Vacation Idea

Browsing the official Korea Sparkle website and ran into their tour section.

Saw this gem:

Ichon Tour: Create your own Ceramics!

The company Ichontour - located in the town of Icheon, 1 hour away from Seoul – proposes a one-day introduction hands-on program to Korean ceramics. The rather comprehensive program includes:
- Presentation on Korean traditional pottery (history, characteristics)
- How to make ceramics with a potter’s wheel
- Making your own pottery under the supervision of a potter
- Lunch – A Visit to an Exposition Hall and Shopping
- A Visit to the Ceramics Museum or the World Ceramics Center

Now, this sounds like something more of my style. Searching the company's website I see that:

Making ceramics by clay with own hands : \30,000/person
- Drawing on the primary ceramics(not baked)
made by the famous ceramic artist: \50,000~100,000/person

- Sending digital camera photographs by e-mail.

'Visitor's work is delivered to his home in his country at his request after
first burning, glazing and 2nd burnig.
(It takes about 30 days & mail fee is additive.)

Ordering of various memorials on wedding,birthday and promotion are
available.

* Shopping only-Except only 3) of above

* Meal : "Salbap Jungsik"(Traditional ichon rice meal) or
"Clean pork barbeque course" (Cost is additional.)

Sounds like it ends up costing not a whole lot. But it seems if you look on the site you can do more there than just make some pots.

Anyways, I now realize that with winter camp-camp coming up I won't have much time to really make official plans with all this, due to that I will be out in the mountains somewhere. But looks like these tours can be planned the day or ahead and then I just hop on a bus.

Now to get the motivation to go out in the cold and explore these places! haha

New Year Reflections

Goodbye 2008. Does anyone remember what happened?

I do.

When January 1st 2008 happened last year I knew exactly what my New Year's Resolution would be. That was to live and work in Korea. I knew I had to do it, no matter the fact that I had a chronic illness or very little money.

And so as this is New Year's Eve I feel somewhat nostalgic and proud that I made my 2008 resolution come true.

But now what??

What New Year's resolution should I make now that I have completed last years? I feel somewhat intimidated from the fact that I reached a goal of mine.

I guess I need to think about what I want to see happen in my life in 2009.

So here are some lofty goals:

• See more of Asia.
• Create more Art (an everyday goal that slips past me)
• See more Art
• Make more friends
• Become a better teacher.
• Try to get a TESOL certificate
• Complete a 2000 piece puzzle. (I secretly love jigsaw puzzles)
• Learn Korean!

Anyways when you think about New Year's is a good time in life to be gracious for all you have. It means you lived one more year of life.

For Koreans the New Year also means that on January 1st everyone becomes a year older.

Tomorrow folks I will be 29 years old, via Korean age!!! I can't even comprehend where 27 and 28 went?? In my heart and mind I am still 27 years old. But BK likes to tease me that soon I will 30. I don't care about my age really and that I will someday be 30 or 40. In fact I have always enjoyed getting older.

Life these days has been calm and without large amounts of stress. I believe I have leaving the Hagwon to thank for that.

Tonight for New Year's Eve I have nothing planned. I could go venture out into Seoul, but it is too cold in my opinion. I am doing laundry right now and will figure out something "fun" to do.

I have tomorrow off and will meet up with BK, who is back from training finally.

Anyways to all those out there I wish everyone a fruitful and peaceful 2009!

Winter Camp Photos Group 1

Today ended the 3rd and 4th graders session of Winter Camp at my school. They seemed lively today and enjoyed our role-play marketplace and the sandwich activity. Amazingly it all filled up 4 hrs of fun.

Here for you are snapshots from the day:

Market Time!!
First Round: Buyers = 4th grade / Sellers = 3rd grade

My coteacher and I laminated copies of American money for them to use. But somewhere along the way we lost our batch of $5 bills and only had $1 and $10, so we used Monopoly $5 bills.

The students made signs for their post and practiced saying "What would you like?" and "How much is this?"
Time to Eat!! I tried to get them to look at the camera, but they were enjoying their sandwiches too much.

And of course this post wouldn't be complete without a video show of the kids! Enjoy!

Winter Camp Duty

One of the stipulations in my contract is that I work Winter Camp sessions during the children's holiday.

There are 2 weeks of this and both are interesting.

1st Week:

• Held at my school from 9am to 12:10pm.
• The week is split up with 3rd and 4th grade coming the first half, and 5th and 6th coming the second half.
• Class size is 20 students.
• Our theme is: Animation, make a diorama, role-play market, make sandwiches
• It is more fun than serious.

2nd Week:

• Held not at school but all the way in Chung-nam province, Chungyan. Several other teachers will be there.
• 4 nights 5 days.
  
• Sleep and live in cabins. Work is from about 9am to 8pm at night, with breaks for food in between. (breakfast, lunch and dinner)
  
• The first and last day are more about ceremony than lessons.
• Not looking forward to this one seeing how I have to leave the comfort of my home, but what the heck right...it is part of the adventure.
  

Here for you is the email I received with further information:

Hello, teacher.

I'm Mr. Majaeok in Gunpo city-hall, I'm manager of Gunpo winter camp

I heard your questions about our winter camp

Gunpo English Winter camp will be held in Chung-nam province, Chungyang

You will stay in Chungyang Youth-Center that have pension or cabin

And You will teach the usual english expression to elementary students. (10~13years old)

The number of students are 75. we organize 5 group, the group has 15 students.

The subject of winter activity is snow sliding, flying a kite and Korean traditional games.

You will play with student and teach the usual english expression, naturally.

Because our camp is 4nights and 5days, You should prepare your clothes, toilet articles, and towers

We will give whole meal and some snack.

We will move through 2 big bus, please come to Gunpo City-hall 1st floor at 8:10 , 5th January.

I hope that my answer will be helpful to you. Thank you, see you later.

Wow, the subjects sound like PE activities. I just hope that they are not held outside. But I don't know how you can do kite flying indoors. :(

In a separate email there was attached our lesson plans which have subject matter that goes beyond these PE activities. So looks like they will learn Science and other subjects but through fun activities.

I feel some stress because one of the major things I struggle with as a teacher is being a fun person. I tend to explain stuff in a serious tone and then try to say something about it in a light and fun tone, but usually the kids just stare back at me blankly.

Sigh~

During this time I won't be able to blog...maybe the place will have some computers so I can check email. Well, that is my winter camp duty that most Public School teachers face here in one way or another.

Korean Over-The-Counter Medicine

Winter is that lovely time of the year when you wear more than one layer of clothing and have to spend 5 minutes getting your coat and everything on before you leave the house.

It is also the season of sneezing, coughing and runny noses. As a teacher one of the benefits is that you pay for a portion of health insurance. This means that you can go visit a doctor without the typical hassle one might encounter from a doctor back in America. For example, when I needed to visit a doctor back home if I had a bad flu I would have to go to the open clinic. Where I would sit and wait for an hour to see a Doctor. The fees would have been high too, I guess it depends on what insurance one had in America. (I had none)

Anyways, visiting a doctor here is not so hard. But like the post-office and Bank the doctor's office closes around 5pm here, that is for the English speaking doctor. So to get to him in time I have to request to leave work early.

The week before last I developed a cough and requested to see the doctor. But the doctor told me I didn't need medicine.

To this day I am still coughing. And within the past few weeks I have been to pharmacies getting non-prescription medicine, or over-the-counter meds.

Pharmacies here are not like the one's back home, where you walk into the drugstore and there are rows and rows of shelves selling over-the-counter products. Here a pharmacy usually has a few self-care things in the front, such as band-aids, toothpaste, vitamins but to get to the drugs you need to ask the person at the counter.

Apparently the "over-the-counter" drugs here are found behind the counter. Access to drugs like Tylenol can be given to you upon request.

With the use of my cell phone's dictionary I was able to retrieve a few cough medicines from the pharmacist.

Now for you is a pictorial review of the medicines I have collected.

Neocol-F are like cough medicine in pill form. These have the drug Guaifenesin, which is good for clearing you of snot. But it also dehydrates you, so drink a lot of water.

I would say this drug is effective at slowing down the cough rate and making things feel a little clearer. But I am still coughing so it isn't a miracle cure.

The next drug is called Hardy Cough F tab. I could not find any Internet info on it. But I asked BK what the difference is and he said this one is a lot stronger than the Neocol-F. I could definitely feel more of a difference with these and when taken at night I don't wake up coughing. But like I said I am still coughing, so still not a miracle cure.

And for a runny nose I found the medicine CONTAC Gold is similar to the American brand Contac drugs. It has a decongestant in it Phenylpropanolamine to clear up your sinuses. This drug worked really well when I had a non-stop runny and sneezy nose. I have also tried to use it to clear up the snot riding down my throat to stop the cough, but without success.

All of these medicines had no serious side effects except dehydration like I mentioned before. Also they were all pretty cheap coming in at 2000 Won (1.50 USD). Of course there are only about 10-12 tablets inside, which isn't a whole lot.

In general, if you can't get to a doctor here in Korea for ailments such as the cold or flu you can try to get these over-the-counter meds to help you feel better.

But the best medicine of all (rest and chicken soup) can only be found if you got the time and a can.

Anyways, hopefully my cough will start to go away. It isn't terrible just annoying.

Joy to the World

Hey it is Christmas... in case you live in a cave with no holidays.

Got the day off today.

Spent it with BK as he had the day off from training. We met up in Yongsan, which has a huge shopping mall complex with movie theatre.

We saw the new movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" which BK fell asleep to. It was all right but certainly nothing to remember.

Some other things we did were get our pictures taken, eat some candy and watch other couples.

Christmas is a couple holiday in Korea, so there were a lot of couples out holding hands.

Anyways, after all that BK took me to a Jimjilbang.

Basically it is a sauna house type place. There is one large room where the floor is heated and you can lie on it and take a break. This particular Jimjilbang was huge!

You get a set of clothing to wear at the place, which you change into in a locker room. The locker room is seperate from the men of course, and the women were naked.

This Jimjilbang had other sauna rooms you could go into, some smoking hot, mild and icy cold. You could pay to get a massage or sit in a massage chair. I did use the massage mechanical chair which hurt like hell.

The place was packed and mostly with families. So although appearing to be a relaxing place it really was a glorified public / relaxing space.

I would like to go to one again but maybe fine one a little more laid back, if even possible.

Well gotta work tomorrow. BK goes back to his last week of training.

The weather is staying at a cold temperature these days and I am praying for an early spring.

Oh, happy holidays!