Bouncing Back.

Hello!
I apologize for the month-long hiatus.  It has been a very long month, after being in the hospital and then getting a nasty cold a short time later.  I am currently feeling much better and hoping to get out of my "I keep getting sick" laziness.

I found some OTC American meds.  

My first ever IV before the whole "you have pneumonia" bit.

  

 
I was in room 501, F/27.  They spelled my name wrong, it should be 제나 브레디.  The way it is written on the board is like Jayina  Breaduh.  I couldn't figure out why the doctor kept calling me Bread.  In Korea, the last name comes first, example: Kim, Hee Jung.  Kim is the last name.  So not only did they spell my name wrong, they put it in the wrong order.  I asked the doctor why he kept saying bread, because we were talking about food, and I was vehemently telling him that no, I do not want only bread.  Then I realized, that he thought that was my name.  So I at least told him that it's not Bread, it's Brady (pronounced like the Brady Bunch!).
The other picture is my swollen hand when the IV was not placed correctly.  I had to tell the nurse 3 times that there was something wrong with the IV, using various hand gestures, phone dictionary, and then finally demanding that she see the difference between my two hands.  My hand was not "okay".

They actually had pretty decent spaghetti.  But there was no meat with the spaghetti, which is strange.  Typically at home we have it with some hamburger, or as my UK friends call it, mince.  There was actually no protein on the plate.  You may point to the hard boiled egg that is obviously on the salad.  Nope, I had prepared hard boiled eggs to have at the hospital and added it to my salad.  (They let me out one afternoon for 2 hours to get "good lunch".  I went home, showered, did laundry and boiled eggs.)

I came out of the hospital with an extremely negative view of Korea.  I couldn't bear to eat the food, whether at school or in restaurants.  The only thing that seemed to help with my negative views was hanging out with my foreigner friends.  I have been trying desperately to ease the negativity, yet find balance between seeing my friends and having time to myself at home.  It has worked, for the most part I feel most of my positive feelings of Korea returning.  There are some things however, that once noticed, it is nearly impossible to turn a blind eye to.

I will do my best to catch up to the present over the course of the week!  This includes a BBQ on the beach, an Outdoor Theatre, a Sand Sculpture Festival, and perhaps a Terror in a Toga Murder Mystery Party.  

I hope that all is well, and I miss all of you!  It is my goal to start catching up with people again, so I'm sorry if you've been feeling a bit neglected.  :)  Loves.

Colds in Korea are not fun.

Hello!
I apologize for not posting in a while.  I somehow got a terrible cold last week and have not been able to do much of anything, besides knit and watch movies.  I made a trip to the doctor on Saturday, and plan to go again this afternoon.  This whole business has just taken up way too much of my time and my productivity levels are dropping drastically.  


On one hand, it is kind of the teachers and vice-principal to worry about me.  But on the other, it is so strange when someone tells me that I should go to the doctor for a cold.  Then I tell them that yes, I did.  They insist that I should go again, to get an IV.  I have never in my life needed an IV, so I can only imagine how that will actually help me.  But I will try I guess.  


In my 3rd grade classes this week the topic is "Our Foreign Neighbors".  So, I talked about foreigners in Korea, foreign marriages and reasons that Koreans might marry a foreigner.  I learned that marriage between a Korean and a foreigner is by far more acceptable than simply being gay.  I mostly threw that in there to make sure that they were paying attention, because any time you mention anything about being gay, there is an uproar in the classes.  Sometimes they try to accuse their friends of being gay, and other times they just say "oooh, no teacher" and laugh uncomfortably.  


Coming from Minneapolis, which has the 2nd largest gay population in the US (after SanFrancisco) it is amusing to me.  I should be more specific.  Their reaction is amusing to me.  I am no expert, nor am I politically minded, but to see that Korea is still in complete denial about homosexual relationships makes me yearn for the grace with which homosexuality is embraced in Minneapolis.  That being said, I know even in MN that there are many obstacles left to fight in the quest for equality, but we have come a long way.   (I hope that this has not offended anyone, it is meant to be more of a comment on views of homosexuality in Korea, such as I've seen.)


We also talked about foreigners in Korea, and what sort of sights in Busan the students would recommend to foreigners.  Many of them take pride in their city and offered great places, Haeundae Beach, Dadaepo Beach, Nampo, Seomyeon, etc.  Several students made a joke out of it and put Keonkuk Middle School, which is our middle school.  One of the groups yesterday chose Keonkuk Middle School, and wrote
 "We go to school every day.  We are very hard."  
Now, I struggled with what to say to the group because I try to encourage them to use English and I try not to correct them in front of other students; I want them to be comfortable speaking in my class.  Because this was a written exercise, and that particular phrase is... not quite acceptable in a classroom setting, I decided to shift them another way.  I asked them if they meant that they worked very hard, or studied very hard.  No.  They were talking about how hard it is to walk up the hill that the school is on.  Okay, that's a direction that I can work with.  I think they changed it to "We go to school every day.  It is difficult to climb the hill."  


Oh the joys of teaching.  

The sun going down over the river.  

One of the teachers arm wrestling with the students.

 
On Friday there was some arm wrestling in the teacher's office.  :)  It was great to watch.

Hee Jung enjoying her steamed milk. 

After work I went to Starbucks with Hee Jung and Ji Hyun.  Hee Jung was very tired and very much enjoyed her steamed milk!  

Later at Georgina's house, we had a wonderful girls' night.  We had intended to have wine and watch a movie, but we completely forgot to watch the movie.  We finally called it a night at about 2:30am.

 On Saturday I woke up bright and squirrely and went running.  Which was a great beginning to the weekend!  I did some catching up with family and friends from home before getting ready for the day.

 I met with some friends and we went to a teahouse in the mountains.  It was beautiful.  They make tea sets and tea pots in the traditional style.  They serve tea to visitors and teach about the traditions involved.   In Korean.  We didn't understand any of it.

 

 

A mini bulgogi snack.  Delicious.  

 
In the evening I met up with a different group of friends for dinner and then to head to a birthday party. We decided on a Turkish restaurant for dinner, but when we couldn't find it we ended up at our second choice, an indian restaurant.  It turned out to be fantastic!  I shared Chicken Tikka with Georgina and it was so delicious.  ( I forgot to take a picture though! I'll just have to go back soon and take pictures then.  :)

We met up with the birthday party after dinner.   There ended up being tons of people there to celebrate, and it was a great night!

On the left Hee Jung, and on the right Ji Hyun.  In the taxi on our way to sports day.

Preparing for sports day.

Jumping on the trampoline!

 

Poor Hee Jung was so hungover!

Sweet & Sour Pork

An end to a lazy week...

It's a beautiful Friday here in Busan!  

What a wonderful week, my students all had midterm exams this week so I had a chance to 'deskwarm' and work ahead two chapters.  As far as I can tell, I have only one more chapter to prepare, as we only study about three chapters per term.  

To be honest, I was hard at work most of the time, but also catching up on some tv and movies while I worked, which helped pass the time much more quickly.  

The students finished their exams yesterday, so today we ventured across the river to have sports day.  This consists of most students participating in soccer... and I'm not sure what else.  We wandered off to find a bathroom.   Imagine that, girls needing the bathroom?  (I joke because most people make fun of me for needing the bathroom at inopportune moments.)  But, it wasn't me, it was Hee Jung who needed it, I swear!  And thank goodness because the bathroom looked sketch.  

On the way back to the soccer fields we came across 퐁퐁 (pong pong)  trampolines!  We immediately set about finding out who to pay to make this a possibility and in no time were behaving like children hopping about on the trampolines.  So much fun, I forgot how much fun they are!  

We came back to Saha-gu (my neighborhood) to have lunch.  It was delicious!  I have tasted the dish that I had several times, but it is very spicy so today was the first time I ordered it as my meal.  It was just as delicious as I remembered.  The girls must have been momentarily crazy though, because they ordered each of us a dish and then a huge platter of sweet & sour pork for the table.  All of it tasted wonderful, but we certainly didn't finish all of our food.  It was way too much!

After lunch I wandered around outside, exploring areas that I haven't yet explored in my neighborhood and then wandering along the river until I figured I still had time for a nap.  :)  

I do have pictures from today, but they are currently trapped in my camera while the battery is charging for tonight and tomorrow.  Keep an eye out for these in the coming days!

삼겹살, Tea and Bonfires.

 The weekend started out great!  I went out to dinner with my Korean friends from work, Hee Jung and Ji Hyoon.    We had samgyupsal 삼겹살.  I love grilling the meat at the table, it is sizzling hot and tastes very fresh.  
I am always amazed at these BBQ restaurants.  I have never been to a place like this in America, but would love to go if I can find one.  This will definitely be something I miss when I leave Korea.  It seems very unsafe to me though, which may mean that we simply don't have places where you can grill your own food.  :(

On Saturday the 28th, I was invited to go on a Korean Culture tour. We started in a town called Mungyeong, at the annual tea festival.  Mungyeong is known for the traditional ceramics that were made there.  As we were walking up to the village, we noticed some monkeys on the other side of the stream.  We wandered over there to say hi.  :)

 Above is the view looking back to the entrance, it was a beautiful valley.  

Below, we got in on some free snacks before our lunch!  A ball of rice and seaweed.  Delicious!

 More samgyupsal 삼겹살 but not quite as good as Friday night, but still good.  :)

On the right, in the lower right corner is a pink drink called makgeolli 막걸리.  It tasted a little strange and must have been fermented because it was effervescent.  But it was good. :)

 After lunch we took the bus to a place where we could ride rail bikes.  It was really fun and had beautiful scenery!  

 

 After the fieldtrip I went home to change, and then headed out to Dadaepo 다대포 beach for a bonfire with some friends.  On our way there we happened upon the end of the Fountain Show, which I can't wait to see in it's entirety.  The fire was already going, so we sat down and hung out.  

 

Once the group thinned out a bit, I took over the tending the fire.  My skills are a bit rusty, but I managed to bring the fire back around. Kept it going til we were all ready to head home, which was exactly what we needed.  :)