I was watching The Simpsons late one night.. dubbed in korean!.. also got my gas, electricity, and cable bills for Sept.. Gas $7, Electricity $15, Cable $7... guess I'll be investing in those big flashing neon signs to leave on all night! Kids are still playing up so I made one group stay behind to clean up the classroom.. then I hear a chorus of 'teacher I love you', 'teacher you are handsome', but it was too late to use the charm offensive!

Last weekend stayed in town to do some exploring. First I finally found the Daegu Central Mosque, it actually had a minaret too. There was a guesthouse beside where some Afghanis were staying. Then made it back to Seomun Market when it was open. Finally a large outdoor asian bazaar. There are I think six buildings and outside lined with all the street vendors. Inside each building has different floors and grouped by category such as traditional womens dresses, blankets, crafts, etc.

Wanted to order some food from the noodle vendors and asked for the cold noodles by mistake, I wanted the hot soup noodles. The lady was very friendly and tried to teach me the names even though she spoke no english. Then found Chinatown by accident, had no idea they had one. They were also having some chinese festival. Headed back to the Uzbekistan restaurant for kebabs and more Uzbek music. They also have some very grand churches downtown in european style

The big news this week is its COLD. Tuesday it dropped to a daytime high of 10 and overnight near zero. Then it gradually climbed back up towards the end of the week back to daytime high of 18. Finally the heating in my apartment kicked in as its registering as cold. The thermostat keeps saying the room temperature is 28 but I set the heating to 27 so it will kick in as soon as it drops. My room is nice and comfy but the bathroom is like an ice box as there is no heat till I turn the shower on and make it into a sauna. At school only the staffroom is heated and my classroom is not!

Classes were cancelled again Thursday and Friday. This seems to happen every third week for two days for various reasons. This time it was the School Sports Day and Music Performance over two days. The sports day was very colourful. Every class had to come up with their team colour and costume and dressed up including their teacher. So aside from uniform coloured shirts they had novel korean style ideas such as bunny rabbit ears, cats ears, tiger tails, face paint. I've noticed for a while now that boys have no problem wearing pink so one class was pink with bunny rabbit ears including the boys, something that would never happen back home.

They had some traditional games like relays, tug of war, three legged race, and an unusual new one where the class lines up and all bends forward making a human plank while one class member runs on top of them along their backs. Like games days back home many mothers came and helped out with the food stalls which I got to try and they were very happy to meet me. Finally they had a teachers race and I was told to join a relay team. I thought I would do well against three middle aged men including the Principal but they all bolted like lightening leaving me behind! Everyone here is fit with their diet and mountain hiking and you hardly see obese people like back home, and no vending machines in school for chips, pops, or candy.

The music show on friday was a surprise too. They had some traditional stuff like the school choir, soloists, pianists, classical korean music performance, traditional dance, ballet dance. Most popular were the girl group and boy group dances. They were so well choreographed and slick, not sure if they are copying music videos or made it themselves. The big surprise was the teachers dance. The three women were dressed as bunny girls including Nayoung the English teacher who kept this very quiet, she always acts so shy!. The gym teacher and another guy were the dancers while the three women acted liked chorus girls. The audience went wild as the two guys did cartwheels backflips and other moves I didnt know teachers could do!

This week I had planned to do Halloween class before I found out classes were cancelled Thurs/Fri. I decorated the room with halloween stuff and bought lots of candy. I cant find any Halloween, Christmans, or Easter decorations in the class from before so I'll have to buy this all. Because students are always rolling paper into little balls and throwing them they gave me the idea how to get back at them by using paper balls and wrapping them up as fake candy for the trick or treat bag! Also showed them lots of scary movie clips and a group activity where they create the school ghost so have to describe who it was. Some girls screamed, some boys covered their eyes, but they all laughed their heads off and had a good time

I still cant believe 1) this is a job; 2) I'm getting paid for this; 3) I was wasting so many years in the Insurance Industry.... there was no quality of life or work/life balance back home and I sometimes feel guilty for writing these blogs for the folks back home coz I hear the stories of the **** still going on. You live life as a workaholic and certainly not all of these festivals every weekend. In fact its hard to plan things as there's always at least three different events or more going on each weekend. I'm happy to stay in asia next few years if I can :)

It was good to spend time with kids for two days outside of class to see their other talents. Some students that are bored or not participating in my class were excited to talk to me on sports day in a different setting. Also I learnt more about my students activities that I didnt know about so we have more things to talk about to practice english. And we all got a gift of a towel embroided with the school name... how nice!

Been shopping at the local street market I found hidden 3 minutes from me. Most items are slightly more than homeplus but better to support local family owned business. The people in the bakery say their son goes to my school and the lady in the coffee shop speaks good english.... If you thought you hadnt heard from the Smurfs since the 80s its because they moved to Korea.. they are alive and well over here!

I can pretty much read Hanguel writing now, I just have to learn vocabulary and food items now. Saturday is the Heainsa Temple but I'll do that as a seperate blog entry as already too many pics in this one