First Week of Real Work... Survived!

Hello, Paul writing for once! Another week in Korea has run its course. Tank has been quite the little terrorist (mostly detonating biological weapons left and right in the apartments), but he is beginning to shape up. I guess he telepathically figured out that complaints had been received about him, so he has quieted down a little, too.

Our first week of work was really only four days long, because Friday is Memorial Day here in Korea. But those four days were more than enough for me. It's very interesting to finally be on the giving end of education instead of the receiving end. My students range from 1st graders up through all years of middle school. The younger ones can be quite a handful, though the older ones hardly speak up in class. I guess I'm a certain pot here. Most of the classes I teach are based around various levels of these accursed "Daily Warm-up" books, which are fairly standard reading comprehension books with short passages followed by some questions. Going over vocabulary encompasses much of my teaching time. It's quite difficult to explain words like "progressive", "reform", "Quakers", "independence", "worship", and the like to random foreign kids.

Here I am waiting for the subway train to arrive...

It's pretty great to have such an extensive public system of transportation available. However, this weekend I may check out some scooters up for sale around Seoul, for cruising in style...

Here is the horrendous Korean "Jamba Juice" rip-off found in the Gigantic Mall O'Death (picture to follow later) where Amy and I wandered in a daze for hours, resulting in flaring tempers, aching legs, and parched throats. It's pretty great to see, for example, leather bags shamelessly using the picture of the accursed cartoon cat Garfield, or to shop at wonders like "E-Mart", "GS-Mart", and so on.


Here is the front entrance of the Mall O'Doom (well, to the train station that sits between its two terrible sections, at least)


For dinner tonight, we went to a restaurant called "Wood Fire Pizza", where we ate the advertised menu item. So, we had a nice little "Patate" pizza with potatoes, bacon (ham? mystery meat?), peppers, and such. While rather bland, it was indeed tasty. And I loved using Kraft parmesan cheese (which I saw at a supermarket for around $9US (!) and Tabasco.


After dinner, we wandered the town plazas with Tank, where dozens of people of all ages fawned over the little guy. We talked at length with 2 shopkeepers, and Tank met their Maltese "Leeds" (named for the store, spoken butcheredly as something like "LEEDSU"), seen 2nd from the right. Another lady with dog arrived later to the party, seen on the far left.


All in all it has been a pretty busy week, and I am looking forward to another great weekend.