A plethora of random thoughts. Beware!

This blog contains some things I’ve learned, experienced, and seen here in Korea. It isn’t one about recent trips that I’ve taken, that one is still expounding in my brain. (I don’t even know if I used that in its correct form. Nicole?) Anyway, it will be here soon!

Musical road – On our way to Costco awhile back, our driver, Jenny, said “listen!” to Holly and I. Not knowing what to “listen” for, we sat and confusedly looked at each other. Suddenly, we realized, the road was singing. Well…not singing, but playing a song. The grooves in the road were strategically placed to play Twinkle Twinkle Little star, I think, I actually don’t remember the song, I just remember that it was cool. I recall hearing about something like this in the States, but never experienced it. I wonder how long it took to make!!?

Toy guns - On my walk home one Saturday, I had my headphones in, listening to a newly downloaded (awesome, of course) CD. I heard some commotion, took my earphone out, and spotted several elementary aged Korean boys playing at the park. I hardly ever see this…because they are almost always in school, but it happened to be a Saturday that they actually had a break, and there they were, playing, with toy guns nonetheless. Toy guns aren’t a big deal here like they are in America. I’ve seen them brought to school, and even tucked away in pockets in church. So, I watched in amazement as these 15 or so boys, immensely enjoyed laying waste to each other with imaginary bullets. It was pretty fun to watch, their death scenes were quite impressive. It made me want to whip out my pistol and ninja roll into the fray…but then I remembered I didn’t have a pistol, and I would probably hurt myself in the ninja roll attempt. So I went on my way, chuckling at their childhood antics, and remembering my own.

Yellow dust – I may have already briefly touched on this topic in other blogs, but will explain it in more detail so that you may understand what it is. Yellow dust is quite a problem in Korea. Mostly during the springtime but I’m finding that it has lingered into the summer as well. What is yellow dust? Well, it’s a very fine dust that blows over from the deserts in Mongolia and China. The reason it’s so worrisome is because as it comes from the desert, it travels over the industrial belt in China, therefore picking up some fun toxins on the way. Yellow dust is the main reason for the masks, and umbrellas…if you don’t have one when it’s raining, “your hair will fall out” because the rain has yellow dust in it. The weekly forecast may consist of: rainy, sunny, partly cloudy, and a yellow dust storm or two. One day this Spring, I was actually reminded of a “pre-tornado” sky back home, because it was completely yellow. The next day, all the cars had a layer of dust on them. I didn’t really notice the dust before, but now I can tell when it’s in the air…because it has the faint smell of moldy/old cardboard boxes. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. Lol.

Traffic signals – they aren’t followed here. People run red lights like CRAZY! When asked how people can run them without getting into trouble with the Police, they just say that the traffic cameras take your picture and a ticket is sent to you, but that doesn’t seem to faze these drivers. Plus, there are hardly any police officers here anyway. I have never seen a police officer pull anyone over, and the few I see are always just driving around with their lights always on, but no one ever gets out of the way for them. It’s preposterous! We do however have a power hungry traffic cop that works at the apartment complex near Holly’s. He likes to stand outside his little house and blow his whistle to tell cars where to go. The thing is, he’s not even standing at the intersection, there are only two ways to turn when the cars DO get to the intersection, and there are so few cars that even the IDEA of a traffic cop just seems pointless. Unless, of course, the real reason is to wake up everyone in the surrounding area with his whistle, because then, the idea makes perfect sense! *eye roll*

The bee story – Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I have a break between my kids’ classes and my adult classes. During this time, I prepare, but if I already have everything ready, I usually watch something online, or type this blog…if I’m motivated. ;) One day, as I was sitting at my computer, I heard the dreaded noise of a bug caught in a room. You know the noise, the one where they can’t figure out where to go so they just smack aimlessly into things. This particular bug sounded quite large, so I looked around to check the category in which I would be dealing with. Ah, a bee…wonderful. That’s when Mr. Kim spotted the little (well…big actually) bugger, and proceeded to run out of the room. Haha! He said that it was called a horse bee, or something, because they were so big. I was standing in the doorway, watching it fly around when Mr. Kim told me to come out and shut the door because “they can kill you!” Uh…ok. Then he said, “I don’t know what to do.” And I said, “Give me your tennis racquet; I can kill it in one shot.” But he vetoed that idea right away, probably because it would be hard to find a sub for me on such short notice. Ha! What did he decide? To get the bug spray, stand in the doorway, and fill the room with poison until the bee finally died. It worked, but guess whose stuff is right inside the door? You got it, mine. I had enough sense to close my computer when I realized what he was going to do but the top cover, my books, desk, and everything else had a nice layer of bee killer on it. Sick.

The idea of memory- My students are unable to comprehend the concept. Don’t get me wrong, they definitely know how to PLAY it…because all I had to say was “memory” and they were setting up the pieces practically before I had them out of the rubber band, but the idea is just…lost. They like to have things organized, so when two pieces are matched together, all I have to do is wait, before…yep, there goes Sally, moving two other side pieces in to fill those new empty positions. Guys…you’re supposed to REMEMBER where the match is!! Not move them around!! I should just rename the game to “you’ll always have to guess where the match is if you keep doing that.” ß that’s a silly name, Kaley. When the pieces dwindle to about 6-10…they like to just mix them all together and re-lay them back out. I’ve stopped trying to prevent them from doing this. I guess they just really don’t want each other to win for that extra sticker prize. Oh what they’ll do for a sticker!

At the gym – We’ve found a new machine that we like! It’s a hiking machine, and it’s pretty great. The hiking machines have their own little room so there is hardly anyone back there when we arrive. One day, we noticed that the cleaning woman was wiping the machines down. Holly and I were walking/running/hiking on our machines when suddenly a shininess on Holly’s machine caught my eye. I looked down at her feet and saw that the machine was wet, I then down at mine and saw that the woman WAS CLEANING MY MACHING while I was still on it! Oh snap!!

Calendar – I have a calendar that I X the day off when it’s over. Last month I had to put two X’s on one day. I’ve decided, if two days have to share on a calendar, then that month has too many days. Moral of the story, May seemed super long.

Animals – I miss them. When I see a dog, I just want to stop and pet it. There were some puppies on the Island we went to on our bike tour (which I will write about in my next blog, promise). They were quite dirty puppies, I must admit, but every time I passed them, I just had to give them some lovin! Sometimes we walk by pet stores, and I have to stop myself from watching the dogs and cats for too long. Can’t wait to go home and see my two dogs and many, many cats. B.J. named the new litter of kittens with all Z names. I was super impressed. He’s learned to carry on the tradition of unusual names for our animals. Way to go kid.

Spelling – is slightly irrelevant here. Whenever a student pronounces a word that I don’t quite understand, I ask them to spell it for me, which is a mistake because, they most likely can’t. Words that are translated from Korean writing to English, are spelled different every time I see them. For example, they have a food here called Kimbap, but it’s pronounced Gimbap, and sometimes spelled that way. This is also common with town names. Their 3^rd biggest town is Busan, but they say Pusan. When I first arrived in Korea, I was trying to find flights to an Island called Jeju, but it kept coming up as Cheju on the internet. WHICH IS IT?! Haha. Needless to say, I can now understand why some words are hard to say for them. The letter Z isn’t even used in their language, so the word Zoo…is unbelievably hard and sounds like joo. I commend those that stick with learning the English language. It would be a very daunting task for sure.

Fin! Korea trips blog coming soon! Love you guys!