Upon arriving at school, I walked up the stairs, through the door, and into the front office. The three J's were already there (Jane, Justine, and Jenny). Apparently, Jane did not expect to see me come walking through the door because she jumped the second she saw me. I asked her if I was that unpleasing to look at and all that she could say was something like "You look tired." I guess maybe I was still adjusting from Eastern Standard Time. Nevertheless, I decided that it would be appropriate to give Jane shit about it for the rest of the day.
My first opportunity happened when we took a break from lesson planning to have gimbap that Mrs. Yoon bought. While eating and chatting, I pointed out that Jane was very afraid of me because she'd been horrified when I walked through the front door that morning. She responded with something like "No...no! I...am...nice...person." This was going to be too easy.
Classes followed a pretty normal routine. The middle school kids were getting really good at pronouncing their vocabulary words and were speaking lots of English while I got them to teach me more Korean words. The younger kids were all pretty good. All-in-all, it was a smooth day of teaching. I took a few pictures in the office.
My cluttered desk.
Two of Mrs. Yoon's books on Teaching English. I haven't seen the third one in the office. The name of the little boy on the cover is "Happy Jake."
A picture on the back of the book of Mrs. Yoon and the real Happy Jake
After class was over, we realized that Mrs. Yoon wasn't there anymore. We waited around for a bit for her to return, but had no idea where she'd gone and when she'd be coming back. We decided to lock up and go out for dinner somewhere. We let Mr. Lee know that we were leaving, and then walked out onto the main street of Seongnam. After discussing their options in Korean, the girls decided on a restaurant that had a name that was literally translated as "Food Town." For dinner we shared spaghetti, pork cutlet, kimchi, and soup. It was all very good. We also shared lots of bad pictures of ourselves that we had on our persons. We even managed to take a few!
Jane and Jenny. Apparently, in Korea, the peace sign means "Victory."
Oh you girls.
My cousin Eddie (who tried to photograph me several times at my Aunt Mitzie's and Uncle Bruce's 50th wedding anniversary) will be happy to know that I still can't take a picture without looking like a complete dumbass. My father and I both share this trait...must be genetic.
After dinner, I took a bus to Moran Station, and then got on another bus to come home. I was standing at the bus stop, waiting for the bus and staring off into space when I happened to notice 2 white guys walking down the sidewalk next to me. I smiled at them, and they smiled at me, and we bowed to each other. Then they walked on without a word. I think that's when I realized that I was in Korea. It's difficult to explain, but you can know that you're on the other side of the Earth, and you can see all the Korean people and the Korean signs and still not fully understand that you are in Asia. I can't really put the feeling into words.
The bus was crowded on the way home and I had to stand until we reached my stop. The bus stopped on the other side of the highway, so since I was already there, I hiked down to the 7-11, grabbed a beer, and walked to my apartment. The rest of the night consisted of Korean lessons, Skyping, updating my blog, and a trip down to E-Mart. My life in Korea was starting to feel normal.
You didn't run anywhere today?
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