Okay, so I know it's been awhile and there has been a lot going on lately!! I am not quite sure where to begin!
Well, if anyone was wondering, the YBM Flea Market for the kindergartners was a success. I had to be there super early and expected the Flea Market to last for about three hours. Nope! Cindy tells us that we're taking the kindies to E-Mart across the street for ONE FULL HOUR. Luckily, I was only paired up with two students instead of three. But what was I supposed to do with them in E-Mart? I figure, hey, kids love toys. Boy was I wrong. My kids sat and looked at freakin' ERASERS for like 20 minutes. They were not at all interested in toys. Each kid had 1,000 won to spend too. So at first my kids wanted to buy cookies, then chips, then erasers, then stickers, and finally one girl got stickers and the other got a Cars pen with multiple colored ink. Great choice girls!
Then we head back to the school and the foreign teachers go to their posts in the play room which was set up as the flea market. There was a grocery store, book store, toy store, and a clothes shop. Guess which one I was...yep, the clothes store. I got to sell second-hand clothes to the little tykes. We were each paired with two students from the upper level classes. The first half, I got stuck with a student who I didn't know (I think her name is Linda). She was pretty awesome. Everything at our store was supposed to be 500 won. But everytime a kid came to buy something, she would make up her own prices.
Student Buyer: How much is this? (Pointing to a pair of ugly crazy pants)
Linda: Ummmmmm....
Me: Linda, how much are the pants?
Linda: 5,000 won.
Me: Really?
Linda: 2,000 won.
Student Buyer: Okay, thank you.
Before I say anything, Linda takes the poor kid's money and the sale is over. The poor kid had to return the pants later b/c he didn't have enough money to buy his lunch! haha oh kids....
We started Summer Intensive classes last week and wow, are they intensive. My day begins at 10:30 am with two intensive courses. Then I have my two kindergarten classes. Then an hour break, during whcih I prepare my afternoon classes. Then I have class from 3-9:10pm. so I basically live my entire day at ECC. At least I work some pretty cool people.
Students are on their summer break from school and instead of just enjoying their childhood and running around the park and playing with friends, they get to come to YBM and take extra English classes in the morning. Yippee! I'm just happy that the students that I have twice a day are the "good" quiet students. But it's fun to meet other students that I normally wouldn't teach. I think I scare the new students b/c I'm really loud (surprise, surprise). My regular students are used to me yelling out "EXCELLENT" while the other students are like, "Dear god, we have a crazy teacher" and stare at me like they have no idea what's going on. Man, I love that look. Gotta keep 'em on their toes, right!?
This weekend Priscilla, Luc, Yoomi and I went to Busan for our holiday. I didn't realize that no one else had holiday except for the YBMers. Priscilla and I stayed with my friend Claire for the weekend, saving us some money. We had a blast and a half. Busan is a beautiful port town. Much smaller than Seoul (but it's the 2nd largest city in Korea) it's much more chill and relaxing as well. Unfortunately, Priscilla and I never made it to the beach. We were too tired from traveling on the first day and we came into Busan pretty late in the afternoon. The second day we were in Busan, we went shopping around the beach area but decided not to go swimming. Mainly because it was ridiculously hot and there were RIDICULOUS amounts of people. It seemed like everyone and their mother came to Busan for the weekend to enjoy the weather and the beaches. Of course, we were hanging out in the most popular beach area, Haeundae.
The shopping mall in Busan was pretty nice! Claire bought a classic Korean English T-shirt that makes absolutely no sense. I don't even know what it's supposed to even say. I have a picture of it and if anyone can tell me what it's trying to say, I will give you 100 extra credit points.
Our second night out in Busan, Claire, Priscilla and I met up with some other friends, Benjie (from my YBM training) and Erin (Claire's friend) at some outdoor bar/kiosk. This was the coolest bar ever! It was just a small tent with a small bar and about 8 stools. The bartenders were REALLY fun and never missed a chance to make fun of me and my awesome music choices. (One of them asked if I was a teenager because I requested some Banana Girl "Chocolate"...cuz I'm classy like that). Well, after a couple drinks, I had to use the restroom and being a random kiosk bar in the middle of the street, not connected to any building or affiliated with any other bar, I was wondering what to do. Well, the owner bartender, Pan, made his co-worker, Jay, take me to the bathroom. So I follow Jay to a parking ramp. I'm thinking, oh my god, where the hell is he taking me. There are no cars in the ramp and he points around the corner to me. I look and freak out, thinking I'm just supposed to go in the corner of the ramp. LoL... Luckily, there was a door that I did not see that was the bathroom... Jay laughs at me and I feel like a complete idiot.
It was ridiculously hot out, even at night, and the lights from the bar were not making things any cooler. Therefore, Pan and Jay take turns fanning us with old beer signs. I absolutely loved it! I had my own Korean Cabana Boys!!! haha
The next day, which was our last day, Priscilla, Claire, and I decide that we should see some of the real sights of Busan. We were going to go to a temple but once we stepped outside, it looked like it was going to rain. Well, we didn't want to get stuck at a temple in the rain so we decide to go to the Haeundae Aquarium. We get to the aquarium and find out it's ridiculously expensive to see some fish. So we walk around the beach, which is still super busy even though it's cloudy and rainy. Then it starts to downpour and we run like crazy to the nearest building. We end up going to a steak and salad restaurant, VIPS, and decide to just eat lunch there. It was a really nice restaurant with an amazing salad bar. But oh my god, I have never been so embarrassed in my life... Okay, here's what happened:
I had to use the restroom and luckily, it's in the restaurant. (Usually, in a large building, there will be a bathroom on each floor which patrons will use) So I go in and the toilet has like 20 buttons, all in Korean. So I do my thing and then I realize I don't know which button to flush the toilet. Great. So I look at the buttons and the small little pictures on the buttons but nothing is giving me the "flush" vibe. So I just do the "eeny meeny miny mo" thing and press a button. All of a sudden water is shooting up everywhere and I freak out. I have no idea how to turn it off!!! Luckily, no one else was in the bathroom. So I just put down the lid and run out like no tomorrow. I just hope they don't have me on video running out of the bathroom like a bat outta hell. Lol.... How embarrassing. Looking back at it now, I'm sure the flush lever was totally noticable and large... Hey, I'm happy that I got a good story out of it...and that the bathroom didn't flood. Cuz then THAT would be even more embarrassing trying to explain the situation to the restaurant manager.
Okay, switching gears... Today, we are still on holiday and Priscilla and I decide to go to Dongdaemun to do some shopping. Unfortunately, we decide to go at about 4:00pm so we don't get there until about 5ish. After wandering around for a bit and getting lost a couple times, we realize that most of the shops have closed or would be closing so we weren't able to do much shopping! I was a little bummed but at least it was an adventure. Next time, we've decided we have to go much earlier and make plans in advance. Oh, I'm sure I disappointed Mr. Rick Steves Jr. (aka my dad). I shoulda known better!!!
Can't wait for my next adventure in Korea!!! With stories like mine, things can only go uphill....right?! I hope so!!!
