Baking Craziness and Speech Day

So I baked a ton last week, and although I already talked about it, I wanted to show you all pictures of my home baked goodness. Here are pictures of the banana extravaganza. In total, I baked four mini cakes/bread loafs and three mini pies. Oh, and we ate a second pie yesterday and the crust was perfect, I think it may have needed a rest in the fridge for awhile for the crust to soften.

Friday at the hagwon was speech day. Basically we had our classes as normal and went into the auditorium for the last 30 minutes of class. Michael and I put our classes together and had each student give their one minute speech about family and then we played the "speed game" where kids were given a vocabulary word and they had to describe it to the other kids so the kids could guess what the word was. If we had time at the end, we did our weekly talking where the kids ask each other questions and try to answer them in complete sentences.

Some of our kids did really well and others did not. One of my kids stood up on stage for 5 minutes and laughed. He refused to say anything. Finally, I called in the head teacher and she pulled him out of class. The kid in question is "Alexander," a demon child. He was Michael's problem last session and now I am stuck with him. I have a class called 1.4 with four kids ranging from 6-8 years old. The boys are serious problems and Alexander happens to be the worst of them. He never seems to be affected by yelling, hitting (the head teacher and hagwon director are allowed to, I am not), or any sort of punishment. I usually have to make him stand facing the wall on most days (5-10 minutes at a time, not the whole class). Anyway, I guess I am not surprised that he pulled this since his practice speeches have been just as bad.

I have one student named "Philip" who never talks in class. He is about 10 years old and is the only kid I have in my 2.4 class. I spend a lot of time asking him questions only to have to answer them myself. It is a torturous 50 minutes of trying to kill time with a kid who has no communication skills. One day, the director sat in on the class and Philip got so overwhelmed that he started to cry. I have had only a few kids cry on me so far and those were all 4-6 year-olds, so this was a bit startling for me. Friday's period with Philip was mixed with my 2.3 class so I had three kids in the auditorium and Michael had about 5-6. I thought Philip might be overwhelmed by all the kids, but to my surprise he fit right in. He had to be yelled at for talking during another kid's speech and he even gave his speech with relative ease. I looked over at one point and he was sitting with a few other boys and laughing with them. We had to do speech evaluations of all of the kids and I commented that this was the first time I had heard Philip say more than yes or no.

My favorite kids also happen to be the smartest kids in the class. The not-so-smart kids know that they are terrible at English so usually don't even bother. The smart kids are the ones that volunteer to answer every question and don't groan when I make them read. They never misbehave and hand me their homework with a smile. It's kind of weird having a mixture of angels and demons in the classroom, but there don't seem to be many kids that fall in between these two categories.

Today we took it easy. We slept in and went to E-Mart during rush hour for Gizmo's Catsrang. I did some reorganizing with the help of another hanging shelf for the "closet" and a shoe shelf for the entry/kitchen. For dinner I made a creamy vegetable stew with sweet potatoes, Asian eggplant, onions and carrots. The sweet potatoes I bought startled me because they are not orange here underneath the peel. They are white. I first thought they might not be potatoes, but once I boiled them, they turned yellow and mushy and tasted sweet.

No big plans for tomorrow. It's supposed to be rainy and in the forties, which I guess is an improvement from snowing and in the thirties that was Thursday and Friday. We will probably take a walk to Homeplus and maybe the new shops that opened in 2TopCity (same building that CGV is in) this week.

Gloomy Day

I hate the fact that is is the end of March and it snowed today. We were in class while it happened, but still, it is super cold outside and it is gloomy. Gloomy days are bad at the hogwan. Kids don't want to study; instead they try to sleep in class and put their grumpy pout faces on. They are in much better moods when it is sunny outside. So am I. We're getting pretty sick of "winter." I can't wait to put my winter coat in the back of the closet and not see it again for 6 months. The kids are still sick with colds and stuff, one girl has been out all week due to some illness. We're hoping that the kids that cough in our faces won't get us sick again.

This week hasn't been too terribly exciting. We've been prepping the kids for the "recital" or whatever it is. Basically, during our normal classes, the kids are going into the auditorium and giving their speeches and then playing some word games. Michael and I are fairly confident our kids will crash and burn. Part of me thinks that the head teacher wants to see how badly we are doing. The parents aren't coming or anything like that, but we still aren't completely sure what's going to happen on Friday. That should be an interesting post.

On Monday night after work, we stopped by Daiso, which is a chain like Dollar Tree. They have things ranging from 1,000 - 5,000 won. It's pretty awesome. I went crazy and bought a rolling pin, oven mitt, cutting board, a pack of nice chopsticks, a measuring cup, measuring spoons, two tart pans and two mini cake pans. It was all under 20,000 won. I've been in the mood to bake lately and after my failed attempt at cookies last weekend (the baking powder and soda are weird here, you have to use about 1/4 of what you expect to need), I needed some baking goodies to motivate me a little more.

We purchased a bunch of bananas (16) since Home Plus was selling them for crazy cheap. Of course, we forgot about them until Wednesday morning when I could smell them ripening in the kitchen. They were definitely still edible, but had brown spots and were very ripe. Michael and I both ate one for breakfast and Michael brought one with him to work, so that left us with 13 bananas. Wednesday morning, I made mini banana cream pies. I made the crust from scratch and managed to not mess up the custard part, although yolks here are really dark, so the custard part is kind of orange-y looking. They are pretty good, although the crust is pretty hard. I can assume that I worked the crust too much before rolling (which I feel like I always do), that I didn't have enough butter (it's really expensive here), and that the butter I used wasn't real butter. If anyone can show me where to get real butter in Korea, I would love to know. The stuff I've been buying which says "Fresh Butter" on the package, is definitely not pure butter. It is very yellow and doesn't taster like butter. I can only assume its some kind of hydrogenated oil that probably isn't very good for us. The butter tastes pretty good for grilled cheese though.

When we got back from work, I was determined to get rid of the rest of the bananas - down to 9. I mashed up five and made batter for banana bread/cake. Since I bake with a toaster oven and I use mini cake pans, I can only bake two mini cakes at a time. They took about an hour and a half to bake and they probably could have used a couple more minutes in the oven, but they are pretty good. I'm thinking I will probably bake the last two tonight to give to people at work. They seem to always be sharing food with us and we somehow manage to only bring enough for us to eat every time. I have quite a bit of batter left so I might make some pancakes or something tomorrow morning as well. I have four bananas left (in the freezer), so if anyone has any baking suggestions let me know.

I've been cooking a lot this week, which is crazy because usually we want dinner right away and we've been taking the time to make it instead of going out. This may or may not be saving us money. Today I made spaghetti carbonara with a homemade cream sauce which I thought was pretty good. Yesterday we had gimbap type rolls with carrots, onions, mushrooms and imitation crab. We bought some crappy nori for the rolls though, so they aren't turning out as pretty as they normally do.

Good news, I found the battery charger for my phone, so I will be able to take pictures again! I'm at school right now, so I will post pictures of my banana creations tomorrow.

Sad News

Well I guess I forgot to pack by battery charger for my camera. So this means that I have to order a new one and wait for it to be shipped. This will take a couple of weeks, so please bear with me. The pictures are obviously the best thing about this blog, so I probably won't be updating as frequently for a while.

We went to Home Plus this weekend, and while it was packed because it was the grand opening, it was pretty fun. It is a HUGE store, we didn't even make it to the top floor. We shopped for groceries and we also purchased some speakers for my computer and a straightener for me so I look a little more professional at work. Everything here seems pretty well priced. They had a lot of sales going on because of their opening, so that was nice too. We were able to stock up on a lot of produce. They had a bunch of bananas for 3,000 won (a steal here for 16 normal sized bananas) and buy one get one bundles of kiwis and eggs.

We're especially excited that this store opened up because it is pretty close to our apartment. We are able to walk there (it's about 1.5 - 2 miles away) and then depending on how much stuff we have, we can either walk back or take a taxi. This cuts down our dependence on taxis quite a bit, although we still have to go to E-Mart to get Gizmo's food, since we picked a brand that only they carry.

This Friday, our kiddies have some sort of recital going on, which includes giving a one minute speech that we have been training them for. Wish us luck, and we will let you all know how it goes. We are hoping this means we get to leave early on Friday! So far, the forecast for the weekend looks pretty gloomy. Low forties and rain don't sound like enjoyable spring weather to me. If it improves, we will probably be heading out for some hiking on a few trails that we have found.

We miss you all and wish you a wonderful week. Also, happy birthday to Carol and Paul!

Going to Myeondong

I think I've written a few times about Myeondong before, but last weekend we went on our first "real" trip to Chuncheon's shopping district. In this neighborhood, there is an underground shopping mall, a few streets lined with a department store and retail stores like Adidas, Kappa, and Fubu, restaurants, a movie theatre and the marketplace. There is even a "Chicken Alley" with about 20 or so restaurants that feature Chuncheon's famous chicken dish Dakgalbi.

The marketplace is quite large and has a wide variety of produce, fish and nick-knacks. We located many a fried item,, including a fantastic donut thingy. Michael was even able to find a yarn shop. Many of the store-owners were quite friendly, encouraging us to come in and look at their merchandise. We were not brave enough to buy any dried squid on a stick, but I am thinking about trying it.

We stopped for lunch at McDonalds, hoping for a little taste of Americana. After eating at Lotteria, Korea's inferior version of McDonalds, we were quite glad to get some "burgers" and some Coke Zero. We are happy to report that McDonalds fries taste just like at home, although Michael says the meat is not quite right. They of course have the Big Mac here, but there is no double cheeseburger or side salad, like in the states. They had items like spicy chicken nuggets, shrimp burgers, and corn salad. The food is just as cheap though. Sadly, the ketchup tasted awful.

It was a pretty fun day and the weather was great - 60 degrees! If the weather cooperates this weekend, we might try to climb a mountain or something. In the meantime, Shutter Island and Daybreakers have made it to Korea, so we will be going to these movies Thursday and Saturday morning. The battery on my camera is dead, so no new pictures until I find the charger - hopefully this weekend.

Italian Food in Korea

It's always interesting to see a country's perspective on cooking, and Korea definitely has a unique perspective. We've had a lot of fun going out to different restaurants so far, and Italian restaurants are among our favorites. We have been to three different Italian restaurants in Chuncheon so far. The latest place was Arno in Myeondong.

We ordered seafood Pane and Hawaii Pizza Rolls. The meal came with a small loaf of bread with vinegar and oil for dipping, a sampling of pickles and some sort of crazy salad (I'm sorry I forgot to take a picture).

In Korea, the assumption is that everyone shares, so we were served with our main dishes in the middle of the table even though I ordered the pizza rolls and Michael ordered the Pane. Pane here seems to be pretty popular. It is basically spaghetti in a cream sauce contained in a sweet and garlicky bread bowl. It's over the top, just like those ones from Dominos.

The pizza rolls were pretty boring, even though they had apples and pineapple bits in them and a cup of fruit sauce to dip the rolls in.

The food, all in all, was good. We had a nice meal and the waitress came to take our order for dessert. We had a choice of coffee, cake, or fruit. We both chose cake and the waitress came back a few minutes later with two fruit bowls. We thought, okay, they must be out of cake, no big deal, and ate our fruit. A few minutes later, she comes back with two pieces of cake and we were a little confused. We start eating and I looked at Michael and asked him, "Does your cake taste like meat?" He gave me a face of disgust and said, "Yeah, it does." We both kind of giggled. I left the rest of my cake on the plate, but Michael, not wanting to be rude, at his whole piece. It was very meaty. This was my first, and probably last, experience ordering cake for dessert in Korea. I will stick to fruit or ice cream from now on.

As we were leaving Myeongdong, I took a picture of one of the main shopping streets. At 10:30 at night, everything in Chuncheon seems to be dead (with the exception of McDonalds). We kind of expected to see people walking around, but were sadly mistaken. We know there's a nightlife in this small city, just not in Myeongdong.

All About Gizmo

Ms. Gizmo Jones got her share of photo time this week and I thought it was only fair to give her her own post. So here you go:

We bought Gizmo a shelf so she could look outside the window during the day.

And here she is enjoying some yogurt.

Gizmo sends her love and wishes everyone a happy White Day!

This week has had its ups and downs, so we're pretty glad the weekend is near! We haven't done much this week because of our cash flow situation and because it's been very cold (snow again). Even the head teacher asked us how things were going, "You know, because its very cold outside." The director agrees, he says that all the students are sleepy because it is dark and cold outside. So, I guess we can blame the bad weather on our blah week.

So, for the ups:

1) We got our first paycheck! Woohoo! It felt great to use the ATM this morning and take out so much won! We treated ourselves to a meal out and some ice cream fondue at Baskin Robins. This weekend we plan to see a couple of movies and go shopping for some much needed shelving units and a bigger litter box for Gizmo. We also plan to go to Myeongdong (in Chuncheon) to explore the city a bit more. Hopefully next weekend will be warmer and we will go sightseeing or maybe take a trip to Seoul.

2) Classes seem to be going well. And business at our hagwon seems to be booming. It sounds like there are requests for more kindergarten classes (one or possibly two), so the director asked us if we would be willing to teach another class. Since we are already teaching at capacity (120 hours a month), we would be getting compensated for this extra 8 hours if these classes start. It would only mean coming in to work half an hour earlier, so it seems pretty worth it if this happens.

Sadly there are some downs:

1) The weather! I'm sure we shouldn't be complaining since all of our Iowa readers have it so much worse (maybe), but it really sucks here. The high tomorrow is in the 40s, so were looking forward to that, but it really needs to stop snowing and I'm getting tired of wearing hats, gloves, big puffy coat, etc.

2) Our snot-nosed kids got us sick. Not badly, don't worry, we don't have swine flu 2.0. It's a minor head cold. I told the head teacher yesterday that I had a small cold and she said, "Oh really, do you need to see the doctor?" I couldn't believe she would suggest going to the doctor for something so commonplace in winter. Apparently everyone here sees the doctor over the slightest sniffle. We're hoping to feel ourselves again by Saturday.

3) We're having some problems "being fun" in our classes. Hopefully this isn't a big issue for them, since the director acted like it wasn't a big deal, but they keep trying to tell us that we need to be more fun in our classes (me especially). So, there have been a few "complaints" from the parents, and I'm assuming that they are all directed at me (Lisa). I had a private talk last week with the head teacher and today Michael and I talked about it with the director. One complaint is that we play too many games in the classroom. That's right, parents are upset that their kids are having fun in school. Other parents complain about their kids being bored in class, or not having fun. It's a lose-lose situation for us, because we're not supposed to play games and we're supposed to make class fun. I won't get too into detail on this, maybe I will blog about this later, but let's just say that I think this makes teaching kinda difficult. We'll see how it goes, Michael and I are discussing ways that we (mostly I) can improve this.

Well, that's about it. This was a long post and picture less too, so kudos to those of you who read it all. I will definitely take some pictures this weekend so you will have something to look at later.

Another weekend gone in a flash!

We took it easy this weekend, but we did manage to do a few things. The snow here has melted and we are enjoying not having to trudge through the snow to class. We were a little surprised to find quite a bit of litter under that snow though! One thing that has caught me by surprise here is how often we have to walk around puke on the sidewalks. Yes, people here get drunk every night of the week and are not at all ashamed to vomit on the street after having a little too much.

Saturday morning we got up early to catch the 9:35 showing of Alice in Wonderland. We found out when we got there that it was showing in 3D at 10 am, so we decided to wait a bit and see it in 3D. While we were waiting, Michael made friends with Shrek and we ate some sweet popcorn. Here, like in France, you have the option of having salty or sweet popcorn. The sweet popcorn here tastes like a combination of kettlecorn and caramelcorn. It's pretty tasty.

The movie itself was enjoyable, but the 3D was very disappointing. I read somewhere that Tim Burton chose not to film the movie in 3D and added it in later during editing. Honestly, I think the movie is worth seeing, but not in 3D. I wish I wouldn't have seen it in 3D and saved the extra $3 that it cost me.

Later that day, I tried my hand at some baking. We have limited baking supplies and a small toaster oven, so I had to be a little creative. I ended up making 2 mini loaves of bread and some sticky buns. I also have a bit of dough left to make something else later this week. I was pretty happy with the results considering we don't have measuring cups or spoons and I had about a square foot of space for kneeding.

For dinner last night, I tried my hand at making kimbap, which is a rice roll with veggies and sometimes meat. I made them with brown rice, shrimp and some leftover veggies that I pulled out of the freezer. We had them with honey mustard. They also like to put mayo on their rolls here, but we didn't have any at our apartment.

This morning, we slept in . When I got up, Gizmo took my place and kept the bed warm for Michael.

We went grocery shopping this afternoon, which is turning into a weekly habit for us. As soon as we have the ability to use cash again, I think we will just use the local market, which is about a block from our apartment; and the traveling trucks, which have produce for so much cheaper than the grocery stores. Today they were selling bags of 12 apples for 3,000 won. We bought six apples from the grocery store today for 5,000 won. And then we had to lug them all the way back to our apartment (about a mile). Today we picked up some magic pop rice cakes (which I am beginning to love) and bbq cheetos, as well as a bunch of veggies and fruits. A word on the cheeto situation here: they only sell the flavors barbeque and flaming. Kinda weird, since the name cheetos implies that they are cheesy. They also sell pringles here, but that is about it for Americanized snack food.

Fantastic Friday

Woohoo! It's Friday! Michael's been hard at work uploading several videos to Youtube. Here is a video of us walking through the park near CGV our first weekend in Chuncheon:

Next is a little tour of our school. It shows the teacher's room and the entry and a couple of classrooms:

Finally here is a video of CGV, the movie theatre.

Check out his page on youtube for some more videos:
http://www.youtube.com/lovebirdsinkorea