Hwasun

It's titled Hwasun, but I'm not starting with that trip.
On Thursday I went to my third school that I teach at called Sinheung Middle School. I have a male co-teacher at this school and he picks me up at 7:50 am each week. It's nice because every other day I have to be ready by either 7:10 or 7:20 so the extra bit helps! The co-teacher though is crazy friendly and doesn't stop talking. He's funny though because he always thinks his English is awful and is scared to say stuff he isn't sure of in front of me. I think I'll enjoy him as a co-teacher though. This school is smaller than Wednesday's school - 24 students! It's located in the country with lots of mountains around that some of the teachers hike during lunch so I plan to join them next week! My first class went really well and the students were into the lesson. My co-teacher didn't bother to be present at most of the lesson, but since there was only 6 students it was fine. My second class was the oldest students, but their English is really poor. My co-teacher has to translate pretty much everything I said. No matter how slow I talked or how easy of words I said they just didn't understand it. I ended up really improvising my lesson because it was planned for Samgye middle school students who have much better English. My last class went horrible. The student's English was actually pretty impressive so my co-teacher skipped out on the lesson. There were 12 students, but they were much more interested in asking me questions and ohhh-ing and awww-ing over the ages of Stanley and Andrew who they thought were the cutest boys ever. I think every single girl who has seen my slide show on me has fallen in love with my brothers! Specifically Andrew since he's 16 and these girls are between the ages of 12-14. It's cute though. Anyway, this class was not paying the slightest bit of attention to the lesson (which I admit was boring, but I was told I had to teach on it so I did what I was told) so I gave in and we just talked about me or about music. At least now their curiosity is hopefully filled!
Lunch was interesting at the school. Their cafeteria is being fixed so they use the gym. They also share with the elementary school next to them so during our lunch there was a kids karate class going on. They were impressive and probably only 8 or so. The instructor looked like he could cut me in two with his hands. I hope I don't have to cross him...
My first teachers workshop was also that day. I hadn't been told what I was supposed to do so I came prepared with a bunch of introduction stuff. I pulled out a Zietsma teaching technique and told them that I'm not going to talk much in the workshop because it's there for their English to improve by speaking it not so I can talk to them about nothing. Thank-you Zietsma! I learned something from his class after all... What I learned from the workshop though is NEVER to ask a Korean English teacher their most embarrassing moment teaching. If you do, make sure they know what you mean. I got sob stories about how they are embarrassed because their English wasn't good enough or their teaching wasn't good enough... not exactly what I was going for. They also don't really understand the game two truths and a lie even though they told me they do. Oh well. I know now!
Ok so Hwasun. Kristen and I went to visit Laura and Amanda where they're living and teaching - Hwasun. It's a small city that's close to the mountains. We arrived late Friday night, missed our stop and had to take a taxi since we had no idea where we were. We ended up ordering pizza for the night and for those that know me well, I cannot eat anything past 6pm or I will feel sick. yep, I went to bed with a full stomach...not a good idea. Felt kinda gross in the morning. Then we had chocolate chip pancakes...also a bad idea. First because we were improvising with the ingredients we had plus leaving out a bit, but also because pancakes sit in my stomach a long time. Oh well, they were good! We went to go hiking the mountain around lunch time so we bought some Gimbap (not sure how to spell it...) which is basically rolled up rice and seaweed with veggies and meat in it. We had tuna. These mountains were so much nicer than the ones in Gurye. There was undergrowth here so it didn't look bare like in Gurye. We hiked halfway up, ate, then back down. took a few hours to do the whole thing. We also stopped at these random exercise things that are all over Korea. Basically a weight room outside, minus the weights being there. There's none close to us in Gwangju which kinda sucks.
Here's an actual embarrassing story (not like the Korean ones!) There were also these outdoor bathrooms which were made of stone. We wanted to check them out, but weren't sure which one was the women's. We were certain there weren't anyone in either of them because we didn't hear anyone around (ok, I was certain there wasn't anyone around. I won't pin my stupidity on the other three girls!) So I checked one out. I picked the wrong one. Which had a man in it. Turned around thankfully, yet still completely naked. I am never doing that again.
On our way back we bought some Duckbooky (that's how it's pronounced...no idea how it's spelt!) which is basically rice something or other. These were round ball like things. I don't know how to describe them, but they tasted good. I probably won't make a habit of buying them though because they weren't THAT good. Just good.
Lastly, Kristen and I ended our day going to this grocery store under the bus terminal in Gwangju where I found out they sold MENTOS! I was so excited! Sure, they're not King or Wilhelmina Peppermints, but it's better than nothing! I now have church food for tomorrow! They also sell spices...which we were told are hard to find in Korea. Parsley, Thyme, Paprika, Basil... it was awesome. There still wasn't any vanilla extract or regular brown bread, but I'm hoping our Costco trip might provide those for me! We shall see!
In other news, I've finally decided to tackle cleaning my apartment. I was putting it off because I didn't want to find something gross. I've already concluded that hippie woman was a surface cleaner. Definitely never cleaned behind, under or around things. I almost gagged at some of the stuff I found. I have to buy some more cleaning stuff though before I finish the job. Not looking forward to that, but I will be glad when I know what needs to be cleaned and what doesn't. I don't enjoy finding surprises in my apartment. Like the ants. Which apparently they give you ant traps for, but I didn't know they were ant traps until Kristen told me so now, no ant problem! Hippie girl told me she just lived with them. Gross. I know they're high in protein and all, but still...