We Eiffel Towered It

Hey everyone! So we know, we know that our blog has been a bit scarce lately but don't be mad! We are doing so much during the days (teaching, exploring etc.) that it is hard to stay awake long enough at the end of the day to write an entry. So these next few will be delayed, but we are working on them. Hopefully soon, when Courtney gets moved in and comfortable, and when things start settling down, the blog will become more regular. Don't worry loyal readers! We love and miss you all!

Wednesday was my first time teaching the 1^st graders. My weekly schedule it a bit confusing and I’m still trying to figure it out, but I think I have 2^nd graders on Tuesday and Friday, and I have 1^st graders on Wednesday and Thursday. The classes went well, but my feet were killing me by the time lunch came around. The lunches at my school have been really good, I’m really glad I like them so much. That day we had these huge HUGE grapes for dessert. I didn’t get any for myself because I didn’t have room on my plate, and I’m not a huge fan of grapes anyway. My principal was eating across from me at the same table and saw that I didn’t have any grapes, so he grabbed the whole dish of them and brought them over to our table. I tried one and I was blown away! These were not like grapes from back home. They were extremely juicy, and they didn’t even taste like grapes. They tasted more like peaches to me somehow. Anyway, I ended up eating about 7 or 8 because I loved them so much. After class I was told that I would be teaching a class called the Brilliant Kids class, which was an after school class for 5^th and 6^thgraders who were really good at English. It sounded like it would really be a great class to teach so I did some preparation for it. After I left the school I headed to the Lotte Mart to meet with Courtney who was getting dropped off there by someone from her school.

These are similar to the ones at school, but those were much bigger.

We had been talking for a few days trying to plan our meet up, and when the day finally came, we did an “Eiffel Tower” at the Lotte Mart. When Courtney and I were in Europe last summer we were both doing different things, but wanted to meet up in Paris for a two day stay. The only problem was, we didn’t have cell phones and we weren’t getting to Paris at the same time. So what we said was to meet at the Eiffel Tower every hour on the hour until we found each other on the day that we both got in. So when I got to the Eiffel Tower I saw how obviously huge it was, and realized that deciding to meet “in front” of it was impossible because there wasn’t really a “front” of the Eiffel Tower. So without knowing what would happen, I sat down and looked for her. Surprisingly enough, we found each other in about 15 minutes! It was so quick because I sat down and she walked around, so she ran into me in no time. So now whenever we have to meet somewhere and we don’t have a way of being in contact, we pull and “Eiffel Tower” where I sit down somewhere at the store or busy place, and she walks around and looks for me. It worked beautifully this time at the Lotte Mart because I had to read a story for my Brilliant Kids class, so I sat down and read while she walked around and found me as soon as she got there. After we found each other we tried to do a dry run of Courtney’s bus commute to school for the next morning but we ran out of time. We had made plans to meet up with all the other EPIK Pohang people at 7 at an English speaking bar downtown. The meet up was really great. We first met with a girl named Erinn who lives like 5 seconds away from me; she’s already been in Korea for a year. We took the bus to a bar called Tilt, where they were having Mexican night so I was really excited. When we got there, it was not too packed, but everyone that was in there was from EPIK or at least spoke English. It was really cool seeing everyone, and there was never a moment when someone didn’t have something to say or ask! Oh and we had burritos! They were actually really good burritos too, I was pleasantly surprised.

Thursday was Courtney’s first morning getting to school from my house so she left super early just in case so she wasn’t late for school. I go to the English teachers’ lounge every morning before class starts. We have this small “snacks and coffee” corner where we have lots of instant coffee packets and cute Korean snacks. Yesterday I tried an instant packet of some sort of tea. It was similar to chai tea where it was milky, but when I started drinking it, I got a sunflower seed in my mouth. It was the strangest thing, but it was kind of a nice little surprise. I wasn’t a huge fan of the tea in the end but the sunflower seed factor really made it worth mentioning. I taught 1^st graders that day. They are so cute it’s terrible! Classes went well; we learned how to spell. Lunch was interesting and exciting like usual. We had kimchi rice, some yummy egg soup, radish kimchi, and then no one will guess what we had for dessert. We had tomatoes for dessert!! It was strange because they were actually a bit sweet too. After lunch, I had a few hours to prepare the Brilliant Kids class I was going to teach with another teacher. It was the total opposite of the other students I teach because these Brilliant Kids are the smartest on the 5^th and 6^th graders. The class went well, I really enjoyed it. After that class ended I headed home to grab some money for Courtney. We had planned to meet at the Home Plus at 7pm for dinner but she forgot her money at my house so I went home first to grab it for her before heading over to the home plus. When we met up it was me, Courtney and our friend Melinda. We ate at a restaurant that I’d been to once before, and it was really great. The three of us split 2 meals which were both really amazing. The food they brought out looked exactly like the fake food display in front of the restaurant. That’s one of my favorite things about Korea, the fake food displays! They are so much better than just pictures of the food. I will always pick to eat at a place that has one of these versus a place that just has pictures, mainly because the food looks REAL and it just looks so amazing!

This is only half of our awesome yummy meal!

We think that fake food making is an art form here because the examples could fool a chef!

The pretty fish at Home Plus.

Seriously, these are not fake!

The turtles were trying to be like me and Courtney in the circus.

The dried squid here is very popular.

I'm determined to try this stuff sooner or later!

Oh and I just wanted to show everyone how fantastic the toilet paper in Korea is.