December

wow its been a while since I last wrote anything! Been really busy and sick. Mostly busy with work and following SS501 activities. Work has been interesting. Lately the kids have been really nice to me. The other day two of my boys were fighting over me in one class (3rd grade), then in the next class I walked in and one of the boys was sitting at his desk wearing my hat, scarf, and gloves (4th grade).

Yesterday was a really interesting day as well. I n my 2nd class (1st and 2nd grade) I was having a discussion with my students about what they want to be when they grow up. Here is part of the discussion:

student: "teacher, what do you want to be when you grow up?" (keep in mind that I am 35 years old!)

Me: "Me? I want to be a photographer. A photographer is a person who takes pictures of things. I would also like to be a model."

Students: "oh no teacher! You can't be a model!!"

Me: "Why?"

Students: "because teacher, models are really thin and you are very fat!" (thanks for stating the obvious!)

Me: " :( so what should I do?"

Students: "running motion for 30 minutes every day, jump rope 200 times, hoolahoop 2000 times a day, and drink 10 liters of water each day"

Me: "ok, so what should I eat?"

Students: " for breakfast-2 carrots, 3 broccoli, and 1 apple. Lunch- soup, and 5 broccoli, dinner- pizza and rice!"

Me: "What about chicken?"

Students: "oh no teacher, chicken is too fattening!"

Disappointment:

I have had a lot of disappointment over the last couple of months with regards to traveling and SS501 activities. It started in October when I was supposed to go to Japan for 4 days during Koreas holiday time called chuseok. We had our tickets and hotel room reserved and paid for then my friends boss told her that if she went-she would be fired so we had to cancel everything-she ended up quitting two weeks later anyway so we should went anyway! Everybody over here was so worried about getting swine flu-but now that so many people have gotten it-they have realised that it is no worse than the regular flu-the media just blew it out of proportion! So the next week I had VIP tickets to see SS501 in concert for my birthday. The day before my birthday I get a call from the concert venue saying that concert was cancelled due to swine flu (again with the pig flu nonsense!). So then, I enter 120 times in a contest to meet SS501's leader Kim Hyun Joong-and I didnt win-not that I really expected to! The event ended up being cancelled due to some copyright issues or something like that. Then I find out that SS501 is going to be in a charity concert in Seoul. I desperately searched the internet to find tickets with no luck (mostly because my korean is so limited!) only to find out later that tickets were free-all you had to do is register online and bring 2 packs of rameon to the concert. I find this out the day of the concert and then find out all of the tickets were gone! :(. So next my friend and I decide that we want to go somewhere for our winter vacation. At first we thought Malaysia (some day I will get there) but it was too expensive so we settled on Singapore-which is cool because I have an E-Pal there that I would like to meet. So then her boss never gives her approval to go because apparently there is some fuss about foreign teachers getting too much vacation time here. Please-I get 3 days in the winter and 3 days in the summer-thats not vacation time in America-thats regular time off for a work week! It is a little different for my friend though because she works for public school and gets 6 weeks off per year-comparable to the US. So we decided to cancel our trip to Singapore. Yesterday I found out that SS501 postponed their Bangkok, Thailand concert from Jan.9, to Feb.13-which is valentines day weekend and Chinese new year so a lot of Asians had to cancel their tickets. Since I do not celebrate Chinese new year and will have the time off, I am trying to go to Thailand for the concert-we will see what happens! SS501 will be holding 3 concerts that month (from what I have heard)-1 in Thailand and then 2 encore concerts in Seoul at the end of the month. My goal is to see all three. I am worried about what the future holds for them as their contract is up in June so I want to see them as much as possible for the time being in case it is a long time before I get to see them again. Last time I saw them in concert I was so sick that I couldnt really enjoy it fully. It was the best concert I had ever seen, but at the same time I was so miserable the whole time.

Sleep:

I am suffering from lack of sleep! I don't know why! Part of it is because I have bronchitis and the caughing spells are keeping me up all night. I have a very long day today that I am dreading because I I have not slept since Sunday night and it is Tuesday!

Gyeongju:

A few weeks ago my friend Julie came down to visit me. I finally had the chance to explore the beautiful town I live in. Gyeonju was the first capitol korea under the Shilla Dynasty. Our first stop was to visit a place called Shilla Mellinium Park. This place is so cool. It is different from an traditional village I have ever gone too. We originally went there because we had heard that our favorite TV show Boys over Flowers filmed a few scenes there including the date between JiHoo and JanDi and the hotel on the property was the set for JiHoo's home. It was so cool-of course as soon as I got home I ahd to watch those scenes again! We were also pleasantly surprised by the shows they had. First we watched a show demonstrating the military techniques they used during the Shilla Dynasty, then we watched a show called "Tears of the Queen" about Queen SeonDuk (the first Queen) love for a Baekje general. Even though the dialogue was all in korean, the music and drama was powerful enough that we could understand what was going on. There is also a working set there for the drama "Queen SeonDuk" which is in it's final episodes on TV now. We got to walk on the set and take pictures with cutouts of the characters. It was really interesting and I love the drama as well. Throughout the park there are kiosk where you can make traditional arts and crafts. We didnt get to see much because we didnt get there until almost four and the park closed at 8. It is really big so you need a whole day to fully enjoy it. The next day we took a city bus tour-which I expected to be really cheesy but was actually pretty cool. We got on the bus at Gyeongju train station at 11 o clock in the morning. We didnt eat breakfast so we went to the family mart next to the station and triangle kimbap and coffee then set in front of the station and had a little picnic. Then we got on the bus where our guide greeted me in english and explained that everything would be in korean. Fortunately, before each stop, they played a short video explaining about the place we were going to in english. We first went to a park were the royal family played games. Then we went to where all the royal family have their tombs. One of the tombs has been excevated so you can go inside it. Everything has been moved to the National museum and their are replicas inside of what was originally there. We then went to the first observatory in Asia built by Queen SeonDuk. Then lunch at a Korean buffet and off to the Buddhist Grotto where they held their religious ceremonies. Finally we went to the Buddhist temple Bugulksa. The grounds of this temple is absolutely beautiful-especially when we went because all of the leaves were changing colors and it was in the evening so the sun was starting to set which made the colors even more vibrant. The tour ended back at the train station around 6p.m.

Bulguksa Temple Grounds

Grotto
observatory