More food

The soup is called 칼국수 (cal-goo-su)or "knife soup." The ice dessert thingy is called "빙수" (bing-su) or shaved ice. Both are delicious. :D

A trip on my own!

Headed to Geoje Island for the weekend all by myself, sort of. Meeting up with a tour group in Gumi but I don't know anyone besides the guides, and I don't even know them all that well...

I was initially very worried about taking a trip all by myself. It's kind of intimidating..but then I realized that this is just a mini trip in my South Korea journey and I'm doing THAT all on my own. :)

Have a good feeling about this trip, think it's going to be amazing. I'll post some crappy phone pictures throughout the weekend and then hopefully better real camera ones by Tuesday.

제이름은 엠버 이에요.(My name is Amber.)

Look! I can write/speak a bit of Korean! A friend of mine is helping me, he's even giving me vocab tests and such. I've made progress but not as much as I'd like. Oh well, need to practice more.

저는 미국 사람 이에요. I'm American! 

Teaching gets a bit easier and then it gets tough again. My day is a giant roller coaster with cars for confidence, emotion and alertness. Everytime I feel great and that I'm improving as a teacher something happens and I feel like I'm back at square one. Here's to hoping things level off soon.

Snack Parties for Childrens Day!

I built cups filled with chocolately treats for Childrens Day.  All of my kids seemed to love them.
Oreo on bottom, pepero stick, oreo cereal and a sour apple ring. mmmm, sugar!

Spring, sort of....

It gets nice then cold then nice then cold again. Its really pretty when the flowers bloom...so I included a few photos of them.

Journey without Francia

First time riding the subway alone today.Thanks to Francia  I'm quite confident in my subway abilities....it's when I get off the subway that I'm a bit worried about...  Pretty sure  I'll remember where I'm going when I get off the subway but right now it's a giant question  mark. Wish me luck!

Finally found the strawberry festival crew and we're finally on the train. only 50 minuts until we're in Sintanjin. It's really foggy outside so I cant see hardly anything...oh well.

So foggy and rainy. Still a great time.^-^ On the way home now.

Photos! (/^o^)/

Photos photos and more photos!

From Dollars to Won

Here are a few pictures of some Korean money called Won or 원 in Korean. I've included the conversions from Won to dollars today.

10W=$.01, 100W=$.09, 500W=$.45

backsides of the coins..

1000W=$.90

backside of 1000

backside of 10000

10000W=$8.96

50000W=$44.82

backside of 50000

Cham chi gim bap

Translation: tuna, seawees and rice

Chicken Mayo

Chicken, mayo, seaweed, egg, soy sauce and rice.

Bibim mandu

Yum! Mixed dumplings.
And coffee and sandwich.

More photos I just discovered! Apartment and school.

 Just found a bunch of photos that I had taken but couldn't upload! yay! So the first batch has a photos of the odd things in my apartment, things that are a bit different than home.

Thermostat

 This is the thermostat. It has a temperature dial and a bunch of other switches. The switch in the top left says if I'm heating just my water or the floor as well. Not sure what the other switches do...

Outlet!

 This is one of the outlets in my apartment. It's totally different than American ones but I have all the adapters I need so that's good.

Microwave

Okay so green means stop and red means go...I guess. If I press the green button the food is good to go, if I press the red button it needs more time...seems a little backwards to me and I keep forgetting how to do it...

Light switches

These are light switches. The top one is for the dining room, the bottom one is for the kitchen and I can't figure out what the middle one does...nothing, I guess?

washer

This big box is the washer. Thankfully someone left instructions on what all the buttons do so I can do my laundry. :) yay for clean clothes!

Teacher's room!

 Teacher's room or lounge! This is where I spend most of my time. Unfortunately, there is no door to the room so all the students can see in whenever and they always come in to distract us, oh well.

My desk! ^^

 My desk is where all the planning and other things occur. The kids don't really know me all too well yet so they don't bother me as much. I have the biggest desk, a computer on my desk, a nice chair and a window next to me. I feel so lucky. The only slight downside is the door is directly to the left of my desk which means kids can see me from the main enterance without coming into the teacher's room.

Me at my desk!

Another shot of the teacher's room. This is the view from my desk.

Main entrance and welcoming area. Aka where the kids hang out during breaks.

Library!

 The library is sort of like a multipurpose room. There are meetings, study groups, counselling sessions, make up tests and all kinds of other activities that go on here.

One of the classrooms

HI!!!!!