Back to Korea (pizza)

Before I left Korea Patrick came over one night and we ordered pizza:



The funness that ensued!

The most random uncultural blog EVER

Sooo...

My friend I usually send daily pointless e-mails is out of town, so rather than send an e-mail to not be read for a few weeks, I am writing my usual pointlessness in blog form.

First off, todays class was ok...except I forgot to remind them to bring jump ropes in so we couldn't do that part which is a fun part :-(

Lunch I have with the teachers, which is nice. Turns out one of the teachers speaks WAY more English than I thought, he's just uber shy. But since it was just me him and another teacher he felt he had to talk. Really his English is AWESOME! So its nice to know I have someone I can go to other than the three friends I have at school that speak English.

So I stopped by my new little grocery store (just veggies and fruits) they rebuilt after the fire. The dude there's English ROCKS! I am totally shopping there all the time. He teaches me the names of veggies in korean and tells me my Korean rocks..which it doesn't, but I am sooo going to pretend he's right :-)

Finally, I was just looking at my fridge deciding what to drink, this is my thought process, "Cheap wine, expensive wine...macoli, guiness....cheap wine, expensive wine, macoli, guiness...hmmmm..."

ahh yes mystery option I had COMPLETELY forgotten about..."Box 'o wine" ohhhhh yeah :-)

Mud Fest (Late I know...my bad!)

OK, so I snagged some mudfest photos from Patrick...voila!


Song, Aaron, Me, Jessica (new friend!), and Patrick!!! All muddy

Craig me and Patrick all muddy

Eugene, Me, Cherith, and some dude...all muddy...well I just got out of the ocean I think...but I am muddier than I am on a normal day.

We got really luck the weather was AWESOME, beautiful sky, lovely sun oooh my beach bum spirit was soooo happy!

So anyways the the Boryeong Mud Festival is this annual festival that is basically a BRILLIANT marketing ploy. The city of Boryeong figured out that using its mud (which is rich in minerals) for face masks and spa treatments was making WAY more money than using it in the fields. And then they thought, hey how can we make even more money out of this?

Ahh yes, a festival! It usually attracts about 1.5 million visitors to Boryeong.

They have mud slides, mud wrestling, mud pits, a shallow warm water rinsing pool (which we're pretty sure everyone pees in so we preferred the ocean) live bands playing, and the friggin' paparazzi. Pictures were CONSTANTLY being taken of me.

In fact....

ok, this is embarrassing...

So I lost my flip flops one day (they came off in the mud) so I bought a new pair and they have the Korean flag on them. So you can't actually wear flip-flops in the mud (they get stuck) but I found a piece of rope so I tied them to my bikini bottoms and voila! Instant sandal carrier.

So, I am walking around with my friend Mike. And these photographers point to me, point to my sandal and point to him. Now at this point I am ENRAGED. I am tired of these people taking advantage of us, I mean yes, we get lots of free things but if they ask me to hug, or pose with one more person I am going to SCREAM!

So they ask me again, me, sandal him. And I (and Mike) tell them "NO ABSOLUTELY NOT!" we're putting our collective foot down, "I WILL NOT SPANK HIM WITH MY SANDAL" so we say no a lot more and are feeling very proud of ourselves when one of them finally put together a little English, "You, He, hanguk" ooooo they just wanted me in the picture with him and the flag...no spanking involved...oops! Hey its not MY fault, Mike's mind went there too! I am sure its what lots of people were thinking...ok...maybe not...

So anyways...yeah..we smiled for the picture...damn papparazi.

GEPIK Orientation

Monday morning I took my prepacked backpack which I'd spent the last 3 nights living out of and caught the number 7 bus to Yongin. I figured the best way to catch it would be to head away from Suwon Station and Suwon station is towards Seoul (kinda) and I am away from Seoul (kinda)...nope, I caught the bus heading the wrong way. I had to get off the bus, get back on the bus heading the opposite way and sit on the bus for like 2 hours. Oh fun!

I call my friend Cheryl (she's a couchsurfer...I know I know that post is coming) to see if she's there yet, she agrees to meet me at the bus station and I run my but over there. There are two people in the street wearing yellow nametags and I smile. Thank GOD! An organized orientation who knows us Waguks (think...gringos...) will surely get lost. They point us the right way and we hop on a bus to the Hyundai Learning Center...note to self, no taxi driver will know where this place is...hmmm

We get there and get divided into rooms. They put us into rooms based on where we live so we'd get to know who was in our city, that was nice I suppose, but I felt bad for the couples that got divided. We had our first lecture which was some cultural fun stuff (music, dancing etc...I'll upload videos tonight)

There are some fun drinking stories but since mommy and daddy read this log and worry enough about me as it is, let me keep it to one. So the store in the learning center was not supposed to sell us alcohol (I guess) but I found that using my AMAZING Korean I could get myself a beer. It went like this.

"Anyo haseyo" Hello

Lady gestures that she cannot sell me beer and says something about how they won't let her.

*smiling* "Hana" One "Shhh" Put finger to your lips and make the shh sound, point to your purse and say , "kamsamneeda" Thank You.

Keep smiling, insist that you won't tell anyone "Abseyo" Literally...there is none...yeah its as close as I could get

She says they won't let her again but looks around, nods, puts a finger on her lips and sells me the beer.

SUCCESS!!

Communications majors: 1
Language Barriers: 0

Then of course later, we were at a Hof (bar) and I tried to get an empty glass to share a pitcher with friends...I ened up with another pitcher...

Communications majors: 1
Language Barriers: 1

Drat!

So, let it suffice to say that I am safe, alive and still doing pretty good at making friends in random countries.

The orientation was a blast I made amazing friends, picked up a few tips and tricks and feel a bit less lost and confused...or at least like there's lots of other people who are lost and confused.

Oh, this a an older video its awful, but if you listen closely you can hear some music, that was the b-boys random tournamentI walked into a while ago.

Field Trip...kinda

OK, so yesterday was like a teacher's field trip.

We went to the Inchon 22nd Annual Ceramic Festival. It was fun (granted after the tea bowl festival it was kinda a de-ja-vue). But I got to have dinner with the teachers which was entertaining.

I learned dhow to say blood pee (yes I am immature)

Pi-ga-na-da means bleeding.

koh-pi isnose bleed

da means its a verb(usually). See, I am getting better :-)

Condoms and Potatoes

Some kid asked me what a condom was in class today. I asked him to repeat the word and use it in a sentence. I've found that asking where they heard it helps. As my friend who had a child ask her about the word sex found out. She tried to explain how when two people love each other they hug and make babies and that's sex. Turns out the girl was asking about secs, as in, "I'll be there in a few secs"

He said he had overheard it the other day. He's a good kid so I told him that a condo was like an apartment but you own it like a house. And then I assume his friend whispered the real answer in his ear in Korean. And the poor boy turned bright RED.

Poor boy!

I remember when Brad Lewis said "Coolo" in Spanish class in high school and Senor Naranjo told him that does not mean cool :-)

Or in Spain when Madeline walked into class late and said she was so "embarazado." Yes we mostly giggled. It is a bit hard not to when someone says they are a little pregnant.

And then there was the time in Spain I was trying to translate my cosmopolitan. And I was pretty sure lamed meant to lick. But I asked my teacher. She asked me to use it in a sentence (smart girl) I said "como con un dulce" like a candy. I didn't want her to know it was actually from a magazine referring to licking the sweat off your significant other's skin. Needless to say she came over to look at my sentence and began to blush. Hey I was trying to be polite lady, you were the one that had to look.

Basically, what I am saying is, learning languages is hard!

In other news. I had the Lotus root for lunch. Yes that's right the flower of enlightenment. It tastes like potatoes.

I also vacuumed yesterday. I really need to buy a mop but I keep forgetting to. Oops!

The things that make me happy

I just bought some kimchi and bread from a street vender and a small bakery


and I literally am sooo proud of myself

Its funny how your standards change when you dont speak the language

P.S.
My bread is purple

About the bok/book I use to teach

The book I use to teach is pretty good actually. It comes with lame CD's that we basically follow and have some really lame game ideas but some good ones too.

I have one BIG problem with the book. The directions are almost always in Korean. So before I know what the book wants me to do I have to look at the pictures and try to guess. Look at the heading and guess, then type in the Korean to an online translator and guess that way but online translators are NOT always helpful: For example: "Sleep and tu point out quickly and it talks to play try." Yeah...not very helpful.

Korean 101

OK so my Korean is still SEVERELY limited, but hey why not teach what I know

Odee ayo--where. You put what you're looking for first, so Hospital Odeea yo? (I kinda feel like I am singing e i e i o and on that farm he had a ...)

kamsahamnida--thank you (I HATE that their thank you is sooo long! Danke, Gracias, Grazie, Merci, Shukran...VERY short!) Its the uber polite version but I prefer learning the polite and then do casual later I figure I'll offend less people.

chunmanayo--your welcome (formal)

aniayo- your welcome (casual)

eec(g)a choosayo- this please (thier g/c is like a sound between a g and a c...sometimes romanization uses a g sometimes a c)

cooga chooseyo- that please

Chwetsunhamneeda eehey mot heyo
Sorry understand not possible to do (I am sorry I don't understand)

hangulmal mot heyo
Korean language not possible to do (I don't speak Korean)

Masheeso yo
delicious

chincha masheesoyo
very delicious

no mo masheesoyo
sooo delicious

mu (c)ga masheesoyo
what is delicious (what do you recommend?)

yongul ha seyo --- do you speak english
English do (it slike hangul...not really an L like a fast L...almost an r???)


tseck (like check but a faster ch is book)

tsecksan (booktable...desk :-D )

compute (like a short e on the end...yep its Konglish deal)

Kitsen (same word but faster ch and e)

gas range (rang-e no silent e, means stove, another Konglish word)

Anyo haseyo (Hello!) First word is like year in Spanish

OK...thats about the extent of my Korean :-)