I am still alive

Hey folks!
I realize I haven't made a post in over a month, but have no fear, the commies have not stolen me from my bed and locked me up...yet. It's been a busy month of moving, getting settled, being sick, going to Hong Kong, coming back and getting sick again, starting my new job, and then getting ready for Christmas.
For anyone out of the loop, I ditched Korea and am now living in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. I found a job at a language training school downtown, and a nice apartment to the northwest of the city. I will be posting a freak ton of pictures in the next couple of days, but for right now I have other more pressing things to take care of.
Shortly after moving here, I had to take a day trip to Hong Kong to get my work visa. Hong Kong was very beautiful, and I really liked it. It was still in the 70's in the beginning of December, and everything was really green and pretty, next to these huge skyscrapers and really modern downtown area. Basically, it's the best of Asia, with none of the bad stuff, and I salute England for creating such an awesome place. On the way home, however, I got stopped by Chinese immigration because the picture on my passport (taken when I was 19) does not look like me, apparently. They asked to see my driver's liscense, which is 3 years older than the passport, so then they still didn't believe me. It took 2 guys almost half an hour to decide to let me through, at which point I had missed my bus to the airport, and had to take the next one, resulting in me almost missing my flight back.
My job here is teaching English after school to kids, mostly around the 6-10 year range. The classes are evenings and weekends, 15 hours a weeks total. It's pretty easy, all they really want the native teachers to do is just play games and keep the kids happy, which isn't too hard. The hours are kind of annoying, but I knew that was going to be the case.
Me and Charlie decided to throw a Christmas Eve party, since that was my one day off last week. We invited a bunch of people to my new apartment, and had about 10 confirmations...until the last minute when they all cancelled. We ended up having just 3 people over, but it was still a nice dinner party. I cooked all the normal Christmas food (which is meatloaf, in my house) except for Charlie's sweet potato casserole, which he did himself. Afterwards we went to a nice restaurant/bar in town and had some wine. Christmas day we didn't do much, since I had to be at work that evening, but we did spend some time downtown just walking around.
It snowed yesterday, for the first time this winter. It was very pretty, but not much stuck, since it isn't quite cold enough. Nevertheless, Charlie was very excited, so we went to the lake and took some pictures, and just enjoyed it.
That's about all for now, I promise pictures by the end of the week.

Bye Bye Korea

Sorry I haven't posted in such a long time, but I've been really busy, getting ready to move...drumroll please...to China! I found a decent job, with a lot less hours than I'm working now, in Hangzhou, where Charlie lives, so that pretty much settled it. I haven't been to thrilled with Korea these past couple months, and the job had been really hectic, so I'm glad to be leaving. My flight leaves here Tuesday, so I'll be in China to spend Thanksgiving with Charlie.

The only thing I will miss from Korea honestly will be the friends that I've made here...it hasn't been but a couple months, but some of these folks I feel like I've know for years. We're having a little going away lunch for me tomorrow, then it's off to China I go. Anyways, the Great Firewall of China blocks this site, so I probably won't be posting as frequently, but I will still be on to update yall.

Happy early Thanksgiving!
See you in China!

My Babies' Non-Halloween

So today was supposed to be our kindergarten Halloween party at school. Originally they were going to go around to their apartment buildings and trick-or-treat for their mothers. Then plans changed and they decided to keep them all in the building and just have a party here. So this morning I was supposed to pass out the candy the mothers sent in and keep the kids entertained for 40 minutes before the party was supposed to start. At the hour of the party, however, we found out that one of my kids from my class who was absent today had swine flu, so they didn't want the kids to all be together so they cancelled the party. I was told to keep them busy just doing work and stuff, then about 10 minutes later they brought me a mask and told me to put it on...not sure why I needed one, seeing as how I was the only person in the room capable of covering my coughs and sneezes ;) Anyways, another 5 minutes pass and my coteacher comes and tells the kids to pack up, my students parents are coming to get them and they have to go home now. All this is going on and my kids are just looking at me going, "Adrienne teacher, why no Halloween?" I was sad for them, because we hyped up this party so much and then they got nothing really. So they're not coming back to school until Tuesday, and I had to go to the hospital with my coteacher to get tested, and then sent home for the day too. I actually do have a fever today (I thought so) but it's apparently not swine flu. So it's 3:30 and I'm home until this time Monday. I'm really sad that I'm missing today actually because I had all sorts of fun Halloween stuff ready for all my afternoon classes, and now I'm not going to be the one who does it with them.

Anyways, I'm glad I took my camera out first thing this morning and started taking pictures, so I actually have pictures of my kids in their costumes to show:

This is Tom (somebody from the movie Cars) and Ryn (Minnie Mouse)

Tom again, Joey (Spiderman) and John (a Power Ranger)

My only girls. Ryn again and Christina (a ladybug).

I took some pictures randomly as we were waiting for parents to come pick them up. I love this one because you can see the utter chaos I deal with nonstop with these kids- all the blurry arms and hands, everyone doing different things, no one sitting. Obviously this was a bit different because it really was kind of a free-for-all at this point, I was just the referee. I swear some days they get like this during class though too.
Here's my class: two Spidermans(men?), two Power Rangers, a Batman with a broken arm, a vampire, someone from Cars, and two girls hiding from the camera, plus one more boy home with swine flu.

A Halloween Story

This is a story that one of my students wrote for me yesterday:

Once upon a time there was who named Adrienne witch and Ester princess. Adrienne want to be a princess so, she make Ester to a Easter. But, Ryan prince went to fight with Adrienne. Adrienne said, Change to a frog but, Ryan prince use a mirror but, Adrienne became a Tiger. In real Adrinne was Jeniifer. Jenifer was the first princess with Ryan.

A-freaking-mazing. Peter, the author, is now the only student in my advanced afternoon class, after the other 3 left because of petty mothers. Now since it's just him, we finish lessons pretty early and I try to let him do some fun stuff to keep him happy. Yesterday we had about 5 minutes so I asked him to write me a story about Halloween- this is what I got. All the names are teachers at our school. Peter is a third-year kindergartener, so that would make him a first grader at home.

I just wanted to share this bit of Halloween awesomeness with you.

Fall!

The days are cool, the wind is downright cold, and I've had to break out the jackets- fall has arrived! This is my favorite time of year, and it's especially beautiful here. The trees are all brightly colored and striking against the perfectly clear sky. I noticed yesterday evening that the park was looking quite nice, so I decided to go back this morning and take pictures. Here ya go:

I like how this lady's red jacket matches the trees :)

China!

Sorry it's taken me so long to write this, but I've just been super lazy since returning to Korea ;) I spent 4 days in China visiting Charlie at his home in Hangzhou. Hangzhou has historically been known as the prettiest city in China, and while that might not be apparent out where Charlie lives, the city center was quite nice. Not that where Charlie lives is a dump, it just looks like the outskirts of any city- lots of concrete, not a lot of excitement. Downtown there is a beautiful lake where we spent a good bit of time- we kept returning hoping to find it not so crowded, but that never worked. It was a week of national holiday in China since they were celebrating both the fall harvest festival and the 60th anniversary of the Communist party's takeover. This meant that downtown was chock full of people, many of them Chinese tourists with their faces buried in maps. It was a nice relaxing trip; we just spent a lot of time wandering around different parts of the city and seeing the sites. Hangzhou is definitely a nice city, and somewhere I want to go again for sure.

Here's the sunrise, and the view from Charlie's window.

Charlie, looking extremely tall. Notice the people turned around staring.

Me, in front of the West Lake.

And a pretty view of the sunset over the lake.

Chuseok presents

Well it's almost that time of year- time for Chuseok, of course. What's Chuseok, you ask? It's basically the Korean version of Thanksgiving, apparently. I don't really know much else about it. I know we're having a party for the kindergarteners on Tuesday and they're all going to be wearing traditional hanbok, so I will definitely have pictures to show, but that's about it.

I have gotten Chuseok presents though. One of my student's mom sent in a box of pears for each of his teachers, so I had a huge couple poound box of pears last week. I shared half of them with coteachers and students and took the rest home. Korean pears are about 4 times the size of pears at home, so I only had 4 pears at home but it was still a stretch to eat them all. They were very yummy though, and it was very nice of the mother to give them to me. I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't really think about it until they were gone.

Also on Friday the head office sent presents for all of the teachers. A few weeks ago we had a sign up sheet where we got to pick one of two gift boxes that we wanted. One was full of spam and oil, the other was toiletries. Needless to say, I got about a year's supply of toothpaste and shampoo, as well as some soap. Just to share the scope of this with you, I took a picture:
So yeah, happy Chuseok everybody! I'll update again after the party to show you my kids in their traditional costumes.

Countdown to China: T-minus 4 days

Going to China!

I bought a plane ticket last night to go visit Charlie at Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, at the beginning of next month. It's been a constant struggle the past couple of days- going means taking a mandatory week of quarantine from school when I get back in case I caught swine flu on the plane, and therefore pissing off the coworkers who have to cover my classes for a week- not going most likely means coming to hate Korea even more than I already do because I'm stuck here.

In the end, I decided that sanity wins out over being liked at work...and I found a really cheap ticket to Shanghai. Its about 2 hours or so to Hangzhou where Charlie lives, but he has the time off too so he can come pick me up. I also doubt that a 2 hour bus or train trip in his company will be the worst thing I've ever experienced.

Now what I have to do is go to the Chinese Embassy in Seoul with a bunch of paperwork, apply for a tourist visa, and pay $120. Not the most exciting thing, since I will have to go before work early one morning in order to make it during open hours, but I guess it could be a lot worse. I am getting to see Charlie, after all :)

Pitas

The weather is getting cooler and today I was in the mood to experiment and cook something new and filling, so I decided to try my hand at making pita bread. I found a recipe to cook them on the stovetop, since I don't have an oven, bought some yeast, and got to it. I filled them with some carrots, onions and tomatoes that I cooked, and a little Parmesan cheese.

Here's the dough this afternoon, starting to rise:

One just cooked, and another on the way:

The filling:

And the final product, with some cucumbers on the side:

All in all, they didn't turn out too bad. The dough wasn't as light as I would have liked, and I don't have a serrated knife, so I kind of butchered the bread trying to cut them open, but they tasted good and the filling stayed in. The rest of the dough is in the fridge, so I'll probably cook a couple more tomorrow at dinner.

Any other ideas for stuff I can make, sans oven or microwave?

1.8 million

Won, that is. That's about $1,500 and is equal to my first paycheck! As of today I am no longer broke. :) I still have to pay my utilities bill and pay my school back for my cellphone and medical bills from the pink eye (utilities are about $55 and I owe the school $45 or so). My first 3 paychecks are also smaller since I have to pay a 600,000 won deposit on my apartment, so 200,000 each paycheck. But on the bright side, I've made it perfectly well so far on less that $100 a week, sometimes way less, so cost of living won't be an issue.

In other news, I might be fostering a dog. I saw an ad on craigslist for a girl in Seoul who needs someone to foster her dog long term, since she just got a new job and new apartment, and the building owner doesn't like dogs. I want a dog but can't really jump into owning one right now, given the fact that taking them to new countries is so expensive, so this might be a good plan. I get to take care of the dog day to day, but don't have to worry about what's going to happen to it when I leave the country. And I don't have to pay for anything, she will do all of that. Basically, I will just be this dog's babysitter for a really long time. He's a three year old Boston Terrier named Coby, and I'm meeting him on Wednesday after work, so we'll see what happens.

That's about it for tonight, just a quick update.

La douleur passe, la beauté reste

This was written on the wall in the Seoul Museum of Art, along with the translation into Korean, and attributed to Renoir. It means something like "the pain goes away, beauty stays."

I finally made it to the Renoir exhibit today. Unlike last time, there was no line at all when I got there (although there was one later in the day when I left). I didn't take my camera because photography wasn't allowed in the museum, so unfortunately there aren't any pretty pictures to show. The paintings, however, were really beautiful. It was a big exhibit with lots of paintings on loan from museums and private collections all over the world. It was pretty neat to be able to see all of that together at once, knowing that in a couple weeks everything is going to be returned to it's original home. Unfortunately I couldn't read any of the literature or the descriptions since it was only in Korean, as were the audio sets. The names of all of the paintings were only displayed in the original French and in Korean, so I got to pull my couple years of French from the closet and dust it off to read the labels. :)

Some of my favorite paintings that I saw were ones I had never heard of before, I guess they're a little more obscure, but they were absolutely breathtaking. I love impressionism because of the way the artists painted light, and there were some outdoor paintings that look like they're just bathed in sunlight. Since I took an hour subway ride there and paid $10 to get in, I decided to wander through twice- once to see everything, and a second time to go back and look at my favorite ones again.

Afterwards I walked to the Paris Baguette (chain bakery here in Korea) on the corner and bought some food for a late lunch, which I took back to the museum and ate on a bench in the outdoor courtyard. I ended up getting a pastry that was filled with chicken curry. Sounds kind of weird, but it was really yummy- wonderful soft bread, crispy crust, and shredded chicken in curry sauce.

Today was a great day to unwind after this week from hell and kind of regain my bearings before I have to go back to work. I'm feeling better physically, and have a slightly sunnier outlook again. I think all of those beautiful paintings worked like Prozac at curing my bad mood.

Tomorrow I'm meeting up with some foreigners at Starbucks for a Korean study session. I'm not sure how successful it will be, but maybe it will be some motivation for me to get back to studying at home.

Month 2, Day 1

I've made it a month at my job. Every month our schedule changes, so it was a rush this morning to find new books, figure out new times for a lot of my classes, and meet a new kindergarten class that I will be teaching 40 minutes a day, plus meet random new students in a couple classes. And we had a field trip in the morning, so I experienced my first kindergarten field trip. It was a neat idea: "we're taking the kids to the farm to plant cabbage." In practice, it was the better part of 2 hours spent keeping kids corralled and entertained, and then about 5 minutes per class actually with the farmer planting the baby cabbage plants. I did enjoy the break from "No speaking Korean!" to see my kids actually interacting on their age level with their peers- you forget how well 4 year olds actually speak their native language when you only interact with them in a language they've been learning for 6 months.

The job is hard. The kids try my patience. Mostly what's been bugging me, though, has been my supervisor, because she somehow expects me to remember 1. what I'm supposed to do and 2. how to do it, when last month she did 90% of it (and the other 10% I did once, a month ago). But it was kind of funny when she got mad at me for asking her to help me find a teacher's edition for one of our books...she got all huffy and asked the desklady, who promptly informed her that she never ordered it. Hah!

So that's my life. I've been sick and culture shock is setting in, so I haven't been in the best mood lately, but hopefully that will change soon.

In other more exciting news, Charlie's in China! (Hopefully. He should have got to Hangzhou an hour or so ago if all went well.) If I get lucky I can maybe go visit at the beginning of October, when I have time off for Chuseok (Korean Thanskgiving).

Lake Park Part Deux

Sorry this is so late coming, but here's the rest of the lake park pictures I promised you:

Big paved area, complete with benches and big low table things, perfect for laying on

Some pretty views of the lake

My house is back there somewhere...

Not many trees have started changing, but this one has

Part of the running/biking trail...normally when I go in the evening you can't even see the green

There are a million statues in the park... here's the first

People bowing to a TV. Odd, but cool.

It looks like a pigeon to me.

Pretty flowers

Mural underneath a bridge

RawrYou are here

This pagoda thingy was not very photogenic, until I noticed that it's completely blocked by the tree from this angle

The city's motto: Let's Goyang (Goyang being the city that Ilsan is located within). I think it's cute.

Catching Up

I've been bad and haven't updated anything this week, so i just figured I'd post a couple quick comments... I finally got my cable and internet hooked up this week, so I have reliable internet, plus over 60 channels (mostly in Korean). I do have Discovery Channel in English, which means I can feed my Deadliest Catch addiction :)

In other news, I went out for Mexican food Friday night with one of my coworkers, at a place just a couple blocks from our building. The food was pretty good, not Mexican, but pretty much like you'd expect Mexican food at home to be. They also had American food like burgers and wraps and stuff, and apparently they do a huge brunch buffet on Sundays- kinda pricey though, so my cheap self probably won't ever try it out. On Saturday I met up with a couple English guys I met through a facebook group, and we went and had a few beers at the Frog and Toad, which is the local expat bar. The weather's been really nice this week, so it was great to sit out on the deck and talk. Both of the guys are new to Ilsan and they're trying to start up some social group of foreigners, kind of get together and go to dinner regularly, that sort of thing. I liked meeting people besides my coworkers that I see everyday, and I hope this pans out and I can make more new friends.

Other than that, it's been an uneventful weekend. I've got a sore throat which I probably caught from one of the kids at school, so I've been resting and eating oranges and trying to keep from getting really sick. Laundry and cleaning were the order of the day today. Once I get a paycheck I will probably get out and adventure more, but right now I don't even really have money to top up my subway card, so I'm just going to enjoy my cozy apartment and my neighborhood for a couple more weeks.

Picture of the Weekend

KGB Vodka with Lemon. Found this on the sidewalk and had to take a picture. Little internet research shows it's a New Zealand brand, not Russian. Either way, it's hilarious.

Home Sweet Home

My dollarstore lemon balm seeds sprouted this week, so I feel the need to show them off like a proud momma.

In other news, a lot of you haven't seen my digs yet, so here are some pictures of my apartment for you to ponder. It seems most English teachers here have apartments like mine: modern high-rise, one room, completely not charming places. Mine came furnished, so all I've added has been the color. Without further ado, I give you pictures:

So this is basically it- bed, desk, TV, nice big window

Saturday in Seoul

After my semi-walk in the park this morning, I hopped on the subway into Seoul to hang out with my friend Brian that I met at orientation. The plan had been to meet up and go to the Seoul Museum of Art to see the Renior exhibit that they have until next month...unfortunately I think everyone else in Seoul had the same idea. The line was about a mile long. So, that plan was scrapped. We ended up just walking around downtown. We stopped in a mall and Brian bought the camera he had been wanting, and then went like crazy tourists through the plaza and down to the Cheonggyecheon stream, stopping only for Smoothie King. ;) All in all it was a pretty fun day, and I took lots more pictures for you all to enjoy.

Some statue near the mall

A police bus. Apparently there's so many police they need buses to transport them.

Kids playing in the fountain while their parents look on from a nice (dry) distance

Brian in the front left corner, and some swirly ice cream cone-esque statue thingy

A pretty rainbow appeared in one of the many fountains in the stream

Lots of people playing in the water

Can you find me?

The Cheonggyecheon is a stream that had been buried under concrete in the 60's to make way for a road, and was uncovered in 2005, making a pretty park and green space for people to enjoy. It's a little below street level, so you don't see the cars going by and instead see lots of plants and lots of people enjoying themselves.