Amazing week

I climbed a mountain!! But let me go in order of events haha...

Didn't do much the first part of the week. Met with Sungmin and some of his friends who wanted to meet me (or maybe just any foreigner haha) on Monday night. It was fun. Just hung out and talked. All of them spoke English! But Sungmin talked to me more than the rest...I think everyone else were too nervous. Most Koreans I meet think their Eng is horrible (when it usually isn't!).

Slept in some on Tuesday? I really don't remember anything other than it was so rainy that day! I did venture out to the store when it died down. But, I had to go back out to buy sneakers so I could run and also go hiking Thursday. It rained a lot! I also spent just a little too much for shoes, but they looked good! :) They're black (and pink!) so they'll stay clean longer, and they didn't make my feet look huge. The guy was also super helpful even though he didn't speak any English. They were only 70,000won ($68) compared to all the other shoes that I liked that were $100 or more!

Wednesday woke up super early and got on the train by 8ish to meet Mai and the rest of the gang at Lotte World by 9:30am. I was running late actually cuz it took me longer to get ready and eat. Mai was running late too actually, so it wasn't a big deal. :P Met up with her and another friend I hadn't met yet. We were the only ones there (the rest of the group were coming later) so we went ahead and bought our passes. I think because of Chuseok, there was a discount! We paid 22,000won for the ticket. The ticket, by the way, paid for all of the rides as well~~~ :D There was only one ride we went on that didn't take the ticket. Nothing too special or different from your typical amusement park. ^_^ Rode the scary rides of course, ate too much junk, and bought useless cat ears. haha They're cute~~



Finally headed home around 8pm? I got home and was in bed around 10 I think. That was later than I wanted since I had to be on the train in the morning by 7am!
Joey and I ended up leaving later than planned from Ansan. Left around 7:20...didn't get into Suraksan Stn until 9:20am! But we met up with Matthew, Sunna, Dan, and Kyujin, ate a quick breakfast and headed to the mountain. It was a nice hike in the beginning. The weather was cool, sun was shining, and there were trees and water! :D It was so pretty. The climb got a little tricky but we were all excited...that is until we got to the top of the first part. Then we looked up and saw the rest of the mountain. It was so high! We also could see people were climbing up using ropes that were attached to the rock with steel posts. That was very intimidating, but before we could talk ourselves out of it we kept going (I actually led the way...don't know what I was thinking hahaha). Here's the first part:

That mountain in the distance is I think the highest point. We were heading for it!

Here's what the ropes looked like. Pretty sure this was after the first climb.


It was fun for awhile, even if it was a little scary for me. But, I was able to stay focused and not pay attention to the height. Except the one part where there was a sheer drop to the left and we had to be right next to it as we climbed up using the ropes/posts. I got myself a little worked up and had to take a longer break than everyone (I'm sure) wanted. I was just too scared. Even through all of it, I could tell that it was just a beautiful sight. These nice ladies gave me grapes cuz I looked so discontented. ^_^ haha food makes everything better.

We kept going!! Finally made it to the top and it was awesome! I have a bunch more pics, but I'll post them to facebook and share the public link again. Here's one of us all at the top. We actually look okay. Joey and I were the only ones scared actually (he's in the red shirt). But we did it!


Going down took just as long...but our group separated cuz Joey and I wanted off the mountain and this nice man was helping us go the best way. :) So, it was Joey, Sunna, the man, and myself heading down. We took a break to eat and he shared some food. It was so nice! We bought him a drink after we got to the bottom. It was crazy! We didn't really expect to be climbing as much as we did. We really thought it was just a hike. But, I definitely am glad I went! It was awesome. :D
That's the mountain we climbed! ^_^

After all that climbing we met up with the others and went to eat and drink. :) Had Korean BBQ and some Kimchi Chigae Then we went to another place to try this Korean veggie pancake and some rice/soju drink. I loved the pancake. We also ate a ground bean soup. The texture was like a porridge, but it was so good. Ate so much food~~~but finally went home and took a needed shower. :P Got to bed around 10pm and woke up today around 9:30.

Today's plan doesn't include much until later. I'm meeting up with Joey, Sungmin and some other friends around 7pm. I still need to buy a miniskirt for the Rock of Ages musical next month...but I'll probably try to do that this weekend.

I have training next week for 3 days. I'm actually bummed I'm missing school for it! But, it'll be a nice break and a way to meet some more people living in Korea. :)

Gonna run~this was a long post! Hope you enjoyed~~~~♥!

OM NOM NOM

I had Mexican foooooooood!!!!!!! YAY~~
We went to On the Border some time after the church event (it finished at 5!) and stopping by my friend's place. It was the best I've ever had. Ok, not really but I was totally missing Mexican food more than I thought. Like, we walked in the restaurant and I started squealing and stuff. Mai was like "Are you okay?!" I was apparently more excited to be there than I thought. It was funny. We ate so much food and I felt so full. But it was so worth it. ^_^ I also have leftovers~!

Church was interesting. I managed to pay some attention...I was mostly trying to keep up and see what words I could recognize. Not much. We were in Luke, the parable about the son that returned home after losing all of his inheritance. I knew some of the hymns too!! Could remember some of the chorus in English, but mostly I sang in Korean since I could read it. It was nice. I am going to actually try to find a church in my area now. I didn't want to before cuz I don't know enough Korean.
The event after was alright. I thought there would be more singing from Lee Jihoon, but he sang 3 songs and just talked the rest of the time. Since it was such a small event we were able to say hi to him afterward. He asked if I understood anything today, and I said no. He laughed at me...I think it was more of an aww, how cute *pity* HAHA. I went more for the church and Mai, honestly. Even though he is nice to look at and listen to. ;-)

Went home after dinner since it was after 8pm by this time. It was an eventful ride towards the end. A fight broke out (it's really not common) cuz I think this guy was drunk. But he definitely lost...it freaked me out cuz the first guy gave some serious hard punches. The other guy was bleeding, it was horrible. I was pretty shaken up after it, but there were others who stepped in to help get the drunk guy off the train.

Anyway, not much planned today other than laundry and cleaning. Maybe going to run an errand. I forgot a few things from the store the other day. Also need to get running shoes...going to an amusement park all day Wednesday, hiking Thursday! Some shoes with support will be a good idea. I also wanted to start running some.
Also meeting my friend Sungmin tonight. Possibly for dinner? I'm not sure, he gets off work just before we're meeting so I think that will probably be the plan.

Off to finally start laundry~~hope you all have a great day!!

the life of an english teacher...

Finished the week, finally! It wasn't long or anything, just tiring now that I teach extra classes. But, I made more overtime than last week! yay~~

Friday was a good night! Went to Korean class, learned and practiced a lot. I am learning how to make some basic but useful sentences! I tried it out in an email today~^^ We even got distracted at the end talking a little about language and which are more popular. Also talked about English speaking countries and their dialects and such that make it hard to understand.
Went out to the club with a friend from Korean class. It was her bday and we went out in Ansan dancing. It was awesome~! I actually went to this place before but it wasn't as fun cuz the friends I went with didn't dance. Alyssa loves to dance so we spent the entire night there dancing till our bodies hurt. :) We got there around 11 and didn't leave til 3:30am or so. Got home and finally crashed at almost 5am. Crazy!! But so fun. We stood out, of course...but also because Alyssa and I were dancing so much (and I dunno about myself, but Alyssa is a good dancer!) The live band was fun too~~

Went to Home Plus today, finally! Alyssa and I met up there for lunch and to buy groceries. I bought food, and even found some indoor shoes for work finally. Also caved and bought a very cute pair of boots. I'll share a pic soon. :) Might wear them tomorrow since I won't be out all day. They'll be better when it cools off more.

I have this coming week off for Chuseok. Not much planned, but so far I have some things to do!
Sunday- Meet Mai for church (finally!) in Seoul. Also an event is going on after that. The church we're going to is the one Jihoon attends (guy from Thrill Me musical). He's performing a bit in the afternoon. Finally getting to Seoul again! I need to check my tmoney card to make sure I still have money on it for the subway...

Monday-nothing til the evening. Meeting up with my new friend Sungmin (LOL not from SuJu.) probably for dinner. I should ask since we're meeting at 7:30. Met him through my friend Joey last weekend when we went out. He wants to practice his English and I will attempt to practice learn more Korean. Yay more friends in Ansan (Alyssa lives in the area too)!!

Wednesday-LOTTE WORLD!! It's one of the big amusement parks. Going in Tuesday night most likely, so we can go super early. :P Wooooo~!!

That's it for my mini-vacay (for now!)...but the following week I'm heading to Seoul for 3 days for a training workshop. I'm bummed I will be missing school (do you see this?? MISSING WORK! I am so happy that I love teaching again~) but Alyssa is going to the training too! I'll know someone yay~~It'll also be a nice break and probably a fun time. Hope I can make some more friends to do things with in Korea.

That's it for now~~~need to go pick up some water and juice since I didn't want to carry a fourth bag from Home Plus. ttyl♥

busy week!

I'm updating! I haven't been doing anything major during my weekends, so there's not been much to update with.

I started my Korean class this week on Monday. Got moved into the intermediate class that's on Tues/Fri. I was super nervous...we took a test to determine our level and I didn't know a lot of it. Some I could kind of get through because I understand sentence structure. I got a 42! :P Yeah it was better than I thought I would get. But it also meant I could stay in the class. If we got below 40, she recommended we take the Mon/Thurs class. Still wasn't sure if I should stay in it, but last night went well! There were only 5 of us in class (probably cuz it was a FRIDAY night). We learned about sentence structure and how to use honorific form. Our vocabulary focus was family. My vocabulary is poor, but I pick up quick on how to create the sentences. I just need to practice my vocabulary more. Time to make notecards~! :-P

School was so busy and tiring this week. Tuesday, I teach 5 classes, so I'm done at 2pm. However, something happened with the English after class and Faa (5th grade co-teacher) and I were asked to step in until November or so. This isn't the kind of afterschool class you might be thinking of. This was two classes that ranged from grades 1-6. Each class is 80 minutes long and meets twice a week (Tues/Thurs). basically from 2pm until 4:40pm I am now teaching. On Tuesdays I teach from 9:10am until 4:40. Thursday, I actually get a break from 1:20-2pm.
It was a little overwhelming when we were asked to take over this class last minute. And I mean last minute. But, things seem to work themselves out and I am getting overtime for it. ^^ It's not too bad...I am so lucky to be teaching it together with my co-teacher!! She's awesome~

Even though I was tired, I still managed to go to Korean class, and it was fun. :) I met a girl the first class who is into Kpop and Korean dramas, so we get along well. She was there on Friday and we talked about a concert coming up that she's going to see. I'm not going cuz it's too much money and I already paid for three musicals for next month. Which reminds me, I need to buy a skirt for one of the shows. We get a discount for wearing a miniskirt. :P

Nothing else that I can think of. It really has been a busy week. I hung out with Yunkyu and met his friend on Tuesday. Of course he doesn't speak much English so Yunkyu has to translate for us. I feel bad, but I'm learning so hopefully I can communicate more. Going to meet some friends for lunch in an hour. YAY~ I haven't been hanging out much on the weekends, so I miss it. It's just a lot of time to go to Seoul to see my friends. Hopefully I can find some things to do here so I can convince them to come out to Ansan.

Anyway, gonna run! I should probably clean up my place a bit. But I wanted to do a big clean of the whole place, so I might just wait til tomorrow. :P

Take care, love ya!!!
~xoxoxoxoxo~

Current Weather

It's pretty windy and rainy out there today! Apparently Typhoon Kompasu is coming close to Seoul today. I don't live in Seoul, but it seems to be affecting us in Ansan, too. There's weather advisories as well as school was delayed for two hours. I don't go in until 10am.


Quoting the small snippet from a long article from weather.com:

"There are two active systems in the western Pacific Ocean. Radar is showing that Typhoon Kompasu has made landfall northwest of Seoul, South Korea. Kompasu will weaken rapidly. The heaviest rain will fall over North Korea but some strong thunderstorms are likely over parts of southeastern South Korea."

I'll keep you all updated~~

schedule

My schedule for the next few months is going to be a little busy!

September thru December:
-9/2 Meeting Sun from KORVIA (my recruiter) Thursday! :) We haven't met yet~
-Korean Class Mondays & Thursdays (7-9pm) *Starts 9/6
-Teaching English to Gojan teachers Tuesdays & Thursdays (3:30-4:30) *Starts 9/7

September 9-14:
-Online Course (Teaching English in Korea)

September 18-26:
-Chuseok vacation! :)
*I need to plan some sightseeing/shopping during this time:
~Insadong
~Namdaemun Market
~City/Palace Tours

October:
-9th Thrill Me fan event
-10th Rock of Ages Musical (ft. Onew from SHINee)
-30th Spamalot Musical (ft. Yehsung from Super Junior)