Seoul!

On Saturday, we took a day trip to Seoul. It was raining and disgusting, but nice to get out of Chuncheon and see the real center of Korea. The train ride was 2 hours each way. Not so fun. We sort of followed the group in terms of what we did. First we went shopping at Yongsan station (which has a HUGE department store). Of course we found the puppies in the pet store, and also admired the beautifully decorated...refrigerators? who knew. After wandering around and oohing and aahing at all the clothes we couldn't afford for two hours, we got back on the subway and scared a few cute schoolgirls who were travelling alone (we tried to help them, i swear! but we ended up just taking pictures with them...) and moved on to visit the Korean War Museum (which was about Korean wars, not just the war you're thinking of). Really interesting stuff. Full scale model of the famous turtle ships, busts of war heroes from wars throughout the centuries, models of submarines that you could enter, and target practice! One Korean boy was so into it, he kept hogging all the guns, and his sister was laughing at him with me and telling me how he loves that kind of thing. It was cute.
Finally we made our way to Itaewon, the foreign district, known for "hooker hill" and "homo hill," as they are so politely named....we walked up hooker hill, which was not as interesting or scary as you might think, and then went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, where there was a man playing "colors of the wind" on pipes and flutes...he was really into it. The food was great, though and a nice little hiatus from kimchi, pap (rice) and very watery soup from the cafeteria.

On Sunday, I took a trip to E-mart (like a Korean target, but classier) and bought some clothes and flipflops. I have yet to find soy milk, but I'm going to get on that and cereal very soon because kimchi and pap for breakfast every morning is starting to get to me.

On another note, I'm being bombarded with homework not only in the form of Korean language class (we had our first quiz today- easy peasy lemon squeezy) but also in lesson plans! I sometimes forget that we'll be TEACHING soon! Scary thought. But anyway, Fulbright Korea organizes this two-week program called Camp Fulbright, so Korean kids get to take classes with us and some more experienced teachers (who lead us and help us out with lesson planning). So for tomorrow I have to submit the draft of a lesson plan that I'll be conducting on my own (AAH!). I've decided, since my instructor is teaching about Canada on the day I'm presenting, I'm going to do a lesson on Montreal. That way I can incorporate some of my own interests, talk about multiculturalism, bilingualism, and maybe even touch on Quebec's desire for independence. See what they, as citizens of such a small country with INTENSE nationalism, think about that. And yes, my students will be intermediate, so I think they'll be able to handle it. At any rate, the draft I have to send in by tomorrow will be reviewed before I actually teach it (phew!).

On that note, I'd better go work on that. Will write again soon...