A day trip to Pohang

I did write a post for the last week on the weekend but I never found the time to put my pictures together and actually publish it. This will be a bit long but I'll try to keep things concise.

Two weekends ago

On Friday we went into Yeongdeok to celebrate Emery's birthday with dinner and friends. It was fun to meet some more people and eat yummy food. I spent all day Saturday finishing up classwork but we had a great day on Sunday at Goraebul Beach with David, his wife, and our friend from the biggest town over, Emery. The waves were incredibly large, I think 6 meters. The water was a bit warmer this week so we spent the morning jumping in the waves and enjoying a beautiful day at the beach. The boys did some light wrestling on the beach and we ate snacks before heading home. We also played some board games at David's in the evening. 

The work week

This week was much better! Things are still ever-changing with our schedules and classes but classes do feel a bit more settled now. On Tuesday we had crispy chicken sandwiches and cold crinkle-cut fries for lunch and it felt like a smile being tossed in my direction. This week at lunch I also coincidentally sat down next to one of the high school English teacher. When I was sitting down she said, "Enjoy your meal!" and I was honestly taken aback so I just said, "thanks, you too!" I finished my food and started walking out of the cafeteria and a minute later I heard somebody running towards me in platform heels. She stopped me and explained who she was and invited me to walk around the school with her. It was very exciting to speak with somebody who seemed very excited to be speaking with me and was very interested in my life and why I had decided to come to teach here. I don't know when I will see her again as she works in the high school but it was a good encounter. 

This week at Chuksan

Chuksan is my Thursday country school. I went to school with my co-teacher by car and was told on the way to school that all of the kids had a changed schedule and no English classes that day. I was surprised but very excited to have the whole day to work on my lesson plans. As soon as the first period rolled around though my 1st-grade class was in my room and excited for their lesson! I think they had forgotten about the change so about 5 minutes into my lesson the teacher who was meant to be teaching them then poked his head in the window and explained to them the mix-up but that they could just come to his class next period instead. Although I was caught off guard it was exciting to see that they were excited to be in my class and it was a good start to the morning. We played a game where you needed to play rock paper scissors to determine how many spaces you could move and I found it interesting to see in all my classes the kids with a bit lower English level learned to be very tricky and never change their position or make it so the other kids could only move the lowest amount of spaces. 

"Red Bean Jellies"
Apparantly the students had a presentation on this day and made these jellies all by themselves along with the rose toothpick as well. They were actually pretty yummy!

Last weekend

We had been very excited all week as Emery invited us to go to Pohang on Saturday. We both worked very hard to complete all of our lesson plans during the week so we could fully enjoy the weekend and I did it! We made it by bus and visited the Home Plus which is a 5 or 6 story building with a market level, a home goods level, and a small clothing shops section at the base.

We met up with some friends from our orientation group around lunchtime and headed downtown. There we walked through what seemed an eternity of nice shops with clothes galore. We grabbed some Jjimdak for lunch and then went to the Jukdo Market. Here there were many little shops with bedding, fresh fish and market foods, and home items. Because we were in a group we didn't get a chance to really stop and look at things I may have wanted to if we were along, but it was still cool to see. I have a feeling there will be many opportunities to visit markets and what an exciting opportunity to have so many things to buy! Here in Yeonghae we feel very limited in our shopping options so it was exciting to see so many things.

When we were finished at the market we took a short bus ride to the beach and walked along the shore. Our friends had a cafe at the end in mind so it was a bit of a walk. I chose my converse for the day trip and I can't tell you what a mistake that was. I was so relieved when people started taking their shoes off to walk in the sand! I have probably 13 pairs of converse in my parent's basement and I brought the ONE pair that is too tight and not good for walking to be one of the five pairs of shoes that made it out of the country. Anyway, the beach was great! Nothing more spectacular in Pohang than in our beaches at Yeonghae but a nice chance to see something different at least. We finally made it to the cafe and sat down to catch up on how everybody's school situations. It is incredible to hear how differently everybody's experience is despite signing up for the 'same' program. When we were done visiting we headed back to the bus station and meant Emery at the Home Plus to make dinner plans.

After some light debating we decided to run to the nearest McDonald's and make it back for an earlier train out at 7:05 pm. What a special treat to have McDonald's. It was slightly more expensive than us cheapskates would eat back home because they had fewer 'bargain options'. It was however, delicious. The french fries really do taste exactly the same which was such a great comfort. We shared a Coco-cola Zero, my new drink apparently, and ate our sandwiches before we hopped on the bus ride, an hour and a twenty minutes from home.

The Bed

You read that right. Brandon and I are now the proud new owners of a brand new bed! It only took 3.5 weeks but we finally have a bed and it is oh, so good. I don't think we could have done it without the borrowed mattress pad we acquired 1.5 weeks in so we will forever be grateful.

This school week

Things continue to be up and down. This week started very dauntingly as my Middle School capacity increased from 30% to 60% which left me feeling worried about how I could plan all of my lessons at school. It did end up pretty okay though and it was exciting to have a few classes that seemed genuinely interested and involved in the lessons I have been spending so much time planning! (Let me be clear, not all of them were interested and not all of them were involved but it was definitely a huge step up).

On Monday we finally received our Alien Registration Cards! We are now officially legal aliens of South Korea. We both had a chance to set up our bank accounts for our first payday happening this week and we applied for our sim cards (finally). The plan we wanted was not available at a store near us so we applied online and will have the sim cards sent to us hopefully very soon.

On Thursday, at Chuksan, my co-teacher has been driving me home the last few weeks because she lives right across the street from us in Yeonghae. However, she had a late after-school class this week so I had to ride the bus home for the first time which was a pretty traumatic experience. She did vaguely show me where the bus stop was a few weeks about but having never ridden the bus I wasn't positive where it was and was definitely worried to try. After school was over I started walking.... and walking... and walking for what seemed like an eternity. I finally came across a bus station and parked it, hoping that at some point a bus would come for me whether I was at the right stop or not (this no phone business is a very tricky business when you also don't speak Korean and live in the boonies). One bus blazed past me and left me feeling worried but I knew a bus should be coming around 5 pm. I waited and waited as the anxiousness grew until 5 pm when I was about ready to burst in fear as no bus had come for me. 5:01, 5:02, 5:03, 5:04 all passed in complete agony and I was very near tears but finally, at 5:05 I saw my big green savior coming down the road. I jumped up to show I was waiting for it and I got on. I didn't bother asking where it was going and just crossed my fingers it was the right one because I couldn't bear to wait another second for a different bus. I knew I was only an hour walk away from home and figured if it did start to go the wrong direction I could always hop off and trek it on foot. I'm sure you'll all be delighted to hear it was the right bus.

My bus stop friend, Vinny. We kept our distance.

It is Friday afternoon. I was feeling a great sense of pride as I had managed to plan all of my lessons for next week (only two days of school) and a huge chunk of the following week's lessons as well, all during school hours despite my increased class load. About one hour before I left for the weekend one of my co-teachers pulled me aside and told me that we are moving too fast and next week we need to do a communicate lesson which is basically just more practice/activities for the lessons I have already covered over the last few weeks. It is very disheartening as I went from totally on top of the world to another weekend of lesson planning, despite extreme efforts on my part. This will be a pain but hopefully, we can figure it out in a semi-reasonable time to still enjoy at least part of our weekend.

Lots of cuddles are necessary when things are stressful. Yes, we still really like each other. 

Looking forward to Chuseok

Next week is Chuseok! It is the Korean harvest celebration or the Thanksgiving equivilant back home. We are very excited to have Wed-Fri off from school. It is a great surprise as we weren't expecting to get this time off but I'm sure it won't be so cool when we have to work over American Thanksgiving! We have plans to go to Jeonju so we will be sure to report back on that next week! 

If you made it this far, congratulations! I love to see people's comments if you feel like leaving one... but if you don't have a blogger account then it just says 'anonymous'. Leave a little '-Claire' if you aren't sure so I know who you are :)