Pictures, Hot Pants and Man-Holes

This Sunday, Carrie, Elaine and I met to go to the National Museum of Seoul. We decided to meet at 2PM, so we could factor in the fact that, due to public transportation taking forever, someone is always at least 20-30 minutes late. I did not read my book, just in case I accidentally read past the stop again. I realized that my problem last Sunday was that the stop was several stops from Hapjeong, where I had transferred, but I probably just didn't look up for ONE stop and that's how I missed it. While on the subway, the girl sitting next to me took a picture of a woman's pants with her phone. Or her butt, but I prefer to think that she was taking pictures of her pants. I made it to the subway station for the museum, unusually on time. Elaine had also just arrived. Carrie was running late due to all the transfers she had on the subway.

Elaine and I spotted an interesting bug. Beetle perhaps? Who knows.

While we were waiting, this man, 51 years old (we know because he told us his age) came up to us and "Hello, let's be friends." He asked us the year of our births and explained the meaning of each of our Chinese animals. I am the dragon, which is much cooler than Elaine's pig. We were having a lovely conversation about various things, since he was waiting for his wife, until he looks at Elaine and says "You have very large...You know" and then gestures to her bosoms. aka her boobs. Three things went through our minds. Or at least mine 1. Who says that? 2. How exactly do you react to that? 3. I'm surprised he only said it to her. I believe I responded appropriately by standing off to the side laughing hysterically. Silently. But hysterically. Carrie arrived immediately after "the incident." He looked at her and asked us, "Is she Japanese?" Elaine said, "I don't know, ask her." And that was the end of the conversation with Mr. Creepy.

It also spurred a remembrance of my second day of class when one of my students, to avoid answering a question said, "But Teacher, you're so beautiful, you're so....AMPLE!" complete with emphasis and I thought "Good heavens, how do I respond to this" and just said "Answer your question." He said it one other time and I said "Don't say that to me ever again."

So after Mr. Creepy, we headed to the Museum. Due to extreme humidity and heat, we bought water bottle(s) at the nearby Family Mart, where we discovered this on top of the garbage cans:

Then went to go to the museum.





We were immediately surprised by the deafening sound of locusts/crickets/cicadas. I wanted to see one but I could not find it. There is a video of the deafening sound here. It's not as loud on the video, but considering the fact that you can hear them on the video, I think you can see how loud they were.

We then noticed some flowers:

and a dragonfly that was interesting (Black and White!)

And then we saw a path with some statues and said, "well we're outside, might as well see everything now then go inside to the air conditioning"









That path lead to a little waterfall called "Dragon Falls"

and this little butterfly.

Then, it lead to a little exercise park.

Then, to another little pond that had this heron:



(You can really see where Birds and velociraptors are related)

which flew up to this statue as the King of birds:




Which, when it looked at me with it's evil little eye, prompted a brief relapse into a childhood memory of being chased by a goose and being bitten on the butt, which then prompted me to tell the story in secret to Carrie and Elaine, but Carrie got the entire story on a video, which has now been posted on facebook and she and I are no longer friends.

Then, we found a giant hand.

And a pond with some enormous coy. and children feeding the coy



and some Lilly pads.

and some gourds hanging out underneath a fence.




This weird plant:

and enormous foot (just for you Kellie)

and more flowers.



this enormous bumblebee:

This woman talking on her phone with Namsam tower in the background.

and a guy hanging out upside down in a different exercise park (He immediately noticed I was taking a picture of him).

Several Korean flags:


This bell holder:

and the Museum from this point of view:

An almost 90 minute detour later, we finally made it to the museum. Luckily we met at two, because Elaine and I know each other well enough to know we need some "Lets get distracted by weird things" time.

The next blog post will be about the actual trip to the museum and the awesome things we saw.

For a preview, check out this picture:

But for now, hold yourself over until another post with some more funny student stories:

Today, I played a game with my students where I put words into Tic-Tac-Toe and they have to use the words correctly in order to get an X or O (or flower or star or triangle as they wanted.) One girl realized that her team was going to lose and she said "Oh crap" which lead me to ask the questions, "Where did you learn THAT word?" But she didn't know.

A student said "Yesteryear" by accident, but it was very Jane Austen-y/Shakespearean.

The same two students who said "crap" and "yesteryear" were discussing boys. They were discussing how the boys at their middle school were all really ugly and really short, but the boys at another middle school were all tall and handsome. One of the girls said "I am very sad all the time because there aren't cute boys at my school" oh the woes of being a middle schooler.

The same two girls created a party idea where the girls dress up as boys and the boys dress up as girls. They said the required dress for boys was "Hot pants and High Heels" and yes, they used the word "Hot pants"

This same Middle School class, when asked what embarrasses them gave three great answers. Aka 3 students gave three great answers.

Number 1: When I shoot a basketball and it bounces back and hits me in the face, I feel embarrassed

Number 2:"When we are changing from our school uniform into our PE clothes and a boy walks in, we feel embarrassed" I wonder if this one has actually happened...

Number 3:"when I write a love letter to a boy and he says "ewwww no way" then I feel embarrassed"

Considering that their English is very low level, I was very impressed.

I will try and remember others and continue to post them.

In the meantime, Seoul is in the midst of a huge, huge rainstorm. There have been a couple deadly mudslides and much of Gangnam (where I stayed for training) is flooded. Tonight, we walked to dinner for Queena's birthday and on the way there were battling winds, rivers of water and the most treacherous thing I'd seen: the water was flowing so powerfully and rapidly through the sewers and the street that the very heavy metal man-hole cover had literally been lifted up and out of the hole and was sitting next to the hole, which was gushing HUGE amounts of water. We replaced the man-hole, but it was still kind of shocking! Be happy Seattle friends that it's not insanely humid and raining as much as it is here!

Dumbledore and Language Barriers

I have another student story that happened today.

I don't even remember what we were talking about, but I said to my students, "Oh you know, I'm really old." And one of my students said, "You're the same age as Dumbledore right?" and I said, "What!?" He said, "Dumbledore was 115 when he died and are you the same age?" I decided to respond maturely and said "No of course not. I'm the same age as Voldemort" (who, if you are not a fan of Harry Potter, was about 67 in the books).

I showed my students pictures of my family, mostly to show that Grant's hair is lighter than mine and they all said "Your brother is very handsome!" I thought Grant would appreciate that.

There was a centipede in Queena's apartment, too. Clearly there is an infestation. She said she's never seen one in the apartment before and there are officially two sightings.

I had a package sent to me (of water filters for my Brita filter, very exciting I know). I wasn't home, so they left it at the market next to my apartment. The man is very friendly but we can't say anything to each other. I basically just said "Box?" and he spoke to me in Korean. I showed him my name and then "package" and "mail" in my phone dictionary. There was a lot of Korean being spoken and me pretending to kind of understand. I actually did kind of understand with his hand gestures, but I had no way of saying "They left a package for me here." Then, I saw my package on the ground and said "AHHH!" and then we both laughed a lot, because we knew we never would have communicated that I needed a box the mail person had left for me. I will be happy when I start Korean classes in September!!

Centipedes, Moustaches and Slushies

This blog post will primarily be about funny stories of things that have happened with my students. But first, I must tell you about the enormous bug I found in my apartment last night.

By found, I mean saw it crawling up my wall, which resulted in me panicking. My natural instinct would have been to scream and run around the room in circles, but unfortunately I live alone and that would not have resolved the issue. At this point it was at the top of my wall. I went and grabbed a shoe, intending to squish it. I walked the two inches to my entry way, grabbed a shoe and by the time I got back to the wall, it was GONE! The speed at which that thing moved was shocking. I managed to find it and kill it (sorry any bug lovers, but under no circumstances was that thing going to be alive in my apartment with me.) I felt flustered and heart-attacky for the rest of the night and kept jumping every time I saw a shadow or my hair touched my arm. Then my friend Emily was kind enough to suggest that maybe the centipede came in on my clothes. Then I started panicking that it came inside in my purse and I'd been carrying it around for hours under my arm. I ended up going to bed much later than planned due to my panicking and phantom itching.

I learned later that it was a House Centipede and harmless to humans for the most part. But I did read this charming explanation of the house centipede: House Centipedes have fangs, which resemble the fangs of a spider, on the underside of their head."

And the one to top it all and prevent any type of sleeping that might have been had last night:

"They do bite humans, but generally that's because you are moving around in your sleep while they are on/in your bedding." Lovely. I am officially going to wake up with a centipede on my face.

This one from Wikipedia makes me laugh though:

"In 1902, C.L Marlatt, an entomologist with the United States Department of Agriculture wrote a brief description of the house centipede: It may often be seen darting across floors with very great speed, occasionally stopping suddenly and remaining absolutely motionless, presently to resume its rapid movements, often darting directly at inmates of the house, particularly women, evidently with a desire to conceal itself beneath their dresses, and thus creating much consternation"

At least it wasn't this type of centipede, which are apparently also found in Korea:


Before this blog post turns into a post all about centipedes, I will move on to a funny story about this weekend. I woke up latish, as I do most weekends because I am recovering from my 6 day work week. I decided to be productive and go to a museum. The one I intended to go to required 2 transfers on the Subway, but I figured that would be ok and it wasn't actually that far. I got on the 2nd line of the 3, thinking I had a few stops until the one I needed to get off on. I was reading my book ("I Know This Much is True" by Wally Lamb) and did not realize how fast the stop came. I thought I was checking every stop, but apparently I missed one and rode past the stop. Unfortunately, I did not notice this for a long time and rode around on the subway for a considerable amount of time, looking up from my book thinking "This is taking longer than it should" until I finally realized I'd missed the stop a long time ago. At that point, it was too late to go to the museum and see it all, so I just went home. My Sunday consisted of a very exciting 2 hour ride on a subway. It was very productive.

Alright, onto my students. I have a few stories. I'm sure there are others that I've forgotten. In fact I know there's one from this afternoon. As it happened, I thought "I've got to remember this for my blog" and about 20 minutes later I'd completely forgotten. Hopefully, I'll remember that one soon. I'm thinking that my sleeping patterns are affecting my memory. Oh the life of being a teacher from 4PM-10PM.

Story 1: This weekend, I was explaining what a moustache was.

Me: A moustache is hair here *Points to area under my nose*
Student 1: "Teacher, your hair is yellow-- is your moustache yellow, too?
Me: Is it normal for a girl to have a moustache:?
All Students: WHOA NOOOOO
Student 1: But teacher, your hair is yellow--is your moustache yellow?
Me: I don't have a moustache!
Student 1: "Yes, but IF you had one, would it be yellow."
Me: "Yes, it would be. IF I had one."
Student: "You have a yellow moustache
Me: HEY

Story 2: I am teaching Arabian Nights to my very young students. The first page talked about the Sultan and how he murdered his wife because she had taken a lover. I was thinking in my head, "How am I supposed to explain this to my students?" I ended up asking my students "Why was the Sultan angry?"

One girl answered, "Because she loved another man" (In her perfect Australian accent. That's still bizarre to me to have a student who's fairly low level speak in a perfect Australian accent).

I said, "Yes, exactly!" feeling a little relieved that I didn't need to go into more detail. But THEN, student number 2 raises his hand. He said, "The Sultan is angry because his wife is a playgirl." My reaction was to laugh hysterically that a 5th grade student had just used the word "playgirl" in my class. The things students come up with!

Story 3: This one requires no explanation.

Me: Your grandfather is elderly. Who else is elderly?
Student: You.
Me: HEY

Story 4: Along the same lines of story 3...aka students making me feel old.

Me: Who has read Harry Potter or seen the movies?
Middle School Student: Ewww, Harry Potter is old and NOT CUTE!
Me: *Thinking "He's younger than me!" did not say that, but I felt very old.

Story 5: One day in class, this kid was goofing off in class. He had his hands sticking out of his sleeves like a T-Rex and came to the front of the class to throw away his slushie, which he'd only finished about half of it. I said to him, "Please put it nicely in the trash. Don't throw it" which resulted in him not listening to me, of course, and attempting to throw it in the garbage from about 5 feet away. But, remember, his arms are in his sleeves like a T-Rex, so his aim was several feet off. I was standing about 2 feet away from the trash and he hit me straight in the stomach with the slushie. The look on his face was extremely hysterical. He looked absolutely terrified. I should have been a little harder on him, but unfortunately, I also thought it was really funny, so I kind of laughed and said "see, that's why we have to put the trash in the trash can nicely. No throwing" Luckily, it came out of my shirt very easily.

Story 6: One of my 4th grade girls has a shirt that says, and I quote directly, "Stop the Apartheid of Lesbian Nazi Lettuce Growers for Jesus of the Nuclear Whale Wars."

Story 7: Not really a story of my students, more of a dream. I had a very strange dream, which involved meeting Jim Broadbent in a movie theater in Seoul, Kellie and Allison Cloud surprising me by randomly showing up in the middle of the street I work/live on and then two of my students forcing me to take them to "Tron" instead of hanging out with said Kellie and Allison. I have not seen Tron, nor have I given Tron any thought in my life, so it was kind of hilarious.

Story 8:
Me: What does "disappear" mean?
Student: Vomit
Me: Vomit?
Student: Yes, vomit
Me: Vomit as in "bleghhhhhh?"
Student: No wait, VANISH!

Story 9:
Me: Who is a thief?
Student: Barack Obama

Story 10: Direct Quotes following a listening test

"The liver is a large body of water." "Rivers can melt the mountain." "The river is as large as our body."

Story 11: Again, not really a story, but I thought I'd include some of the funny names of my students. Most students have English nicknames. Some of them choose the names themselves, others are given to them by other teachers. I have had several Harry's, Ron's and Luna's because of Harry Potter. My favorites have definitely been Kramer, Arnold, Leo, Rocket, Dragon and Raphael for the boys. Girls choose more common names. I've had lots of Jenny's and Sarahs, but some are a little less common like Irene, Milliam, Juliet, Chloe, Stella etc. Arnold is definitely my favorite of the names, because it is hilarious to say, "yes Arnold" Now, if only there was a Helga...

And that's all for now. I am sure many more stories will come!

Seoul Museum of History

Last Sunday, it was monsooning as usual (literally, since it's monsoon season). It was down pouring and thundering beyond belief, so naturally I decided to face the river that was running down the hill in front of my apartment and trek to the Seoul Museum of Art.

Even though it's raining and monsooning, the weather still manages to be really humid, which is something I have not figured out. So, by the time I arrived at the Museum (after traveling by train and reading Bossypants, I was feeling really gross and sticky. I walked by the large amount of homeless people at the gate to the art museum and wandered up to the museum. I went in the door, but realized that there might be a problem when it smelled strongly of paint inside and there wasn't any art. Apparently, they were in transition between exhibits. I decided just to go to the Museum of History three feet away instead, since I'd been to the other branch of the Seoul Museum of Art already. I'll try again on another day.

I wandered through the woods over to the Seoul Museum of Art. I grabbed a brochure and headed up the stairs.

The first room was a room with a glass floor with a lighted model of Seoul underneath that was freaking me out. Naturally, I felt like I was going to fall through the floor. So, I headed to the next room. The next room had a bunch of very cool old documents, written in Korean of course, which were very interesting. I'll have to return once I actually can understand Korean. Then, I'll most likely discover that I can't read it because it's old Korean. But that's ok.

It also had this:

A Placenta Jar. It was featured in the Brochure as one of the highlights of the museum. At least the placenta wasn't displayed separately. Slightly gross.

I learned a lot about how Korean culture developed into what it is today. It talked a lot about how, after the Korean War, people embraced education and hard work as the only way they could better their lives. Millions of people moved to Seoul for work and education, which lead to massive overcrowding and tons and tons of people living homeless or in shantytowns. They talked about how Seoul ended up being an apartment city and gradually expanded into what it is today. It was all very interesting. They had an exhibit on the 1988 Olympics as well, which featured these tigers:
The happy one
and the angry one

Other parts of the museum also had this tiger:

and this tiger:

and this man running:

This extremely long pipe:

This 1970's outfit, which seems to come from the Jetsons. Or possibly Zenon Girl of the Twenty First Century

They had this hat for babies, which was pretty.

And this turtle:


Naturally, at the Seoul Museum of History, they had an exhibit on the history of Moscow.

I enjoyed that a lot. It was very interesting. My favorite part was definitely learning about the Accordion Museum

These women. You'd think that they'd be old, old pictures. But no, it was part of a "Eurovision" campaign in 2009.

And these men's mustaches


Other than the museum, I've basically just been wandering around with my friends, working as usual, and seeing this shirt:

and this sign:

while really anxiously awaiting this:

which I will be seeing on Wednesday night for the midnight showing, no matter what.

Next blog post will be: funny stories about my students. I have a few built up over the last few months, so I will share a few with you!