Well, I did it! I found a church:) Guess I'll back up a little first since my last post was wednesday. I'm not sure anything really significant happened on thursday...I think it rained. Friday they had a birthday party for the kids whose birthdays were in October. This is just the younger kids who come in the morning. There were 3 birthdays. Everybody went in this room and they sat the 3 kids in the front. They brought out 2 really good looking birthday cakes (teachers didn't get any cake). Then they had each kid walk around a circle for each year of their life and they showed a picture from when they were that age. It took a while even though there were only 3 of them and I think they were turning 5, 6, and 7. Then they got a present from the school (I think it was a photo album) and cards made by their classmates. Then it was their turn to hand out presents to their classmates. One of them gave out socks, one gave out a bag of snacks, and I dont remember what the other one gave. So that was about it. I guess they do that every month. Also, the pre-k kids ended up crying again. Apparently one of the girls is somewhat of a bully. She told another girl that she didn't want to play with her (in korean--i only know this cause i went and got the korean teacher again). I really don't like that class. hmm...what else...oh, I know this is completely random, but I was looking through a children's dictionary trying to find words that begin with "A" and I thought the definition for "ain't" was pretty amusing. It said something like "ain't is grammatically incorrect. it should not be used in writing and should only be used when speaking if you intend to be humorous." yeah, i know its completely random. ok, yesterday i didn't really do much of anything. nothing worth writing about, which brings us to today. I found an english church on facebook that's in bucheon, but its not very close to me at all. I decided to try and find it though. First I had to take the bus to the yeokgok subway station where I would take the subway to songnae station...my first subway ride alone. I managed to not get on the wrong one or get lost or anything. There was a creepy guy on the subway who started talking to me. I think he thought I was lost. Luckily he didn't get off at songnae. Anyway, from there I had to take another bus. The directions from the bus stop were a little confusing. I was supposed to be looking for some 8 storey building with an angry looking smiley face, but I couldn't find it. I guess I looked lost cause some guy asked if he could help me. He didn't seem creepy. He was really nice, but he wasn't having much luck finding it either. We kinda walked around in circles for a while and he kept asking people if they knew where it was. Finally, somebody did. I never did see the angry looking smiley face though... I was a little late (it started at 2:00 and I probably got there at 2:15), but they were still singing and people showed up after me. There were probably about 30 something people there. It was a good sermon and I met some really nice people. I'm really glad I found a church and I know how to get there now:) ok, well that's about all for now. goodnight!

We found out not that long ago that not only will we be expected to work the saturday after halloween, but we will have to stay late halloween night to set up for the world fair on saturday. They have no idea how long it will take. This has caused some understandable anger among the teachers. I don't really care about it being halloween, but I like my weekends! I need my weekends:-( Oh well, enough about that. I tried a new Korean food called bibimbap. Michael and Natalia wanted to go out for lunch yesterday. we went to this little place nearby. we got the bibimbap, which was basically rice, vegetables, some sort of meat, and a raw egg. you're supposed to mix it all together. it's very good and cheap. I think I've decided tuesdays and thursdays are my favorite days for teaching. why? cause monday, wednesday, and friday i have that pre-k class. i think i've mentioned them before. i just really don't know how to teach them. monday was interesting cause there's this board in the room with different animals and colors on it so i was using it with them. all of the sudden one of them starts shouting at the other 2 and then they're all crying. i dunno what to do so i go get a korean teacher. apparently they were scared of the pictures of the bat and cat on the board so the one girl called the other 2 cowards. yeah...knowing korean would be helpful sometimes. oh, i can now say i have eaten cake with chopsticks. Monday was Michael's birthday so they got him a birthday cake. I thought it would be really hard to eat cake with chopsticks, but I think it was actually the easiest food I've eaten with them. It was funny though cause Janice, one of the older students (maybe 4th grade) came in so they offered her cake. She wanted a fork to eat her cake with. not fair! haha. well it's about past my brain functioning time so i will say goodnight!

My Trip to the DMZ

I'm not sure that I know much more about the DMZ than I did before I went, but it was a fun trip:) First we went to Imjingak. It was built for the people who had to leave their homes in the north. We got to walk out on Freedom Bridge, which was used for exchanging prisoners after the Korean war...

Korea-shaped pool thing

The end of the bridge

We also saw the Gyeongui Train Line. Let The Iron Horse Run Again!

Next we had lunch at the Unification Village. My first Korean meal sitting on the floor:)

Hiding behind the Kimchi pots

Lunch

Then we went to the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel. They discovered it in 1978. It was dug by North Korea to infiltrate into the south. Unfortunately, we couldn't take our cameras down into the tunnel:( We had to walk a pretty good ways down a steep hill before we actually got to the tunnel part. We had to wear hard hats cause the ceilings were pretty low.

and what do you need after a difficult hike out of a tunnel? a nice bottle of sweat! we thought it was water, but it wasn't. kinda tasted like gatorade.

Next stop, Dora Observatory. Here we got to go look out over the DMZ and North Korea. It was foggy so we couldn't actually see much. We could see more than I have pictures of though cause we weren't aloud to take pictures past the yellow line.

I got a picture with a soldier

Final stop, Dorasan Train Station. "Not the last station from the South, but the first station toward the North."

The train came so we decided to get on!

They had several blown up pictures of George Bush trying to sign with his pen turned the wrong way.

Well, overall it was a fun trip! I really enjoyed it:) As usual, more pictures will eventually be posted on facebook cause I definitely have more...it just won't be tonight!

I think today has had a pretty good balance of relaxation and productivity. My hot water was not working this morning, but I fixed it (with the help of the internet). I was proud of myself:) I also decided to see if I could find my way back to Homeplus cause I needed to get a few things. I succeeded in that too:) Yay for not getting lost! On the way there I saw a little Deaf girl...well, she was signing anyway. I guess her dad could have been Deaf, but I thought it was interesting. I had to get more passport sized pictures made for Elissa to take to the immigration office so I did that. Then I did some shopping. I dont even really remember what all I got. Lets see...I got these cookies that looked like oreos (cause I like my oreos). They dont really taste that much like oreos though. They aren't bad, but they kinda smell like play doh. I figure I'll be ok though cause kids eat play doh all the time right? I mean I'm sure I've eaten my fair share of play doh in my lifetime and I haven't died yet. I also bought some tape so I could put pictures up. My apt looks much happier now:) Got a few things for the apt, toiletries, etc. Also, on the way to the bus stop, there were these people trying to get people to come to there church. The lady gave me this rubber thing that apparently functions as a pot holder and jar opener...so that was nice. I didn't have any pot holders. I don't think that church had any english services though cause the paper she gave me was all in korean. i really need to find a church somewhere, but no one seems to know of one close by with an english service...so i dont really know what to do about that... Well, tomorrow's my trip to the DMZ! I'm excited:) I dunno what time I'll get back. Might be monday before I post anything, but I will eventually. Also, I have skype. I haven't really been getting on it very much, but I'm gonna try to get on there more. You can talk for free with skype so if you already have it or want to download it you can add me. My skype name is jennifer.e.simpson

Yay! its the weekend!!!

it's been a long week! not much really exciting to write about. I found out that we will be expected to work late on halloween and we have to be at work all day the next day (saturday) for some world fair thing. sadness:( On a happier note, this sunday i'm going to the DMZ. michael, natalia, and i signed up to go with a group called adventure korea. it should be fun:) well, i really dont have much else to write about so goodnight!

Field Trip!

I got to go on a field trip today:) Yay! First, we went to the Bucheon World Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo. Basically, it was Korean culture stuff. I walked around with Eunice Teacher and a group of 5 kids. We got to play with clay and musical instruments and walk around and look at art and stuff. It was pretty interesting. After that we had lunch. I had my second experience with sushi. Can't say I'm really a big fan of it yet. The kids also brought a lot of their own food. Meals here seem to involve a lot of sharing. I don't think they know about germs. When you go to restaurants, you often eat off the same plates. Lunch was no different. The kids are constantly giving you their food. I got another sweet potato too. I thought it was strange at first when Eunice started going around stealing food from the kid's lunches, but I guess it's normal. After lunch, we walked around AiinsWorld, which is like a park with minature replicas of famous places around the world. A few of the places we saw: London, Paris, Russia, NY, Egypt, Mexico, Morocco. Here are a few pictures from today. More will be on facebook later.

I haven't really written anything on here about the random kids who like to come up to you to say hello. It happens quite frequently. At the mall, we had kids come up to us and ask us our names and where we were from. At first we thought they were selling candy (cause they had candy), but it turned out they were only doing their homework. I've had several kids say hello to me on my way home. When you say hello back, they usually giggle and walk away. Today there were kids EVERYWHERE. They were constantly coming up saying hello to me. It's quite amuzing really. They're just curious I guess.

I had my first full day of teaching today. It went pretty well. I had 6 classes. One interesting thing that happened...one of my students gave me a potato. Half of a sweet potato actually. She just came in and handed it to me and then left. I found that rather strange, but I guess maybe it isn't? Another funny thing, remember that washing machine that I have in my bathtub? well the prongs on the plug for it are the normal round korean ones, but my apt has both outlets for the round prongs and the kind with vertical lines like we have in the US. the only problem is the only outlet in my bathroom is the kind with the vertical lines. so i had to get an adapter for my korean washing machine to use in my korean apt...and guess what...it still doesn't work. maybe i got it too wet. oh well, they're supposed to send somebody to look at it tomorrow. speaking of tomorrow, i get to go on a field trip! yay! not really sure where we're going, but it should be fun:)

Friday and Saturday

alright, sorry i haven't written a post in the past few days. i'll write a nice long one today to catch you guys up. teaching went pretty well friday. the only class i'm not really sure about is sky5. they have some of the most confusing ways of naming and breaking up all the classes. you've got sky5 and 7 year B, and some of them are colors like orange b2 and green a, and then there's amber, jade, and ruby. i have no idea what it all means. the schedule they make is quite possibly the most confusing thing i've ever seen. there are 2 different schedules. Elissa is in charge of the morning schedule, which is with the younger kids. it has lots of colors and is very pretty, but impossible to understand. Eunice is in charge of the afternoon schedule with the older kids. Her schedule looks completely different. It has no colors and is quite ugly and still impossible to understand. oh well, it makes things interesting thats for sure. anyway, back to sky5. they are the 5 year olds, which i guess would be 4 years old american age (Koreans apparently consider you to be 1 year old when you are born). the curriculum is way to advanced for them. i have no idea how to teach them. they're adorable and fun to play with, but i prefer teaching the older kids. anyway, after work i went out to dinner with natalia and michael. i guess they pretty much go to the same place every friday. it was really nice and the food was good. after that we just kinda walked around. saturday i was supposed to go with michael to a bbq that some people he met were having, but i guess he never heard from them so we took the subway to seoul and met a friend of his, Elsa. There was a mall, I'Park Mall, that was kinda built around the subway station. we pretty much walked around there all day. it was a pretty big mall. we were there for like 7 hours and i'm still not sure we saw the whole thing. it was fun though. Pictures:

we ate dinner at some Japanese place in the mall. I had the California Roll. My first experience with sushi. It wasn't bad.

Later, Elsa's Korean friend Jaeman (I think?) joined us for dessert. We went to this cute little place with rocking chairs. Here's a picture of Michael and Elsa:

We saw these cute little dogs too. They looked so sad:( I wanted to take them all home with me. I felt bad for the poor kitty too.

Overall, it was a fun day. the subway back was interesting. we weren't sure it was going to ever go anywhere and michael wasn't even sure it was the right one. it did eventually move though and it did turn out to be the right one. yay! i was very happy to get back home to my bed:) today i plan to do as little as possible! the end! (more pictures will be on facebook group)

My address for those who want it:

Jennifer Simpson
Kyungki-do Bucheon-si
Sosa-gu Sosabon3-dong
Hansin Apartment 101-604
South Korea

Teaching didn't go too badly today. I teach 3 classes tomorrow. I'm glad tomorrow's friday. its been a looonnnnngg week. I have a very pretty bruise on my arm where they took my blood, so that's exciting. Oh, and I asked Elissa about the washing machine today and apparently it is normal to have a washing machine in your bathtub. Neither Natalia or Michael have theirs in their bathtub though. I was trying to be really careful not to get it too wet when I took a shower. According to Elissa, it's ok to get it wet, but the picture in the instruction manual of someone spraying water on the washing machine with a big X through it concerns me. Oh well, hope it doesn't blow up.

There's a washing machine in my bathtub and somebody used my toilet brush

today was a pretty good day. i think i'm getting more on track with my sleep, which is good. observing went well. i found out that i'm going to be teaching 2 classes tomorrow so that should be interesting. lets see...kimchi was a little more spicy today, but still not too bad. um after school michael took me to mcdonalds. yay for normal american food! then we went to homeplus, which is a pretty big store that seemed to have just about everything. they have these things like escalators except they're ramps instead of stairs so you can take your cart up and down them. the carts are really nice cause the wheels don't just move forward and backward. you can easily move the cart from side to side without turning it, which i thought was pretty amazing. i pretty much just bought some basic food... peanut butter, jelly(yay!), ramen noodles(no idea what flavor, but the picture looks relatively normal), pasta, fruit, etc. you have to pay for your bags if you want them too. its nice to know how to get to homeplus now. at least i think i do. i have to take the bus, but i know which one it is now so thats good.

ok, so you're probably wondering about my title for this post. well, elissa informed me today that my washing machine had been delivered and i was like ok thats great and i didn't really think about it til i got back home tonight. i walked in and i noticed my bathroom light was on and i was thinking thats odd cause i know i didn't leave that on. so i opened the door and there sits my new washing machine in my bathtub.

That just doesn't seem normal to me. Anyway, as i said in my last post, they delivered some stuff last night too. One thing they brought was a toilet brush. I had put the toilet brush in the bathroom, but I hadn't taken it out of the plastic it was wrapped in yet, but tonight i found it unwrapped. so yeah, that was my day. the end.

Day 2

Second day of observing classes not really that different than yesterday. Everything went fine with that. I also managed to walk to school without getting lost. yay! I got to try kimchi for the first time today at lunch. It wasn't that bad actually. According to Michael it was one of the least strong kinds of kimchi though. Natalia helped me kinda figure out how to hold the chopsticks so i'm a little better at that. I went for my medical exam thing today. they did eye tests, including one to see if i was color blind which i found odd, height and weight, an x-ray, and yes they did stab me with a needle and they stole my blood:( I don't like needles...at all. its over though. that makes me happy inside. they whole thing was a really fast process. no waiting at all. after that we went back to the school where i got to observe more classes. the kids are all really sweet. they are really fascinated with my "yellow hair and blue eyes." after work michael went with me to try to find a place to eat that would be close to my apt. we kinda just picked a random place. the menu had no pictures or english so we kinda let the lady who served us pick something...turned out to be squid. she brought it out to us and started ripping it apart with her bare hands. it was very chewy and not really very good at all. oh well. when i got back to my apt i found some things that the director dropped off for me including a toaster, a rice cooker, and cleaning supplies! yay:) overall a pretty good day. oh, i bought some cereal last night. look! tony the tiger speaks korean!

and look what the box can do

ok that is all for now. night!

My first day of school

Today was my first day of school! yay:) Elissa, the director's daughter, came to my apt to take me to the school. we stopped to get some of my money exchanged on the way so now i have korean won! we got to the school at lunchtime so i had my very first korean meal. i'm not really sure what everything was, but it wasn't bad. nothing really spicy either. there was soup with something in it, but i dunno what it was, rice, orange sprout thingys, crunchy seaweed chip like things, and something else that was like brown and gray stringy stuff...yeah i don't really know what i ate. i wasn't too good with the chopsticks, but i tried. i met the other two foreign teachers, michael and natalia. they were both really nice and helpful. i think they both said they were 30. natalia's from miami and i think michael was from florida too. he went to UNC Greensboro though. they were expecting me to have a really southern accent. michael kinda showed me around the school, which isn't very big but it's really nice. you do wear your shoes except in certain rooms. its kinda weird cause they aren't like special rooms or anything. they're just classrooms and it's not every classroom, but whatever. the toilets are normal too just in case you were wondering. anyway, i just basically observed classes today and i guess that's what i'll be doing all week and then next week i'll be teaching. my name is jennifer teacher. they don't use like ms. simpson or ms. jennifer. no, its jennifer teacher. i have already been called jessica too so it's not just something that happens in the US. when all the classes were over, the director came by to meet me. she speaks hardly any english, but she wanted to make sure everything was ok with my apt. she seemed really nice. apparently the person who lived here before me moved out only a few days before i moved in so they weren't able to fully furnish it. i will be getting a washing machine, a dresser (yeah i have nowhere to put my clothes at the moment), a toaster, and a rice cooker. yay:) after school i went out with elissa and michael for dinner. i road the bus for the first time. we went to a pizza place. now, korean pizza is not like american pizza. they like to put all kinds of weird toppings on it. we got the potato pizza. it had potatoes, corn, mushrooms, mayonaise, and other stuff on it, but it was surprisingly pretty good. after dinner elissa took me to get a t money card for riding the bus and subway and then she took me to the grocery store. its really close to my apt so its good to know where that is. i have also now seen a dunkin donuts and a mcdonalds. ok, well thats about it for now. goodnight!

ok I'm gonna try this one more time. I had this whole thing typed up with pictures and everything and then it went away:-(

My first full day in Korea was good. Nothing too exciting. I'm mostly unpacked and organized now. 2 of the people from the school brought me groceries which was nice. I decided to walk around a little, but I didn't go too far cause I didn't want to get lost. I don't have the best sense of direction haha. By the way, I have not seen any other foreigners since I left the airport. I know they exist though cause there are 2 other American teachers at my school. Just haven't met them yet. Anyway, I only went in like one shop cause you couldn't really tell what the shops were with everything being in korean. Didn't find anything worth buying. I'm going to try again tomorrow though cause I really need to find some cleaning stuff for the bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, check out this toilet seat:

It says Me & Grandma What A Team! Isn't it cute? I thought this was an interesting choice for a toilet seat anyway.

Here are some pictures of the view from my balcony:

And these are of the view outside my door:

ok now this isn't a great picture, but i wanted you to see the red glowing crosses that come out at night. they're everywhere! I find them a little creepy, but that's just my opinion...

ok that is all. good night:)

I'M HERE!!!

I made it! I think this has been the longest day of my life! 13 hour plane rides are no fun. It was so weird cause I kept expecting it to eventually get dark, but it didn't. Not until the plane from Tokyo here. It made it really hard to sleep. Its over though. Won't have to do it again for another year. I'm really tired and I should be in bed right now, but I don't know that I would be able to sleep. I'm excited that I can get the internet from my apartment:) Here's some pics of my apt.

It's a little small and the bathroom could use some cleaning, but it's not too bad. All the people I've met are really nice. This morning...or I guess yesterday morning? or whenever it was I left Charlotte I was beginning to question my sanity, but I think its going to be ok. I'm sure it will be hard at times, but I think this will be a good experience for me. Ok I really need to go to bed now. I miss everybody!

I'm Leaving

So guess what guys! After over a month of waiting to find out when I will leave for Korea I can finally say my flight is tomorrow morning! Yikes! I'm definitely nervous, but also really ready to go. The only problem is trying to fit all my stuff in 2 suitcases and a carry on. It is not an easy task. I had to take a break. I think I have too many clothes... Anyway, I leave at 9:20 tomorrow morning. I fly from Charlotte to Detroit to Tokyo to Korea. I get there friday at 9:35pm which i think is 8:35am our time. So basically It's gonna be a long trip. I'll post again as soon as I can:-)