Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! We will be chaperoning the Yeosu foreigner Halloween party on Friday, then having a weekend in on Saturday and Sunday. Expect photos of our costume. All I can reveal is... Milk and Cereal!!

Dave's Hagwon students

Finally brought the camera into the classroom on Friday October 17th. I had my really cute kindy level class get a photo, and a few other classes through out the day.

The kindergarten class can make or break the day. Today it went really well, we played a few extra games (hokey pokey, duck duck goose (gray duck)) because they were really wound up from the photographs. On days were they do not want to behave, or someone hits some one, some one spits, etc... Well I know it will be a long day!

Here is the link!

Now and Then 10/17/2008

I have about two minutes before I have to go to work so I thought I'd write a quick blog about some of the things that have changed in the daily life here in Yeosu. Just an idea of how our comfort level has grown here, and how this place is becoming a second home versus a place in which we are visiting.

Typical Weekly lunch selection:

Then: Spaghetti Noodles / Pasta Sauce, PBJ Sandwiches, Mondu(dumplings), Ramen

Now: BBQ Chicken + Veggies and Rice / Curry + Rice / PBJ + Fried Shrimp / Eggs and Pancakes

As you can see the diversity of what we eat, as well as the deliciousness has grown significantly. The ability to cook your own homestyle food makes you feel just a bit more at home. There is quite a few times where you cannot get the things you want (tacos) or things just right (the taste of cheese), but we some creativity you can make great tasting western style food every day!

The only problem is all the Korean people complain that we don't eat an Korean food. Well, we eat it for dinner everyday, and we don't know how to make any. For now we'll stick to our new menu!

Approaching Three Months

We have now been here for well into two months. The time has had it's ups and down, but I try to be an even keeled person when it comes to personal things, although some might have me pegged as a bit impatient, or spastic (a spaz) but we are still here. It is harder then I would like to keep in touch with people, and that has made my life slightly more lonely here as of late, but there is always something to help you get your mind right. This weekend it was a fun day with Hana and Sara, last weekend it was going to Seoul and getting some re-exposure to Western culture, next weekend who knows what it will be. There are times when I feel like I could spend many years abroad, and there are times, sometimes during the same day, where I feel like I cannot wait to get home. The weather is beautiful, the scenery is beautiful, but we will see. Who knows what will happen in the rest of our year here. For now, we will sit back and enjoy it.


As far as details of what we have been up to since the "Night of the Living Slugs", I will try to keep it brief. Last weekend we took our first trip out of Yeosu, going up to Itaewon, the foreigner district of Seoul. Anthony "Upscale" joined us. It was a lot of fun. We got Mexican food, Subway, Middle-Eastern Food, delicious late night eats, met some new people from all over the place, and basically felt like we were back in America for the weekend. At the same time, it got played out fast, people trying to get you to buy things, prostitution, etc... That stuff can get old. It was a great place to visit, but it made Megan, AJ and I appreciate the exposure to Korean culture we are getting in Yeosu. It gives you a slight feeling of pride to know that you've made it in a place where there are less then .01% people like you in the population, and not many things that bring the comfort of home. At the same time, it made Yeosu feel like a home away from home - the feeling you get after arriving back to your apartment or house after a long weekend away. There was also some cool perspective for me because I visited some shops, and remembered some alleyways from when Mom and I visited Jeff back in 2003. I cannot believe that trip was five years ago!!

I think Megan and I are beginning to be settled in at school. I am not going to claim that teaching the students is by any means easy, but we know what to expect. I now know what a good day teaching entails, what a bad day teaching entails, and at least have some ideas of how to make a class go smoothly. In the grand scheme, I know that I can handle what I deal with on a daily basis for the rest of my time here, but that doesn't always mean it's easy. I think anyone here can get a new found respect for teaching, and realize how exhausting it really is. I come home exhausted everyday, but I also have a feeling of satisfaction for conquering the students that day. I know it's a strange way to put it, but sometimes the kids can manipulate you, and really hurt your feelings if they want to. At the same time, a fun lesson coupled with interested students can make the day fly by... Sometimes that just isn't possible with 7 different leveled classes rotating day by day, but when a class is fun, it is awesome!



This weekend we kept it low key. We both were in no mood for an exhausted Monday, so we stayed in on Saturday night. Megan caught a cold, so she has been battling that, and I was just plain tired. We hit up the open market to get some Curry, fruits, veggies, and the whole sale store to pick up chicken and some frozen snacks. We snapped some photos of an experience that is becoming strangely typical... We hung out with Jeff, HG, and the Girls all day at Dolsan park, which was a lot of fun. The weather was about 72 and sunny all day. We have a lot of photos, and will get them up soon. We hit up Lotte mart on Sunday morning and made a much needed upgrade to our food supply. We are finally getting a feel for what we actually eat and what is just a waste of money... Sunday afternoon was a "Canadian Thanksgiving" party, thrown by the many Canadians in town. We came expecting kind of a show up and say hi affair, but we ended up staying for about 3 hours. We played Frisbee, catch, and just had a great time with another beautiful day of weather. The local Yeosu-ites were in awe to see such a large group of foreigners out. Many people stopped by to say hello, try throwing the Frisbee, and to check out what kind of food "wayguks" eat.

We will see what this week brings, but a few things an English teacher can begin to depend upon: The sun will rise in the morning, the people in the town will stare, the kids will shout hello, the Yeosu traffic will still be counter intuitive and our students will show up for English class. Looking back at my post, I hope I didn't come off negative, positive, I am just writing off the top of my head. Some days it seems difficult, and life here can be hard. Most days are good, but it is hard not to miss your good friends and family... However - There are still those moments in which you are walking down the street, looking out the window, teaching a class, shopping at the mart, where you just take a step back, give yourself that deeper perspective and think to yourself... "Wow, I am in South Korea... That's pretty incredible!"

Here are some photos...

The trip to Seoul... 12 photos.

Open Market, Beautiful Yeosu, Dolsan and the Cart Man... 40 photos.

Slugs . . .

So I had to say that last night I ran into a little problem. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and when I walked to the kitchen to wash my hands I was surprised! There was a slug on the soap dispenser! Luckily I saw it otherwise I would have had slug hands. Well after getting up enough courage to scrape it off and throw it away (mind you this took awhile but luckily Slugs are slow) I managed to open the door to the garbage and it was a sight from a slug horror movie. A slug fell down when I opened the door scaring me half to death. I had no idea where it came from at first and ran away thinking the ceiling was going to collapse and slugs were going to fall on top of me. I had enough and decided to wake Dave out of his slumber for help. When he pulled out the garbage there was another big fat slug sitting in the garbage. Our Slug count is now 3 (small one on the soap dispenser, big one on the floor, and another huge one in the garage). Well ,Dave was not very happy with me waking him up so he put the top on the garbage and said it was fine and walked back to bed. I, of course, knew something more had to be done. I carefully placed the slugs that escaped back in the garbage with the rest of their family and lifted the garbage bag up to tie off and place outside, but to my surprise there was a slew of slugs! There must have been at least 5 other huge slugs all carefully, slowly, and slimly crawling their way up. I quickly tied off the garbage and placed it outside. I felt like I stepped out of a dream. How could there be that many slugs in our house? I have never in my life seen a slug, but now I have seen them all.

Not in a million years would I have thought I would be surrounded by slugs! What a gross and useless bug! I can't even imagine what else can get into our house, I'm just hoping it doesn't get worse!

Well, I envy all of you non slug finders and hope that you will never come across slugs late at night on your soap dispenser and in your garbage! haha. Hopefully there will not be a sequel to this story.

Slug killer,
Megan