Summer camp....

Hi!
This week is summer camp, which means only a few students.  I can't tell if they are bored or just hate me, or really don't want to have anything to do with school.  My guess is that it is a combination of all three.  I have tried to make a really fun summer camp, Lord of the Flies/Survival themed, but they seem to not care, which I completely understand.  And since I've had about 4 students each day, all coming in somewhere between 9:15 and 10am (we're supposed to start at 9) it's been pretty quiet.

I don't have a whole lot (or any) as far as pictures go for this week, but I've definitely been out having fun.  I had dinner with some friends on Monday, delicious as always.  Tuesday I did some shopping, it was high time that I get at least some new t-shirts.  I don't want to wear out all of my clothing before too long.  We started early, so by 6 it seemed quite late and we headed home.  I stopped at the kimbap place near my house for a quick take away meal.

On Wednesday I went to the beach with some friends.  I haven't been spending nearly enough time on the beach, which frustrates me a bit.  But it is different too, because I'm not used to taking a bus and having to carry all my beach stuff with me.  First world problems, I know.  But something that does come up.
An anecdote from Wednesday.  Living in Minnesota, there are not many (or any that I know of) saltwater anything.  In fact it would take an airplane or many hours by car, bus or train to get to an ocean or Great Salt Lake in Utah.  Every time I swim in the sea it is a surprise that it is salty.  Now to clarify: I am well aware that the sea is salty.  But in the final moments when I'm walking into the cold water I lose all sense of ocean and don't think about the saltiness that will momentarily occur.
When I said something to the effect that I am always surprised at how salty the water is in the sea, my friend from the UK laughed and told me that one of my fellow minneapolitans always says the same thing.  And she thinks it's strange because in England they have only the sea so it would be weird if it wasn't salty when swimming!

On that note, I'll leave you until next week when I'll hopefully have some fun stories and pics from the weekend!

Rainy Season?

I think that one of the questions that I get asked the most by friends and family is what the weather is like here in Busan.  As shown above, it is not all that different from Minnesota.  It is slightly more temperate than MN though, with milder winters.  I have missed home, though I am glad to not experience the record breaking highs that MN has had this summer. 

On Wednesday it was a special day to celebrate the hot summer.  On that day in Korea they eat Chicken Soup, because it is healthy and hopefully will help to ensure that the old, young and sick will make it through the hot weather in the coming month of August.  I think I was extremely lucky on this day because I got to have it at school (a blessing after having terrible soup for the last few weeks with less than mediocre lunches in general lately), and my friend Hee Jung invited me to her house.  Her mom's Chicken Soup is her favorite, so I was very excited to try it!  She made my favorites, dried cuddlefish with honey-pepper sauce and bulgogi (not pictured below).  The Chicken Soup shown below is the one that Hee Jung's mom made, it was much better than the one we had at school!

Dried cuddlefish with a honey-pepper sauce.  Mashisoyo!  Delicious!

A delicious Chicken Soup to celebrate the warmth of summer.  

This past week was the last week in the semester.  There were many classes that were cancelled due to ceremonies and whatnot.  On the last day of the term there were no classes at all, just a ceremony to celebrate.  After the ceremony the students left and most of us teachers got on a bus for our teacher's outing.  

We drove about an hour and a half out of Busan to a valley that was quiet and very green.   We ate bibimbap for lunch and had makkeoli, which is a type of rice wine.   After lunch we had some coffee, waded in the stream and played some games.  We had dinner here as well, pork and duck BBQ and then soju and beer.  It was so much fun!

On Saturday, I went to see The Dark Night Rises with some friends, which was fantastic!  Afterwards we went out for drinks to celebrate the engagement of Caroline and Andy.  So happy for them!  I was glad to join them, because I'd been feeling terrible about the fact that Caroline's now-fiancé has been here since mid-May and I hadn't met him yet.  This is mostly due to my pneumonia, but it is no excuse for the end of June and some 20 days of July that has passed since then.  :)  

Laura and I, she wanted to see what she looks like with a mustache!

Friends Georgina, Andy & Caroline.  

  

Now it's the rainy season...

Hey!
This week has been a busy one.  I have been catching up on many of the household chores that were somehow ignored since I was sick.  Like the crazy amount of frost buildup in the fridge.  Ugh, it was starting to infringe on the minimal amount of space in my small fridge.

It's all gone now, phew!

I was invited to go to a Terror in a Toga party about a month ago.  It was a roman murder mystery theme, which was awesome!  A toga was required, among any other items that you chose to add to your costume.  My character was a detective.  I was just glad that I wasn't the murderer!

I made these out of yarn and cardboard!  They were really hard to walk in though.  

A full view of my costume!

These 'curbside blocks' were recemented after getting knocked over.

This is really random, but just something that has caught my eye as strange.  On the street up to my school, someone slapped some blacktop over the street without doing any sort of preparation to the road beneath.  Being that it is on a fairly steep hill, you can see that the whole slab of blacktop is literally sliding down the hill.  It just seems like a waste of money to me if it's not going to be done properly.

I had my friend Georgina over for dinner so that I could share my latest food craze with her.  On the left is a scalloped potato and carrot, if I can call it that when there's no cheese involved, only soy milk and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.  

 On the right is a beef that is thinly sliced when I buy it, that I make on the stovetop (hob as my UK friends call it) and then slice up.  It is somewhat similar to eating out at a Korean BBQ where you grill the food yourself, except the price tag is a bit more my style.  Pictured with the beef is a hite beer and more importantly a sesame oil with a bit of a sea salt in the corner.  It has a lovely flavor that is great to dip the beef in.  

I had been craving Mexican food for quite some time, since before I was in the hospital.  But since the closest one is about an hour away I hadn't had a chance to get there.  We made an afternoon of it, having Mexican and then going to play Trivial Pursuit.  I decided on the nachos at the restaurant to go with my Dr. Pepper that I ordered.  Dr. Pepper is few and far between here, so I got one for the road as well.  It's currently nestled in my cupboard waiting for a rainy day.  The nachos were good, but I admit that I was hoping for a bit more cheese and a little bit less lettuce.  It was almost as if more work went into making it look delicious versus how it actually tastes.  I did fully enjoy it though, with a little extra cheese and great friends as company.  

I was invited to go to a Lotte Giants baseball game on Wednesday the 4th of July with some coworkers.  We had been trying to get to a game for the past couple months, so it was great to get out with them!   I had been hoping to find a hot dog, but I didn't see any.  We did however bring many snacks, in fact so many that we had a huge box of them!  I thought that we were lucky to have the guys with because they managed the heavy lifting.  :)  There was pizza, chicken, dried fish, nuts, beer, soju and coke.  Quite the mix.  

Pouring the beer. 

Wine is something that I don't often have, as I have to go out of my way to get it and I have to carry it home.  Perhaps it is better that it's not at my local grocery store because then I would have it all the time.  As I do like to use it for cooking, this poses a bit of problem.  So I did something to make it a little easier to have around the apt for cooking... i.e. not for drinking.  

This is a cold soup that I got to try today for the first time.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but the broth of this soup is actually sort of slushy it's so cold.  There is a pile of noodles in the middle topped with some chili paste, thinly sliced radish, julienned cucumbers, a hard boiled egg and sesame seeds.  

I was really nervous about trying it, as the idea of a cold soup sort of freaks me out and a slushy soup?  Well that's something that I haven't encountered before.  But my friend and coworkers helped me, showed me how to cut the noodles with the scissors provided and stir it all together.  Some grilled pork was served alongside the soup, and is meant to be eaten with the noodles/soup.  So I gave it a try and it was delicious!  I will definitely look for it again before the summer is over.  :)

One last thing.  If you've stuck with me this far, thanks and hopefully this last tidbit will be worth your while.  

There are so many couples that are dressed alike in Korea, it's so strange to see.  I guess that I just thought that they would happen to both like the same shirt or shoes and get the same ones.  But I saw a friend browsing a website the other day that caters to couples who want to dress alike.  I had no idea that such a thing existed!

Here's the website:  http://www.stylecouple.com/

A Glimpse of July

Good Morning Busan!  

July bloomed sunny, or at least it  was sunny yesterday when I woke up at 10am.  :)  

This song was rolling around in my head before I was even fully awake, so I wanted to share it with you.  It reminds me of my childhood, which sounds weird, but was filled with country music and singing in my mom's pickup with the windows rolled down.  

I can't believe that it's July!  Here's hoping that the last few weeks of school go quickly.  Since the students have finals this week, the next two weeks will be fairly light.  I am told to go over chapters that they will have already been tested on -  so I'm planning some games for class and  hopefully some speaking practice so they don't forget all of it over vacation.  

Along with the progression of time, I have a few goals over the next months.  I am planning to reign in my spending a bit, mostly in the food & entertainment division.  I enjoy food, but it is not quite as satisfying when I'm not the one preparing it.  I'm fully committed to more homemade food and more street food/kimbap, which is cheaper than the foreign style restaurants that I've been frequenting since my hospital stay.  

Part of this is a challenge to myself.  I have felt extremely limited in the kitchen without an oven.  I have decided, however, that for someone who claims cooking as a hobby, this should not be such a limitation.  There are many different ways to cook - if I was camping, I would be more than happy cooking over a fire and experimenting.  So I don't have an oven.  Get over it.  Expand your mind.  P.S. if I was cooking over a fire it would give it just the most lovely smokey flavor...

Still not the update that I promised, but it is coming.  Eventually.

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!