Second, the staff at the school completed their reports on the students and I have grand news! Grace, the woman in charge of facilitating the English Chip program (two of the classes I teach; the younger ones) came into my classroom, pulled me aside, and told me what she discovered. One of my classes had done the most work in their class books. She said that this is very good and doesn't happen regularly. Also, one of my students, Alex who is new to the school, likes my class. A few weeks ago I had to write a report explaining how he is handling the transition into the school and what his strengths and weakness are. Grace called Alex's mother to inform her of this progress. His mom said that Alex was really nervous about coming to the school and that he heard it was extremely difficult. However, Alex was relieved after starting the program because it wasn't as scary as he thought it was. "He really enjoys going to class." What!?!?! Hope. A student likes coming to class? MY class!?! I couldn't believe it! That has been my goal: making the kids learn something, but doing it in the most fun way I can. Point one Christine. Let's hope that I can keep it up and do even better. :)
Finally, I would like to share what I did on Saturday. *sidenote:* Currently, I'm sitting on my indoor porch-thing with the window open; letting the cold winter air freeze my typing hands. What a view I have:
On Saturday Francesca and I decided to have a shopping/museum adventure day. We started our day walking to a local coffee shop. The weather was perfect for a hot drink, cold and grey.
Like almost every Korean I've met thus far, the man working there was more than helpful. At the end of the meal he handed each of us business cards with reward stamps on the back and said, "hope to see you soon!" I've noticed that any English a Korean knows, even if it's just "bye," they want to use it. It brings a pride to their eyes. I guess if you were forced to take a language as a child and never got to use it, you'd take any chance you have to show-off your knowledge. VERY opposite of the U.S. Not one person has yelled at me, "learn Korean!" like people in America tell foreigners to "learn English." There's my political plug; I'll leave it at that.
Okay, back to the story. With our bellies full we hiked steep hills to the Gangneung Art Museum. I'm not kidding about the hills: like San Francisco hills. Once we made it to the top there were three buildings to choose from. Which one is the museum? We took a wild guess, and thank god we were right. It turns out the other buildings were census offices. Although the museum was small, it only took us about 30-45 minutes to go through at a slow pace, it was a good insight to what Koreans value. Each exhibit was a compilation of local artists. Most of the works were paintings and some photographs. However, most of the subjects were flowers. Even the landscapes had a foreground of detailed flowers. Also, people (friends and family I assume) put flowers under most of the paintings. Most of the bouquets had ribbons with writing on them; which neither Francesca or I could read. At first we thought the paintings were done by people who had died, as some sort of memorial. Then we met two of the artists. Clearly they were not dead; that would have been awkward. Plus, I did not want to use my years of zombie-killing training in public. The two women gave us postcards of their paintings and had us sign their check-in books. Again, both of them pleasingly sweet. I would also like to note, that most of the art wasn't very good. Not to sound like a jerk, but the art wasn't much above a skilled high school student. Alas the experience was phenomenal and we plan to go back. We figured that the shows cycle out about every month or so.
The museum also had this small outdoor area where people had painted murals. All of them were of animals and they seemed to be geared toward children.
We continued our jaunt and went down the hill to shop. The colder weather is heading its way and I needed more sweaters! As I'm sure you are aware girls in Asian are small. Luckily for me huge sweaters are in and I was able to find ones that fit just fine! Besides the sweaters, I bought a hat and some gloves. This part of the day took a few hours. However, we planned on going to the movies; which didn't start till 7 pm. We needed to kill time. What did we do? Got more coffee and food of course!
There is this place called Princess Cafe. The sign, which I wish I took a picture of, is bright pink. The letters are cutesy and it has a picture of a stereotypical cartoon, girly crown. We were expecting a place that was very girly and glittery, but were pleasantly surprised. The cafe was more like a restaurant that was designed to look like a realistic princess chamber.
The pictures don't do it justice, but it was beautiful. The light was dim because the rooms were lit with small chandeliers and small lamps. My flash killed it really. It is really a place were you could grab a coffee and read a good book for a few hours. The waiters were dressed like shopkeepers with little caps, aprons, and poofy shirts. We ordered some spaghetti with cream sauce. It was very tasty. The spaghetti came with traditional Korean sides though: Korean salad, kim chi, and pickled radishes. Quite odd, but the flavors actually mixed well, the creaminess of the sauce with the spiciness of the kim chi. Nom.
Now I'm not sure about you, but I have no idea what a "brad" is. I don't believe Koreans practice cannibalism, so we tried to order one. Alas, the menu confusion did not allow us to try a brad. We plan to go back and figure it out. Our best guess is bread, but the waiter said something about it being with cinnamon. After our tea and our lack of brad we continued our journey to the movies.
We saw "One Day." It's the movie with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. I'm sure you're asking yourself, "did that come out like a year or two ago?" You are correct. Since it wasn't a blockbuster it came to Korea a bit late. I had already seen it, but I didn't mind seeing it again. It was also playing in English. I do plan on seeing a movie in Korean soon though. I know, I know, I don't know Korean so how will I understand it? I think that is part of the fun really.
I would also like to say that I think I'm figuring out some of this Korean stuff. Between body language and the little Korean that I know I've been able to figure out what people are saying to me. Progress, right?
Nice blogging with you!
<3 Stine
