me = rotten blogger

just found this blog. this is what i meant mine to be at first, in how this guy goes through every day experiences. added bonus, he's really funny. check lee out here.

oh.

i've got to get my bum in gear. i feel a bit sedate. settled. dull. yikes. i need to get out more.

photos of random happenings.


junior 6 ~ Fred, yellow shirt; Ben, foreground; Robert, mouth open again in back. all three are some of the biggest hams I've ever taught. love 'em.

fred, doing his old lady/egg-boy thing.


basic 2. i'm teaching phonics to this class. only one of them can actually read, the rest just go by ear (arrrggggggghhhh). here are Sally, who is brilliant and can read (l); Alice, who can almost read and is adorable with the cutest curly hair that i have to get a photo of soon (r); and Joe, who cannot read to save his life but who is funnier than anyone else and looks like a tiny old man. this class is a lot lot lot lot of fun.

julie, finished for the day. everyone in basic 2 is in grade 3 elementary. they're all 9 years old korean age, 8 years old US age.

sally, julie, joe, and (blurry) harry, playing at break time. harry is adorable and funny and can't pay attention longer than 30 seconds. he's so bored in class. unless we're talking about dung. his phonics book is filled with drawings of dung. ~lol~

garlic. a ton of garlic. this stand was outside work last week. i never did see if the guy sold all of his garlic. he gave me a funny look when i photographed his truck. guess he doesn't get that every day. *o*

stormy day in godeok. view outside of michelle's window. i'm not sure i want a window classroom next year. i might be able to get a room with windows, but most of the window rooms are small. my room is pretty large,though window-free. admittedly, i also have a sneaking suspicion there would be more "blankly staring out the window" than "getting work done" in class if i had a window. and who'd do more staring.... me or the students? yeah. me. hands down. ~sigh~

obstructed view across the street, with random woman shopping.

a gorgeous sunset in cheonho. it's so beautiful here in the fall, even more beautiful than spring.

last saturday, michelle and i went on a hunt for bindaedduk, a really yummy korean pancake made from mung beans. we've both been craving it, but we hadn't found it yet. anyhoo, unfortunately, it took us about 2 hours to find a place, so i completely forgot to take a photo b/c i was so damn hungry. ~lol~ oh well. here's a slightly dried out replacement. anyway again, it was delicious. good bindaedduk is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside....... oh........ am drooling just thinking about it.

later that night we went to a mellow, cool hookah bar. we smoked strawberry hookah. er. yes. i smoked strawberry-flavored tobacco. and it was fun. now i can't get on the smokers' cases at home because smoking is bad for you, la la la. smoking may be bad for you, but hookah is waaaaaaaay fun. and i totally fell asleep. it made me feel like i was in uptown. and why, by the way, doesn't uptown have a hookah bar??? or do they have one and i just don't know about it?

this place was fun. it doesn't have a name or a sign. you walk down a short flight of stairs draped with beads and sarongs into a small, four room bar. everyone is relaxed. people are dressed like hippies or look like artists. it's not the usual korean hangout. i like.

michelle showed me how to use my camera. am still playing with the settings and learning how to use this (only two years after buying it, sheesh), so some of these are pretty blurry.


hookah + candle

hoooooooooooooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

dang. my camera takes photos in black and white. guess i should have read the manual. ^*o*^

the vivid color setting. (yeah. now i'm just geeking out.)

it's a bit blurry, but you can kind of see what our room was like. the tables are all low, and you sit(lay) on pillows on the floor. they serve wine and beer and hard liquor and tea. we had super yummy jasmine tea. the vibe was almost like being at caffeto's on lyndale & 22nd, if caffeto's had low tables, pillows, no computers, alcohol, and hookah. er............ yeah, okay, so it wasn't much like caffeto's. TT _ TT

view from our table. i'm hoping to go back again. i really like the hongdae area. it feels so much more worldly, more open to all cultures, less suburban, more sophisticated and filled with variety and pretty much everything i thought seoul was going to feel like. i wish it wasn't 40 minutes away. the subway stops at midnight and doesn't start up again until 5 am, so if i go out to hongdae i have to go with at least one other person or stay out until the subway opens up again. a cab ride home is usually around 24,000 won (roughly $24 dollars). bugger.

i have more photos, but i think it's time for bed. cool beans. back soon.

love,

~s