So is there winter in korea you ask? Yes there is. I’ve heard that it snows more in South Korea closer to the North Korean border, but it hasn’t snowed much where I’m at. When it snowed, it was for a very short time, but it gets pretty bitter here sometimes that can get nasty. But it’s really not that bad though because the cold fluctuates up and down. I didn’t bring much winter clothes. But those of you that are reading this that may be considering coming here, if you fully have a job offer and your coming, probably would be better to send your winter clothes to yourself before you leave your hometown or just buy winter clothes here. I've been able to find good clothes at emart or lotte mart for cheap. To pack winter clothes takes too much room, especially coming to an asian country where the summers get wicked hot! Anyways, but in the apartments here the heater is in the floor usually, which is really smart. I don’t know why America doesn’t do that especially since heat rises and all. Its really funny to hang out here with people from California, Texas and other places in America that it doesn’t really get cold. When I hang out with my friend from California, it is too funny because she complains “it’s coolllddd”, but being that I’m from Ohio, I just laugh and say “really? It’s not too bad”. Although, I’ll admit this month it has been a little wicked which you feel like your nose and hands are gonna fall off. But I’ve experienced that before so it’s not that big of a deal. Just dress warmly and you'll be fine.

My classes have gotten easier to teach lately because my kids are getting used to the words that I say in class often. It’s soo funny when the kids come in trying to tell me a story. They literally say “uhhh teacher uhhh.. Mario.. .uhhhh.. home… boook…” I can’t help but smile and laugh. I’m gonna put some videos to show a few of my best students. Most of my students are pretty good. The hardest is like I said before is my middle school cuz their fed up with the Korean education system. I feel so bad for them even though they can be annoying! I gotta be honest about the boys. Here it’s common to see friends holding hands (boy and boy, girl and girl). One of my students was a little too affectionate with my other student in class, it really weirded me out. He had his hand on his leg and his arm around his shoulders. Then he gave him a big kiss on his cheek. My student Romeo says “I love Eric”. That totally weirded me out and told him nicely to please stop doing that overly touching with Eric. From my 5 months experience here, I don’t think it was completely normal behavior here in Korea, but maybe I’m wrong. There are some things about this culture that really drives me nuts, but I’m in the adjustment phase of culture shock where I’m just accepting it. But I gotta say I love how in class my students all really work together. I’ve never really had problems trying to get them to work together, they really look out for eachother. I’m not sure exactly if that’s Korean culture in general or if it’s just my students. Like today, one of my students has the most advanced level of English to understand me out of the rest of class. My new student that joined today didn’t understand a word I said, and Aileen just translated what I said to him. I felt awful because I thought that he was a girl!! So I was looking up English girl names! My other students looked at me and said “ he Boy!!” and all laughed. HA! I felt so bad and embarrassed. But it’s so sweet! I remember when I was in school if I was struggling in class many kids would make fun of me. Here they don’t really make fun so much, they just noticed that if a student is behind or having a hard time in class some students explain to their friend but get semi-impatient. But in my reading level 2 class, my student Tony is a really hard worker but struggles in understanding sometimes. His friends in the class are soo nice, they just explain to him in English or Korean if he doesn’t understand what to do, then he gets it. It’s soo sweet! I love that class! I’m showing the movie Elf and they love it! **So I’m taking a bunch of videos of my experience here, putting them all on a CD and send them to all of you at the end of the year! The file size would be too much to send through email especially since I’ve tried.

Salary is pretty good with the exchange rate.. Depending on the day it can be murder! One time I looked it up and you lose 400 dollars.. blagh.. sigh… The last time I looked it up I would lose 200 dollars. This is if you send over 1200 bucks.  

Sadly lately I’ve been sick but now I’m recovering thank God. Anyways, the first week was a terrible sinus cold. But I can breathe good now.. Then the second week I had lunch with some friends at a Curry Pot place in Gangnam. Ehhhh… I don’t know if I wanna go back there or even want curry again! It was traumatic. I couldn’t keep anything down. I thought maybe it was just a small virus and I’d get over it. But I couldn’t even keep water down. So the next day I told my boss I need to go to the doctor ASAP! They hooked me up to the IV for an hour and a half between my classes and put in a bunch of vitamins in my system to soothe my stomache. It really did the job! It felt really weird though being since I usually get a shot if I have a bad stomach virus. But I’m all good now.. Just being ridiculously more careful what I eat from now on.

Before Christmas my friend Bridget and I went to Daejeon to play with kids at an orphanage for Christmas where Santa came. We both brought two gifts. It was really sweet. After dinner, Santa and the gifts of course we went outside and they were lighting sparks and the kids loved it! There was one girl where she kept coming over to me to hide from the sparks. It was sweet and so sad. What’s so sad about korea is that they look down at adoption which is unfortunate. I mean honestly, they’re all Korean so what difference does it make? I brought a Korean game that’s just like Jenga and Velcro ball and catcher thinga-ma-bob. I don’t remember exactly the name. There were quite a few foreigners there, it was really cool.

Christmas is not really that big of a deal here. They’re not really into the whole decorations things. Some places in Seoul has it at a store or big place, but now in the home. Some people go big in the house but it’s not common. So it was a teen weeny bit depressing, but my Christmas was nice. I spent Christmas with my girl Amanda. We went out but it wasn’t that exciting we just headed back to her place, watched Twilight and crashed for the night. The next day we made pancakes and bacon together for breakfast with pineapple and orange juice with shampage in it. We exchanged gifts and watched Christmas movies all day and just lounged. We had Shabu Shabu (Japanese food) for dinner. It was delicious and VERY nice. Sadly I had to work the next day, but what could I do? I like my students so it didn’t bother too much. I’m teaching English but I just feel like we’re hangin out but just critiquing their English too.

New Years Eve was CERAZY! I literally danced almost the whole night long.. I was soo exhausted! On my birthday I was gonna go out to celebrate with my friends Bridget(her birthday too) and Amanda but I just couldn’t pull an all nighter again. I spent a calm nice birthday with my friend Celeste. She took me to TGI Fridays for my birthday where they sang to me! It was really fun and cute! She took a video I’ll try to send it through email or try to post it on this website. But it hasn’t been working to upload a video from my computer here, I don’t know why.. Oh well.. We saw Yes, Man. Absolutely histerical and the Koreans loved it especially since Jim Carey speaks Korean in the film! HA!

I went to Seoul Tower it was absolutely amazing! You cannot not come to korea without going to Seoul Tower. I was really blown away by it. Even the bathroom there’s glass windows where you can see Seoul. From the bathroom literally! How crazy huh? At night, every half hour they play music and graphically animate on Seoul Tower.. There’s pictures above. It was soo cool and amazing to see.

From Wikipedia: N Seoul Tower is a communication tower located in Seoul, South Korea. Built in 1969, and opened to the public in 1980, the tower measures 236.7 m (777 ft) in height (from the base) and tops out at 479.7 m (1,574 ft) above sea level. It has also been known as the Namsan Tower or Seoul Tower. After the tower's original owner merged with the CJ Corporation, it was renamed the N Seoul Tower (official name CJ Seoul Tower). Most visitors ride the Namsan cable car up the mountain, and then walk to the tower. The tower features a gift shop and restaurants on the ground floor. Visitors may go up the tower for a fee. There are four observation decks (the 4th observation deck, which is the revolving restaurant, rotates at a rate of one revolution every 48 minutes), as well as gift shops and two restaurants. Most of the city of Seoul can be seen from the top. Close to N Seoul Tower is a second lattice transmission tower. (wikipedia)

Lunar New Year is the big deal here. Almost everything is closed. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do on Lunar New Years but I’m sure my friends and I will figure something out to do fun!

I discovered a magazine here in Korea for foreigners that is all in English!! So those of you who are reading this and probably coming, make sure you pick up 10 magazine at almost at GS25 store. The magazine is great! It tells you of the festivals and events that are going on in Korea. They literally mention in what provinces is what’s hopping too! Too cool! Plus along with some really interesting articles too. I’m really surprised how much I’m really enjoying myself here. Most of my friends are staying another year so I’m pretty sure I’m staying here another year. I’ve just been debating whether if I should stay at my hagwon so I don’t have to move again or if I should go to a public school or another hagwon… We’ll see what happens. I would really like to go visit Italy while I’m here or go teach English there next. Maybe get my TEFL there which would be soo cool. We’ll see what happens..  Well that’s it for now! Ta Ta! Anyo hekasayo! Ciao!

PS. I apologize if I'm lacking in photos.. I'm having trouble uploading some of the photos for some reason.. more wil be up there soon