So I've spread my clothes all over my floor in my room to dry on the heated floor because I don't have a drying rack, yet another basic necessity they neglected to furnish my apartment with. When I spoke to my mentor teacher this morning to explain that the provincial office of education told me that the school was given money to get these things for me she thought I mean for last year...and explained they spent it all on a BIG bed for the previous scholar. Note, this is not the same bed I have now...so I wonder what happened to all of those things when they left.

I know it seems like I complain a lot about this, especially to people who are here; but it's something I have to deal with every day. Cooking in my apartment means boiling water. That's it. I was told NOT to use my settlement money to furnish my apartment...so I either have instant noodles...or go out. Neither of which are either good for me or my pocketbook. I just need basic things, that's all.

I started teaching yesterday. It seems like a week ago already. The students wear me out. I have first and second grade in the same class every day. Then 3,5 and 4,6 alternating. It was hard at first to gauge what their levels are and what they will respond to. I'm having a hard time deciding what we're going to start off with because some classes, especially the middle 4th and 5th do not really know enough English for the harder games, but too much for simple stuff. I had to actually lecture 5th grade today because most of the class was 10 minutes late, with 4 more coming in 5 minutes after that. I was actually ready to go find someone to ask if class was canceled.

Consensus seems to be with them that animals is a good place to start, so we're going to do that. Then, I will incorporate comparison into this. Hopefully with some good powerpoint games and some songs they will get into this whole class thing and not be too much a terror for me.

My day started out being picked up by my mentor teacher at 8am. She drove me to school and showed me where the bus stop is so that I can use that from now on. There was a First Grade class ceremony to welcome them into the school. The older kids played ocarinas and drums. Then the new teachers were introduced, including me.

Shortly after was lunch, and the first and health teachers came to get me to come to lunch. They were really nice. I spent the rest of the day waiting for kids to come in for class and when I realized they weren't coming, I asked whoever I could find in the teacher's lounge what was going on. They told me I will start teaching next week but I can come and work on lesson plans in the meantime. I suspect that that really means I SHOULD come and do lesson plans for the rest of the week. I guess it's not as bad as sleeping at home, but, I don't necessarily need to come in at 8am.

I start school tomorrow. I plan on mostly just introducing myself to these kiddies and seeing what their English is like. Then, based on what I glean from them, I will start planning what to do with them.

Today we got to meet our mentor teachers and go to see our schools. Mine is definitely out in the boonies but it is very nice. They have remodeled a lot of the rooms and the English room has a smartboard, lots of books, and a stage! The staff was really nice and had a lot of questions to ask me.

I also get to live in Gunsan, which is a nice port city. My apartment it a one room, very cozy, and I am okay with that. I don't need much to survive, I am not there to sit in my room! I hope I can find some great activities to do while I am there. I can't wait to get out and get my hands dirty. Korea is so beautiful I want to see it all!

I am totally all about trying anything with Korean food...but that doesn't mean the meals at the cafeteria are always all that great... I think we've had fake meat for two days now and this evening my stomach was just not all about the 'barbecue hamburger steak' ... so I went into the convenience store got me some gimbop, a rice ball, and some chips. The drink came free with my rice ball...

The rice ball proved to challenge me...

Wait...what? It's not pre-wrapped? ...HOW I SHOT WEB??????

It was spicy and sweet on the inside...just enought for me. It was not wrapped pretty like you see on TV...but I was hungry...so who cares?

I did the kicks with my good foot, though; and played the tag games. They did a demonstration at the end with board breaking. They invited someone in the class to break the board, so I volunteered. The Master says the first most important think in TaeKwonDo is yelling, so I had to yell loud...and most people who know me know I can yell if I have to. The breaking was easy (I think it was just balsawood), but it was very cool, and I got to keep it.

Saturday was our medical checkup >=( Luckily our group coordinator drew us to go second, so we were done before lunch. It all went really fast. I DID manage to trick Blizzard into letting me log onto Warcraft so I could /wave at Michele and Shelby from abroad. I doubt I will be doing much playing now, but maybe in a few months. We'll see...

During the day I went out walking with my roommate and a group of other people I'd never met in Jochiwon. We scoped out downtown, which isn't as boring as everyone makes it out to be. I guess I'm just a small-town girl...so anything with more than one main street of shops is cool to me.

Saturday night I went out with some of the girls from the EMU group to celebrate birthdays. We went to a jimjibang (bath house) which was AWESOME. Yes you have to be naked in the bath area, but who cares....it's sooooooo relaxing. I have been craving a bath since we got here. There's nothing quite like laying in a pool of hot water. The place in town we went to is called Dream Sauna and it is just 6000 won to get into everything; bath, saunas, tv room, and sleeping area.

The jimjibang are were you can go to sleep if you so desire instead of getting a hotel, love hotel, or hostel room. It's not private or terribly comfortable, but for less that $10 it's a steal for a place to crash when you're out of town.

Afterward we went back to campus to pick up the less brave of our crew for a late dinner. We wanted to go to a noraebang (kareoke) too but we were a little late for curfew. We ate at a barbecue. It was so delicious.

Definitely a special occasion sort of thing, but I enjoyed it immensely. I also discovered I enjoy my kimchi when it is grilled. Also, I like soju and Korean beers! We didn't have a lot, just a bottle of each that we shared among a group of eight.

Today there was a trip to a Buddhist temple. We ate lunch, took a tour, and made prayer beads and woodblock prints. I forgot to get my memory stick back out of my computer from Friday so I only had the video camera. I stole a few pictures from my group-mates. I hope I will get some time this month to edit the footage I took into a little video of all I saw there today.

Heated floors are a big thing in Korea, and I think we were all very thankful for the heated floor in the one building we gathered in twice. I don't know why it's such a luxury in the US, maybe because we centrally heat everything. Difficult to say, but a heated floor is awesome.

As we were leaving we ran across a group that was playing drums, gongs, and flute outside at the base of the mountain. We got pulled (literally) into the circle to dance with middle-aged Koreans. I was even strapped to a drum and marched around for a bit. In between they definatly went into the nearby building for more bottles of rice wine and were pouring us all drinks. Some of us were trying very hard to refuse politely, but I'm all about it. It's hard to refuse an earnest attempt of a local to bond with me through impromptu food, drink, and song; especially when all I have to go on is pantomime. The men tried to talk to me a little, but I had a hard time understanding their little bits of English behind their accents with the drums going behind. But, it was a lot of fun. I'm really glad we ran into them.

The TaeKwonDo demonstration was very impressive. I never thought of TKD being so active. It made me really proud of my little brother, who has been doing it for years and got his blackbelt.

Our trip to Seoul was a scavenger hunt where we had to take a designated path and get pictures with landmarks. We didn't have as much time to explore even our own route, which would have been nice, but it was still fun.

Even though we ate dinner at Macdonalds we had a lot of interesting streetfood. Honeyskeins, ricecakes, some sort of flat & fried sweet bread...one of my groupmates even tried a silkworm. She asked for a mint and said it tasted like a squishy peanut.

I hope to go back to Seoul next weekend. A lot of people are going this weekend, but I want to wait. Seoul tried to kill me via a decorative channel in the sidewalk, which I tripped and fell on. Twisted ankles do not make you want to go walking around. I do want to try to go into Jochiwan tonight and hopefully see what the local city is like. Hopefully that Family Mart will have an adapter for my electricity...