Welcome to 2011

Hi Everyone,

Well, it's 2011. And January. HOLY CRAP. How did all of this time pass by so quickly? I can't believe I'm approaching my 4th month in Korea. It feels like it's been hardly any time at all since I arrived while at the same time it feels like I've been here forever.

I rang in the New Year with friends in Hongdae, a foreigner-friendly and very popular nightlife part of Seoul. To get there we first took the train from Suwon Station (a little more expensive but much faster), then once we arrived at Seoul Station we took the subway to the subway stop in Hongdae where I was supposed to meet my friend Melodie who I met at GEPIK Orientation. Michelle and Blythe came along too! Melodie brought along a few friends as well and as a group we ate at a Chinese restaurant near the club we were going to party at. The club was a suggestion from one of Melodie's friends who lives in Hongdae. After a mediocre dinner, to be honest, we headed to the club. As we walked around Hongdae I remarked that I had never seen so many foreigners in one place in Korea! I think it was mostly due to the fact that it was New Years Eve which isn't really a big deal in Korea (the Lunar New Year is the major celebration here), but also because we were in Hongdae. The club we went to was absolutely packed...I don't think I've ever been to a place that packed before. Despite the crowd, which was probably 60 or 70% foreigners, we stayed until about 2am. By then the club was so packed that there wasn't room to dance or even an empty corner where you can get some quiet or some space from the crowd. So we headed out after a long night of dancing to great music and after my very first New Year's kiss! :) Previous New Years celebrations for me were always when I was single (minus last year, when Val was in Korea) and were usually spent with small groups of friends, hence no opportunity to kiss a stranger or anybody for that matter. Not that that's something I'm in to. Aaanyway...

Many of you received my New Years e-mail, where I reflected on the past year and expressed how thankful I was for the people in my life. I also made some New Years resolutions. This year, I resolve (?) to get more exercise, learn basic Korean, and to be more adventurous. I hope you made New Years Resolutions too!

Last weekend I had my very first outing without Val. I was craving a girl's night so called up Blythe to ask if she wanted to go out for drinks. Turns out she was getting ready to go swing dancing in Seoul. When she asked if I wanted to join, I was delighted, but also nervous. I know the basic step for East Coast swing, but the kind of dancing Blythe likes is Lindy Hop style, which I've never done or really ever seen before. Plus, I had called her on my way back from teaching my private and there was no time to go back home and change before she was going to leave. So I went straight to Suwon Station where I met Blythe and did an impromptu shopping trip to find me a cute top to replace my T-shirt and hoodie that I was wearing. One store and the purchasing of a very cute top (50% off!) later, we jumped on the subway and headed to Seoul.

When we arrived at the venue I felt like I had walked into a different world! Blythe and I were the only foreigners there. Koreans are so serious and frankly I hadn't seen Koreans actually having fun until I got here. The music was playing, same sort of stuff you'd here in America for swing dancing. So the place was full of Koreans, doing some GREAT dancing. Now, Lindy Hop is sort of an outgoing kind of dance...it encourages being goofy and stuff and I saw people free-styling everywhere. I danced with about 4 people, including an older man who was really fun! Most everyone there spoke English. I warned them all it was my first time, and I think I did OK though to be honest I found myself slipping into basic East Coast Swing. The place emptied out pretty early, around 11pm, so after about an hour of dancing we headed back to Suwon station for drinks. We had an awesome time at the bar talking to the bartenders and the other foreigners there. I even made a new friend, Kristen, from Toronto who lives in a neighboring city. We exchanged numbers and have plans to hang out. I got home at 4am and crashed! It was a great night. I told Blythe that after some more practice I would love be her swing dancing buddy and go with her on a regular basis.

Yesterday (Monday) was Val's birthday and I went with him to tutor Ryan and Rachel. I used their oven to bake a cake for the occasion (since I don't have one in my apartment). When Val finished tutoring, Rachel, her mom Elisa (English name of course!) and their grandma helped me decorate the cake with frosting, strawberries, and tangerines. Finally their dad popped a bottle of sparkling juice and we all at the cake together. It was a lot of fun and I know it meant a lot to Val. Friday we invited his friends to join us at a bar at Ajou and I'm going to bake another cake to bring and share (going to bake it in Elisa's oven on Friday afternoon). Yay birthday celebrations!

Sunday we are going hiking with some of Val's friends from the language school, then it's my week off! Winter Camp has gone pretty well, but I'm definitely ready for a vacation. Instead of taking 2 weeks off, I only took 5 days off so my next vacation I can take 15 days off and hopefully travel somewhere. The first week of Winter camp went pretty well. I definitely enjoy teaching 20 kids instead of 40 like in my regular classes. Most of the students are pretty good at English and enjoy English so that also helps! The first week we did the international theme which I think the students enjoyed. Throughout the week they created their own countries in groups, then on Friday "visited" each other's countries. This week doesn't have a theme. Yesterday I taught them phrases for talking about the time (quarter to, quarter after, 5 after, 10 to, half past, etc). Today we learned how to talk about music and we watched music videos and the students wrote down what they liked and didn't like based on the vocabulary we worked on earlier in the day.

Tomorrow we are learning (or reviewing, for some of the students) comparatives and superlatives. The first half of the class is themed "Extreme Makeover" where they make comparisons of people or things that have gone under huge transformations such as plastic surgery, age, makeovers, etc. Then the second half of the class will be Olympics, where the students will compete in events such as a spelling bee, a race down the hallway, alphabet race, arm wrestling, and verb conjugation races. After each event students will compare the competitors, using the target vocabulary. Now, I can't take credit for creating those lessons...the Extreme Makeover and Olympics were complete lesson plans I found online! Thursday we are practicing the future tense and making those oragami fortune teller things that we used to play with in middle school. I'm going to have to review how to make them though so I can teach the students! Finally, on Friday we are going to have a little party and watch a movie. Any suggestions of good but appropriate movies I can show my students??

Next Friday, since I'll be on vacation, I'm going to crash the Ajou University Language School's "cultural experience" at Lotte World. Lotte World is the biggest indoor recreation complex (aka indoor amusement park) in the world and it's located in Seoul. Val gets a free ticket and a bus ride there as a student of the language school, so I'm going to meet them there buy a ticket, and hang with Val and his friends for the day there! I'm pumped!

I think that's all for now. I plan to get my camera fixed this week so I will hopefully have more pictures soon. Thanks for reading, folks! Wishing you all the best in 2011. Missing you!

Lots of love,
Mel