Well, it's that time of year. The leaves are almost officially gone from the trees, you need a coat to walk outside, and everyone is getting sick! The first two aren't so bad, but the consistent stuffy nose is getting old.
I discovered working in a school, you're never going to be 100% healthy, for the most part. I'm lucky I haven't been super sick, to the point of staying in bed (which is good because you don't get sick days as an English teacher) but I also can't seem to get rid of an always a little bit stuffy nose, and daily slightly sore throat. I guess I should invest in more tea and honey.
The fall has been nice here, especially from someone coming from Minnesota. Last weekend, November 4th and 5th, it was beautiful. Friday night, a bunch of just went to a bar in Suji just for a quieter night. I was exhausted from the week (as usual) and most of us ended up leaving before midnight even. Saturday, it was in the 70s so I took advantage by going on a walk, then a run, and more walking. It was so beautiful out. Of course the Koreans were still wearing long sleeve shirts and pants because they don't like the sun. I need to take a picture one of these days of the ridiculously large visors they wear on their heads to prevent sun burn. And yes Mother, I know I should probably be wearing one myself but I'm going to stick to the sunscreen for now :)
Saturday (Nov. 5th) there were four of us that went to an Orchestra concert. One of the Korean supervisors at our school plays the cello and was performing in a city a couple subway stops away and it was free. The first songs were played by younger kids playing the trumpet and I was concerned we agreed to go an amateur band concert type thing. Luckily, it was the students of the teachers in the orchestra or something so they had separate songs by each instrument first with the students, and then afterward the actual orchestra played. It was really fun to listen to. They played "The Phantom of the Opera" and then as an encore to the first "encore", they played "Pirates of the Caribbean" so it was fun to hear songs I was familiar with.
Sunday, my day to really do nothing, I did just that; nothing... Unless you count watching episodes of Glee that you've already seen as doing something!
Work this past week seemed to go pretty slowly and I'm not sure why, everything was pretty much the same. Maybe it was my cold and therefore lack of energy or what, but I was ready for the weekend by Wednesday. On Friday, it was "Pepero Day" which is a made up holiday by the Lotte company that makes Pepero. Pepero are cookie sticks dipped in chocolate on the end. It's Pepero day on 11/11 because of the shape of the sticks as 1, pretty lame and pretty ingenious I think for a company to get tons of people to buy their product just because it looks like a date! Also the kids brought Pepero for all the teachers and I'm not going to complain about any holiday that gets me free chocolate!
This last weekend wasn't too eventful. My only goal for the weekend was to finally buy a winter coat since I didn't bring mine with me. I decided to go to Dongdaemun which is a whole area full of different shopping places and vendors with pretty much any product you can buy. I was able to find a decent coat pretty quickly so I was happy about that. Then, Rachel, Christine and I hung out in Seoul for a while to see the lantern festival that was on the Cheonggyecheon River. I also had my first cheeseburger in Korea at a chain called Kraze burger. It was delicious and reminded me of Culvers. After dinner we headed to see the lanterns. The river is more like a stream and it runs through Seoul. It actually used to be covered up by roads and highways and they finally tore it up and opened up the stream again (or something like that!). The lanterns were cool but there were sooo many people that it was almost too frustrating to stay long and look at them. We headed home from Seoul and then went out to Suwon to watch our co-teacher Tom perform at a bar called "The Big Chill". Suwon is about a 30 minute bus ride from Suji. It was the bar's 2nd anniversary so that's why Tom was playing and a couple other people.
Sunday (today) has been another day of nothing. I cleaned my apartment, caught up on emails and messages with friends and relaxed. I did go grocery shopping because we found out Friday that the teacher's no longer will get free lunches. As it turns out, our school was doing something illegal and they had one cook making all the meals for the kindergarten classes which apparently you can't do? So now the school has to get it catered and the teachers and the staff aren't included. I'm really bummed about it because the food was really good, it saved me money, and it was my only real Korean food I ate ever. At least I took advantage of it and got to try lots of stuff the first 2 and a half months I was here!
So, life continues on here. We are going to start decorating our classrooms for Christmas and I think that will make a little homesick not being home around Christmas. I leave for the Philippines in about 40 days though so that will help! On a random note, I got new glasses here the other week for only 40,000 won (about 40 dollars!) For anyone that wears glasses, they know that is incredibly cheap and super exciting. I might have to get another pair before I leave!
Hope everyone is staying healthy back home.
Tootles, Meghan
