and then some.

Friday: was observed in class and things went well. i guess i need to raise my tone of voice (basically be more excited and enthusiastic which is draining after 5/6 classes in a row.) The other thing i need to watch is time (one of my favorite classes was observed and i went over on time because i was so excited about teaching! ha) She did think my classes were very organized :). I thought those were both positive feedback comments that don't require too much fixing.

Saturday: tried to go shopping but didn't leave uijeongbu. just did more exploring of the area. i did find a really cute vest at a little boutique. im getting to the point where im becoming more desperate for clothes for my work and everyday wear! i feel like i brought nothing! ahh! of course i WANT to shop as well - its just a matter money and where to go. Check out this site and this site. I think I'll head to myeong-dong which is suppose to be the "mecca" of shopping. 9x9 blocks of shopping. im down! Saturday night i was able to go out with some other English teachers from other branches of PLUS. We went to the apartment building rooftop of a british and irish couple to have drink, food, and a view (check out my pics below.) It was great to talk to English speakers and hear some stories of their experience here.

Sunday: I had been waiting a few days for this day - I got to go hiking on Dobong mountain (this site is a very accurate portrayal of my experience) with my manager and her friend. We thought it was going to be a 1 hour hike but found out at the bottom of the trail that it would be either 2 or 4 hours round trip. so we chose the 2 hr trail. Somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn and ended up taking the 4 hour!! it was such a good workout though! I was sore for the next two days. Half way up you could really feel that we were above the city smog and the temperature dropped to a nice cool breeze. It was still humid so we were sweating a ton. Once we were at the top, the view was beautiful. With it still being summer, the mountains (which are not very high in altitude) are lush with green trees. I want to go back in the fall when the mountains are orange, red, and yellow and then in the spring when trees are in bloom.

Monday: Back to school. I like going to work. It's a time to meet up with my co-workers and get some human interaction! The day goes by fast especially when i don't have any breaks. I started grading student diaries which is pretty fun to see what they write about. Their vocab and grammar can be humorous too. One student wrote, "Today I went to grandfather and grandmother's house. I arrive but the grandfather was not there! oh! my! god!" and then it went on. Just thought it was funny :)

Tuesday: The school reached 100 student enrollment!! This is a huge milestone for us! It took another branch a few months to reach 100 students and it took us 7 open school days! We got a case of really premium ginseng drinks. It's small glass bottles that you drink for your health. It tastes pretty good too (a sweet taste at first then an earthy root taste with a strong ginger-y leather ending.) We also went out to celebrate with chicken, coleslaw, dried squid (i only tried a little!), spanish peanuts, fried potatoes, peaches, puffed rice, and beer of course. The chicken restaurants have such a random mix of food i think but every chicken restaurant has those same offerings. Got home late so i slept in Wednesday. Went to the mart after work and bought some delicious pears that are the shape and size of grapefruit, have texture like an apple, but taste like a pear! they're soo good (but expensive!)

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Interesting thing I learned:
Korean birthdays: when a baby is born, it is considered to be 1 year old. So Korean age is 1 -2 years more than the international age - pending on the time of the year. When someone's birthday passes, they don't turn a year older. Every Korean turns one year older on January 1 of each year. For example:
Someone born in 1987 is this old today:

Westerner Age: July Birthday - 22y/o; November Birthday - 21y/o
Korean Age: July Birthday - 23y/o; November Birthday - 23y/o

This also means that a baby born on December 31, 2009 (1 year old), turns 2 years old one day later. Very different! Calculate your Korean age on this website (Korean calendar is identical to Chinese calendar.)

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