Chloe, Ice Cream Fondue and Instant Coffee

Sunday morning Michael and I got up bright and early to catch the 9:50 am showing of Chloe. The movie doesn't officially release until March 26th, but for some reason, a lot of indie-ish American films get released outside of the US earlier. It was pretty good. The last movie we saw in theatres was Wolfman, so really anything would be better than that, but we did like it. Basic plot is this: Woman (Julianne Moore) is worried her husband (Liam Neeson) is having an affair, so she hires Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to see if her husband can be seduced. Warning - it's not a feel-good movie.

After that, we went across the street to Baskin Robins. I haven't seen one in the states since the 90s, but here they're pretty popular. We tried the ice cream fondue. It was delicious, as pictured here:

Yesterday was a national holiday, so we got yet another day to relax. We went over to check out Home Plus, which is another supercenter type place (As if Lotte World, E-Mart, and GS Mart weren't enough for our city). Unfortunately for us, it isn't open yet, which is too bad since it is less than two miles from our apartment. So we went over to Lotte Mart, which we haven't been to yet. It was huge. It has almost double the selection that E-Mart has, and I was able to find flour and yeast there! I will probably be baking tomorrow.

Today we head back to work, for the start of the new year. This will be the first session that we have taught from the beginning, which is exciting, but scary as well. Today I start a new class, 4.1. This is the first 4.1 class for the school, since the most advanced class to date has been grade 3. In addition to this class, Michael and I are both taking on 2-4 tutoring one-on-one classes Tuesday/Thursday. This unfortunately means the end of our easy days, but it also means that our school is doing well and we will have full schedules. From now on, we will be at school from 2:00 pm to 8:50 pm on T/R. I think I still have a period off on M/W/F, which will be nice for planning and grading. When we figure out our schedules, I will let you all know.

Finally, I want to talk about coffee. Most Koreans buy instant coffee here. The coffee comes freeze dried in a tube and is usually mixed with sugar and powdered creamer. It's pretty bad but we've become addicted. It's super cheap and we're provided with it for free at our school.

Well, I better get ready for the day. Have a good night!

I Love You Mr. Gill!

Michael had a cute day yesterday. I guess one of his students, "Terrible Tim" wanted a turn at the game they were playing and started pulling on his arm, "Mr. Gill, I love you!" Michael laughed and told him to wait his turn. He went back to his seat and looked at Michael, "I love you Mr. Gill." Oh, the things kids will say to get their way!

Yumsem

We've been frequenting a chain restaurant called Yumsem. It's open 24 hours and is incredibly cheap. Last night, we ate there for 7,500 Won. We ordered three types of rolls: california, king crab, and fried shrimp. Before our meals, we got the usual broth, pickled radish (Michael's favorite) and kimchi like radish. One of the employees saw that we were running low on radishes and she had another guy bring us fresh bowls of both kind of radish. The rolls were pretty good. Not great, but well worth the cost. I would definitely get the shrimp rolls or the california rolls again.

Falling into a Routine

We are aliens! Last week we registered as legal residents of Korea, and received our Alien Registration Cards (ARCs). We can now open a bank account (which we have, they currently contain zero won) and get nationalized health care! It costs around $ 4 for a visit to the doctor and a couple thousand won for prescriptions. Pretty awesome, although I really don't want to have a reason to use these services :)

I haven't blogged that much recently because we really haven't been that busy. Someone fraudulently used my debit card last week, so I had to cancel my card and get a new one. And since we don't get paid for two weeks, I really don't have a way to get money. That leaves us with little to do. We have about 12,000 won to our name, which is about $10. We can still use our credit cards, but they charge a lot of money, so we are trying to limit our use of them. Anyway, we're not out of money, we just don't have cash until we get paid on the 10th. This restricts our activities a little bit, as we don't have money for cabs and street vendors and things like that. So hopefully in two weeks we will start being out and about more often and give you something more exciting to read about!

We bought a lot of groceries on Saturday, so we've been mostly staying in and making food ourselves, like these wonderful baguette pizzas:

School has been fun. We have times where there is the odd student who doesn't want to learn and causes trouble, but most of the kids really want to learn and seem to enjoy our classes. I have been so proud of my kiddies today, most of them scored perfects on their spelling tests! It is really encouraging to me as a teacher to see them succeed. Soon, I hope to get up the courage to ask if we can take pictures. I would definitely love to show off my students :)

Excitingly enough, there is another national holiday coming up! Movement day marks the day Korea finally stood up to Japan. It is celebrated March 1st, so we get to have Monday off!

On a final note, we will work on getting more pictures and videos up soon. I know that's what you're all here for :)

Gizmo Loves Her Sprinkles

My mom gave me some nutrient fortified flavor packets to add to Gizmo's food to make sure she is healthy while transitioning from Iowa to Korea. We refer to these as sprinkles. Every morning we wake up and feed Gizmo. As she hears the bag of food opening, she runs over excitedly to get her food. After we pour her food, she goes right into the bowl to start to eat, but everytime she stops dead in her tracks and stares at us, as if to say, "Where are my sprinkles?" She will only eat her food now if it has been sprinkled with the FortiFlora packet. It's like her kitty crack and she won't eat without it!

New Toys

We have been settling in to our life as ESL teachers here in Korea quite well. Michael and I are both enjoying the change in scenery and the newness that everything has to us as foreigners. We were really excited this week to pick up some things that make our lives just a little bit easier. First, we bought a baby dehumidifier. Quite shockingly, in the coldest winter Chuncheon has seen in a while, we have a bit of a moisture problem. In fact, we have a mold. Only in the closet, but we had to move all of our stuff out of there and air the room out. The baby dehumidifier is working well, pretty soon we will have a mold free room!

Second, Michael got a gigantic power converter for his Xbox360 so he can play games for more than 30 minutes at a time. Before, we had two mini converters that would overheat if used too often. Now we can play games and watch movies for a few hours without any problems.

Third, we splurged and bought a "mini convection oven" from Living Korea. It's cute as a button and we can bake in it! Specifically, I want to make little pizzas and maybe some cookies. So far we have toasted a few things and they have turned out well. Michael cooked his hotdogs in it and it worked perfectly for that too! Now, I just have to find some flour...

Dining Out in Korea

I want to apologize for not bringing my camera with me on our adventures this week. I will try to keep the pictures coming. Anyway, we have been a little curious about Korean dining, and after hearing from many that dining out is cheap and delicious we went out Tuesday night and Wednesday night. One thing that is difficult about our jobs is that we get done kinda late (between 8 and 8:30 pm). By the time we walk home and prepare dinner, it can be 10 before we even eat. So going out is super convenient to us.

The foreign teacher that we replaced has recommended Apple Terrace because of its English menu and the proximity to our workplace. We went there Tuesday night and had a pretty decent meal. The prices there are a little steep for dining out here, but it was pretty much full service. Michael ordered the Beef Cutlet (9,000 Won) and I ordered the Seafood Pilaff (7,000 Won). For starts we got two pieces of bread, pickled radishes and cucumbers, and Michael got a bowl of creamy potato soup, which was delicious. Our meals were pretty good, I think Michael thought the beef was just okay. We each got a cabbage salad and a side of corn and some macaroni, beans and pineapple (really weird, I can't describe it). Here are some pictures of what our meals kind of looked like.

After our meals, we had a choice of coffee, tea, juice, or ice cream. We both chose ice cream and got one scoop of vanilla with strawberry syrup and sprinkles. It is pretty cool to get so much food for less than $10 a person.

Wednesday night we went to a little restaurant across from the CGV. We picked this place because it was cold and the place I wanted to go to seemed too far away. This restaurant, called RedCook, had pictures in the window, so we figured we could always just point to what we wanted. So we went in and looked at the menu, which had pictures of some things. We picked out one picture and matched it up to the item on the menu and we picked another item, blindly, in the cutlet menu.

For starters we had bowls of miso soup and pickled radishes and kimchi. This was our first encounter with kimchi and were excited to try it. At this point we don't hate it but we don't love it either. Most people say that it grows on them, so we will see. We also had cabbage salads. Our food came out and we were pleasantly surprised to see that we ordered Fried Shrimp Rolls and a Fish Cutlet. Everything was delicious. Of course, both meals were served with sides of corn and the fish cutlet came with a side of rice and some pickled cucumbers. Here are some more pictures that kind of resemble what we got, but these are not pictures that I have taken.

This place didn't serve a dessert at the end of the meal, but it was only 9,500 Won for both of us! We will definitely be coming back, I want to try some other things on the menu, and maybe I will remember to take pictures.

Gizmo's Adorable

Michael has started puting together videos on his youtube page. You can view his short clip of him and Gizmo playing peekaboo here:



Here is the video of our trip, starting in Ames (I think) and ending at the airport in Korea:



Be sure to check his youtube page, http://www.youtube.com/lovebirdsinkorea for other videos.

A Walking Tour of Suksa-dong

Today Michael and I walked around the area that we live in: Suksa-dong. It's really a street, but it kind of is more of an area than a street. Basically this same street leads from our house to the school that we work at. We took a lot of pictures, so here is a link to my photos:

A Walking Tour of Suksa-dong

The View From Our Apartment

Super charming, we have a view of the convenience store from our apartment. If you look hard enough, you can see mountains in the background. We also live across the street from a school, which is why there is a bus outside of our window. We live next to several restaurants, including a place with live fish.

Lunar New Year

It's our first weekend in Chuncheon. The local shops are closed down and the pig restaurant that we live above have put up their notice that they won't be open this weekend. Why? It's the lunar New Year. A lot of families took off Friday for Seoul to visit with friends and grandparents. Our school is closed on Monday, so we have a long weekend. So what are we doing for the holiday?

Myeongdong

Saturday afternoon we took a taxi to the shopping district of Chuncheon. The teacher we are replacing showed us around and took us out to eat at the Grazie. It's an italian bistro type place where we all ordered Pane, a bread bowl with spaghetti in a creamy white sauce. It was very rich, which made me a little queasy but made Michael feel "amazing." We will probably come back to that place eventually, but our eyes were opened to the culinary world of Chuncheon.

We saw several places that we will have to hit up, including a pizza place and a waffle cafe. Funny thing, McDonalds delivers here. Hopefully we can learn how to order when we get cellphones, because everyone delivers and they can detect our address from the phone when we call.

We caught a quick glimpse of the market here, Central Market. We saw a lot of fish and some pigs feet. There were some vendors selling fried things that smelled delicious, but we had just eaten so we didn't want to get anything. We will definitely be back to this area when it warms up a little (It was about 25F and snowing).

CGV

Last night we decided to see a movie so we went off to CGV. The movie theatre near us occupies a 12 floor building. It took a little bit of trial and error to figure out where everything was in the building. The lobby and ticket box are on the 3rd floor. Koreans love using the queue system where you take a number. So we took a number and when it was called we talked to the person at the desk. She was very helpful and picked out great seats for us.

Finding the theatre is a bit difficult. With the help of the ticket taker, we figured out or movie was in theatre 7. Movie theatres here have assigned seats, so we found our seats and sat down just in time. The movie we saw was The Wolfman. Not a very good movie, but it was nice to have the movie experience. We were happy to find that they sell popcorn and coke zero for pretty decent prices. We will definitely be back when there are better movie options.

Today was grocery day. We've been to the big stores, E-Mart and GS Mart, but we went to an actual grocery store today, Nong Hyup. We were crazy and walked the whole way there (about a mile) and back with arms full of groceries. Happily, we now have a stocked fridge :)

This afternoon we picked up our "goodies" from the other foreign teacher at our school. We bought his TV and stand as well as some other miscellaneous things in his apartment. Some of the stuff we have now, and some we will pick up before he leaves.

Our first load of laundry is still drying, but much faster thanks to our new drying rack.

Tonight we are just watching some DVDs on our new tv and relaxing. We start back at school on Tuesday! I'll leave you with some pictures of Gizmo, which I am sure everyone wants to see :)

We Are Dorks

We've been frequenting the Paris Baguette, a bakery chain in Korea. They make pastries and bread, cakes and of course baguettes. A lot of times after work, we stop by on the way home for a baguette to go with our meal. Last night, Michael decided this was a night worth celebrating and we bought an entire cake. The ladies asked if we needed candles, and we had to tell them no. That's right, it's not our birthdays, we just wanted a cake!

The cakes here are really pretty, I'm sorry to forget to take pictures until after we had eaten it. The cake was like a cross between angel food cake and sponge cake. It's kind of hard to describe. The frosting was more like whipped cream, but it was really heavy. Pretty good!

Our apartment is a little bit cleaner, so I thought I would put up a few pictures.

We basically have a one room, but it is fairly large. The closet is pretty big, put we need to find some shelves or something to utilize the space better.

We found Gizmo a frilly pink litter box at E-Mart. She is not quite used to it, but we're glad she is using it. Our kitchen area is small, but it does the job. We are thinking about a toaster oven, but we haven't looked at prices yet, so we will have to see if we can afford one. For some reason the fridge is in the main room instead of the kitchen.

Just so you all know, Gizmo is doing great. She sleeps a lot, but she is still carrying around her poofs and burying random stuff.

Alien Registration and Other Stuff

Michael and I had a long day today. At 8 am, the director of the school picked us up and took us to the hospital so we could start the alien registration process. First you have to pass the health check, then you can file the paper work to become a legalized resident of Korea. They check our height and weight, vision and blood pressure. Then we went to another room where they drew blood and gave us cups to pee in. Finally we were taken to get chest x-rays. After that, we got our photos taken (For the 5th time, I really wish someone had just said to get 20 pictures to start with.) so we would be ready for our registration cards.


The teacher we are replacing took us to GS Mart yesterday to buy some stuff, but we still needed more things like litter for Gizmo and a bowl and a spoon (Yes, our apartment came with 1 bowl, 4 plates, one fork, one spoon, and one knife). So the director of the school took us to E-Mart, which is like GS Mart but probably twice the size. Both of them are similar to walmart, but in a Korean sort of way.

We made ourselves some baguette sandwiches and then walked to school. We start at 2 on Wednesdays and teach from 3-8:25. It's kind of a long day, but still less hours than I would be working in the states, so I can't complain! We have free internet in our apartment, but only through an ethernet connection, so we had the director order us a wireless router. We thought we would be able to figure it out, but when we got home we realized it's all in Korean, so we are stuck to using one computer at a time until we get this figured out.

Yeah, they love me

Instead of paying attention in class, my students Sharon and Jenny wrote me notes. I can't help but love these kids because they call me pretty.

Michael and I both taught unassisted classes today. I'm really starting to enjoy working with these kids. Most of them are really fun to be around and the kids that don't want to be there are few and far between.

Greetings From Korea!

Well, it's been a rough couple of days, but here we are in Chuncheon, South Korea! On Tuesday, February 2, we drove down to Chicago to have our interviews at the Korean Consulate. We stayed with my dad's cousin Skye in Naperville, who graciously let us crash so we wouldn't have to find a hotel in Chicago. We were asked questions like What do you know about Korea? and Why do you think you will be a good teacher? and then were sent on our way. We drove back that same day (Wednesday) and then went back on Friday to pick up our work visas.

Saturday we got to the airport with our cat, Gizmo, and flew to Seoul. It was a long 14 hour flight worrying about Gizmo in cargo. We managed to get a little shut-eye before landing and then picked up our luggage and found an angry, but very much alive Gizmo waiting for us. We went through animal quarantine where an inspector barely looked at Gizmo and boarded a bus to Chuncheon. It was 2 and a half hours and again nerve-wracking worrying about Gizmo in the luggage compartments. Koreans definitely don't seem to care about animals the way Americans do. Especially cats, no one seems to like cats here.

The director of the school picked us up at the bus station and it took two cars to get all of our stuff to our apartment. We will post pictures soon, but for now I will give a brief description. There is an entry with a kitchen in one room, the main room with two twin beds and a tv, the refridgerator and a small table with two chairs. We have a decent sized closet and a small bathroom. There is no shower in the bathroom, just a nozzle coming out of the wall, so everything gets wet when we shower. Finally, there is a porch-like area with a washing machine. This is the only room with windows, so we will definitely try to utilize this area when it becomes warmer.

We definitely weren't prepared for our sleeping arrangements. We have two twin beds which are completely useless as they are 1) as hard as the laminate floor, and 2) have no bedding. We brought a set of queen sheets, which definitely don't fit. Right now we are using only one of the beds since the sheets don't fit over both. Both Michael and I are suffering some jet lag. Michael is asleep right now, even though it is only 10 pm. Last night we went to bed around 10 because we were exhausted, but neither one of us slept. A combination of being cold from no blanket, having to sleep on a hard as rock mattress, and getting used to a new environment kept us from sleeping more than an hour at a time.

The director picked us up at 9:30 and we went to school. The school appears to be very nice. It has several classrooms, a teacher's room/lounge and a conference room. We are in kind of an odd situation right now because there is only one other foreign teacher here at the moment (who is leaving in two weeks) so we had to start teaching some classes right away. I taught two classes and Michael taught three. We had a Korean teacher with us to guide us through, but we had to come up with almost all of the material on our own. We were lucky to be able to shadow the other foreign teacher for all of his classes too, so hopefully we will pick this up pretty fast.

Classes go from 3-8:25 pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and we each only have a couple of classes Tuesday and Thursday. So on our long days we are at school from about 2 to 8:30. Not bad, huh? Today was pretty brutal because we put in an 11 hour day but I'm sure we will get used to the hectic 6 class schedule eventually. Tonight, the director helped us get hooked up to the internet. We don't have adapters yet, so we will need to get those soon if I am going to keep up with updates. Hopefully tomorrow we have time to get some apartment stuff before we have to be at the school.