Monday, January 29, 2007

A Quick Hello From Thailand

Hello all! Thailand's been awesome so far. There'll be lot's of pictures and details later, so this is just a "Cathy's still alive" post. On New Year's (before I left for Thailand), some people set off some bombs in Bangkok, but when I arrived I noticed absolutely nothing, so I haven't been worrying. Most of my trip so far has been spent on two very beautiful islands called Koh Phangnan and Koh Samui. More details later!

Friday, January 19, 2007

Second Week of Camps

The second round of students had a much higher English level, which made things infinitely more pleasant. Add to that the fact that they also brought their mothers, making them a much quieter and eager bunch of kids. The mom's were shy at first, but eventually a couple were even willing to play "Pin The Tail on the Donkey" (the kids loved it, and even wanted to play some more after class. I'm pretty sure it was because I made everyone spin around then try to pin the tail. After a while, they were coming up and spinning themselves before I could put the blindfold on them)!!
Yesterday Mrs. Lee was talking to a bunch of mothers standing around in the office. They were all gesturing at me occasionally as they talked; of course I hadn't a clue what was being said. After they left Mrs. Lee explained to me that they were saying how surprised they were that I was a nice person, and how in the future they wouldn't try to avoid foreigners if they saw them. Hahahahahahahaha. Foreigners can be pretty scary for a lot of Koreans. Whenever I'm walking around Naju, I can get lots of smiles and hello's, but I sometimes get just as many stares and old ladies giving me a wide berth so they don't have to come near me. I've also startled my share of old guys as well. There's a little path between really old houses that I like to take to get to Geumsong Mountain, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only waygook that has ever walked down that street!! Once as I passed a really old man on that path as he came out of his house, he looked up at me and gasped. Then stared for a while, of course.

And I'm waaaay off topic as usual. So yeah, I've really enjoyed the winter camp, even though I'm jealous about everyone else already being on vacation. Now that I've done actual classes for the winter camp, I'm NOT looking forward to going back to the usual English Town schedule! So boring!! Monotonus!

ps: tomorrow I'm flying to Thailand. This is verging on inane, but last night I had this weird ream that I was at a party in my bathing suit (of course I was the only one, just to add in that embarassment element!)... an omen of things to come?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

In Three Days I'm Going to Thailand!!!

In three days I'm going to Thailand!!

Monday, January 15, 2007

So Darn Funny!

A few girls from last week's camp showed up wanting to go to my house and "play computer games". After a while of not understanding eachother I resorted to an online translator, which as it turns out, doesn't do a very good job. First they were asking about my hair; is it permed, dyed etc. Kids never believe me when I say it's not. Then I get a translation from them that says something about my two parents in the bedroom and "maybe you mixed race?". Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. So entertaining.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

So Darn Cute!

A note I just recieved from a student:

Cathy Teacher,

Hello.

Kind immigration inspector.

Perfect Cathy Teacher.

Love

From Ha Jin Sil student.


The corner I teach is immigration inspection. She also drew a picture of me. Apparently curly hair is called "ramyan noodles" (basically mr. noodles but Kimchi flavoured) over here in K-town.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Random Incidentals

Thanks for the DVD Tracy! And Mom, I finally got those pictures you sent me. The one of Grandma sniffing the octopus treats I sent home is priceless.

So, after a week off I'm back in the office for "winter camps". In Naju English town, winter camps mean half days teaching kids games, when all they want to be doing is playing outside. There are about ten boys in the class that spend the entire time repeating a bastardized version of my name in the back of the class: "Candy! Candy! Candy!" and trying to beat eachother up. Drives me up the wall. Apparently kids here call me Candy because there is some sort of old-school anime character named Candy with blond hair, "Who was very nice and beautiful" (or so says Mrs. Lee), but it still drives me crazy!!!

So, what did I do on my week off... hmmm... I went to Seoul with Mrs. Lee and her family (her husband, who speaks a lot of English and her really cute but-crying-a-lot baby Ka-young). We went to Co-ex and did some shopping, then split up so that Mrs. Lee could visit an old university friend that lives in Seoul. So I tried to find myself a hotel to stay in, which is harder than one would think!! After wandering around the train station and finding only sketchy pink-light districts, I ended up finding a motel in a shopping district in "downtown" Seoul. In Korea there are two kinds of hotels:

1. Really expensive hotels catering to the travelling businessman.
2. "Love Motels" catering to married men and their mistresses. They often come with mirrors by the bed, porn on tv and condoms in the drawer. But they are cheap. There isn't a great deal of Tourism in Korea, so cheap hostel-type places can be hard to come by unless you know where to look.

So I stayed at a love motel that night, then later when I went to Gwang-ju with Alex, we tried to find a place to stay and ended up booking ourselves into the shadiest motel in the history of love motels. We should have gotten an inkling of foreshadowing when we found that the entrance to "California Motel" was down a small alley (not even two feet wide- I shit you not). When we got up to the room we found nothing less than a circular bed with mirrors on both sides of course. The furniture was Palace of Versailles meets Rocky Horror Picture show. Then when we pulled back the sheets and found multiple stains and fresh lipstick on a pillow case. When you're fighting over which stain you don't want to sleep on, it's time to get another place to stay!! So when we got our money back and had finally found what looked like a reputable place, we were awoken at 7am to the sound of... think about it. I believe the first thing I said was "You've got to be kidding me".

So needless to say, I'm all love moteled out.