The 포항 함.

A few weekends ago the boy, Paul, Corey and I stumbled upon the 포항 함 aka Pohang's Ship.  We didn't have any of our regular video equipment with us but we used Chris's birthday present.  A Samsung WP10.  I'm actually very impressed with the quality.  ch-ch-ch-check it out!

Watch more Pohang videos at tripfilms.com

A Day in the Life...

of a hagwon teacher.


There are really three types of English teachers in Korea.  You have the public school teachers who get more job security and significantly more vacation days.  You have the teachers who teach private lessons and make bank but risk getting deported back to their homeland because it's illegal.  Then you have the ubiquitous hagwon teachers.  These teachers work at after school academies for slightly more money but fewer vacation days.

I am the latter.

My school caters to elementary school students.  These kids have already spent their entire day at public school and then they come to us for 2 more hours- sometimes more.  Classes are either 2, 3, or 5 days a week.  It's insane just how much Korean children attend some form of school.  I fully plan on threatening to send my future children to Korea if they misbehave in any way.  That'll teach 'em.

So what is a typical day like at my school?  Why here, let me show you...

First things first, don a face mask.  Swine flu's been wreaking havoc on our school and little children tend to spread disease faster than I can say "holy swine flu batman".   Also, all of the teachers share one large teacher's lounge where we spend a few hours of our day.  If one gets sick, others will surely follow.

We get to work at around 1 pm.  Our first class starts at 2:30.   It gives us a good hour and a half to get all of our lessons planned and prepared for the day.  It's also when we usually eat our lunch.  Something about our school makes us hungry all.the.time.  The second I walk through the door I find myself instantly famished.  We also usually teach all day with only 5 minutes in between classes.  We normally take that time to stuff our faces with cereal or peanut buttered bread.  nom nom nom.

At 2:30 the bell rings (Pachelbel's Canon, mind you) and I spend the remainder of my day forming young minds like these...

Julie

Sweet Emily

Showing off their work.

Jenny giving me her pose

Jenny wanted to take my picture & even told me how to pose

Silly Andy

My biggest class boasting some of my youngest students.

These are just a handful of the classes that I teach.  I can have anywhere from one to ten students in a class.  You must meet Jacob.

Jacob holds a special place in all of our hearts at Langcon.  He's notorious for his little tantrums.  Most of them involve throwing his backpack and trying to rip his school books.  Lucky for me, I get to teach the handsome little devil.  Don't let this picture fool you.  I had to tame him with that cup of valium cereal.  He comes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but he hates, nay- despises Wednesdays.  That's when we work out of his least favorite book.  I usually spend the majority of the class trying to talk him out of eating his book.  Today I told him that he'd have a real hard time trying to find a girlfriend if he kept up with his bad attitude.  His response?  "Teacher is ugly."  Head meet desk. 

At 7:35 the last bell rings and all of us teachers head back to our lounge to unwind and get things in order for the following day.  The day actually flies by, especially with back to back classes.  It's also nice to work with the co-teachers that I have.  We can usually find the humor in any situation and having them there makes the "work" more enjoyable. 

And there you have it.  A little peek at my work days.

Our Sunday. In Pictures.

So this weekend was pretty laid back.  Saturday we spent hanging out downtown and gorging ourselves on delicious food.  We also saw the movie "Social Network" which was surprisingly much better than I thought it would be.  I went into the theater with the preconceived notions that a movie about facebook couldn't possibly be very entertaining, but alas, it was.  I'd actually watch it again.

Today we woke up relatively early and set off for the traditional Korean folk village that we happened to stumble upon a few weeks ago.  We wanted to film a little piece about the place since it's so close to Yugang (our little borough)  and the oldest traditional village in Korea. 

I love watching Korean fathers play with their children.

A Jindo dog.  The traditional dog of Korea. 

Chris found a friend.

After our big outing, we headed back to good ol' Yugang for a little meet and greet party.  When we first moved to Korea there were only two other foreigners that lived in our area of Pohang.  In fact, it was so rare to see someone who wasn't Korean that when you did, you felt compelled to run up to them and talk to them.  It wasn't until February that we began to regularly see foreigners about the town.  That was when EPIK brought in 50+ new public school teachers to the region.  It's hard to believe how much has changed over the past year or so.

Yugang is now up and coming with at least 12 foreign teachers in the area.  We decided that it would be a good time for all of us to meet up and get to know our neighbors.  We met at a local chicken hof (kind of like a bar.  One that also specializes in food) and got to know each other over plates of chicken and bottles of soju.

Chris and William

Landis.  Showing the proper way to pour a drink for your superior/elder.

Owen Wilson (yes. that's his real name), Landis, Chris

Sarah, yours truly, Claire

Went through a lot of soju.  It was almost the same as a night out with Master Sim.

Not too shabby of a weekend.  We're still laying low as December's going to end up being a big spender kind of month, what with Christmas, vacation, a big birthday getaway and what not.  Stay tuned though, the boy has been making his K-POP TEN that'll debut on the blog sometime this week.  Wouldn't wanna miss out on all the saucy goodness.

A quarter of a century.

Ahhh the big 2-5.

The boy was absolutely devastated that neither of us could remember how I celebrated my birthday last year that he vowed to make this one memorable. He delivered. My only requests were that we a) get out of Pohang b) secure our airfare for our Christmas vacation c) Eat Indian food d) find me a cupcake (preferably red velvet).

Now these tasks weren't necessarily easy. For starters, we had to travel an hour west to Daegu to pay for our winter vacation flights in person. Our travel agent doesn't accept credit cards over the phone or online so it was our only option. Also, there's no Indian food (or any ethnic food really) in our town. Also, cupcakes are hard to come by. Real cupcakes at least. Korean cakes are usually spongy and really light. I like my cakes hearty, thick, and I dare say... moist. I also like frosting. Creamy, rich frosting. Not any of that cool whip crap. And uhh, of the year and a half that I've lived in Korea I have never seen anything resembling red velvet.

So the boy and our usual companions (Corey and Paul) had their work cut out for them. We got up early, rented a car and headed to Daegu. We had NO idea where our travel agent was located and after a good hour of driving around and asking every Korean imaginable we paid for and secured our holiday tickets! My plane ticket was actually my big birthday present from the beau. A motorcycle last year, a Christmas vacation this year... he gives the best gifts!

We then headed to my favorite Indian restaurant in Daegu and gorged ourselves silly. I had chicken curry with cheesy naan, a refreshing salad and I split a corona with the boy. Can you see the happiness?



After Daegu we were back on the road. This time we headed south to Busan. If there was anything that I could've done without on my bday it wouldn't been the thousand and one toll booths that we came across. There were some that were only a mile or two apart!




Once in Busan we found our accomodation for the night (more on that later) and headed out on the town. We had hit downtown Busan for mayyybe 10 minutes when Corey miraculously spotted a cupcake shop down a back alley. CUPCAKES! Yummy yummy cuppycakes! Not only was it the 1st cupcake shop I've seen in Korea, it was aptly named "Red Velvet". And yes, they had a few red velvet cupcakes left... just for me. Chris got himself a vanilla yogurt cream cupcake and Corey and Paul split one that was blueberry. nom.nom.nom.





Next on the agenda was a birthday brew. We found a German haus that actually brewed their own beer.


The night just wouldn't have been complete without a little arm wrestle arcade game.




After all of the bday festivities (and driving) we were all exhausted and decided to buy a few bottles of vino and head back to our hotel. Oh yes, our hotel. We arrived and there was only one room available. One room. One room with one big bed and vending machines in the hall... these kinds of vending machines...


Oh Korean love motels... always aim to please. We skipped the vending machine, ordered in chicken, watched some of Korea's funniest home videos and then passed out. All of us. On one not-really-that-big bed. Below is a picture of our ceiling/nightscape.


A great birthday that definitely will not be forgotten!

Halloween for the little ones!

So I know it's only the 29th and there's still a good day in between us and Halloween, but my fellow teachers and I celebrated HARD today. HARD people. We've been decorating and planning all week and all of our hardwork has finally paid off.
Preparing ourselves before all of our students showed up. We have...
Claire Teacher, the cat.

Aria Teacher, the Mexican soccer player.

Landis Teacher, the magician/witch/random character from Alice in Wonderland.

And Tawny Teacher, the "Indian". I tried for the life of me to get them to say "Native American" but it just wasn't happening. That might be next week's lesson.

We decorated the sheeeet out of our school. It looked like Halloween had a drunken night with a party store and this is what they produced 9 months later. We even made "Dracula's blood" complete with bubbling dry ice.






And then all the kiddos showed up. We cycled through three different groups throughout the day. Some of our students brought friends and we ended up having to change our schedule four different times. We had a ton of activities planned. The kids sat through a short presentation on Halloween, they sang a few songs and danced, they made ghosts and bat mobiles, played musical chairs and a pumpkin game, and got to show off their amazing costumes.

Look how adorable they are!














All in all, it was a pretty successful day. We only had one child shed tears (he's actually the one pictured above) and look at him! He looks like he's loving life. Nothing too serious. All of us teachers however, were done for.