exploring

Saturday

At last the weekend arrived! While I love teaching the students I felt as though this past week just dragged by. I was very happy to see 4:30 on Friday. I will have a bit of a break (maybe?) next week as I only have a class of around 9 students. They are 5^th year so more advanced. Mrs. K said that I could use my lesson plans I have created for this past week and just make them a little harder. The only problem I see if that I have these students from 9-12, so three hours instead of the 80 minute class period I had the other students (and the other lesson plans) for. I'm not quite sure how that's going to work out.

Anyway, I'll worry about it on Sunday.

Today was great fun. A friend came from the Seoul area to hang out so I found out where the subway is located. After leaving the subway we ventured around a bit to find a place to eat for lunch. We ended up at this little restaurant down an alley way. We were the only customers there the entire time and since neither of us spoke any Korean yet (we are both new arrivals as of a week or so) it was a little interesting to order! But, somehow we managed to order something (although at the time neither of us knew what it was that we ordered.

It is the type of typical Korean restaurant where you sit on the floor with the table in front of you and they cook the meat right there at the table. The woman brought the meat that we ordered and it was some sort of dark meat—although I couldn't really tell what kind. It ended up being quite tasty! Thankfully, I am becoming more efficient at using chopsticks so this meal was a little easier to eat than some that I had last week. Also, it wasn't a least bit spicy.

As we were talking and eating these two adorable little girls ( I later learned they were 7 & 8) entered the room. I hear, “Hello, how are you?” and knew they were talking to us. I responded with the typical school response which is, “I'm fine thank you, how are you?' The girls giggled and ran away. So cute. Later, they came out again. “What is your name?” So I responded and asked them what their name was. They told me, giggled, and ran away again. By the time we were ready to leave the girls were chattering away at us in Korean, not minding the least bit that we couldn't understand a word they were saying. Also, at one point they both whip out their cell phones and took pictures of us—smiling and laughing away.

After we left we explored around a little bit more trying to find a shop that sold gloves and scarves. Somehow we stumbled upon this amazing Korean Marketplace. There were vendors and food everywhere. Once I learn more Korean (especially the numbers) I would like to go there again and buy some food. It was just like Reading Terminal Market only not as many people. Wonderful. :)

While we were walking around we had a group of boys stop us on the street and ask us how we were doing. You could tell they were so proud that they spoke to us and they they were able to speak to us in English. That was great as well. I love talking to random people.

So today was a fun success as I managed to discover a whole new section of town that's right down the street from my apartment! I will definitely have to go there again soon, preferably when it's not so cold. It was freezing today and tomorrow is supposed to be even worse! The only regret I have today is that I didn't take my camera with me. There would have been so many awesome pictures! I'm sure I will remember it another time that I head over to that section of town though, so it's not a complete loss.