Halloween!

Amy Winehouse, a hippie (cheapest costume ever because I could just wear my own clothing) and the 99%

Cactopus

One of my students (the really cute Jenny which has been featured on this blog many times) thought that a cactus was called a cactopus. It was adorable. Anyway, this weekend I finally made it down to the Jalgachi fish market. Pretty amazing place, particularly as Koreans eat all the weird seafood you can think of and unlike the only other fish market (Sydney) that I have been to, Koreans wont stand for any sanitary organized shit. They just stick it all right out there in bins and scream at you to buy it. All this fish is sold by adjumas (the grumpy middle age/old ladies that shove you around). Definitely a lot of very unappetizing fish (some fish just do not look like they should be eaten) and some very appetizing fish.

So these were still thrashing around and alive but later on we saw some that had been cooked and looked delicious

Very sassy with all of her shell fish that I did not recognize

They were quite good at displaying their wares

I just really don't see the appeal

These had teeth that look like they could kill you

Yum

Stingray

Not delicious looking but fairly picturesque

Pete were these the knives you wanted? Cause I didn't get you one

No matter how many restaurants I pass by with these guys swimming in tanks in my face I will never think these taste (yes I have tried them, shocking I know) or look good. They are monsters and should be left in the ocean.

See! Monsters! He leaped out of his bin of water and began running in front of us and I had opened toed shoes on, not a good choice.

Only the foolish Americans stopped to take photos and gasp while all the Koreans just stepped over it and calmly informed the lady that her octopus had gotten away. When she picked it up she then shoved it in my startled friends face. Thank god it hadn't been me because I think I would have had a heart attack

Cool looking but in the same way that monsters are "cool" looking. Only in pictures.

Just chopping up some eels

I look just like Julia Roberts

On Thursday I went with Jen to a temple near our school to help her teach some of the nuns and some refugees from North Korea English. We had been connected with the temple through this amazing woman, Judy, who owns a great restaurant above our work. She lives with the nuns at the temple which is also a place that some North Koreans come to when they first get into the country. It is a pretty amazing opportunity for us to work with people that we would have no other way of having a relationship with.
The temple is beautiful and so quiet compared with the rest of the city. I didn't have the chance to really look around but there was a huge garden on one side where they grow all of their vegetables and which also serves as a community garden for people in the area. There is the main temple where people can come and pray whenever and then the houses where the nuns live and study.
The class was with two nuns and two North Korean women who were about 25. Both of the North Koreans are unique in that they made it out of North Korea without being forced into a marriage. Typically single women end up in a marriage in China (they can't go directly to South Korea) because they cannot support themselves alone. I am not sure how long the two of them had been in South Korea but it seems that it has probably been a while because they both seemed very happy and open, there was lots of laughing at their efforts to speak English. At this point all of their English levels are very low and we will mostly just be trying to teach them vocabulary and some simple grammar but they have been learning very quickly so hopefully we will be able to communicate with them more.
Jen is pretty good at Korean (after 5 years here) which seems to be a big help in teaching them, I think it will be a struggle if I go alone to communicate with them and the other nuns.
The class is only an hour and then we are given lunch with some of the nuns. They are all so nice and welcoming. My favorite was this very old nun (I guess she is the oldest at the temple) who seems to be done with silly pleasantries and small talk. She just kind of sat around at lunch looking bored. When one of the other nuns took a picture of her with Jen, Jen was smiling and posing and the other woman just looked bored and not at the camera. Somehow she all of this while still seeming to be a wonderfully kind person. It was just as if she had lived a very full life and understood how inconsequential all of our behavior and conversations were. The one thing that did get her excited was this app on one of the woman's smartphones of a animated cat that would repeat things you said in a cute cat voice or you could punch it on different parts of its body for different reactions. This game kept her entertained for way too long.
I am definitely excited for the opportunity to get to know both the nuns and the North Koreans better and hopefully help them with their English but I am a little nervous about going on my own with my total lack of Korean. Though I think I will like spending time with the nuns as they are very complimentary, one of them told me I looked like Julia Roberts which mostly just indicates that she has never seen a picture of Julia Roberts.

This was the only photo I took on a recent weekend in Daegu. I love how eggs look and I don't know how they can have this huge stack of them on the street without people breaking them.

Phone Photos

This is pretty much the funniest Korean I have encountered while here, pretty lazy student though.

Our friends just got this adorable puppy

Angry Birds is very popular here at the moment and most of the kids have some sort of Angry Birds clothing but this is by far the best that I have seen.

We are now halfway through the term and it has gone by very quickly. I got lucky with my classes this term which makes everything a lot easier. Unfortunately everything else at work seems to be falling apart. Our Branch Manager is extremely pregnant and will be leaving at the end of a month and the woman that is replacing her has not exactly won me over. The first email message that we received from her reminded us to "obey all commands of our head instructor and branch manager". Probably a lot got lost in the translation but still not great. In addition the one amazing Korea teacher that was very helpful and attentive had to leave to take care of her mother and it seems her replacement does not speak English. Its a pretty big bummer not to have any good Korean teachers because they are the only ones that seem to have any discipline power over the students. So without her we pretty much don't have any way of really punishing students that continually misbehave. It is pretty clear that the students are aware that we (the foreigners) are very limited in what we can do in terms of punishment and some of them can be totally out of control and rude.
On top of all the staff changes we will be moving buildings at the end of the month. It seems that the new building will be much nicer and hopefully we will have bigger classrooms as mine is tiny right now. The only bummer is that it is a little bit further away and a bit of a walk from the subway. Hopefully that switch will go somewhat smoothly.
The Busan Film Festival is currently going on but figuring out how to get tickets and what to see was way to confusing so instead I am going out to dinner with some friends and then we are going to go to the casino (it will be my first time). Gambling (along with all other fun activities) is against the law for Koreans but foreigners are allowed (I wish they had these kinds of rules for other things). Anyway, should be interesting! Speaking of breaking the law, the big drama for all the middle school girls is the one of the members of Big Bang one of the most popular boy bands here (thing 'NSYNC in their hayday) got caught with a joint. My students said that his story was that a fan gave it to him and he thought it was a cigarette. When I told them that that was obviously a lie and he probably smokes weed they looked at me with shock and confusion.