Where to begin?!
From where I left off I guess...
Now I’m in my third week of teaching I've worked out my favourite classes and students and worked out who the more ‘challenging’ students are. I have one mute girl who I get to do a lot of listening and writing activities; one boy who gets bullied quite badly and one boy who is…alittle big shit. He’s
the school bully and is completely horrible and I've not really worked out what
I can, if anything, do about him.
As well as my regular classes with Grades 4 and 6 I've now started teaching a 2 hour “level up” club for the students who need to study more to get to the level they need to be at before moving onto Middle school. This week I taught my first Conversation Class with the teachers… They told me the teachers’ book and the CD were very expensive so they seemed quite impressed when I told them I’d found it online and downloaded all of the modules and recorded some of the activities myself on my phone. In conclusion – the teaching is going well.
MOVING ON…
Because you're not really here to hear about the teaching. You're here for funny Konglish stories and to find out really just how good McDelivery is.
But first, let me journey back to a couple of weeks ago…
I headed north on Tuesday evening to meet up with a few people for dinner. One miscommunication led to more broken English/Korean questions from a charming restaurant owner and the next thing I know, I’m sprinting after a tiny apron-clad Korean lady through the streets of Nowon with 7 other foreigners, all laughing so hard we could barely breath whilst being watched my the hoards of local street diners. Eventually the sprinting ends and we arrive outside a “fish roasting”
restaurant,
all thoroughly confused but bloody hungry.
Just an average Tuesday evening here in Seoul!
What had happened was… We had one vegetarian in the group which is hard enough here in Korea because they seems to put meat in EVERYTHING but it’s made even harder when you go into a Korean barbecue restaurant and try to explain this in Korean. Luckily this vegetarian eats fish and we tried to ask if they served fish or vegetarian meals at the barbecue restaurant. So, not understanding us at all but in classic Korean style they offered (but really did not explain whatsoever) to take us to a fish restaurant. Quite why we had to RUN there is still unclear...
Luckily it all worked out brilliantly; the food was delicious and company was great. I’ll have to try Korean barbecue another time…
The Korean lessons I mentioned last time have already started!! I went along to the Korean
From where I left off I guess...
Now I’m in my third week of teaching I've worked out my favourite classes and students and worked out who the more ‘challenging’ students are. I have one mute girl who I get to do a lot of listening and writing activities; one boy who gets bullied quite badly and one boy who is…a
As well as my regular classes with Grades 4 and 6 I've now started teaching a 2 hour “level up” club for the students who need to study more to get to the level they need to be at before moving onto Middle school. This week I taught my first Conversation Class with the teachers… They told me the teachers’ book and the CD were very expensive so they seemed quite impressed when I told them I’d found it online and downloaded all of the modules and recorded some of the activities myself on my phone. In conclusion – the teaching is going well.
MOVING ON…
Because you're not really here to hear about the teaching. You're here for funny Konglish stories and to find out really just how good McDelivery is.
But first, let me journey back to a couple of weeks ago…
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| Team SPRINT FOR FISH |
I headed north on Tuesday evening to meet up with a few people for dinner. One miscommunication led to more broken English/Korean questions from a charming restaurant owner and the next thing I know, I’m sprinting after a tiny apron-clad Korean lady through the streets of Nowon with 7 other foreigners, all laughing so hard we could barely breath whilst being watched my the hoards of local street diners. Eventually the sprinting ends and we arrive outside a “fish roasting”
 |
| Photo booth fun |
Just an average Tuesday evening here in Seoul!
What had happened was… We had one vegetarian in the group which is hard enough here in Korea because they seems to put meat in EVERYTHING but it’s made even harder when you go into a Korean barbecue restaurant and try to explain this in Korean. Luckily this vegetarian eats fish and we tried to ask if they served fish or vegetarian meals at the barbecue restaurant. So, not understanding us at all but in classic Korean style they offered (but really did not explain whatsoever) to take us to a fish restaurant. Quite why we had to RUN there is still unclear...
Luckily it all worked out brilliantly; the food was delicious and company was great. I’ll have to try Korean barbecue another time…
The Korean lessons I mentioned last time have already started!! I went along to the Korean
 |
| Easy when you know how... |
An update on the Sunday Roast situation: I’m still in need of one. There seems to only be one place in the whole of Seoul that serves a Sunday Roast. It’s a place in the foreigner area (naturally), Itaewon. It looks delicious but it’ll have to wait until after payday. I really hope Korean gravy doesn't taste like tofu.
And while we’re talking about food, I might as well tell you about some videos I made. They’re on YouTube. Yes, you might notice I've had a channel for a while… I was too embarrassed to tell anyone…
The video shows me trying some traditional Korean sweet(?).
And yes, I have tried McDelivery – it’s incredible. All those times I've had one of those hangover where you think you might actually be passing away and the things I've said I’d do to get someone to bring me McDonalds… It arrived in 10 minutes and was just so simple! They’d make a fortune if they started that service in Fallowfield – or any University town for that matter.
Last week my ARC (alien registration card) was delivered to school and that meant I was then able to sign up for a mobile phone. I went to the phone shop with Seunghee and we talked to one of the sales guys – yes, they're just as sleazy as the sales guys in the UK – I was really grateful that she came with me, otherwise I think I would quite easily have been ripped off! I'll talk more about money and price comparisons to things back home later in the year when I've got a better idea about things – at the moment it still feels like toy money (like Euros!) so I'm not really paying attention to prices.
Last weekend there was a big party for all the new EPIK teachers in Gangnam. My memory is
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| Club Core |
It was good to see some people from Orientation that had got the bus up to Seoul from all over the country – I was supposed to be hosting Andrew, a guy I met at orientation who is based in Cheonan but we got separated during the night so he crashed in a hotel and I ended up at Suraksan in northern Seoul! We met up the next day and got the cable car up to the Namsan tower. I took some nice photographs of our day – unfortunately none of them saved to my camera so I’ll have to make the trip again.
My favourite thing about school this week has been the annual Yongdu Elementary School English Speaking Contest. I was one of the three judges and was also opening the event (with translation from Seunghee). The principal and parents seemed to be impressed as 26 students from Grades 3-6 spoke for 3 minutes each on a topic of their choice. One of the funniest moments (of many) was when one boy who was talking about his family said, “I love my sister, we used to play a lot together but now we don’t because she is in puberty”. I nearly spat out the mouthful of water I’d just taken but nobody else batted an eyelid…
I also made the school newsletter!...
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| Don't think I was supposed to smile quite so much |
Tomorrow i'm meant to be playing in a Touch tournament but I expect it to be rained off so I might go to the Coex mall in Gangnam and play in the
arcades! On Sunday I think I’m going to do some hiking up one of the many mountains that surround Seoul and maybe even catch an evening baseball game at
Jamsil Stadium. Other than that, I’ll be planning the last few things for Tokyo
(less than a week to go!!) and looking forward to the 5 day Thanks Giving break.
Until next time,
Bren
Ps, I've just re-read this post and I talk about food a lot. I'm writing this in a free period I have just before lunch sooooo I'm pretty hungry. Today's menu?...
급식실에서 알려드립니다.
오늘 오징어찌개는 --> 꽃게탕으로 메뉴 변경하여
제공됩니다. 참고하시기 바랍니다.
*식품알레르기 식재료 안내*
꽃게탕(꽃게) - 제거식 제공
Pps, For anyone interested (dad?).. Here is a breakdown of the nationalities of EPIK teachers (the ones based in Seoul only)
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| SMOE: Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education |
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