Plans Monday

I went to my co-teacher's house for dinner last night. His wife didn't speak any English, so I was a bit worried that it might be really awkward, but the evening was actually really nice. They'd gone to a lot of trouble and made me spaghetti, and all these other bits and pieces including pork schnitzel, very yummy capsicum rice-paper rolls, chicken wraps, and a salad. It wasn't at all Korean, but it was one of the best meals I've had here. I remembered to take a box of chocolates with me as a gift, because I've read that it's really polite here to take a present when you go to someone's house. I think I did it right. Anyway, then we went for a walk along the river for maybe half an hour, and then Mr Baek dropped me home. The evening was short, I was home by about 7.30, but it was very nice.

One strange thing - they gave me a big glass of milk to drink with my meal. We already had iced tea, but then they gave me this milk. No one else had milk. They didn't ask if I wanted any, they just gave it to me, so I felt compelled to drink it. I have a really hard time drinking milk, so I kind of just held my breath and gulped it down, being careful not to finish it before the end of the meal in case they gave me more! Perhaps they think it's normal for Westerners to drink milk with dinner? Or maybe I looked like I needed milk? Either way, it was very thoughtful :)

So, yesterday afternoon I ended up at the Osan Market again, but this time it was in full-swing. I found out it operates all the time, but is at full size on the days of the month with a '3' or an '8' in them (i.e: 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th, etc.). Bit of a weird system, but it was a great market. I was really unimpressed when I went last weekend, but yesterday they had everything for sale, including lots of great looking, and slightly cheaper, fruits vegetables, and meat. I will try to do some of my shopping there in the future.

The Osan market was fairly busy on Sunday.

Some sort of kimchi pancakes. I haven't tried them yet.

Great selection of mushrooms, etc.

It's all so fresh looking!

This is a whole lot of dried stuff. I have no idea what it's for.

Big selection of spicy stuff. It even smelled spicy!

So, today I was supposed to start 'really teaching', but it just seemed like a glorified version of last week. My co-teacher constantly interrupts me with Korean translations, or disciplines the kids while I'm talking to them. He also gives them activities to do during 'my' section of the lesson that are vastly different from what I had planned and explains it to them in Korean, so I have no idea what they're doing or why. I can understand that he's been through this same material for years and probably know's it very well, and how to teach it effectively, but it does make me question what my point is in the classroom. Like, why bother having me there and spending all this time and money on me when I'm not really being utilised? Ah well, I'm not here to try to change their system, I'll just have to fit in.

I did have my first after school class. There was only 6 kids, so it was really nice and I could pay attention to all of them. They were grade 3, the oldest in the school, but their English level was so low - way lower than the beginners I had in NZ. What's a bit frustrating is they haven't been taught the 'parts of speech' in English (like what nouns, verbs, prepositions, and stuff) are. So when I say "you're missing a preposition in that sentence", or "you need to use a verb with 'ing' on the end for this answer", they have no idea what I'm talking about. All the instructions given to them by their textbooks or by Mr Baek are in Korean. Perhaps I can start by going back to basics and teaching them about verbs, nouns and such. It should be quick, I'm sure they know it already, they just don't know it in English.

I got home about 6pm and made a huge pot of chicken soup to keep me fed over the next few days. I've made some big plans for the weekend too! I'm planning on going to stay in Seoul for two nights. I really wanted to go and see the autumn leaves this weekend, and there's an expat group going on a mountain hike to do just that, so I've signed up to go along. It would take me about four hours or more to get there straight from Osan - and they leave at 10.45, so I'm going to stay in Seoul on Friday night, go on the hike on Saturday, stay in Seoul that night, and then visit Hongdae, Taco Bell, and the art student's market there on the way home on Sunday. I'm going to book my accommodation in the morning :)