Korea, July 26th - August 3rd

Another week has passed and I now only have a month until I leave South Korea and I can't believe it!

To start off here are some pictures of the little town that we live just outside of. There is essentially one main street where all the shops and restaurants are. It is small but it has just about anything we need to get by. Sometimes the street will be absolutely dead but during the busy times it can get pretty hectic. Then again if you Google "Yongmun Korea" I doubt you will find much, but go for it. haha!

Asian drivers are just as crazy in Korea as they are in the United States

This week I was assigned to teach a 5 day drama course to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and it really was a fun week. We spent about half of our time on mastering English skills and the other half of our classroom time on learning/practicing our play. I had almost forgotten how much fun doing plays can be. I chose the play "The Emperor's New Clothes" and when it came time to perform it on stage Friday morning in front of 100 people they absolutely killed it. Everything went perfect, from the sound, to the lights, to the fantastic abilities of my little actors. At the teacher I had to serve as the director and I had to make sure everything went smoothly. So as we did our final performance I was running back and forth from the stage to the control room checking on things. To close out the show myself and 3 other students did 45 second rendition of "The Hustle" and it was hilarious, especially when the kids did their grapevines to the left and to the right. Out of the 3 other classes I can confidently say that ours was the best. :) If I can get a copy of the show I will post some clips next time.

This week I have a brand new batch of students. Again they are 4th - 6th graders but this time I will have them for two weeks of instruction. My team teacher is Jasmine, she's about my same age, and we get along great. I am thinking the next two weeks will go really well.

Also this week we made another trip the Noraebang! It was a blast! I sang some classics such as, Maggie May by Rod Stewart, New York State of Mind by Billy Joel, Sister Golden Hair by America, and Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. I also helped by singing back-up on countless others. All and all we were there for about 2 hours and if we hadn't all been tired we could have gone all night.

Me enjoying a Cass, which I think is my favorite Korean beer. Here I'm next to Sunny a Korean friend to my right.

On Saturday I ventured into Seoul again to see more of the city. Although I went into the city and back with friends from the village I spent the entire day alone, which was actually quite nice.

People waiting for the train to Seoul in Yongmun

Pretty soon the Subway will come all the way to Yongmun (60 minutes from Seoul) The station looks huge.

When I got to Seoul it was pouring rain. I was in shorts, short sleeve shirt, and sandals! I also had no umbrella

This was pretty funny as when I arrived I found a band from Mexico playing music just like the Gypsy Kings. They were a riot and quite good.

My day continued at the National Museum of Korea, which is quite the sight to see.
To the left they had an exhibit on Egypt but it was 10,000 won ($8) so I went to the free one which was still pretty cool. The museum has three stories and as you can see from the pictures above it is pretty big.

An interior shot of the mail hallway, above are three stories with different exhibits on both the left and right sides.

A man and his donkey

Pretty cool looking royal throne

So I have a side note here. Right after I took the pic above I was told by security that I could not use the flash on my camera, well there is a catch. On the 3rd night I was in Korea here I broke the LCD screen on my camera. Don't ask me how because I have no idea... yea one of those nights.... So for the past few weeks I have been unable to to review my pictures or edit the settings in anyway. It can be very interesting connecting my camera to the computer after a few days to see what's on it. Anyways the next few pics are on some setting that centers on green colors. Enjoy! I have since fixed it with a little minor tinkering (guessing) . I hope mom and dad don't see this posting because I took their smaller camera instead of my bulkier one. ;)

Leaving the museum

One of the many shopping centers of Dongdaemun
(click more on the link for what Dongdaemun is)

Personally I found all the stuff to be pretty crappy at these Mega-Malls but to me it was all pretty pretty crappy and there was nothing that I really wanted to buy. Anyways these huge malls have hundreds of stores inside each one them and each store is about 20 - 40 square feet

The main Dongdaemun Shopping Complex

I know it may be blurry but look closely, that is FIRA not FILA on the sandals - haha

I had no idea what the significance of this statue was but I thought it was totally cool looking.

A small creek that I can only assume flows into the Han River and people playing in it. It was a pretty hot day.

The gate as Dongdaemun, aka Heunginjimun - These are all over the capital city Seoul.

That is all for now... I hope all of you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it.

Kamsahamnida (Thank you) for all your kind words.

Till next time... Annyong hi-haseyo !