Halloween!!!

It has been a VERY exciting few days here in Korea! I was going to start with Friday at school, but when I uploaded the pictures they were in a different order, and they are a pain to move around, so I will start with what I did today. Amanda, Jamie, Susie, Janique, Tara and I went to a place called Myung Dong, which was about a half hour from our house. We went to go shopping. This statue was on our way home, and we thought it was photo worthy. The arm actually moved up and down.

The girls in front of Forever 21. Jamie, Tara, Amanda, Janique, Susie and Jenn in the front.

This was the HUGE fancy Forever 21. It was 3 floors, and had 2 bouncers out front! After I took the picture one of them came over and told me I wasn't allowed to take a picture of the building. I'm not sure why but now the picture seems way more special!

This is in front of my apartment. It is the SBS studio where musicians come for radio interviews. These young girls camp out the night before and wait around ALL day just to see them pull away in their cars. They scream a lot and are VERY annoying.

This is the shortest escalator in the world.

I saw this snack in Family Mart (Like 7-11). It had dried fishies, peanuts, dried squid, and some other things that I did not recognize...

This is one of the MANY street vendors who sell vegetables on the street. There are lots of people selling lots of weird things. We passed an old woman who was sitting on a blanket selling Q tips and sponges and some other weird household things. I don't know where she would have gotten those things from, it is very strange.

Besides vegetable and Q-tip stands, there are also SO many street meat stands! They sell the weirdest street meat. This man was selling fried shrimp.

I finally bought a cell phone!!! we went to the electronic district(I can't remember the name of it) and every floor was selling a different thing. One whole floor of lap tops, another floor of cameras, a floor of ipods and fauxpods, etc. The cell phones were on the 8th floor. There were a ton of booths celling phones. We just went from booth to booth until I found the phone I loved.

This is me buying my new phone!!!!

My new snazzy cell phone!

My new phone number is 010-3037-6029. They let you choose the last 4 digits, so that's how I have the same last 4 digits as my phone at home. It wasn't a coincidence. The phone was $70, and came with an extra battery and an $11 phone card. It's a prepaid phone, but texts are only 3 cents each I think, and calls are like 5 cents every 10 seconds. I get free incoming calls and incoming texts, so feel free to call or text me!!!

Some more street meat. These were silkworm larvae. They smelled SO gross.

On Saturday Amanda, John, and I went to Korean classes at a college nearby. We thought the class was starting over this weekend, but it turns out that they were on week 4, so Amanda and I were SO lost. We are going to go back in two weeks, when it actually does start over. On the walk to get a cab, I found this HUGE leaf. It was bigger than Amanda's head! The Korean classes cost $1 every week, and $1 for the book. They ran out of books, so we had to share someone else's, so we couldn't write in the book. In two weeks we will have to get there early so we get a book! The language is very hard to pronounce! We were reading the letters, and she was saying two different letters that sounded exactly the same to me. I know I will have to take level one over several times. Especially only going once a week, it will be tough to learn. I almost wish it was more phrases instead of the alphabet, but everyone says its easy to learn the letters and useful.

More Street meat.

These are fish patties. They are like fish pancakes on a stick that are in the shape of a fish. I haven't had one, but that's what I've heard!

On Halloween we started out at Susie's apartment and then went to Hungdae to several bars. I lost my witch hat, but I was a witch. After I lost my hat I was just a girl in a black dress.

John and a Korean teacher. The kids in Korea do that with their hands and it means cute. They also say Kimchi instead of cheese when they take pictures! (I just found these things out today...)

At Susie's apartment.

This is one of my classes. They are 8 and 9 years old, so really they are 7 and 8 years old. Since they are not preschoolers, they weren't allowed to dress up. Only the morning preschoolers wore costumes.The boy all the way to the left with only half of his face showing is Kyle, the boy who pulled out his penis on the first day I observed the class. He hasn't done it since. I got mad at him the other day and made him write his name on the board(So I know not to give him a stamp at the end of class(it scares them to death as well), and he wrote Kai on the board, and after yelling at him for not spelling his name right, he informed me that his name is actually not Kyle, it is Kai, like the Hawaiian name. I found out that his English name is really Kyle, but his mom complained about it and wanted him to be called Kai. I don't know if it is part of his Korean name, or if his mom just liked it. I am going to continue to call him Kyle. There are actually 10 kids in the class, but some of them didn't want their picture taken.

This is Chon-Bin, one of the preschoolers that I've been teaching all week. He is the cutest Korean kid I've seen since I've gotten here, but he is a naughty boy! He talks allllllll of the time and never shuts up! He also tells me that he is from Philadelphia, and he tells me stories about when he lived in Philadelphia, but Amanda and I are pretty sure he isn't from there, but maybe just visited. He insists that he just moved to Korea Philadelphia....

This is the whole class. The bumble bee in the middle is Min, the worst boy in the school. He kicks kids all the time and doesn't ever pay attention. This is the pumpkin we carved in class.

We were about to go Trick-or-treating. The kids are: Olivia, Sophia, Min, Chon-Bin, Lucy, Justin, Sue, Amy, and Tony.

Alisha, Tara, and Janique in the office before class started.

Jamie in our office.

Riding the bus on the way to school because it was raining on Halloween morning.

For my preschool classes, I had to come up with two activities to do. The first activity was the classic tissue over a lollipop so it looks like a ghost. The second activity I thought was absolutely awesome, and I think I invented it. It's called Bat Bowling. I painted 20 oz. coke bottles black, and glued black bat wings to the backs of them. I glued a face to an orange ball so it looked like a jack-o-lantern. I thought it would be a huge hit, but it turns out that the kids didn't like to wait their turn or wait for me to set the pins up. Oh well. I still thought it was an awesome activity.

On Friday at work, I saw our SLP couches that used to be in the lobby of the school stacked up downstairs, and we had new couches in the lobby. I asked Danny if I could have a section of it(it was a sectional) and he said yes! So I tried to get a cabbie to put it in his trunk, but he wouldn't, so I had to carry it home. At first I thought it would be no problem, but about 5 minutes into the walk I could not feel my hands. It seemed like it got heavier as I walked! It took me about an hour to walk home, and it normally takes about 15/20 minutes. The part of my arm between my wrist and elbow still hurts, and I can't make a fist. It was well worth it cause the couch looks great in my apartment!

Here is what the Korean money looks like. The top is a $10 bill, the bottom is $1. The left card is my bank card, and the right is my alien card. They also have a $5 bill that is pink. The $10 is the highest bill they have, so when you get money out of the ATM, you get a stack of 10 dollar bills!

I had something new to eat. It is pronounced Suin du boo. It is tofu soup with rice. It was a bit spicy, but not too bad at all!! I liked it. It comes in a bowl that is still boiling when they bring it over to the table. I'm not sure how they do that, but its pretty impressive. The rice comes in this small little dish on the side. You spoon the soup and tofu over the rice and eat it.

On Saturday night Amanda, Lindsey and I went to a movie. We saw the Bank Job. It was in English with Korean subtitles. They have assigned seats that you choose when you buy your tickets. On the way to the movie we saw a man selling movies in the subway station, and I bought Mamma Mia! and p.s. i love you. they were two for $5.

sssooo that was my weekend! I had tons of fun. I know there aren't many pictures with me in them, but since I used my camera I was taking most of the pictures. When I get pictures from other people's camera I'll post them. I'm sure someone got me in my Halloween costume!