A Wednesday in Dangjin

Here is a rather lengthy account of yesterday. I just wanted to give you a more thorough idea of a weekday in Dangjin. This was a little more exciting than most :) I woke up late, showered, read my pink Bible (finished off Proverbs) and ate my usual breakfast of tea and toast. I had honey on it this time, but sometimes I'll have peanut butter or strawberry jelly. If I really want to mix things up I'll eat cereal or oatmeal instead (both sort of a "splurge" with the prices around here). When 12:00 rolled around, Tracy and I walked down the street to take her pictures to be developed. On the way we observed the construction that's been going on in Dangjin for quite some time. I guess the "town" is getting funding from the government to become a "city," so they're doing a lot of work under the road and along the sides of the roads, in addition to all the buildings that are always being built or remodeled. Tracy dropped off a cd of her pictures at the Fuji Film shop (the only photo shop we know of, although I'm certain there are others--this one is just most recognizable to us), spoke English to the woman there who spoke Korean back to her, and yet still communicated what time to pick up the pictures. Then we walked back up the narrow street to check out a new restaurant that opened last week. It's called "Toast Tour." What they call toast is actually sort of grilled sandwiches (kinda like grilled cheese). But they make the strangest combinations! Ah, but before we get to that... So, Tracy and I walked in, hoping there would be English on the menu, but no luck. Thus, I began the arduous process of reading the menu. I can sound out Korean, it just takes a bit. Because this "toast" isn't native Korean food, the names on the menu were mostly adapted English words. Especially amusing is that "toast" becomes 3 syllables in Korean: "Toh-suh-tuh" :) Well, after reading through half the menu (of things like "pi-jah toh-suh-tuh," "chee-suh toh-suh-tuh," "ha-wa-in ham-buh-guh," "hos doh-guh," and "sa-seo-gee"), Tracy opted to point at a picture she saw- it looked like a club sandwich- and I decided to risk a "set menu" (sort of a combo meal). We both ended up with toasted sandwiches- hers with egg, pickle, cheese, and unidentifiable sauce, mine with egg, green pepper, a single piece of pepperoni, pizzaish sauce, cheese, and a strange yellow sauce. Both weren't quite the "western" flavors we were hoping for. And hers had none of the ingredients of the picture she had pointed to except for the bread. My combo meal also came with a sausage that had strange sauce all over it as well. The one exciting part of my meal was the pineapple juice I got. Anyway, it was an interesting experience. All in all it wasn't bad. Especially for the price. We're interested in going back and trying other things on the menu. Like maybe "cheese toast" is a regular grilled cheese sandwich... I'm also interested in trying the "hawaiian hamburger"- do you think it has pineapple on it? After lunch, it was time for work. I went to Mirae and pulled out my schedule to see what classes I needed to prepare for. Then I began looking through each book and choosing what activities to add to each lesson, writing a little lesson plan for each--all while listening to music on my mp3 player. For one class I decided I needed large posterboard to make a particular craft. So once I finished my lesson plans I took off for a nearby stationary store. It's quite huge and has a great selection of all kinds of school supplies- probably the best in the city. It would be easy to spend a long time there. But, I had to get right back to school to start class at 2:30. 2:30 is usually my favorite class. It's 6 2nd graders, and they're the smartest level at Mirae. Being young, they still enjoy learning and still have fun with fairly simple activities. Sometimes when I ask "What did you do today?" they'll really want me to understand something they don't know the exact words for, so they'll use all kinds of gestures or draw on the board and use whatever English words they know. It's great. They can be very hyper, but they're so much fun. At 3:30 I had my third grade class. Thankfully it's smaller than it used to be, but I still have some pretty ornery kids in there. It's SO hard not to have favorites! 4:30 has become the worst class of the day for me, usually. Sometimes 6:30. But my 4:30 classes are both so big, and the boys are just at the age of really getting naughty. And both classes have fairly low level English... At 5:30 I met with "Jenny," a middle-school girl taking private lessons at Mirae. I meet with her twice a week. She's been coming to Mirae as long as they've been open. She started when she was 6, so she's been coming for about 10 years. She also had the opportunity to go to California for 3 weeks this past summer. Because of all her experience with foreign teachers here she speaks English quite well. She's hoping to go back to the States as an exchange student once she's in high school. I hope she can go- she'd love it. This week the 6:30 classes have been small because the 6th graders from one of the schools in town are gone on a big field trip. It's been a nice break from the usual noisiness. Generally my voice is already shot by that point of the day so it's very difficult to talk loud enough to get their attention. But, with the small class this week, I just had them play English games like Scrabble. On Wednesdays that's my last class of the day. So after class I came back to the apartment for an hour and responded to some emails and did other stuff on the internet. At 8:30 Tracy and I went back to Mirae to meet up with the adult class. I teach the adult class on Tuesdays and Fridays and Cori teaches them on the other three days. One of the students is leaving in a couple weeks for the States to live in Boston. So, in order to give him a big send off, we had made plans to all go out as a class for dinner. The students chose a Chinese restaurant in town that is owned by one student's parents. It's a really nice place and the food was REALLY YUMMY! I'm always especially excited about the sweet and sour pork- it tastes like the Chinese I'm used to at home :). After stuffing ourselves there, they wanted to go for norebang. So the big group of us headed to a new norebang a few streets away. On the way, we met Sue and convinced her to join us. Norebang was great. There were so many Koreans that we got to hear more Korean songs than usual, and it's always interesting to hear what English songs they like to sing. For example, one of the picks last night was "Last Christmas." A little out of season, but still fun! Someday I'll learn how to post videos and let you see a clip I took. I didn't sing a whole lot, but mostly because there were so many people. And the audience really determines what I want to sing. Because some songs that are amusing to one bunch of people are just annoying to another bunch. Because we were with Koreans this whole time, we didn't have to rely on our measely Korean skills at all. And, we were treated to everything! So nice. After norebang, Tracy and Cori headed to a bar to visit with some other friends, and I came back to our apartment. The heating situation was finally remedied yesterday, so the apartment was actually quite toasty! It hasn't been that way for awhile. Soon we'll need to figure out the balance between hot and cold... Although it was after 11:00 pm, I had to get on the internet before bed. After all, that's when everyone at home is just waking up! So I Skyped with Jason for awhile before going to sleep. Thus ended Wednesday.