HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

For Ellen...

You can barely see us, but you can sure hear us! We did this song for you, Ellen! Happy Halloween!! We miss you so so so so much!!!!!!

Limited Desaturation

We've been playing around a lot with photoshop and love the look of these photos! We actually use a program called Pixelmaker and it's really easy to do, but so much fun and kind of addicting, especially because we've really started to enjoy taking photos! I guess this is what happens when you only work 20 hours a week...we're also going to try an experiment when our groceries run out: No Western food for one week, only Korean. We will either start to really enjoy Korean food or we'll lose a lot of weight! Stay tuned for the results!!!

Halloween in Korea?

We are trying to think of Halloween costumes for a party on Saturday. Koreans don't celebrate Halloween so costumes are really limited. If you have any ideas, please send them our way!!

Getting a Colonoscopy in Korea...Viewer Discretion is Advised

You're looking at some lovely colour wallet-sized photos of my colon, which is normal and healthy with the exception of a few hemorrhoids (I said viewer discretion was advised!). I got to the doctors to have the usual pre-op stuff which included blood pressure and checking my heart. I've had this done at home before where the nurses put a small suction, bandaid-like thing on you for a couple minutes. The only thing I can use to accurately describe the "clamps" placed on my ankles and wrists are car jumper cables. This was the 1st sign that the quality of care I'm used to at home may not be the same here.

Next, I was given these short pants with a trap door in the back and told to lie on a bed where my feet dangled at the bottom (the beds were either very short or I have grown since being in Korea). The nurse placed an enema inside and instructed me to wait 5 minutes and then go up a flight of stairs and I'd find the bathrooms. The public bathrooms I was using weren't even connected to the doctor's office in any way. They were also really dirty and (obviously) smelled like sh**! It didn't help that I could hear a grown man grunting and farting in the room beside me or the woman in my room grunting every minute.

I was finally taken to the operating room and placed on a bed with a leather blanket and leather pillow. That's a first. The nurse then put a tight elastic around my head and stuffed this piece of plastic into my mouth. She said "to help breathe better." It actually has the opposite effect and I felt like I was in some 1950s psych ward.

Anyway who knows how coherent this will sound in an hour. I have already made several typos because I'm writing with one eye open -- think that means its' time for the night nightsl

Liquid Diets in Korea....gag me!

I am currently on a "liquid diet" in Korea because I'm getting a colonoscopy tomorrow. Korean food has not been very kind to my colon these past three months so hopefully after tomorrow, we can figure out what the problem is! Anyway, I'm supposed to be eating liquids and the doctor recommended something called "jook" which translates to porridge but tastes nothing like it. Imagine small pieces of overcooked rice mushed into baby food with a fishy sort of taste.

Soup is very common in Korea, but unfortunately, clear soup broth is not! All the soups are cream based so I think I will stick with fruit juice and try to choke down this jook, although it is honestly one of the most repulsive things I have ever tasted.

Seeing a Korean doctor whose English is very limited is a unique experience! He had to look online several times to translate an agreement which I had to sign.

This is the most vile food I've ever tried and am really just writing this blog as an effort to distract me from actually eating it. I think I may just have to stick to fruit juice

Action Shots

Our New Favorite Place....

It's called Max Rider 4D and it's basically a virtual roller coaster, but there are 12 different options. Last night we went on an adventure of the South Pole with our new friend Whit who we met on the street one day. It was only $3 per person and it was SO much fun!

We also booked our tickets to Thailand for Christmas and we are counting down the days until December 18th!!! We fly into Bangkok on the 18th and leave January 2nd.

We will post more pictures soon...last night we went to our friend's birthday party at a foreigner bar downtown. It was sort of creepy to see so many white people.

Glamour Shots

New Camera!

Our new camera came and it couldn't be more perfect! The manual is Korean so we downloaded the English version and printed it up at school. I think we have already taken about 100 photos, so this blog will definitely be updated with lots of pictures in the very near future. We bought it used off a very popular ESL website for foreigners and got a great deal. You really have to go by the honor system here. We put the money directly into the seller's bank account via an ATM (reading Korean really came in handy!) and the next day the camera came! It felt like Christmas, especially because MaryAnne's mom sent a bunch of goodies from home including some much needed vitamins and crest whitening strips (something about this Korean food/water really discolors your teeth). This was a great day!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This was a quiet weekend for us. We had intended to go to Seoul, but our colds/coughs seem to be lingering so we'll put it off until we're 100% better. We had a lot of fun though. We got a soccer ball and a puzzle, went over to a friend's apartment for some chili and board games and wandered around the city a bit.

Some interesting facts about Korea we just read:
1. Koreans rank near the bottom of the list for number of hours of sleep each night
2. Koreans rank at the top of the list of number of hours spent working and studying
3. Koreans rank 23rd out of 25th in terms of productivity

This is something we have noticed a lot. At E-Mart (Wal-Mart equivalent), there are 10 times more employees working. Actually, there are more employees everywhere. In the public washroom at E-Mart the other day, there was a group of 4 cleaning women sitting on the bathroom floor talking with each other.

Students go to so many academies and spend so many hours studying. We learned recently that although high school students go to school until midnight, they don't actually spend that time IN class. They just study at school. Koreans place a huge emphasis on math so from age 7 onwards, every student (who can afford it) goes to a math academy. Their math skills are amazing, but it all seems without purpose. Our 5th grade students can do high school math, but as my middle school students told me yesterday, they will never use it in everyday situations.

MaryAnne has a private class with a 10 year old boy once a week who is preparing for the SATs. This is a standardized test Americans take to get into college. We both have middle school students taking classes to prepare for standardized tests that they will probably never take.

Anyway, we hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving! We are getting a new camera this week so we should have lots of new photos to share next week.

Cheusok and Soccer

This weekend was Cheusok, the Korean Thanksgiving so we had an extra day off work, yet the weekend really seemed to fly by. It was relatively uneventful because I managed to get a throat infection and also many places were closed. On Friday, we went downtown and saw the movie "Fame" (one of the worst movies we've ever seen!) and did some shopping and then went over to our friends to play some board games (yes...life is very exciting!). Saturday was pretty much a write-off because I felt so sick and then on Sunday, we went to see a professional soccer game.

The soccer game was really fun. For some reason, you didn't have to pay to go in (usually the tickets are about $10 each). Also, you don't pay for parking and you can bring in your own food so really there is no cost. Everyone brings coolers with beer and food and even if you decide to buy drinks/food there, the cost is the same as it would be at the grocery store (or even less). I think a can of beer was about $1.50. We have never seen Koreans so excited and enthusiastic. The game ended in a tie, but it was really fun. It was also so hot. It's October 5th and we are still wearing tshirts, shorts and sandals.

We have a four day week and then we're headed to Seoul and will either stay one or two nights depending on how much there is to do.

We've been here two months now and can't believe there are still 10 months to go! We are definitely missing many things about home and wish we could come home for Thanksgiving!!

Also, we have both learned how to read and write in Korean which is sometimes useful if we actually know what the Korean word means. It's a really easy language to read because each letter is pronounced phonetically and there are no exceptions. Neither of us really realized how difficult and complicated English was until we started teaching it. Although we may be able to speak English really well, we never took the time to think about how many rules there are and how for every rule there are at least two exceptions. Often students will ask us to explain a rule and all we can think of is "because it just sounds right."

Anyway, time to get ready for work!