Good Things About Korea Include:

[beccatoria]

Good Things About Korea include:

1) Teaching a twelve year old with a t-shirt that reads, "I have such a bad hangover I wish I was dead."

2) The fact that someone at my work owns and wears the infamous, "Better daycare for teenage parents," t-shirt.

3) Non-t-shirt-related: that even though they can be HELL to control for forty minutes and will occasionally refuse to learn anything, there is something very endearing about having a six year old LAUNCH himself at you for a hug when he sees you (if only they all liked me that much).

4) Lotteria. THEY PUT FRESH BELL PEPPERS IN YOUR BURGER. AND THEY WEAR PAPER HATS. AND I FEEL LIKE THEY CARE. Plus those awesome little buzzer things they give you to tell you when your order is ready for collection. (To those not in the know: Lotteria is the Korean version of McDonalds. But I've only been like, twice, cus I'm eating enough junk as it is. *sigh*)

5) Bakeries that stay open until 10pm. (Actually everything stays open until ten here and families with really young children are out and about getting ice cream or whatever until that time too. It's sort of weird seeing gaggles of ten-to-twelve year olds and families with infants and toddlers strolling around at gone ten at night.)

6) Living near Baskin Robbins.

7) The subway system.

8) Dok-do islands propaganda! Actually I'm on Korea's side on this one. It's been theirs for hundreds of years and clearly the Japanese have just upped and decided they want it for its natural gas reserves, but I LOVE the way this fight over these piss-ant rocks in the middle of an ocean has become some massive issue of national pride. It's constantly on TV, there are ads about it in the supermarket and today I saw some presentations that the kids we teach are working on about how YOU can save Dok-do if you just SPREAD THE WORD.

9) The fact that today my co-teacher came in in a shirt that made her look like the bastard lovechild of Mary Poppins and Colonel Sanders. It was awesome.

But WOW am I tired today. Wednesday is my longest day and I had phone tests too.

So yay for positivity. I SHALL KEEP ON TRUCKING!

Comments

[asta77.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you are finding some good things about Korea. :)

Bakeries open until 10pm? Awesome!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

And they're good bakeries too! Okay so sometimes you have to be careful so as not to end up with a donut full of red beans instead of jelly, but on the whole, I give them my seal of approval! :p

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

1) ::sidetracks:: I drank a whole bottle of cava last night and I wasn't hungover at all. Yay for good quality booze with no chemical trash in it!

3) Aw.

8) Hee!

9) o_O

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

1) Hooray for drunkenness! At least, vicariously, as I don't drink! (Nothing against it, just the rather boring reason that I've yet to find alcohol I can stand the taste of and figure in the mean time, why hurry over something that can be dangerous?)

3) Aww indeed. He's the sweetest, most affectionate kid ever. He's also like, made out of sugar or something he's so hyperactive. I feel just terrible every time I have to give him a time-out because he can't sit still/keep his singing to under thirty decibels. Also - in what was an AWW moment for the first half of the morning at least :p - he has apparently decided he is some kind of baby monkey and has taken to climbing onto chairs and launching himself at me and then clinging on for dear life. Other variations of this include starting to walk forwards only to discover he has clamped his arms around my waist and his legs around my legs.

It's impossible to make him do anything, like, at any time, and yet you find yourself not caring because all he wants to do is force you to hug him. (At least on fun days like this when it's activity day and I don't also have to watch over ten other kids vying for my attention while he's trying to scale me like some sort of Teaching Everest... :p)

8) DOK-DO IS KOREAN! DAMN THE JAPANESE AND THEIR BEHAVIOUR IN WWII! KOREAAAAAAAAN!

9) It was a stiff, white, matronly blouse with things I can only describe as twin lapel bows, about six inches wide and somewhat resembling military regalia. o_O

[nomoreanonymous.livejournal.com]

Glad your feeling a bit more upbeat. Its cool discovering all the Idiosyncrasies that come with a new place and culture.

Im curious, how is the media dealing with the glorious leader of North Koreas no show / supposed stroke?

damn! was curious what Baskin Robbins was, now have a web page showing the most devine looking ice creams and other things i cant possibly eat at 3 in the morning. Yum!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Honestly I haven't really been watching the news coverage about Kim Jong Il's whatever it is. The news here is all in Korean (obvs) so I don't tend to keep up that well on local news unless my co-workers mention something. I think there is an english language Korean newspaper but I don't get it. So I've probably been seeing the same coverage as you on the net, leastways.

But no one's panicking in the streets if that's what you're asking.

North Korea aren't really...their attitudes are scary. But they'd pretty much lose any significant military engagement they entered into. Remember how no one really paid them much attention before Bush tacked them onto his "axis of evil"? That's because they're...scary but in reality don't have that much to be scary with. Which isn't to say that we should ignore them. But just...no one here is that worried. They're all much more excited about the fact its thanksgiving weekend. :)

[nomoreanonymous.livejournal.com]

I didnt think there would be panic in the streets if any thing i thought the south would be rather happy if he croaked it.

Lol thanksgivings is a lot more fun, well for parts of the world who celebrate it. Reminds me of most of the british medias coverage of the olympics. Before the games it was human rights violations, Tibet etc. But soon as "TEAM GB" started winning a few medals it was "BEST GAMES EVER!!!!!!"

have a happy Chusok