Happy Suwon!

We're at the last weekend in March and pay day's not 'till Tuesday. So the question today was what could we do on a beautiful sunny day. At 5 bucks or less. I took the planning reins today and decided it was time to venture out of Seoul for a few hours at least, and settled upon the page in my Lonely Planet book that has been dog eared for some months. Suwon Fortress. It's a 220 year old fortress in a suburb South of Seoul where the motto is "Happy Suwon." Maranda, Shaun, and I took a bus to the city, and after a tense start where I was forced to recognize that bus 7007-1 is NOT the same as bus 7007- I discovered a near fluent English speaker in the front row of the bus who helped me figure out where to go. Like Blanche DuBois, it's important-when a permanent traveler- to depend on the kindness of strangers. Because they're always there.

We managed to find the fortress and walked around for a few hours. We went up a large hill that gave us a great view of Suwon city. I realize urban settings are rarely described as beautiful but there's a dirty prettiness to all cities to me. Particularly when you can get yourselves in that vantage point where you're looking down on it all rather than up. I mean, how often do you get to look down at anything when you're in a city? After the hike we wandered down, coming across a giant bronze buddha, a wall of painted cavalries and sentries heading off to battle, and a minature traditional village where a local attempted to teach me how to play on a teeter totter type contraption. As it turns out, adults in Suwon, like those we met in Beijing, also like to play.

New Kindy's

I've had my new classes of Apples for about 2 1/2 weeks now and, for the most part, it's going pretty great. My new kindergartners are adorable, eager to please, sweet hearted children. I love them already. They are a thousand times easier to handle from my other group and just...oh my goodness they are so eager to please! It's amazing. I spent the first four months here in Korea building a thick skin to a class full of children who were very vocal about my status as a second rate teacher. These new kids are sweet hearts. They're a little lower than what I was used to and I've had to adjust my teaching to fir their level, but it's amazing how much easier it is to spend time with children who like you. When they get into ABC lineup the roster goes as follows: Alice, Amy J, Amy M {not their last names, by the way. When there's more than one child with the same English name the Korean staff just picks a random letter to after it.}, Ariel, Brian C., Daniel, Eric {the twin brother to Brian. Again, neither his nor his brother's last name start's with a C.}, Jun, Louie, Rivers, Seong, Steve. So far they love it when I remind them not to make their letters fly. Give them helicopter rides. And sing the name song. It's only been a couple weeks but, I think I struck gold.

Insadong

Spent a lovely morning in Insadong yesterday. My friend Chris from Chicago has moved here this week to teach at a hagwon in Gagnam and he met up with us in Insadong to see the sights while us girls shopped. Insadong is basically a very long street full of stores and street vendors that sell souvenirs. Chopsticks, rice paper, clothing, books, etc. Theres also a beautiful temple nearby. We ate a traditional lunch at a vegetarian restaurant and had amazing fried noodles, spicy mushroom soup, dumplings, and steamed pumpkin with nuts. Mmmmmm. In the evening we met up with more co-workers at Dr. Fish. For 3 bucks we all sit around a communal pool in a cafe and eat and drink snacks while fish nibble the dead skin off our feet. If you stay as long we usually do (around 2 hours) you'll really notice a significant difference in the feet. The fish really like to nibble on callouses and cuticles so after getting over the ticklishness it's really nice to just sit there and let the fish give you a pedicure. At night, four of us went to a favorite haunt called Flower People. It's a rock bar near our school with an owner who resembles Yoko Ono and has the most extensive record collection I've seen and he plays songs that you request. It's not a bar so much as a listening room. My friends were all really into the music and requesting all sorts of songs from The Doors and Zeppelin to Leonard Cohen and Beta Band. Being the observer that I am, I just sort of leaned back to watch them all enjoying themselves. At around 6 AM I returned home very happy. It was an all around great day.