Em's First Weekend

Friday:
Friday night we went out for my welcome dinner. All the teachers from Prolangs and Jenny's kids came  and we went to a pork place where we grilled our own pork and garlic and had many side dishes including kimchi, seaweed (fresh), spicy bean sprouts, tofu, onions, and an array of sauces. This dish is called samgyupsal. It all was quite tasty. During the dinner it was a little strange because Mr.Crow was talking for about twenty minutes straight in Korean and no one was saying anything and everyone had a very serious look on their face. I had no idea what was going on and then Kelly, my roommate started to cry. It was a little awkward and strange but then Jenny explained things in English to me. The school has had a couple students quit because Kelly is too strict. This made her upset, and the way Crow was talking probably didn't help. He was also saying that Eric, the other teacher was too lax but now started to get more strict like Kelly. And then there's me who comes from Canada and discipline is completely different. If a student doesn't do their homework I haven't done anything because A) I am not sure what I should do and B) I have always been surrounded with the mentality that if a student doesn't do their homework it is only going to hurt them. I guess I will have to change my view/ways a little while I am here. He also said that our teamwork isn't the greatest and I agree. The only problem with that is that I wasn't given any real training or chance to get to know how it all worked. I am told things that I am supposed to do as we go along and I make a mistake. I am sure in time I will begin to get the hang of things and understand that I have to tell the homeroom teacher when a student misbehaves or anything else of importance happens. Anyways, after the bad was said, the good came along and apparently I am doing really well and the students really enjoy my classes. This is good news :). After dinner, we went to a Karaoke Room! This was lots of fun and made the evening feel a little lighter. They had English songs too which was nice. I sang Somebody to Love (of course), Everybody Dance Now, and we all sang Gangnam Style together hahaha. Well I sang the Hey, and Sexy Lady part hahaha. Crow got pretty drunk but he was quite funny. He said that he wants to have a good relationship with me over the next year. Its a little strange in Korea how people say what's on their minds and there is no filter. People are also brutally honest. This is good, I am just not used to it.  By the time Kelly and I got home and went to sleep it was around 2:30am and I was wiped.

Saturday:
I finally slept in!! I didn't wake up until 11am today. Maybe I am finally conditioned to the time change.   Kelly and I went for a walk up the mountain behind our apartment. It was so beautiful and unfortunately I forgot my camera at home today, but next time I will be sure to take tons of pictures. The scenery is wonderful as there are lots of trees that are still changing colour and there are two lakes and some streams along the way. The air smells so fresh and it is quite relaxing. There are workout stations along the path, which I had been told about but seeing them in person was cool too. The mountain gets quite steep and I actually had to stop because I was short of breath and getting a little dizzy. This was probably because well I don't climb mountains at home, and being high up affected me. Kelly was really worried because my face was quite red but we started to descend and then she took me on a tour of Namchang which is the area of Ulsan we live in. She showed me where the post office is and a bunch of other places including where she gets her hair cut, popular food places, and other supermarkets that are a little bigger than our local Top*Mart. Walking around in higher traffic areas was a little different than my quick walk from home to work. I got quite a few stares as well because of my skin colour. I actually never really gave much thought to how white I am until I came to Korea. The kids mention it daily, along with how large my hands are. After my tour of the city we came home and cleaned the apartment. Afterwards we ordered hamburgers and fries that came via delivery. This was quite different from home but still pretty cool. We paid about $6 for a burger, fries, and a coke. I know this meal was quite Westernized but Kelly likes hamburgers too. The fries came with a seasoning that you can put on them which is a creamy onion seasoning that makes the fries taste like sour cream and onion chips. The burger was quite good and came with breaded deep fried cheese. Jenny told me that I was going to lose some weight while I am here but so far I don't know how that will happen with things being deep fried, there being a to die for bakery right outside my place, and the kids bringing me chocolates and goodies every day haha. The rest of the evening we spent watching Korean Dramas, the EMA's (European Music Awards), and just hung out.

Sunday:
Slept in again! Success! :) After a couple hours of lazing around and eating some breakfast, we showered and headed for the bus stop on our way to Samsan which is downtown Ulsan. It takes about 40 minutes on the bus to get there. Before getting on the bus, Kelly took me to a store to buy my bus card. Its really cool actually. Its really hard to explain what it is so I've added a picture of it. So I just go into this shop and add money whenever I want and when I get on the bus i just flash the card and money gets taken off. It is quite high tech compared to Kitchener's bus system. Oh and to take the bus its only 1,500 won which is $1.37. That's less than half the cost of being at home. The bus has comfier seats too. The bus
ride to Samsan was quite nice and their was quite a bit of scenery to look at. Once we arrived it was clear that downtown is quite different than Namchang. There are very tall buildings and at night so many flashing neon lights. It was a good day. We started with a general tour from Kelly, and then we popped into the Lotte Department Store. We went into a cheap clothing store which I would pair it with H&M. I bought a couple sleep dresses. Yes, ladies and gentleman I have found clothing my size here. They are a little on the tighter side, but they are quite comfy. One is thermal wear too so its fleece lined. Then Kelly showed me where the Lotte movie theatre was. Right now they are playing Skyfall and Breaking Dawn and some Korean movies. It costs about 8,000 won to see a movie which is still pretty much half the cost of seeing a movie back home. After this we went into this really cool bookstore that reminded me of Chapters, except all the books were in Korean of course. They had a huge stationery section though and I picked out some paper/envelope packages to write home :). I also got a cool box set so that I can move my cosmetics out of its carry case and make my room feel a little more at home. After this we walked around a little more and then went to this Outlet place that has 12 floors. Craaaazy. They had a lot of nice things and the one floor was kitchen and bed supplies which had this great christmas section and display. I bought a spice rack and come glass containers so that I could transfer the spices and teas and hot chocolate mix I bought at Bulk Barn from their quite unattractive plastic bags. After the Outlet Mall, we walked around the area a bit more and I took some pictures. We decided that we were going to have dinner there and found this Indian restaurant that Kelly really liked. It was called Namaskar. We shared a salad, a plate of rice, lamb curry, and some naan bread. One of my favourite things about Korea so far is the whole sharing of food. its great because you can try everything and have as little or as much of you want of something. The lamb curry was my favourite, which was a shock considering I am not normally a lamb person. After dinner we came home and now I am just chilling out getting everything set for the week. Overall it was a really great first weekend. I'll end this post with a couple more photos that  I took while in Samsan :)