my lg phone wont let me do ANYTHING. It will only let me write in the 'title' field. ''

LG SUCKS

some more small

After more thinking (after the whole "I'm good at being small!" comment), Jeanne came up with, "I am good at making silly songs." She wrote that below the picture and then wrote down one of the silly songs that she had made up a while back. She sang it to me a month or so ago. TOOOO funny!!!! I'd post the video of it but don't have her permission. Maybe I'll get her to sing it and just get the audio of it. :)

"I am little I am small
and I talk a little bit
and I am very very cu te
and I am a butt shaker".

small

One of my students, Jeanne, was doing a page in her writing home study book. The topic was, "What Are You Good At?" with space to draw a picture and a few lines to make a sentence or two about the picture. She wasn't sure what to do.
Jeanne: What am I good at?
Me: What are you good at?
Jeanne:.............ummmmm.
Me: Well? What are you good at?
(insert lightbulb over her head here and an 'I got it' look)
Jeanne: I'm good at being small!!!!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Jeanne is in grade two and is the second smallest in her class. Too funny.

sea cucumber

At Muuido we were informed that the funny pale orange sea cucumbers that are sometimes seen on the mud flats when the tide is out actually fluoresce.
How did we find that out? A couple of guys we met had wandered out on the mud flats a couple of nights earlier after having a few drinks and one either stepped on one or hit accidentally hit it with his foot causing it to light up. What a cool discovery!
We did get to see it ourselves. They are hard to find at night because there aren't that many of them to begin with. When the tide is well out, take a flashlight and go for a walk. They appear whitish on the dark mud in the light of the flashlight. With the lights out, when touched, they glow a greenish blue color. Love it!!!

Muuido once again

I've been there before and I'll go again. I don't think I will ever get bored of Muuido. :)SunsetFreehand zoomed in shot of the moon.Wandering out past the mudflats to reach the distant knee deep water: the view back to the beach.On the way back to the beach, rescued a little dragonfly that was floating in the water. Half an hour later he was finally able to fly away. :)Tents on the beach. Love the teepee tent! Belonged to a Korean hippy family. They befriended us later that night. Said they saw me earlier and thought I was like a hippy. ^^

dalkgalbi

I love dalkgalbi. It is a spicy chicken dish that is cooked in the middle of the table in a large pan. It has cabbage and some other vegetables and lots of spice. Delicious!!!!!

learning to write...

This is when correcting students' work is actually fun. 4 yr old Lindsay was to trace the word giraffe and then write 'gems' and 'gel'. As she is still just learning to write the letters, THIS is what her 'gems' looked like:

Chichen Itza

During a week vacation in Mexico, went on a tour of Chichen Itza. What an amazing place.

On the 2 hour drive our bus tour guide spoke about the area and the Mayan people. According to her, no one knows how many Mayans are still in the jungles because the government doesn't care and they aren't included in the census, nor do their villages get electricity or anything. Their main sources of income are from making and selling things to tourists, producing honey, etc. Orange flower covered trees were everywhere along the way!We stopped shortly before Chichen Itza at a large cenote where some people took a quick swim. Beautiful! I kinda wish we had more time there as I didn't want to jump in and out and then have to spend the rest of the day soggy. By the time we got to Chichen Itza it was so hot out. The buildings/structures are quite spread out so we were in the sun quite a bit. El Castillo or the Temple of Kukulkan:Our guide was horrible - a stuffy little man who spoke in a monotone voice and kept repeating the same things. It was as if he didn't know what else to say. He paused when we wanted to move on and quickly moved on when we would have wanted another moment. It would have been much better with a different, more animated guide. Other than the guide, Chichen Itza was amazing. Temple of the Warriors/Templo de los Guerreros:I've always heard about the ball park but I didn't realize it was that big!Nearby is the Tzompantl - a platform that held huge racks for displaying skulls of the sacrificed - captives of war or ritual sacrifices. Our guide said that the captain of the winning team from the ball games was sacrificed. That, of course, is speculation as no one really knows what happened back then.

It's hard to imagine what things were like there when it was alive with activity. As I do when I go to any historical place like that, I wish I could go back in time even for a moment just to see what it was like.
I put sunscreen on several times during the day, including 2 times in the hour or so that we wandered around Chichen Itza. My shoulders didn't burn, they just blistered!!!! White blisters sized from a pencil tip to a little pencil eraser. They didn't hurt so much and were very thin. Maybe my shoulders just got too hot? Once the blisters broke the next day they still didn't hurt, just peeled. Odd. It would have been much better to visit the cenote AFTER being out in the sun at Chichen Itza. A quick cooling dip would have been perfect. We did make that suggestion for future trips.
Now back at my home and over my Mexicoma (^.~) I LOVE my Chichen Itza purchase:It was the only one I saw the entire time that had these colors. Everything else was either bright rainbowy colors or just black/dark brown/white combinations.

Grape Juice

It says,
"NO ANTISEPTIC AND DIRECTION, DID NOT PUT
IN THE PIGMENT, THE SUGAR AND THE
ARTIFICIAL ADDITIVE"
It also says, "Yugi podo kwajeum (13Brix) 100%". Any ideas what 13 Brix might mean? On the back it also says that of the 13 Brix, 68 Brix is from America, which is about 19.2%.Tasted okay, but not great.

Namsan in the Spring

I live sort of on the side of Namsan, a mountain in the middle of Seoul on the top of which is Seoul (or Namsan) Tower. It's a nice place for walking when the weather's nice. Last weekend the cherry blossoms were still out in full force. Beautiful. It's an interesting contrast when some trees are covered in flowers and some are still dragging themselves out of winter mode.And of course Namsan has some fantastic views of Seoul.Inside the base of Namsan Tower there is a restaurant and store. Along the central wall, little tiles have been bought and decorated by friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, etc. I love it! Such a great idea.A gift. :) Did I ever mention that I LOVE giraffes?!!

More Spring Flowers

They're all so beautiful!!! The magnolias smell SO good!!!!

diss

The other day Lynn, a grade 4 student (though she's Korean, she goes to an international school and her English is better than her Korean), asked me if D-I-S-S was a bad word. I said no, diss is not a bad word but it is bad to do it to people. Then she replied that she had thought it might be a bad word because it "sounds like a bad word because it is a mix of P-I-S-S and D-I-C-K." (Yes, she was spelling the words out and not saying them because they are bad words).

learn some Korean???

A book made by Koreans to help foreigners learn English.
Hmmmmm...It says, "Me there will be a possibility of carrying that it peels?
Huh?
Apparently the Korean actually means something along the lines of not being able to do something.
Maybe the "Capter I", "Capter II" and "Capter III" found at the top of every page might be a hint that it's not the best book to pick up in order to help you learn Korean.

spring flowers

I LOVE THESE!!!!

Mmmmm... Meat.

At Mapo Galbi in Hwajeong - they pour egg on kimchi and other stuff in a tray around the grill to cook. Yum.

Stupid birds.

Ever been hit in the head by a bird? It doesn't feel good.

The other day I was walking to a taxi by Apgujeong station and all of a sudden WHACK, a pigeon smacked the side of my head with its wing as it flew up to the overpass. The side of my head hurt for the rest of the day!!!!

Stupid bird.

walking the dog

Walking a dog in Haebangchon can be quite the task. Not only is it all steep hills, which are icy in the winter and sometimes strangely oily the rest of the year, there is salt and chemicals on the roads, there are no sidewalks, and there are bits of garbage everywhere. Little pieces of bone keep popping up everywhere. It's making me crazy!!

I have certainly been getting a lot of exercise lately, though. There are a few ways I usually walk through the area. The paths through Namsan park are great, some paved/boardwalk style, some dirt paths (too muddy right now). There's also the maze of streets and pathways through the residential area on the side of the mountain. One of my favorite walks is going up to the ridge and down the other side where there are ways too narrow for any cars and so are usually quite quiet. I think in any other country that type of area might be a bit more dangerous? Here are some pics to show some parts of my walk.Going down.That's a little house on the right. It looks short because it is lower on the hill.Turn the corner and you get to...Looking down.Looking back up at the stairs.Go to the left. Looking down over a more traditional style home below.A view of Seoul.Going down again.And around a corner.And around another corner:More stairs. Around the corner:Here is another picture that I took at this point.
Down a ways to more stairs:And so on...
A couple more pics from walking around Haebangchon.