Engrish!

First Engrish item I bought!
Cracker Sand with
Cheese Cream
{>-<}

만두국

Mandu gook=dumpling soup=YUM! ^-^

Settling in.

Things are being to calm down and im settling into a routine. Can't believe this is my fourth week here! In the middle of the semester and this is the last week before the new semester. Looking forward to it.
I received some cards from my halmeonideul(grandmothers)! They are now on my desk at work. ^-^

The Journey to Yang-G

Some pictures of my journey to work. I wish the photos could capture the feel and scale of the place. These buildings are huge, like, giant, most of the buildings in this area are. Oh! Something interesting about these buildings is that the hallways connecting the businesses are not heated. That means entering a building does not mean you'll be able to get warm, you'll just be out of the wind and rain. 

Apartment buildings on the way to work

The buildings in front of Yang-G's building

Same building different angle

The alley I go through to get to my building

Yang-G Building!

The window below the orange billboard is where Yang-G is!

Yang-G ELS Billboard outside the door of the building

Building entrance with Yang-G sign

Information Board about Yang-G

The door to Yang-G!

Cooking Adventure!

Tried my hand at tofu and cooking. Not awful but it lacked a cohesive flavor...everything just tasted like what it was...green pepper, onion, rice, tofu, potatoes...next time I'll try to be a bit more adventurous...
:D

South Korea FOOOODDD!!! :D

Hello!!! I finally got some photos to upload! Hallelujah! I was seriously considering changing blog sites..So this post is obviously about food! Yay! These are some of the first Korean meals I've had and so far it's all been very, very delicious.

First Korean meal! Fried fish, coleslaw, rice and fish sauce. One of my coteachers said it was very good so we had this for lunch on my first day of teaching. :)

Also a soup that you drink out of a cup, and then a condiments tray including kimchi, pickled ginger and two other things that I can't remember... :/

First meal at a restaurant! :D

 Seriously, this is one of the greatest meals I've ever had, mostly because it was fun. The meal is three parts that all revolve around the broth pot you see in the middle of the table.
First you start with a boiling pot of broth that you then put meat and veggies into to cook them. They cook almost instantly. Then you take a rice paper, get it wet, stuff it with whatever veggies and meats you want, add sauces, roll it up and eat it.
After you've eaten most of the meat and veggies then a server comes over and puts noodles and spices into the pot for the second part "Noodle Soup." The broth for the soup is delicious because of all the veggies and meats cooked in it.
Finally when everyone has finished their noodle soup the server comes over and puts rice and spices into the pot. They then smash most of the rice into a mush and create the third part, "Rice Porridge."
I have to say, my favorite part was probably making the spring rolls...

And then I found this! it's Cookies 'n' Chocolate instead of Cookies 'n' Cream

I was so amused that I had to buy it. It was really rich and tasted kind of like a brownie.

Lotteria! Didn't get any photos of the food. It's sort of like McDonalds, but a bit better.

Also, instead of saying "CHEESE!" they say "KIMCHI!" which I think is way better. Oh and peace signs are a must.

 That's all for now. I'm sure there's something I'm missing but I can't remember what... KIMCHI! :D

Busy, busy weekend

Happy Belated Lunar New Year!

Because it was a Korean holiday on Sunday we had Monday off. YAY! :D So I made plans with my coteacher and sort-of-guide Francia for the whole weekend. I don't have pictures from the weekend because I'm silly and don't have a camera...yeah ...I'm going to try and swipe some from a friend...but I can tell you all about it now!

So on Saturday I went shopping with Francia and Bora(one of my coteachers) to costco and a giant department store called Homeplus. It was a ton of fun seeing all the bulk items from America and other places. Homeplus was fun as well because I got to compare a Korean department store to what I can recall of American ones. I could have spent hours there just looking at all the different products and doing some people watching. So much craziness! Let me just say that I will never go shopping on a weekend again! It was so busy I lost Francia and Bora multiple and only found them again because Francia is very tall and had a purple hat on.:)

Later that night Francia and I met up with some of her friends in the Doonsan(?) area of Daejeon and went to some bars and clubs. So much fun! I met so many foreigners and got to watch a rugby game!

Sunday, after skyping with my parents I started to clean my apartment. bleh. Then Francia facebooked me and asked me if I wanted to go to Diana's(Dee-ahn-nah not Die-anna), her sister's, apartment for a tea tasting with the other girls we went out with Satureday night. After an hour journey via subway, bus and walking we ended at Diana's apartment and had about 8 different teas along with cookies and cheesecake. After, we made plans to meet at my apartment on yesterday for brunch. We made the hour long journey back and I finished cleaning my apartment the best I could.

Monday I had 5 people over to my apartment, 4 South Africans and 1 American. Francia made us French Toast, eggs and bacon. We also had some kind of cream stuffed Korean bread and cheesecake. The South Africans ate their French Toast two ways, savory and sweet. I had never seen someone eat French Toast with cheese and bacon on it but it looked very tasty. I chose to have the berries on mine because it reminded me more of home. We played Uno and LCR(Left, Center, Right) and talked, a lot. They were really jealous of my apartment and it made me feel very blessed.

Hopefully I'll get a phone with a camera soon so I can take many pictures to share with y'all. Annyonghi kashipshio!(Goodbye!)

Yellow Taxi, Catina, Yellow Taxi, Sponge!

Hello!
Yeah! So all of the foreigners I know in South Korea currently are from South Africa. Turns out my dutch heritage is a great benefit to learn Africans, a mix of dutch, english, and bunch of other languages. I already know more words in Africans than I do Korean. Maybe I should visit South Africa someday..Went out tonight with Francia and several of her friends (Ilmarie, Diana, Nicolette, and Lindy, I believe..)... Don't have pictures, sorry but my camera is still in America and I thought it'd be weird to bring my ipad. Hopefully I can get photos sometime from someone else. oh! so tonight we went to Yellow Taxi, The Cantina, Yellow Taxi and Sponge...anyways...see ya later!

Lotteria!

Went to Lotteria yesterday! It's not the lottery but rather it's a fast food joint similar to McDonalds. Swiped a few pictures upstairs while eating but once again Blogger is being silly and not letting me post them.

Today I'm going to costco and a few other stores with some coteachers (Francia and Bora). I'm really excited to see more of the city and to hang out with some people. I think tomorrow I'm going on a bus tour of Daejeon with Francia and her friends. Hopefully Blogger will let me update my photos tomorrow...

Pictures finally!

I don't know why but Blogger decided today would be a good day to let me upload photos but here they are! 

Life has been kind of crazy, I was just thrown in to teaching. I believe the saying is "Trial by fire"... My first day was Monday and I had 5 classes I had to teach with minimal direction. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it and most of my students seem to really like me but I'm still learning. I have Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes and Tuesday, Thursday, Friday classes which is nice because I get to see them more than once per week. I teach a variety of grade level (elementary to middle school) and a variety of English levels. I don't teach phonics classes because those are taught in Korean(I believe) but I have students that just know a few english words and students that I can have whole conversations with. It's a bit difficult switching between the two and I usually talk with the higher level students as if they are lower level students. Oh well. 

Here are pictures of the bus ride from the airport to Daejeon, my neighborhood and my apartment. Yay!

On the bus ride from Seoul

On the bus ride from Seoul

Looking down the busy street towards the school

Apparently in Korea "Hof" means pub or bar...

Looking down my street towards my apartment

My apartment building!

Dining room/living room

Spare room! Currently, a walk in closet...

Bathroom!

Bedroom!

Kitchen/Laundry!

First Shopping trip

First cooked meal. Ramen, mmmmm

Apartment, Adventures, Photos!

So I've now been in Korea for a full 24 hours and have had so many adventures already!

The biggest adventure of the day was trying to find a grocery store or restaurant for some food. Turns out, they're not that hard to find. After following the busy road that is behind my apartment for 3-4 blocks I came across a sort of shopping strip. I didn't get a picture of it but I'll get a couple tomorrow.  Yesterday Sky told me that my school is in this area. Eventually I did find a grocery store and successfully purchased some food with the help of a very patient cashier.

Prices here are so different from the US and the money is crazy but I kinda like it. Each denomination of bill is a different color which is helpful. Also a bill that is worth more is slightly larger than one that is worth less, same goes for the coins. Because bills and coins are color and size coded, I'm sure I'll soon be a pro at making purchases.

Finished unpacking for the most part. Just hanging around, watching Korean cooking shows, and resting up now. Can't wait for tomorrow to see my school and kids! :D


I took some photos but, unfortunately, Blogger doesn't seem to want me to upload them. Sorry. :( I will keep trying and hopefully soon I can post some.

KOREA!!!

YAY! :D I made it!

Oh my goodness what a crazy adventure traveling was. So excited to be in my apartment and finally in Daejeon. I spent 36+ hours either in an airport or on a plane. Then I had a 3 hour bus ride from Seoul to Daejeon! 

Thankfully, I took the right bus and got off at the correct stop last night. Sky, the school recruiter, met me there and took me to my apartment where the school director was waiting. After being shown around the apartment I did some unpacking, took a shower(which was an adventure itself), and went to bed because I was whipped.

Today I woke up, had some breakfast and now I'm unpacking and setting up my apartment. Going to go find some food soon.  There's so much I could say about everything that's happened I don't even know where to start. After I get a bit more settled I'll post some pictures and go into a bit more detail.