A picture post- read from the bottom up

My Coke at Allo resturant. It's so cute I took 2 picturesCoffee at allo. I thought it was soo cool..... Fondue at Baskin Robbins Kalbi with Jillian You can dip if you want but the onions were greatKimchi, water, and sal the veggies you put the kalbi in to eat it Kalbi cooking yummy looks soooo goodOut to eat at a galbi resturant This was on a tube of tooth paste. I hate math too. They give you pagers so you know when your food is done. It's the Korean version of Burger king Yummy lunch with the teachers- this is delivery !It comes with side menu which is like veggies and of course Kimchi How it comes when they deliver it Do sol Bibimpap that stuff is gooooood this is korean take-out btw no plastic here 3 and 4th graders making sentences Pizza making before I don't have an after Kyoung Ja the music teacher Ji Hye my co teacher

This weekend

Nothing really exciting has happened since Jackie T. That was enough excitement and drama the weeks prior( that I can't talk about) that made me stay in for a couple weekends. One Sunday I went to church with my friends Jillian and Kelly. Then we went shopping. Well they went shopping. They only have big sizes in Itaewon and those clothes are not too cute from the stores I've been in. Even shoes my passion and they have such cute ones here are hard for me to buy. In a couple of stores the largest shoe size in women they had was an 8 and in other a 7 1/2 . This weekend I decided I wanted to do something fun to help me feel better and exercise at the same time. I did my favorite activity Belly dancing. I had found out there were classes going on in Itaewon. Class was so much fun one of my friends Adriane joined with her friend. The walk to get there was ridiculous there were stairs that were broken down with hardly any incline it felt like I was climbing a ladder and after that there was a hill. I worked out before I even got to class. The teacher was awesome she made it really fun and comfortable. After class Adriane, her friend and I went to meet another friend of hers for lunch. We went to Copy Cat Richards it's like an American diner. The food was ok but the biscuits were horrible. Adriane told me they've been better and they must have a new cook. After lunch I found a place to get my hair done. They do perms, wash and set, cuts, and BRAIDS !!! YAY! They sell hair downstairs. But when you braid it there the hair is included. A black woman works there as well as a Korean lady. She was up there braiding hair I was impressed. I went to go get measured for some custom made shoes (pics to come) and then I went home. I was going to stay home on Saturday but all my friends were going out so I decided I'm going out too. We went to Club Psycho where they had speed dating. That was interesting to watch. While I was watching this man came in and gave me a box of chocolates. I was apprehensive (never take candy from strangers is what i was taught) but after he ate a piece and all my friends at one and they were fine I ate a piece as well. Then came this band from hell. They drummer banged loudly on his drums and the guitar was loud. I thought my ear drums had burst and blood was pouring out of my ears. I left immediately with my friend Arti and we waited for everyone outside. I started to get hungry so we went on a trip to McDonald's playing a mean trick and ditching our drunk friend on the way. While at McDonald's two people came in and ate our leftovers in a whirlwind and they were gone. After Casa de Renaldo's as Arti calls it, we went to MC bar where Jillian got her wallet stolen. So on Sunday we had to go file a police report because her ARC was in the wallet. We went and had yummy Italian food to celebrate communicating effectively to the police. All in all it was a good weekend.

Slang and Jackie T

So a couple of weekends ago my friends and I went out. Friday we went to the Wa bar near Beomgye. I had a peach crush and that thing was so sour my face almost imploded. I'm used to the Wa Bar near me where it's a little tart but mostly sweet. After the Wa Bar we went to this new "Hip Hop club" that was close by named SLANG. It's a nice place. The staff is very nice. It's set up where there are tables with couches and stools and they seat you like you were in a restaurant and the best part about it is they have lockers so you can put your stuff at the front. I don't know how many times I've gone out and wished there was somewhere I could put my things and not have to worry about them (in light of this weekend I wish more places had them more about that in another post).The music at SLANG is better than MC Bar(another "hip hop club"). They play a variety and never let the K-pop play too long. Also there were a lot of foreigners there, I would say about half the club. It was really fun on Friday that we came back again for round deuce Saturday. Saturday was fun as well, the owner was still giving us free drinks and the music was good. Even the co-owner of MC bar was there, he came up to us and chatted (we're kind of regulars there).

 Now here comes the Jackie T. part of the story. His name is Jackie T because he was Korean but very muscular like Jackie Chan and he was wearing a tight tank top and yelling like Mr. T. Sooo I being the only hip-hop type person in the club was the center of Jackie's attention. He kept coming up and yelling in my face (as if I would be interested) and trying to dance with me. He spoke really good English with very little accent but his phrases were clearly from the early to mid 90's. At one point I was sitting down and he was trying to dance on me. There was a song playing with 'Where you at ?' in it. He yelled at me "Where you at Mama where you at ?" I replied "I'm over there can't you see me ?" He looked in that direction and then about 30 seconds later as if it just dawned on him he yelled "You not over there. Your right here girl I got my peepers on." LOL! Finally after him dancing on me and me pushing him away ( " Why you pushin me away girl? I charge for this and I'm givin it to you for free.") I told him I was dating someone. "He's black right ? awww snap." was the response. "No he's white" to which he responded to my shock and delight. "Traitor" he walked away put on his coat and left. Have you ever heard of such insanity ? lol

Winter Camp

When I got back to Korea I had Winter Camp with my 5th graders. I love my 5th grade. They are truly smart kids. I think teachers in Korea don't give the students enough credit for what they are capable of. On Tuesday we did introductions and some American sayings and slang. I loved some of the sentences they came up with, with the slang words they had. They sounded like American teenagers. Wednesday we did travel and childrens books that were turned into movies. Childrens books that were turned into movies was another fun topic. We read parts of books and watched parts of the movie. Then we compared and contrasted the two. Then we read Jumanjii out loud . Which if anyone has read Jumanji is quite different from the moive. Thursday we talked a little bit about food and where different foods came from. Then we made pizza. It was so much fun and such a mess. We had one cheese and one sausage pizza. The first pizza came out ok. It was pretty burned at the bottom. I used a pizza pan and there were no instructions in the pizza pan. So it was trial and error. The next pizza came out better than the first. While making and eating the pizza we watched Jumanji the movie. This was my favorite day. Toward the end of class I gave my students the sausage I had bought for the pizza. This sausage was very strange. It was this like rose colored pink and it was very soft almost like clay. Then the smell was even worse. It smelled like tuna fish. It was strange and I wanted no part of it. I gave it to one of my student, after he bit into it he wanted no part of it either. I told him he'd have to cook it so we greased up the pizza pan and they cooked the sausage on it. It still tasted nasty. Sidenote- When I went to the store with my co-workers I asked them what kind of sausage it was. They told me there was pork and beef, squid and fish in it. Gross ... just gross. Friday was my second favorite day. We did writing. We did Venn diagrams about Jumanji. Then they had to choose which they liked better the book or the movie and give 3 reasons why. Some of the answers I got were awesome. Sure some of them used their dictionaries on their phone but they gave well written and thought out answers. Next I taught them the basics of writing a paragraph. Gave them topics on which they had to write one paragraph. All in all I think it was a good camp. The next week I had 3rd and 4th graders. Ji-Hye planned this camp . It was fun I got a fun game out of it to play with the students. We also made pizza with them. This time it was cheese and bacon and pineapple. They turned out way better than the pizzas from the week before. I had perfected the dough and how to make more pizza and stretch it to the pan.

I'm baaaaaaaccck

Ok so I'm back to blogging. I will try and be more diligent. We'll see how that works out. I will be posting pictures up soon. I was unable to post pictures before I got frustrated and stopped blogging. A lot has happened since I last blogged. I went back to Florida for vacation. It was amazing. I got the see my family and new addition Lucas who is so adorable. I didn't go anywhere or see anything. When you live somewhere you kind of take it for granted. When I came back I taught a winter camp and my students wanted to see pictures of where I went and what I saw. They were disappointed I didn't have any pictures to show them because I didn't go anywhere or see anything. If there's one thing I want to change when I get back home is to go and explore more. See different sights. I passed by under the bridge that connected the Twin Towers for along time when I took acting classes in the city. Never once visited them. I'm taking advantage of the tours set up by my recruiting company to explore Korea. Although I don't know about the temple stays. I have to walk up mountains and you feed me veggies and I have to sleep on the floor ? I'll have to train for that.