And so it begins....

Intensives start in approximately 10 hours, so my ability to update my blog will be limited. For the next 3 weeks, 6 days a week I will be working morning classes in addition to my normal classes. It adds up to about 48 hours a week of teaching, plus preparation time...But I'll be at work about 60-65 hours a week. Yikes. I will try to write about Busan on Sunday, but who knows if that will happen. I've been really busy recently, going to the gym early in the morning, studying until 2 then going to work, so I haven't been able to update for a while! Sorry guys!

Last week was a bit stressful. Grammy's house caught on fire while mom and Adrienne were visiting, which was very scary and horrifying, but luckily everyone was ok, due to the neighbor's dog waking everyone up and alerting them to the fire, since no fire alarms went off. Yes, that is a true story. here it is: http://www.katu.com/news/local/Dog-named-Lulu-saves-the-day-when-fire-breaks-out-in-Wilsonville-162467986.html?tab=video

You can see Grammy sitting drinking her water and mom standing next to her in the video.

Adrienne saved the day, as usual. She is always the hero. She responded with lightening speed when Grammy fell down the stairs. Eye witnesses have confirmed that "There was no phone in sight, but suddenly she had a phone in her hand. It was unreal."

This time, she re-entered a burning building, getting what she felt was necessary, including the car keys so they could move the car before it was roped off, clothes etc. Mom was her usual calm self in an emergency and saved the most necessary items. A plastic fork, a doorstop and the land line phone, which is useless outside of the house that was on fire at that moment. She forgot the most necessary item, which was Grammy's purse, which Grammy complained about and later said "I don't care about my life! I care about my purse!"

She also saved Grammy, but that got lost in the fact that she saved the doorstop, because no one can see why that would be important ever. Even when the house is not on fire.

Here are some pictures:

Grammy lives in a duplex. This is her neighbor's side of the house. Luckily, her side of the house was not as badly damaged.

Watching the fire. There's Grammy, mom, Diane and Bill. Adrienne is on the other side of Grammy and due to Grammy's immense size, she cannot be seen.

For those of you who have never seen my grandmother, that was a joke. Grammy weighs about as much as a toddler. A small toddler.

The next day

The night of the fire.

The bedroom mom and Adrienne were staying in.

Then, that same weekend, My refrigerator broke. My air conditioner broke. My computer broke.

This was how I felt about that: -_-

I had to go to Yongsan on Monday, which is basically a giant technology shop, to get my computer fixed. My friend helped me find a map. I arrived and it was sooo hot. I go to the first building and they said "No that's the next building."

At the next building, someone said "yes, the 3rd floor." Then he said "No, we only sell Lenovo computers here, that's the 1st floor." So I go to the first floor. They said "No that's the next building."

So I go to the next building. The people there sent me to 4 different floors, until someone finally said "No that's the white building right there, on the 2nd floor." So I arrived in a pool of sweat and gave them my computer

My battery was the main problem (judging by the giant red X that was over the battery sign constantly.) Then they cleaned the CPU because my fan kept getting hot, so my computer would turn off all the time. It would also turn off all the time if I tried to do things like run a virus scan, open 3 tabs in Chrome. Skyping with people.

I returned on Wednesday to get my computer. It was 90 degrees, feels like 102 with 95% humidity and it wasn't raining. It literally felt like you were standing in a sauna when you went outside. I walked the maze of Yongsan and found the computer repair place, after needing to ask for directions a few more times. Oops. I think I caused a scene by the amount I was sweating from my face, since people in Korea do not seem to sweat.

I then met Carrie and some friends in Hongdae where I took a different bus and ended up getting lost going to the restaurant I frequent up to 3 times a week...

My air conditioner poured water on my bed. Well, really onto my face as I was sleeping. I washed my sheets, then put them back on a couple days later after they had dried. 5 minutes later, my air conditioner poured water onto my bed again. I fixed it and it's better, but honestly!

My freezer had been gradually melting in my old fridge, getting all my food gross and wet. My chicken was on a tiny slab of ice that was almost finished melting, so I finally asked them to fix it. They gave me a new fridge.

This morning I went to eat my yoghurt and it was completely frozen. As were my mushrooms, green onions and broccoli...I think I need to adjust the settings, so my refrigerator seems to only be functioning as a freezer.

Classes are going well. I'm enjoying my students for the most part. I will try and write more later. This will be a bit of my "complaint" blog, then it will be back to the humor of my life!

Camel Crickets, otherwise known as 곱등이

I have made a horrific discovery. 

The Camel Cricket.

I had one of these in my classroom a couple weeks ago. Luckily, it hadn't reached this size, but good heavens! My student found it dead under his desk. He said, "Teacher, there's something dead over here." I said, "Oh really, what is it?" But, he had it covered with something. I then turned to answer a question from another student. When I turned back around, previous student had it on a piece of paper, which was now in my face, causing me to jump back and yell, "MY GOODNESS!" As he moved it to the garbage can, approximately half the class screamed. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. And it was just hanging around, dead, in my classroom.

I have now researched them. They are harmless, live in caves or dark places on every continent and grow to be huge, so people are afraid of them. 

Centipedes, Cockroaches, Camel Crickets. What other horrifying bug will I find in Korea...That will also apparently start with a C.

UPDATE: I looked up bugs that start with C. The only other ones are caterpillars (cute!) and catawba worms, which turn into large moths. So maybe the next will be a giant, normal centipede. Bleck

The COEX Aquarium, or where I became obsessed with goldfish

Last weekend, I went to the COEX aquarium.

Then, I went again 3 days later. Hence the 5 million pictures. And the pictures that seem a bit out of order.

The aquarium is at the COEX mall, which is enormous. I had been there 2 other times. One time my first day in Korea, when Elaine needed to get a purse and we ate lunch. The second time for an art show with Blossom, Bree and Craig. This time, for the aquarium.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived at the mall was the enormous Mario advertisement, which made me realize even further that Korean ads are a lot different than American ads. See also the 2 plastic surgery ads. I don't know about you, but I really don't think those girls look all that much better in their after photos.

The breast enhancement surgery is my favorite of these...

Random out of order picture: After the aquarium, we went to see "Snow White and the Huntsman" at the movie theater in the mall, which was enormous and fancy, as you can see here. I enjoyed the movie, even though I don't really like Kristen Stewart because I think she is moody and expressionless. At the end, I thought "Oh she wasn't that bad." Then I realized it was because she barely had any dialogue and occasionally smiled.





Anyway, we entered the aquarium here. It was very prettily lit up.

I will point out here that the first time I went was Sunday afternoon with Carrie and the aquarium was insanely busy. You had to wait in line to see each fish and had to fight small children and cameras to see any fish. The second time it was a Wednesday evening and it was barely busy at all. It was basically me, Denise and the two families that were also there. And the Russian tour group that seemed to sprint their entire way through the aquarium, since I only saw them briefly.

I spent most of my first trip creeping on small children, so I could take cute pictures of them, since I couldn't really take pictures without them in the picture anyway. I will now add my commentary to all my pictures. I warn you, there are a lot of pictures.

Here is the hovercraft fish.

He looks like he's photo-bombing, except there's nothing behind him.

Here's a leopard fish.

This is my favorite picture I took. She is adorable and the fish is so perfectly placed.

Here's the crowd of people on Saturday.

Hey, what's up guys? I'm bored.

Korean Water beetle. 물방개. For some reason, this beetle was enormously creepy.

  

This fish's tank was far too small, considering he was almost as long as the tank. This was Sunday. Wednesday, the fish was no longer in this tank. Clearly he died from lack of movement. Or they put him in a better tank.

These gold fish were amazing. They just looked so friendly!

They were so cute. So, I took about 100 pictures of them.




Ok, maybe only 50 or 60. They're just so cute and happy! They would come look at you and smile. I'm not even joking. They were fascinated with the people looking in on them.

There were also these interesting features of the aquarium, that will also be out of order a bit.


There were fish in a fake sink.

And a fake refrigerator

Inside a fake mirror.











Inside a fake tv.










These were weird looking.

This guy was cute, too.

Here are the goldfish again.

Here are some fish. In a mailbox. With baby Spidermen.

This guy was sprinting around his cage attempting to make an escape.

Here are some fake Amazonian people, since it was in the Amazon World part of the aquarium.

An alligator snapping turtle. He was scary.

Some kids looking up at the rays above them.

These fish were definitely featured on "River Monsters." You know, the show where the guy jumps into rivers to find man-eating fish. Or fish that are known to attack humans.

They look like angry, dinosaur fish.

According to the sign, this is a Beard Dragon.

He posed for the camera completely. Cocked his head and everything.

Here are some piranhas. They were also featured on River Monsters. Obviously.

Please look behind the fish at the person looking at the picture.

Here are some fire eels. They were pretty cool looking.

Electric eel. Bzzzzzz.

But I want to get my hand bitten off!

This guy had quite the chapped, but completely full, set of lips.

I got photobombed by a beaver.

People were very inconsiderate of the fish. Adults were continuously banging on the glass (as you can see here--an adult male was banging on the glass with a Gatorade bottle). It was really bizarre. Workers were watching and never said anything about it!

I also got photo-bombed by a fish. Or the fish got photo-bombed by the ray that was chasing him and smiling.

Here are the 5 million people.

He also looks really smiley.

A pufferfish!

This is called a Chambered Nautilus. It was extremely strange looking and looked like...well you can see that it looks like a giant swimming hermit crab or something. And it was swimming! It was so bizarre.

Here are the pictures from Wednesday's trip now.

Here's the turtle at the entrance. Aka Crush.

Here are some fish in a stop light.

And look! The friendly looking goldfish again!

Here are some fish in a phone booth.

Here are some fish in a toilet.

Fish in a vending machine.

Some prairie dogs.

The dreaded bats, as usual!

Yes, they were sleeping.

This fish was making such a Dori Face from Finding Nemo. It made you realize the researchers really did their jobs. Also, they were really, really, really, really silver. They looked like they were wrapped in aluminum foil.

The puffer fish again

They had tiger sharks at in the shark tank. Apparently they don't eat the other fish?? Yeah right!

They had really adorable manatees, that apparently mother has developed a strong fear of, going so far as to say "Gargle blergh!" when she saw them. But they are just so cute!

They had a hammerhead shark.

They had a cool tunnel that you walk under, while the fish swim over you.

My camera died about halfway through my first trip to the aquarium, probably due to the 5000 pictures I took of the goldfish. So, when I arrived at the octopus tank, I could only take pictures of the octopus with my phone. The octopus was the most active octopus I've ever seen. It was pretty cool to see it swimming around. My phone took ok pictures, but not the best.

Of course, when I went the second time, the octopus was nowhere to be seen. 

Here are some axotyl's. They're weird looking.

That kid looks so nervous about the shark swimming by. These are back from the first trip. Not sure how that happened.

And that was the end of the aquarium. I hope that you fell in love with goldfish just as I did.