If you like random pictures this post is for you! Part 1

Alright so since Amanda has done a picture dump a few times I feel it is within my power to begin the deluge of random phone pictures I have taken while here in South Korealand.

I prefer him asleep

I had never had a student fall asleep in my class until I had my first casualty here.  Luke was sleeping pretty hard too.  The kindergarten kids are pretty merciless when it comes to when another student is sleeping.  They poke tickle and generally be jerks when they notice one of their peers has drifted off into slumber.  

The height of class

I felt that I looked particularly sexy one day so I thought what better way to celebrate than take a classy bathroom mirror shot at my adult teaching school.  See that hand on the hip, that is what we call sassy.  If you say have a number and think you might be acting a little crazy I would call you.  Maybe. 

Nune DDine

On the search to find snacks that are actually tasty we picked these things up.  I honestly don't remember if they were good, but I haven't bought them since so maybe they weren't good?  Heck if I know.  I actually only really stick to two main snacks here, the Korean version of Pocky and a honeycomb snack thing that is delicious.

Make a wish it will last longer.

Sometimes when I think I do a particularly cool lesson (and or I draw something) I like to take pictures of it to preserve what I did.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1 it is Sight Words time, that week the word was wish.  It was a fun lesson which none of the students cared in the least about.

My favorite animal is seal. because seal is very cute and very intimacy

No comment

What can I say?  I have the maturity of a child.

The best paragraph I've ever read.

I posted this on facebook and my melanin sufficient friends got a pretty good kick out of it.

Election, number one won the election, the first female president of South Korea

Burninator

It is like Strong Bad's crappy drawing came to life in Asia

Left to right back row: Kate, Monica, Susan, Aiden, Luke, Anna
Front row: The back of Chris's head, Shirley

During the winter break I have like 11 kids in a classroom that barely fits 7, so for lunch I make a giant table so they can all sit together.  It works....ok?

Look at those shades

COOL SUN NEEDS NO EXPLANATION

Oh Chrimmitree

Christmas time in Homeplus!  God these pictures are old.

Ha, internet reference

Seriously though that kid looks like super happy to be in that puffy cloud land.  

Post Valentine's Day and Graduation Preparations

After the initial post earlier this month regarding the wasps, I realized that the blog went rather quiet. I am here to remedy that. We've been up to the usual work and play, still rather uneventful though due to the cold weather. I suppose that's kind of sad in the sense that February is a somewhat exciting month for us. February is, of course, Valentine's Day and our one year wedding anniversary is coming up on February 24th. We also received a package from my family the day before Valentine's Day which was a pleasant surprise. Thank you!

Valentine's Day is interesting here in the sense that it is celebrated in the same way the Japanese do. For Valentine's Day the girls/women buy chocolate to give to the special guy(s) in their life, but it is not reciprocated until White Day on March 14. It's even more commercial than the states in that sense, but it's an interesting concept. Valentine's Day wasn't terribly interesting and wasn't really even celebrated at our hagwon. Zach and I just celebrated by buying each other our favorite kind of Pepero (strawberry for him and Nude for me).

I hadn't really anticipated or planned for the holiday for my class, so I used some of the paper from the art kids floating around and made my own. They might not be the most exciting, but they turned out cute and were easy to make. I already spend enough money on these kiddos as is, so handmade valentines were easy peasy and kind of fun. :)

I decided to attempt to draw some of the words on the word search, ignore my awkward cuddling. My family probably recognizes the heart stickers up in the top left corner of my board!

James' mother send chocolates and candy for all the kids in the class, and some for me too! You can see the kids in the background eating lunch. 

We've also been just working through the month and eagerly awaiting news about the new teacher that will be joining us and the upcoming March schedule. Things are going to be all scrambled around and some of the class times are being tweaked, so it should be interesting. Even our Korean teacher isn't really sure exactly how things are going to work just yet.

February also means that it's time to prepare for graduations of all sorts, and that includes some of our kindy kids. What does that mean for us? That means it's play season! Yes, we get to do our own reenactments of plays with our kids. My class is doing Stone Soup, Zach's class is doing some sort of play involving finding a dinosaur, the elementary kids are doing Hansel and Gretel, and the small class of kindy kids is doing a musical number. All I can say is that this is quite the venture and it's frustrating. I would be in major trouble were it not for the fact that our Korean teacher is there to help out and explain things better. They also listen to her much more better.

Attempting to practice the play. The tables on their sides are supposed to be "houses" in the "village". 

Sitting (not so patiently) for their part in the play.

And what a venture this is. I'll have to get some pictures of my cute little props. I've been a prop making machine lately. I have "made" vegetables, "wood", and repurposed a container to be our "pot". There are a few things I want to pick up from Daiso, if possible. I also need to find some paper/craft foam or something similar in order to make a sort-of dinosaur costume for Zach's class' play. I'm not sure about costuming for my kids really.

In addition to the plays, I've been getting my room ready for the new school year in March as well. We have a field trip this Friday (February 22nd) to Everland which is South Korea's largest theme park and then the following Thursday (February 28th) is the graduation "concert" and Friday is Independence Movement Day (March 1st). Our new teacher should be here by then since the new year/schedule will be starting on Monday, March 4th. So I have been doing some sprucing up here and there and I'm still fishing for some things to make the room a little more interesting and inviting for little ones.

Colors are always fun, and color mixing is even more fun!

I redid my tree, I took off all the snowflakes. I also remade the tree trunk which was all torn and not pretty.

I also have a couple of extra pictures to share here, one is lunch since I have neglected to share lately. Things haven't been nearly as exciting lately though and it's usually the typical fare. The last picture is our celebration treat from Baskin Robbins in the local Homeplus.

Rice, seaweed, kimchi, something that I think is from the tops of turnips, and soup!

Our delicious cake, we already split the blue and red slice with the macaron type thing on top. It was delicious and had pop rocks in it, which was kind of a surprise. 

Wasps Attack

Let me just start out this blog entry by saying that the bugs in Korea are some of the most terrifying things I have ever encountered.  I am cheating when I say this because I am corralling the HORRIBLE spiders that we have around the school in with the terrifying wasps we have been dealing with for the past month or two. To fully detail the our experience we have to go back to a sunny and (relatively) warm morning around two months ago.

The sun was shining that day, I remember because I could hardly read the words on my laptop as I sat up around 9:30 in the morning.  Manda was sleeping soundly next to me and I was getting my daily dosage of internet in before the cold dead reality of my life in Korea set in for the day.  Luckily it was the weekend so my daily depression could wait.  Now when I am on the computer and Manda is asleep I mute all sounds on my computer, because I am a nice guy and that is what nice guys do.  I sat there browsing the internet in vegetative bliss until I hear a distinct buzzing noise to my right.

Why hello there

I turn my head inquisitively only to have a black blur buzz by me before slamming itself into the window.  It falls into the little crevice beside the window out of my sight.  Now prior to this incident a praying mantis appeared out of nowhere in our room and felt the need to go and rest need Manda's foot.  So I am used to the whole large bugs appearing out of god knows where, but this was not a mantis, it was smaller and blacker.  The sickening buzzing echoed out from window and the biggest wasp I have ever seen crawls out and stands there looking at me with its beady compound eyes.

 I had two choices, either try to deal with the problem myself without waking Manda, or wake her and give her pants soiling terror.  I decided that I would probably cause a flurry of noise when trying to squash the intruder to our sacred abode.  So I quietly said "Manda there is a giant wasp in the room."  I would like to think that is the fastest I have ever seen Manda wake up ever, as we stared at the intruders segmented body.    I had grabbed a fly swatter from downstairs to deal with the mosquito menace at the end of summer which has stayed in our room.

This is a closely related species eating a god damn mantis

So as Manda and I stared down a fine specimen of the Giant Asian Hornet family, also known as a "commander bee" in Korea.  I grasped my fly swatter like the finest Hanzo steel and used my cat like reflexes to flail around attempting to hit a small black and yellow object sitting nicely on the windowsill.  One of my swings connected and the wasp went struck the ground like a meteor before being repeatedly smashed by the blunt side of the swatter.

So with a breath of relief Manda and I went about our lives after the initial wasp had been unceremoniously destroyed.  That is until one evening while sitting up, probably playing World of Warcraft or something equally nerdy Manda saw another wasp.  Unlike the first wasp this one was out during the night time, and the outside was cold as Jack Frost's symbolic testicles.  This attack ended fairly uneventfully, but left us with an impression we wouldn't be seeing the last of the wasp menace.

Manda's discovery

Fast forward to yesterday,  five wasp attacks later. I am currently doing extra work at another school to make up some money that I had lost working part time most of January.  I get a text from Manda informing me that she has probably figured out there the wasps are originating from, and oh yeah there is a giant wasp in our room again.  I was about three hours away from returning for the evening so I tried my best to encourage her to do the brave thing and retreat to another room until I could return and deal with the latest invader.

She informed me that the light fixture of the light slightly to the right of our bed was hanging down on one side and was in fact big enough to fit giant death wasps, spiders, and other bugs I'd prefer not to meet.  With the solution to our problem (hopefully) without our grasp I finished my tortuously long middle school class and grabbed my stuff.  I hurried home after I finished my classes for the night and came home to strike down the beast and then formulate a plan to banish the wasps from our realm permanently.  First however we needed to make preparations.

Now here is your problem right here Ma'am.

The next morning after several hours of uneasy sleep we hurried to Homeplus to grab materials to fortify our room from exoskeleton-ed intruders.  We secured the goods and headed back the apartment to duct tape the hell out of that light.  Duct tape we did, and while we were doing that we discovered the one screw of the light had become loose like so many of my college aged Korean students after a few to many Soju's.  We used the tape, to put it up and then tried to screw the offending screw back into place.

Manda putting on the finishing touches

While I would like to say that I am completely sure that we will be wasp free I sadly just do not know.  We are currently on day two without wasps.  I am hoping that we are actually wasp free and that this will lead to having less other nasty bugs in this upcoming summer near the end of our ESL Honeymoon Adventure.

A Day in the Life of Zach Teacher and Amanda Teacher (2/2/13 edition)

Happy Saturday! I've decided that today will be a recap day because I sometimes like to attempt to make sure this blog is updated in a timely fashion. Pretend with me that this is, in fact, the case. Since this is the case, I'll walk you through our day, so that you too can experience life as an expat in South Korea.

Now, this weekend is a bit unusual in the fact that we've recently had issues with large wasps in our room. They haven't been spotted elsewhere, but lately they've been showing up in our room. It's the beginning of February and needless to say, this is a bit unusual for this time of year. Did I also mention that wasps are rather aggressive and not my choice of roommates? As of yesterday, February 1st, we have had 6 wasps, large wasps, come to visit. Pretty weird.

We couldn't figure out where they were coming from, but then I noticed yesterday that the corner of the light had dropped down from the ceiling and it seemed probable that this was where they were coming from. So top priority today was to stop at Homeplus to pick up some duct tape to take care of that little problem. Zach will tell you more about our crazy wasp adventures in another post coming up.

So upon waking up (after a somewhat restless night, even though wasps are diurnal), spending a little time waking up and relaxing, and getting dressed we headed to Homeplus for the necessary materials for our anti-wasp mission. I did snap some decent shots of these azure winged magpies this morning though, before we headed out.

It's been hovering around freezing temperatures depending on the time of day, so I found some very pretty natural artwork this morning on the way toward town. Frost and frozen water are very interesting.

Frosty!

After making a brief detour at the local Paris Baguette for breakfast munchies we stopped at Homeplus. We were surprised to find some sort of mystery sale going on when we went up to the second floor. There were red boxes at a small table just near the checkout area and two ladies were taking money and rallying people forward. The cost of a single box was 1000 won and after a little debate we decided why not, and pulled forth our 2000 won.

Victory is mine! And also Zach's.

We had to take the items out of the boxes so we could wander around the store without too many problems, so we stowed them away. I'd say we got a pretty good deal, the items we got are below.

It's also almost the start of the Lunar New Year here, so there are lots of gift boxes and sets of items to be given away as gifts. Here's just a small handful of featured items.

We also ran into something cute up on the second floor. Zach wanted to take it home and I would have liked to as well, but we can't have pets and I don't know how we'd get it home. :(  Instead we just admired the hedgehog's cuteness from the other side of the glass and noticed that Homeplus has an escapee on their hands.

Lizard-zilla is on the loose!

Finally, having secured a few gifts to be sent homeward, admired the adorable critters, and obtained the necessary tape for our project, we headed back homeward. The ceiling/light was a pretty quick project between tightening a loose screw and taping up the gap, but I'll let Zach talk more about that later.

We had a quick lunch and then spent some time doing things here including cleaning, organizing, studying, and playing some games. Finally, I got bored after getting things all cleaned up and we decided to head to Chungdae a bit earlier than originally planned since I figured it'd be nice to have more daylight rather than less. We were lucky enough to hop on the 105 bus before too long and take the ~15 minute ride to the Chungdae area. Chungdae is part of Cheongju that is a little more bar and restaurant laden with a crowd leaning more toward younger people and foreigners since it's the home of most of the foreign bars in the city. I took a few pictures along the way as we roamed around.

These little guys and gals were so cute, I was excited and made a lot of noise and scared them. Sorry!

Check out the upside-down tea kettles, super neat.

We found this neat looking doorway on our walk.

Koreans aren't the most cleanly people. Sadly, you find a lot of trash and waste piled up on the streets.

This thing resides right outside a restaurant on the small streets of Chungdae. It's been around since Christmas, maybe before that, but it freaks me out. When you walk by or get close she bows and speaks.

These painted wings are right outside of this small restaurant, we had to get pictures, of course.

The sign reads: Wink: Pub and Restaurant for Women. Don't ask me!

This sign was on some sort of building, though I couldn't tell you what kind. It's neat to see Keith Haring's work in so many places. Also, I <3 king Kong! Some of my kids would love this.

We found a small arcade which I hope to visit again while we wandered, it's right near the boardgame cafe that we had visited previously. There are a variety of toy game machines right outside of the arcade, most of which are crane games. I figured since it was only 1000 won for 6 tries I would give it a shot. They have cute plushies from different things, but I finally managed to win myself a cute Chopper from One Piece, he's so cute. I'm hoping to visit again and actually check the place out (and win a few more cute prizes too). 

We finally decided that it was time for dinner and stopped at Pizziaolo, which is a small Italian restaurant close to the foreigner bars. We'd been there once before with two Korean students and it was delicious, so we figured we'd stop again. They serve water in a wine bottle with a sprig of rosemary in it and it's quite refreshing. Zach ordered pasta (Carbonara) and I ordered pizza (Margherita) and we sat upstairs on the second floor and watched outside as it got dark. 

Having finished our meals we stopped at a small store next door that is similar to Claire's where I picked up a few things since I'm trying to do a lot of gift shopping lately. I also saw some earrings that I had seen previously and finally got them. Finally, we headed toward the bus stop and hopped on the 105 a few minutes afterward and came home. Here are some of my collected items for the day.

Here's the Chopper plush that I won from the game, a piece of walnut pie from Paris Baguette, and dark chocolate cubes that I found at Lotte Mart. A successful day? I'd say so.

Now we're winding down for the night and hoping that the wasp problem has been solved. The Seollal holiday is upcoming here in South Korea so we'll have some time off, I'm really hoping to be able to get out and take some pictures since I just haven't had the opportunity lately.