Apartment Video

Here's the link to my new apartment!  I told you I'd get it up eventually.

Stuffed animals make great teaching tools!

I remember back in high school when my foreign language teacher, a lovely woman named "Frau Ewald" use to use a stuffed animal she called Ralf der Rat!  He helped with dialogs and answered questions in a funny voice and what not.  Now at the time, I thought she was an idiot and it was just a dumb idea and a gimmick.  Man oh man was I wrong!

Now I personally have 3 stuffed animals that I use to teach with!  They're AWESOME!  They all have different voices, different personalities, and they keep the kids focused.  Perhaps the best use of them though, is as a projectile to throw at an unsuspecting sleeping child =D  See, their soft fluffy exterior makes them the perfect weapon to ward off "english class bordem!"

Listed from left to right, we have...

MIGHTY MOUSE!!!                           Dwegi Tokki                               Montgomery!!!
                                              (Pig Rabbit in Korean)


Basically... I couldn't teach without them!!

Sushi is delicious

So I went to a sushi place with a friend and it was aaaaamazing! I mean, like realy really tastey! It's similar to japan, where they have sushi that goes around in a loop on this conveyer belt. Mega cool:






The sushi wasn't prepared in roll form, but instead it was a mix of sashimi, sushi pieces, and even cooked rice and fish.




It almost all came with topings and other things to make it better!



This one looks like a monster ^^




Those things on the top are salmon eggs! And they are deeelicious!




I told the sushi chef how good everything was, and he made me this for free!!! Heck yes!!


So, how much did this feast cost? Well, if we were in America, the amount and quality of sushi my friend and I ate would probably come out to something like 40-50 bucks. Ouch! But in korea? A mere 10 bucks each!! That's what I'm talkin about!!

Just had my first science class

So I should be going home now, but I'm pretty pumped.  I just had my first science class, and it was awesome!  Like, it was really really cool.  I taught the kids about the science of trees and plants.  I totally had to change my lesson plan on the fly though because of the following...

My original lesson plan was to teach what kinds of trees are where.  Then I ask a basic intro question, "what do trees do."  I was hoping to get a response like, "they grow!" buuuut everyone started explaining in broken english how they breath CO2!!!  Waaaa!  I guess they were a little smarter than my initial lesson plan had been created for.

So we went more indepth into how the tree actually functions, then we went outside for some good old "observational science"!!  We drew pictures of plants and leaves, ect... and came back and talked about stuff.  All in all, it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay more fun than teaching english!  Maybe the coolest part, is that when I accidentally became reeally enthusiastic about the scientific method (haha, I swear I couldn't help it--it's just so cool!), the kids got really excited about it too!  Teaching is fun.

Korean bike riding is awesome

So I went for a bike ride today. All in all, it was 60km, and had a bunch of really hard climbs but it was really awesome! The riding here again, is great! I was talking with my friend Derek last night, (he's teaching here too and is a real strong rider) and we both agree that the kind of bike riding here is the kind of riding we would acually drive hours to get to in America! It's pretty sweet. As a plus too, I stopped at a fruit stand and asked for some fruit and because I asked in Korean, he gave me some for free! Yes!

Even if you're not into cycling, the scenery here is beautiful. Even when captured on a crappy phone camera:










At the top of a killer climb.

Gwangju is Awesome!

So for ya'll who haven't been keeping tabs, I first got to Korea 2 months ago, and lived in an urban area named Bundang.  It was ok, but 90 minutes from my job.  Lame.  Just on Saturday, I moved to a place 5 minutes away from my school in the town I work in named Gwangju.  Sweet.  I also really like it in gwangju cause it's much quieter and i feel like a part of the community.  Now you're caught up.

So I went biking today.  It was freaking amazing!  For all the cyclists reading this blog right now, this is for you:  The roads around my town are almost exactly like the spring training camp area in the North Georgia mountains.  Maybe just a hair more cars, but it's not bad at all.  Seriously--it's AWESOME riding!  The weather was really great today, and I think I started my "cyclist's tan"

I moved, and got my computer back!

Word.  So lots of stuff has happened in the last 4 or so days.  I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I'm not going to write too much, but...

I MOVED!  Now instead of being 90 minutes away from my school, I'm only a 5 minute walk!  SWEET! It's also nice for several other reasons--For starters, now everything I want to buy is muuuuch cheaper.  My normal breakfest is Kimbap (like sushi, but no raw fish) and in my old house, it was 3 dollars.  In my new place, it's only 1!!  Also, I get to see my students.  Maybe some people would think this isn't a good thing, but I really enjoy it.  I feel like I'm more a part of the community this way.  My new house is also much better.  There's only one floor, and I think it's a little bigger too.  Plus, they're literally finishing it as we speak.  So it's braaaaand new!  It's also in a nice, quiet area.  Next post I will upload photos, I promise.

Also, I made an expedition into Seoul to get my computer back.  Fiiiinally I can type things more easily (like this blog post). 

So yeah.  I'll catch ya'll up on the rest of things, but I should have more time now that I don't need to have 3 hours of commuting every day.