The Antics of E. Bo-Young Talking Club

Hello again!

Two posts in one week! This is a record! We have a lot of funny stories about the kids and our lives, but we didn't want to blog you down (get it?!) with too much information in the last post, so here we are, breaking it up into 2 separate posts.

My first story started Monday of last week. Since it was girls night, and I had, in fact painted my nails with a ravishing aqua green, I had to show them off to my classes. I would walk in waving my fingers, asking if it was girly. In my first class one of my students, Ryan, immediately answered yes. Then I asked him, "aren't they pretty?" and he replied with, "Beautiful!" I told him that he was going to have many girlfriends when he grew up because he already knew how to treat a lady. He yelled at me and said, "NO! I will have many boyfriends!" Hm, I didn't know what he was getting at. So, I told Hera, a girl in the same class, that she is going to have many boyfriends when she grew up and she replied with, "NO! I will have many girlfriends!" Turns out they're just that age.

Later on in the day I asked my director if she got a haircut. Here is the very funny conversation that we had:

Me: Director! Did you get a haircut?! It looks great!

Director: Yes, but no one noticed.

Me: Well, it's my job.

Director: Oh, you were a hairdresser back at home?

Me: Oh, no no no. It's just an expression we use in the US.

Director: Oh, so your mom is a hairdresser back at home?

Me: No, I'm not a hairdresser and neither is my mom. It's just a phrase we use. For example, I would say it's my job, as a woman, to notice that another woman's new haircut.

Director: So you're not a hairdresser?

Me: No. Another example is if Dave said to me, "You are so nice to me," and I would reply, "It's my job"

Director: Ohhhhh Okay, so what is that expression again? 

Me: It's my job.....

Also, another funny story about our director. As much as I don't want to admit, (but I'm not ashamed) I was reading a super girly book, called One Fifth Avenue. It's everything you would want in a girl book. While I was reading it at work one night, my director took it out of my hand and asked me what it was about. I simply told her it was a girl book... not for men, I added. She asked me to borrow it when I was finished. I immediately got very embarrassed at the thought of actually giving that book with that content to my director. Oh I'm just embarrassed all over now... I'm letting the world in on one of my many guilty pleasures (though I'm sure there are plenty of my girl friends out there thinking the same thing)!

On to one of our other favorite people here in Korea...Secretary Teacher! Her English is very limited (as you probably already know) The other day Dave saw her on the phone while he was getting coffee. She got off the phone and she giggled and told Dave she was on the phone with her father. Then she proceeded to make a squished face and a motion of pooping. So, apparently she was on the phone with her father while he was pooping and felt the need to share it with Dave! hahahah We love her so much!

In my most advanced class, I was joking with one of my students about him smelling bad. (He doesn't really smell bad by the way) What started off as playful banter turned into a mini competition. I started it out by saying that he smelled like dirt (or something along that line) and he told me that I smelled like pollution. This went back and fourth for about 3 minutes. Some of the the things he told me I smell like were, dirty cheese, garbage, gym socks, and my personal favorite, fermentation. Some of mine included, ear wax, and old lady, armpit and kimchi. He got the last word and told me I smell like mice. It ended right there. I won....mice don't' smell that bad.

I've had quite the exciting classes these past few weeks. I have been mixing things up a bit and having a lot of fun with it. Here are some photos for you to enjoy. It gives you a real sense of what it's like in Lindsey Teachers classroom:

Tomato Throwing Event

that's an event the student's created

The nicknames of of my favorite classes

A drawing of Dave...the speech bubble on the right says, "I'm a fool" in Korean

I taught the kids the phrases, "dusty bunny" and, "no way Jose."They loved it. Then I drew a picture of one of the students, Alice, with a big ol' dust bunny on her head. Now, when I see her, I ask her if she is Alice Dust Bunny and she replies with, "No! I'm Alice Bunny and makes sort of strange imitation of a bunny eating.

Alice Dust Bunny

Oh, and a quick side note...I got called a cow by one of my students. I'm sure you don't have to guess that it was at Easy Academy and it was the worst student I have. It was a nice way to end my Tuesday.

On Wednesday there was a seminar where E.Bo-Young, in the flesh, was speaking. Of course we had to attend this event. If we haven't told you yet, E.Bo-Young is kind of a big deal in Korea (or so we are told). She is famous because she taught herself how to speak English in Korea. She is an inspiration to all.

The previous day I told one of my classes that E.Bo-Young will be coming to our class to test their English ability. She would be coming in and giving a speaking and writing test to make sure that her students are doing the best possible job they can. The kids got very worried. How could this be happening?! Why didn't we tell them earlier?! They all believed me except one  girl who said, "E.Bo-Young is busy!" hahahah

On Wednesday we woke up a lot earlier than we wanted (8:30 AM) and hopped into a cab with our good friends Kirsten and Keegan and headed to the Cultural Center. We were greeted by some unknown Korean man who was giving us E.Bo-Young sashes that we all had to wear to show that we were teachers. We hung around for a while, meeting other teachers who work in the city, drinking coffee, and mingling with a politician who, oddly enough, was wearing a bright yellow vest to let everyone know who he was and what he was doing. About 20 minutes before the start of the seminar, all of the teachers lined up outside the door to make a little runway for parents to enter. It was similar to a red carpet. We were the paparazzi, only we didn't have cameras and we bowed  while saying "Welcome and Hello" in Korea. Also, it made the guests feel uncomfortable and they they didn't want to walk through us. Many people just avoided it and cut through the middle. It was awkward yet surprisingly fun.

Once we had enough and the arrival of parents slowed, we took it upon ourselves to go inside.  Our actions were a little too premature because 3 minutes later, E.Bo-Young walked right by us! We didn't give her the proper greeting she deserved!

From there we had to sit in large auditorium listening to Korean for over an hour and a half. It was painstainkly boring. We did hear the occasional English from her which included, "I like hamburgers," "Come here Sweetie, let me change your diaper," "How many scoops do you want?," "Yo, come here baby," and "Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City." From what our Korean's told us, she was a very good speaker and they really enjoyed her. I wish we could have said the same thing, but turns out, we don't speak Korean and we had to sit there like mopes on a log.

It looks like we are wearing one big sash

안녕하세요 (Annyeong haseyo!)

E.Bo-Young. She's so funny!

And, I know you miss Teddy so here's a picture of him with his new friend with the same name...TEDDY!

Teddy found a friend! Doesn't he look so happy?!

We miss you all back home and we hope that you are doing well. 

-Lindsey

Who Pooped on my Head???

Hello!

The last week has been quite busy for us. Since it is quite cold outside and we make a point to live on a fairly strict budget we don't always have the most exciting social lives. This past week has been action packed though!

It began last weekend when we decided to have Man Night and Girls Night. This is exactly what is sounds like, myself and 3 other teachers here in the city went out for the night and a bunch of the girls had a sleepover here at our apartment. Girls Night, from what I'm told, was a good time and consisted of such stereotypical activities as nail painting, hair doing, cookie dough eating, drinking, dancing, and talking until 7:30 in the morning. Literally. Man Night was a bit more exciting in my opinion. While it mainly consisted of bar hoping, drinking at a mountain temple in the freezing cold, and getting to the roof of a hotel, our first order of the night was to try the dreaded Korean delicacy of dog soup. First off, please don't judge me for trying this. I love animals, and dogs in particular, but it is a delicacy of the older generation (not at all fancied by the younger generations) and something that we wanted to include as part of our Korean experience.

Dog Soup

We had a few drinks to help ease the nerves and actually eating it was a mental hurdle we all had to tackle but, honestly, it wasn't to bad. Sort of like a beef stew. Certainly not running back to try it again soon but not to bad. Anyway, that is checked off the list. The rest of Man Night we walked around Old Mokpo and I saw that part of the city all lit up for the first time. We went up to the side of Yudalsan, the mountain park in the city, then headed back to the waterfront to go to the roof of one of the big hotels because the view of the city is quite amazing. All in all, everyone had a great night. Par for the course, we had rough mornings too.

Old Mokpo Downtown at Night

Tuesday morning we had lunch with our friend Chris Doctor. Chris, who is Korean, is a doctor stationed here in Mokpo for his military service, which is mandatory here in the ROK. Ironically, it is not mandatory north of the boarder, but if you don't join they won't feed you so that decision is pretty much made for you. Anyway, Chris has been kind enough to show us around a little bit and introduce us to interesting and good Korean food. This time around we enjoyed the very appetizing sounding Mudfish Soup. The soup is literally made by putting mudfish into a blender. There a couple other things in there but it mainly blended fish and it was pretty good. Mokpo is apparently well known for this meal and we wouldn't have known of it had it not been for Chris so we are appreciative that he introduces us to things we wouldn't find otherwise. 

Wednesday found us hosting our first Couchsurfer! For those of you unfamiliar with Couch Surfing (https://www.couchsurfing.org/), it is a global network of people who host travelers for free. Lindsey hosted people when she was studying in Brisbane and we surfed with a couple people in New Zealand so we wanted to return the favor and host some people here in Korea. Our first guest was Judith from France, who we didn't know was coming until a few days prior. She had messaged us both separately on Couchsurfing thinking we were different people (which we are but you know) and when we both said we could host her she told me she was already staying with someone else. Then about a week later Lindsey got a message saying, "See you in 2 days!" and we realized that "someone else" was Lindsey. Fortunately, it still worked fine. She was incredibly nice and great to talk too. She lived in Israel for 5 years and is now studying Chinese in Taiwan so she could speak 4 languages: French, English, Hebrew, and Chinese. We just had dinner in our apartment and chatted about our travels and such. Judith headed out to explore the next morning but she was very nice and great to host. 

Thursday brought us our second surfers Anna and Rob from Poland. We hadn't planned on having surfers back to back but after the confusion with Judith that was just how things went. After some bus confusion Anna and Rob arrived around 10pm at the bus station where we met them. They had been studying/traveling in Australia and were heading home to Poland. The cheapest flights back to Warsaw were through Seoul though so they made an extended layover out of it and did a quick 10-Day or so tour of Korea. They hadn't had dinner yet so we ventured to the downtown area but not much was open due to the late hour and the part of town were in can be expensive. It took a little bit of exploring but we found a Chinese restaurant and they finally got to eat some good food. It was quite late after, so we just called it a night. We planned to go to Old Downtown and Yudalsan with them the next morning but we slept in too long and didn't have the time to go since we had to work in the afternoon. They should be back in Warsaw now where they are starting their Masters studies. 

Friday was an ordinary day at work. I made a class sit in silence for over 5 minutes because they wouldn't stop talking. Generally, a problem with older students because they are well aware we don't speak or understand Korean. After work we went out for a couple with Kirsten and Keagan at Boomba down at the waterfront. Boomba is the best because they have the cheapest beer. This naturally turned into a longer night than planned. We meet up with a group of friends at Moe's (the foreigner bar {which we find awkward to be in due to the concentration of foreigners}) and ended up being out until 3a.m. On the plus side, we did discover the best fries in Mokpo at Miller Time. Ridiculously good. I want them now actually. 

This weekend we are just relaxing and enjoying some downtime. It was a busy week but very fun. We look forward to hosting more couch surfers and helping more people. We had a great with our friends are usual but we are also very happy to revert to just hanging out in our tiny, cold apartment reading and watching TV. 

Thanks for reading!

-Dave

OH I FORGOT! We bought 2 gold fish that we keep in a large plastic jar. It was an impulse buy yesterday because I, for some reason, felt it was a really good idea. One is named Wee-bey after the character from The Wire who loves fish. The other is named Wee-bey's friend at this point. We want to see his personality a bit before we rush into a name. Hopefully, they won't die too soon. 

I also forgot to explain why this post is titled, "Who Pooped on my Head?" Its because of this:

These posters are all over the city. This one is in our apartment, we stole it from a window. They had 2 so I presume they aren't missing it. We had no idea what it was but found them pretty hilarious due to his poop hat. Ends up it is a children's play titled Who Pooped on my Head? The play is about this understandably disgruntled mole walking around trying to figure out who preformed this hilarious crime. You can find the english book on Amazon if you care to read it.

Well, I think I am actually done writing now. Thanks for reading!!!

-Dave