Gyeongju, Crazy Children and Too Many People

Hello again!!! 

Look it didn't even take as long this time!

Things have settled down into a bit of a rhythm so I don't feel like I have as much to post about these days.

My typical week is as follows:

Monday: Urgh....fuuuukkkkk it's monday.....why am I working with kindergarten children this early on a monday....well good thing I have my Korean lesson tonight and can have a beer and some good dinner after!

Tuesday: Seriously, this week is too long. Tonight will be fun with my language exchange with Eric and having a nice pot of chamomile tea.

Wednesday: OOOHHHH!!! Hump day (giggle) and also Korean lesson again tonight! Busy day is a good day!!

Thursday: Hmmm....what am I doing this weekend... hey everybody who wants to go to that party in Seoul on Saturday? Only one more day until the weekend!!!

Friday: It's friday motherfuckers!!! Drinking time!!!

Saturday: Well I'm not too hungover, thats a good sign, better cure it with another beer!!! Ooohhh...it's sunrise? I guess I should go to bed...

Sunday: oh jesus....why did I agree to tequila slammers with the guy who bought and shared the WHOLE bottle of tequila...Home Time!!

AND repeat. Sometimes interspersed with shopping. At this point the only reason I haven't been doing that has been when I have gone places like Gyeongju.

Me and Tom striding up the mountain in Gyeongju!

Top of the mountain being all peaceful and shit.

Sneaky Jess and her awesome photography skills

This photo was taken at one of the famous temples in Gyeongju. I love going to temples and seeing all the different Buddhist things. I usually feel a sense of serenity there. Same goes for old churches etc. The people who are there are usually there to pray or be at peace and that is a beautiful feeling even if you are there to do it yourself. However, this was the first time I was really annoyed and frustrated by the enormous number of people there are in Korea. Honestly there must have been over 1000 people at the temple and this ruined any chance I had of feeling that serenity. I'm fine in the cities with the literally millions of other people, it's ok on the squishy trains and standing for a 45 minute bus ride because so many people are travelling to Seoul is bearable but when you are overwhelmed at the number of people at the temple and you can't experience the feelings that you usually go there to feel, it's frustrating.

Beautiful sunset from the mountain.

I'm about to tell you about the single most frustrating class I have ever experienced. See below at all the children lying on their desks. This is them giving absolutely no fucks about the class or the teacher. This is not usual however these children are a nightmare. Usually you can scare the living daylights out of them when you go and get a Korean teacher however they just didn't even care about that either.

Now that I have started making some korean friends, my fb wall often has occasional korean status updates. I do my best to translate them myself but sometimes i need a bit of help from the interwebs. This has by far been one of the funniest translations that has come up. In this case she's talking about her dog Ggamji not nigger cock. Why the word 'nigger' is even in a translation dictionary as an option baffles me.

Bus selfie with Hanneke on our way to Seoul!

This is me and Jae's Cousin Seyun, I had a lot of fun with her that night!

11/11 is Pepero day! these are all the pepero that came to school for everyone just from my kindergarten class

This is the handmade pepero that I got from one of my awesome elementary students :) Thats my name followed by 'ssaem' on top which is like an affectionate word for teacher.

My favourite kindergarten kid and his pepero haul.

This my friends is heaven on a plate in the form of Fried Chicken Tenders from Frypan. Super unhealthly but so god dam delicious.

This is the crazy that happens at school sometimes.

Now for some of you who don't know, Korea is weather extremes. It was already started snowing here. Literally two months ago, it was too hit for a jacket or closed in shoes and now its so cold that any skin you have showing the world is in pain. I was not equipped for this magnitude of cold. SO I got a new jacket and am stocking up on all things warm!

New jacket. I was only a little bit swayed by the fact that G Dragon was wearing the jacket in the ad also.

First snow!

I'm thinking about buying one of these....

So they are so advanced here that this is how they mix drinks. you just leave it sitting like this for a while and bam! mixed. I'm scared that i'm going to try and do this myself when I'm drunk and want to look cool...

So now is the time of year that everyone makes kimchi! We had a kimchi making day at school and fun times ensued...

Ingredients

Prior to the chilli sauce

Mess after chilli sauce..

SO MUCH MESS!!

Last night I had one of the most interesting Korean lessons I've had so far. Our usual teacher was away from class and one of the more advanced students was teaching us. It's actually really good to have someone who is also learning the language to teach you every now and then because they can explain the things that the native speakers can't. Anyway, one of the things that I have noticed with Korean is that you never really say 'I' or 'you' and this has been a hard adjustment for me because I feel like 'I' and 'you' give context to the situation. However as it was explained to me last night, it's part of the way the culture is here. The western hemisphere is very 'I' and 'you' focused whereas the eastern hemisphere is very 'us' focused and this is very evident in the way that people talk around you. We did an exercise where we spoke english in the same sentence structure as korean without saying 'I' or 'you' and the amount of effort that took was really surprising to me. 

I'm leaving you with the weirdest birthday card I have ever come across. I have no idea what the original Korean was supposed to be but lets all celebrate Happy Mind Control!

Much Love!