Life in Korea

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Greetings everyone from tropical Korea....

Ok, so maybe its not so tropical, but compared to what home sweet home was last week I'd say anywhere that was near 0 degrees was tropical.

Anyways onto my life for the past few weeks. Snowboarding snowboarding snowboarding. Actually no, not that much, just every weekend. I wish it was more. Since the first time I have definitely improved so I am falling head over heals in love with it. Its alot easier to fall in love with certain sports when you catch on fast. Golf, on the other hand, is something I dont think I will ever fall in love with as it is probably one of the most frustrating sports to ever learn. You think you have it and then no. No, you dont. Snowboarding though is great!

Its the lunar new year now so I have a 5 day weekend! For 3 of those days a group of 10 of us are going snowboarding. I cannot wait! I am so excited!

Alright, so for those of you on facebook you probably saw a picture of my feet and lots or small fish. Let me elaborate. In Seoul there is this coffee shop that has coffee, snacks and fish that nibble on your feet (they are called Dr.Fish). As weird as it sounds to have fish eat the dead skin off your feet...or actually maybe that should be classified as disgusting instead of weird.....it was actually pretty cool.

When you go to the counter and order your coffee you also order 15 minutes of Dr.Fish. You get a number and wait till your number comes up. When it does you wash your feet and then stick them into a pool of water full of flesh eating fish. Well, flesh eating fish may seem a bit harsh, it really doesnt hurt at all...it just tickles like crazy! It was so weird, but really neat.

Alright so as I mentioned before Lunar New year is upon us here in Korea. Our school decided that it would be a good idea for the kids to raise some money, bring it back to the school and then each class would go out and buy items for those less fortunate. I thought it was a great idea so I was all for it.

The day came when we had to take the kids to homeplus so they could go shopping. Homeplus is nothing like the grocery stores back home. Its huge and its busy all the time. By all the time, I pretty much mean all the time. Think of 10% Tuesday when you go to the grocery store. Its kind of busy. Well imagine that doubled or more and have that all the time. That is homeplus. Add in the crazy carts that dont go straight so you are constantly crashing into them and the people who put their carts wherever they please even if its sideways right in the middle of the isle...and then you truly have homeplus. Dont forget the people shouting as well. Thats always fun.

Ok, so here I am walking with Jackie (korean teacher) and Zeus class. Now, I love Zeus class. I really do. They are 7 year old terrors, but I still love them. They have an attention span shorter than a goldfish and they can pretty much destroy everything around them if they so desire and not pay any attention to me, but I still love them. Its actually really funny being an English teacher here. I can say "stop it" or "dont do that" a million times and they wont hear me. As soon as I say "hajima!" (Korean for "stop that") they stop immediately.

Now this could be due to a few reasons. One is that they are just so surprised that I know how to say that in Korean they stop to look at me in shock and awe. It could also be due to the fact that they tend to block out English and only hear Korean. I think its due more to the latter because sometimes I'll have the kids hanging off the ceiling and I'll be trying to get everyone to calm down. A korean teacher will come in and say 2 words and everyone will be immediately sitting perfectly still in their chairs looking at me intently waiting for me to teach the lesson. Seriously funny.

Ok, so back to the story. Here we are all walking down to Homeplus. We get there and Jackie tells me to stay with the kids while she runs to the bank and gets all the change changed into bigger bills. Now, Jackie knows that Zeus class is crazy, but since she is with them all day I think she wanted a break and just decided to let me handle them. How nice of her.

So we get some tables in the foodcourt area and all is good. Everyone was sitting at the tables chatting and playing rock, paper, scizzors or something relatively calm. About 5 minutes into that and after me thinking that this was going to go relatively good and Zeus class was going to behave, I got a reality check.

One kid needed to use the bathroom, and then about 5 kids magically had to pee all at the same time. Dont know how that happens but it always seems to. Anyhow, before I could say anything they all ran off into the bathroom. They came back pretty quick so at least I didnt have to go into the boys washroom looking for kids. Anyways, they get back and apparently everyone was sick and tired of playing rock, paper, scizzors.

"Come on guys! Are you sure we can't play it a little bit longer. I'll add in fire! Ya, that will be fun. Come on Zeus class...what do you say?! Fun? No?"

Apparently not as they all decided to break out in song. No idea what song it was but they all literally started screaming it at the top of their lungs and jumping around everywhere. And by everywhere I mean everywhere. It didnt even have to be in the viscinity of where we were sitting. It could be on the other side of the food court, it didnt really matter.

I'm here, trying to get the kids to maybe be a little more quiet.

"K, guys, lets be a bit more quiet. You can sing, but how about no more jumping...

K, Junior how about you get off the cha....

Ok, seriously Junior, dont jump off the chair again.

Ok, guys, just because Junior does it doesnt mean you can all...

Zeus class No! I mean it. Stop it.

Ok if you guys even try it one more time I'm giving you all one point (I have this point system that usually gets them to calm down)

K, thats it. Everyone gets a point."

Now, since everyone had gotten a point they stopped for about a millisecond. Then they decided to play tag instead. Yes, a whole bunch of 7 year olds playing tag in a food court is so much better than them singing and jumping.

So they are all playing tag. I'm trying my darndest to get them to stop without having to yell in a food court full of people. Everyone in the foodcourt is staring at me in pity. Super great situation I'm in.

Finally, probably about 2 seconds before a random korean would have stepped in to help me control the kids, Jackie came back. She saw what was happening and burst out laughing. Ya...not so funny.

Ok, we hadnt even gone to the shopping floor yet. You know, the one that I said has loads of people and uncontrollable carts everywhere? This should be even more fun than the foodcourt.

We get up there and Jackie tells me I can take the girls and she'll take the boys. Fair enough. The girls still wanted to go really fast and crash into other carts and even displays. Sometimes they wanted to go for rides and other times they all wanted to push at the same time. All in all, it was crazy but still a bit more manageable than in the foodcourt.

We finish our shopping and go to checkout. After everything went through we still had 15,000 won left. Jackie for some incredibly unknown reason, other than to watch me struggle, decided to leave the kids with me while she went and found something else to buy with the left over money. And boy oh boy did she take her sweet time.

I have 1 cart full of groceries, 1 empty cart and 10 hyperactive 7 year olds. How fun. Well after a while of running around they decided to all climb into the empty cart. Not a bad idea since they will all be in one spot instead of everywhere. Well all was going fine and dandy until one too many kids decided to try and climb into the cart.

Kids were getting hurt, kids were getting mad because they wanted to go in too. Finally a homeplus worker came and told them they all had to get out. Oh man, now I looked like an idiot. So we get all the kids out. Since they are all out of the cart they decide to run around again. I swear everyone in homeplus was looking at me. This poor foreigner who has kids climbing all over her and running around screaming. Then, just as everyone is looking at me with pity and or disgust in their eyes, Scott decides to climb on the side of the cart and start jumping. This inevitabley leads to the cart toppling over on top of him.

Oh super. This is just a fantastic situation I'm in.

I get the cart off Scott, Jackie comes back and I swear to myself that I will never go to homeplus with Zeus class again.

On a happier note, my boss gave me 20 pounds of Korean pears for Lunar New Year. Yup. TWENTY pounds of pears. Yup...twenty pounds.

I also went to Seoul last weekend and watched the Irish Rugby team win. Also went out for a guys birthday where I lost my phone and broke my camera. Super night.

Seriously, life here is interesting and I love it.

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Photos

Snowbaording
Anthony and Lisa

Go ireland
Had to wear some green. Pat in the background....

Eamonn and I
Apparently hes really happy to be with me

dancing
Before I broke my camera