Parade of Lights

Truth to be told, we didn't even realise that there was going to be a parade of any sort the evening we were at Everland. Almost all of a sudden, small children and families started disappearing from the lines of the rides we were walking by. We didn't really think much of it, we thought it just must be about that time for kids to be heading home to be tucked into their little beds, while dreaming of their Everland adventure. It was only when we finally stumbled across a huge group of people sitting and expectantly waiting that we realised that something was on the go. It was quite dark, so we didn't really know what to expect... and then we saw it coming in the distance... was it a bird? a plane? superman?


Nope! A parade!

It's almost here!

Naturally, we elected to continue to go on the rides while the parade was going, so as to take advantage of the shorter lineups, but not before I snapped a few quick pictures of the parade that was going by.

Here it comes!

Dancers danced through the streets, while princesses and princes kissed on their horse drawn carriages and Aesop's characters told important fables. There was also a smoke breathing dragon, because what Asian parade would complete without a dragon or two?

All it all, it was a pretty nice show... but then I wouldn't have expected anything less from Korea, now would I?

Hi-Kids: 2

In spite of the low level of English speaking ability in SLP's Hi-Kids program, it is actually one of my favourite programs to teach.

By the time most kids hit the latter part of Hi-Kids 2 they have been at SLP for just over a year and are usually in Grade 2. They get frustrated with each other and bicker...

... but are very quick to make up, and if you play your cards right -- I try to, but I don't always succeed -- before you know it, everything is as right as rain.

The Hi-Kids program is one of the oldest, if not the oldest program at SLP and in terms of development and the resources that it offers you, its actually pretty terrible. There is a work book with photocopied pages from a mish-mash of other English programs and is riddled with sentences like:

Read the story in your Student Book again, and answer these questions.

For which there is no such story in their student book. If you don't mind a little extra work however, this kind of program is a gold mine for an ESL teacher. The curriculum is very easily personalized and as such I have really enjoyed making it my own, and I think my kids usually enjoy it too. We still cover all the material in the book, and I'll be honest, there's some days that I feel lazy, and I just give it to them without any embellishments, but usually we really enjoy going off on little tangents here and there.

I think the kids this age are actually my favourite. I always thought that if I was a teacher I would like to work with Grades 4-6, but I've changed my tune. The younger kids are wonderful. They don't have any of the social inhibitions that daunt the older kids and keep them from speaking and practicing their verbal expression. Classroom management can occasionally be a challenge, but if you're able to keep up your energy and stay ahead of the game, kids at this age are a lot like sheep. They get bored easily though, so keep on your toes. And remember, a little love and attention can go a long way.

Friends and Coworkers: Tara and Janique

Ma chère Janique is a fellow Canadian and also a frenchie... which of course drew me to her instantly. She also has the most beautiful curly hair when she lets it loose, which is also a draw. And giggles with me about people who have heads 'like a ping-pong ball' which makes her an invaluable companion. She also has a blog right here on blogspot, which you can get to by clicking on her name above.

Janique is actually the reason why I am where I am today.

Janique, you changed my life.

Aside from her incredible cuteness, the reason actually has more to do -- well, everything to do-- with her blog and the glowing reviews that she gave Gangseo SLP and all our staff members. There's a lot of negative feedback directed at SLP on the internet, to the point of it being casually referred to as the Slave Labour Program by job discussion forums. What new teachers don't always realise is that SLP is actually a franchised school system, so each individual school is going to be different from the last. I happened to luck out finding a good school, and Janique made that possible. I had given very serious consideration to declining my contract and going with another school until I stumbled across her blog one day. Merci Janique!

In the office, our desks are put together in groups of four much like they were in kindergarten or grade one. The desk I sit at looks like this.

Tara Dan
Meghan Me


I guess that this makes Tara my diagonal desk partner?

Like the other girls, Tara claims that being the subject of a photo-shoot is not her cup of tea, but don't believe her! Look at that smirk on her face, she is totally enjoying it!

Tara is a preschool teacher at SLP, and the best phonics teacher around. She is really fun, and we have shared many a laugh together. She is also my personal physician, and enjoys long walks to McDonald's followed by iced coffee or a sundae.





Tara is also a fellow Canadian, from Ontario and sometimes PEI, and that adds to her awesomeness. She understands me when I talk about Tim Horton's and old television shows. Let's face it -- Canadians Rock.







Tara sometimes believes herself to be a lumberjack when sitting at short tables in Canadian bars in Seoul. But that makes me love her all the more!

Always building...

Living in Korea as a foreigner, is a little like living in an ants nest:

1. There seem to be millions of Koreans everywhere you look.
   
2. They are very hard workers.
   
3. They eat some food items that I wouldn't even consider as, well, food.
   
4. They are always building things.

When I came to Korea first, someone told me that Koreans love to tear things down and then build them again. Especially being a country that has experienced a relatively recent economic boom, I could understand how that would be the case. I also thought, that with the recession that's caused Koreans --as well as the rest of the world-- to tighten their belts a little, that it would stop for a little while, or at least slow down. Little did I know.

There is a popular joke that in Newfoundland we have four seasons:

1. Almost Winter
   
2. Winter
   
3. Still Winter
   
4. Construction

Although Koreans would argue that Korea has four distinct seasons, I would disagree. There is only one: Construction. It just keeps going and going.

Everywhere I go outside I see construction, or at the very least people tearing up and laying down new tile sidewalks. It's an epidemic.

SLP Paintball Extravaganza

On Saturday all the staff members at Gangseo SLP participated in a day of bonding, fun and adventure. We went around an hour outside of Seoul to play paintball. It was all fun and games until the fun and games were over for the day and we noticed the huge welts that paintball had created on our skin. We passed them off as casualties of war (paintball war that is) and carried on with the rest of our days. SLP treated us to some delicious Korean barbecue, the bus brought us back home and most of us were pretty tired from the days festivities, so we had early nights. On Sunday a few of us went to Costco and then to see a movie: The Taking of Pelham 123 -- which was pretty great by the way -- and then on Monday did our regular thing and went to school. I'll have you know that today is Tuesday, and those things that were welts on Saturday have blossomed into the most fabulous rainbow colour bruises!







This one in particular reminds me of a meteor!




Do you think its an omen?





The other bruises don't really have similarly interesting stories to tell, although they do hurt just as much. They are a virtual cornucopia of colours -- or like a rainbow if you are looking for a more mundane expression. Perhaps I could say that they are like skittles? Once when my sister, C, and I were both quite little, I told her that a bruise on her leg looked like a hot dog with ketchup, mustard and relish... and then proceeded to poke it. Another time I seem to recall telling her that bruises were actually called 'hurt-buttons' followed by .. .*gasp!*... more poking. Seems like I was perhaps not as benevolent a child as I would like to believe I was.

Although I like to believe that I was actually a sweet child, and very good to my little sister, she is a very meticulous person and has been keeping track of the mean things I have done to her over the years. The vast majority of which were between age 7 and age 12 or 13 I believe. Apparently, after that I mellowed out a little. For the record: I don't believe that I was ever intentionally mean to either of my sisters. I will admit however that I did sometimes play jokes that I thought C and I would both find funny, but which in the end left C crying and me in trouble.

The one I am most embarrassed about happened right at the edge of that upper age range, because I know it happened after we moved to Newfoundland from Nova Scotia. We moved when I was 11, although I'd like to say I was younger than that when I had such poor judgement, its just not true. On this particular occasion, as I was getting ready to go to bed at night, I noticed that C -- who was also getting ready for bed -- was not in her room, but in the bathroom brushing her teeth with the door closed. This meant that she could not see me as I stole into her room under the cover of darkness and situated myself hidden beneath her bed. Quiet as a mouse, I waited for the tooth-brushing to finish so I could hatch my devious plot. It really was devious -- here's why. I was very careful to make no noise as C walked into the room and got into her bed. I continued to wait quitely while my parents came in to say goodnight, and walked out closing the door behind them. I stayed quieter still as I listened while my sister's breathing slowed. Just as I knew that she was on the edge of sleep, I reached up and around, without even breathing so I could not be heard and tickled her in the small of the back!

Needless to say, my sister was screaming halfway down the stairs to the kitchen and the safety of my parents before I even really knew what had just happened. Having intended to startle her, but not really scare her, the minute she started to cry, I also burst into tears. I almost cried writing this story, I still feel so bad about it. My sister has never really quite forgiven me for it either. Not that I can say I would feel any different if the situation were reversed.

Friends and Coworkers: Amanda and Meghan

Amanda and Meghan are two of the most wonderful people that I have ever had a change to share office space with, and thus are worthy of their own post. They both show up fairly frequently in posts anyway, so I thought I'd give you a little introduction.

Amanda (left) studied anthropology in university and is the tiniest of all the SLP teachers, occasionally shorter than some of the children she teaches. She has a great sense of humour and a huge heart! She is very good at motivating people to do things, most often through respect, but sometimes through fear! She can be very fiery when she wants to be! She also makes what is possible the world most delicious chicken salad. She is an American, from Florida, and we try not to hold that against her.

Meghan (right) is one of the most hilarious people I've ever met, and my desk mate. Her personality is huge and sometimes squishes mine as a result of the desk sharing, but I don't mind because she is a wonderful person to share a desk with. She often brings delicious food to taunt me with when I've forgotten to bring something to eat, although she will occasionally let me have a bite if I'm looking really pathetic and desperate! I don't usually look pathetic, or desperate, but sometimes the delicious food that she makes drives me over the edge. Meghan currently teaches my devil class from last term, and when she tells me about them, I miss them. Every last one.

Meghan and Amanda didn't know that they were the subjects of a photo shoot, until it was much too late, but after that the books went up, and there was a fence between me and their loveliness. It made me sad, so I put my camera away...

But not before I took this quick little video so you could see the lesson planning in action!

On an unrelated note: Who knew my camera could make videos in sepia?

Puppies and Pigs

A very popular image being circulated by email chain letters these days is of this cute little toddler featured below giving his friendly neighbourhood piggy a big wet kiss...

The picture is talking about swine flu, and its a big deal these days, especially if you're a caucasian living in Seoul -- or a Mexican, living anywhere. Recently there's been a fair amount of hubbub about English teachers from North America bringing swine flu with them when they come to Asia and there's a fair amount of suspicion surrounding foreigners in general. Recently, an entire chain of private English schools called CDI was closed when one of the Korean children attending one of the schools tested positive for swine flu. Using a week long closure as a chance to jet home for a quick hello, one of the teachers from that chain of schools who lives in our apartment buildings is now out of a job, while her school finds out a way to send all of her stuff back home. Ouch. Its a sad and complicated story, but it does have a positive twist, in that while her stuff, including her adorable year-old puppy is waiting to make its way back to the States, I got to dog sit today with my friend Amanda!

This morning around 10:30am Amanda and I trekked to the poor girl's apartment to collect her amazingly wonderful dog, Nala and take her for a walk. Isn't she adorable? Oh, and Nala is pretty cute too! I was definitely game for dog sitting, but didn't have any personal experience with a dog, so I was happy to have Amanda along to help me out, and tell me when I was being a bad dog sitter. She's good to have around like that -- very honest.

Nala, is perhaps the most well-tempered puppy that I've ever spent time with. She was very calm, and did not bark once, even though she had never before met Amanda, and myself only once. She even let me take her picture so I could show it to all of you!

We were told that if we walked out of our building and just kind of let Nala take the lead that she would eventually take us to the park, and so we did just that. I didn't even know prior to yesterday that there was a park so close by. It was literally about a 5 minute walk from my building! I can't believe I've been missing it all this time! It's not the most amazing park that one has ever seen, but when I'm surrounded by buildings and concrete 90% of the time, it was a very refreshing change of pace! There was even a small pond with a few fountains!

We walked along through the park and let Nala chase some pidgins for a while and when she was tired we headed back towards home. It was so nice to spend a few hours in the morning out doing something so nice. I think that I might have to introduce it into my regular morning routine, perhaps before I go to the gym when it is still nice and cool. It was pretty hot though by the time we were finished, and I think even Nala was ready to head back to the apartment building.

We saw lots of different kinds of people on the way back, but Nala didn't really pay attention to any of them. Just walked on by like she was used to being a celebrity. Everywhere we went people smiled at us, and waved and tried to speak to us about the dog. She is very big for a city dog I think. While we did see other dogs while we were out and about, she was the only one bigger than the size of a small terrier.

I took a few pictures here and there, but Amanda and Nala were impatient with me...

And when I turned around they were already heading off down the road, so I put away my camera and ran after them to catch up.

Amanda stopped for a pizza to eat on the way home, and while I was waiting outside the pizza place because the dog couldn't go inside the four sweetest Korean children came to stand near the door and ask me question in Korean about the dog, with perhaps a dozen English words thrown in to make it interesting. I really couldn't understand the majority of what they were saying but they stood around chatting with us for the entire 15-20 mins that it took to make Amanda's pizza, so at the end I took their picture. It made them really happy. And it makes me happy to have the picture to show to you. The two girls in the front were the ring leaders, and the girl in the back that you can barely see really only said goodbye at the end, but they were all really sweet.

After that Amanda headed off and I brought Nala back to her house.

gave her some food and water,

and then put her back into her kennel.

We were both sad about that part.

Not a princess...

I had an incident this morning which reminded me very much of that children's story about the princess and the pea. Just in case you don't remember, the quick and dirty version is that the mother of the prince only wanted the best for his son, and said that if his bride to be was a true princess then she should not be able to sleep if there was a pea under her mattress. They piled up ten mattresses with a single pea beneath them and despite the initial skepticism of the mother-in-law to be, the princess wasn't able to sleep a wink.

Poor girl...

This morning I had a similar experience, although to my knowledge it was under the influence of no prospective mother-in-laws. When I woke up this morning, I noticed that there was not a pea, but a pea sized pebble between me and my mattress. I had slept all night, none-the-wiser, even though there was nothing between myself and my pea the the pyjamas I was wearing. If a true princess loses a night of sleep because of a pea under ten mattresses... what does that make me?

I've been through Korea on a turtle with no name...

The turtle I got for Christmas needs your help!

He still has no name!

Can you save him from a life with no identity?

Just look how cute he is, eating his breakfast this morning with his favourite turtle friend -- his reflection in the glass!

Please put names to be considered in the comments section!

Thank you from your friendly neighbourhood turtle-mama, and perhaps turtle-mama-to-be-when-I-leave...

Laura and Amanda

My Apartment and a Walk to School

A little upgrading has been happening from time to time in my apartment, and I thought I would show you some of the latest improvements.

The one I am happiest about is the new bed that I inherited from one of the departing teachers at the end of February. Let me show you!

Isn't it all kinds of awesome! Having a regular sized bed really helps me feel more at home in this place. For some reason, although the twin bed was fine, it really felt so temporary. Also, now that I have a queen sized bed, and a mattress for the floor I can entertain guests! **hint**hint** Don't miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Asia! As an added bonus the dollar is really strong here, so you'll find everything soo cheap! Whoo hoo! Book your spaces now, they're filling up quick! :) hehehe...


Aside from the bed other noteworthy (but not quite as big) changes include the plants that I bought from HomePlus and potted myself, and a wall hanging that Andrew Bown brought me back from Australia, that is currently my only decoration that is not Christmas themed. My mother says that I must be related to Aunt Shelia. Hopefully she reads this!

Although the route I take to get to school everyday seems a little mundane to me these days, I remember finding it fascinating when I got here first, but was too shy to take pictures, already standing out as much as I do. I thought I might put up a few for you so you can get an idea of the area of Seoul that I live in. Gangseo-gu is the name of the district of Seoul that I live in, and although it is pretty much the suburbs you will see that there's not much that you and I would consider suburban about it. I'm not sure how far outside of Seoul you would have to go to see single family homes like we are so used to, but I haven't seen it yet.

Ricki has been asking for months to see the view outside the window in my apartment, so I am going to start with that. Here are a few pictures that I took for her the other day.

That's the view out the left and right sides of the window respectively and then a view of the street below. Even though the street is a dead end just past the left side of this picture, it is always sooo busy!



Next, here's what my apartment looks like from the hallway. Followed by a thrilling view of the elevator! Hooray!

Living in a house my whole life I was pretty amused to find myself living in a place where not only did I take an elevator to get to and from my apartment, but I was also living on the 7th floor! There aren't even that many buildings at home with that many floors, but here tall buildings are much more common than short ones. I guess they have so many people to cram into such a small space one can hardly blame them.



The rest of my walk to school can actually be quite interesting at times. Selling things on the side of the road is very common here, and I walk past soo many street vendors on my ten minute walk to school. That is pretty neat in and of itself, but amazing considering I live in one of the slower and more boring parts of Seoul. There are people here selling anything you can imagine on the side of the road. Food, to electronics, to household supplies and even a mobile dollar store with everything lined up in baskets on the side of the road.



The first thing I see when I walk out of my building and head towards school is HomePlus, a huge department store right next to my apartment building. You can get almost everything there, although you'll pay a little more than if you shop around. It's pretty much gigantic, a lot bigger than any single store in St. John's I would think. Perhaps not bigger than department stores in other place.

I guess with everything said and done, it makes sense that the department stores here would be so big, with such a high concentration of people in such a small place. There are so many apartment buildings here, and where they are they are very concentrated. If I hadn't been so dazed on my way into the city from the airport I would have taken more pictures, because the horizon here is very interesting. It looks like a normal city for the most part with average sized buildings, but then all along the horizon there are pockets of a dozen or more high-rise apartment buildings. I'll take a picture when I see a good example for you some time soon. I have a few good pictures of apartment buildings, but none that really show the horizon the way that I would like to.

The next thing I saw on the particular day that I went out to take pictures was convenient, because it was the bus I take on rainy days, or when I'm feeling lazy. I take this bus pretty often, so I thought it deserved a picture and a spot on my blog. Here it is.

Isn't she a beaut!

As you can see there's a little bit of construction going on around where I live. They're putting in a new subway line right next to my house which I am finding pretty exciting. It is due to open in May, and will take us from where we live, pretty much right into the centre of the city. That will make doing summer time touristy things all the more easy!

Here are a few intersections and a few apartment buildings, so you can see this concrete city that I'm up against here! There are some parts of the city that aren't so bad and also, nothing living is turning green quite yet, so the whole thing is looking pretty bleak. I'll have to take a few more pictures once summer is here!

Everywhere you look in this place there are people, buildings, cars, apartments... its amazing!

The last part of the journey is of course the destination, which for me is school! Aside from the classrooms and the kids that I have already showed you the school also has a staffroom which is my first destination of the day. Its pretty crowded, and here's what it looks like!

That concludes another fascinating insight into the life of Laura in Korea! Stay tuned for more fabulous updates to come! :)