, which would overall cost more than what I paid to mail things home.


Apologies that this is a much longer entry than my others so far, but I thought I would at least give a quick recap of the past week and a half. I'm sorry that there aren't pictures. I have them on my SD card, but haven't had a chance to filter through them yet either. I'll try to get photos up soon! Griff and I fly to Beijing tomorrow. I'm not sure how much web access we'll have while we're there due to things being blocked, but I'll try to at least type entries into Word while I'm there and copy and paste things after.

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