Day 33 of Living in Korea-Best. Week. EVER!

This week has been so much fun! Monday I got to school and it was a normal day, nothing too exciting. However, my co-teacher told me that I wouldn't have any classes on Tuesday due to nationwide testing. Sweet!
So I got a chance to work on my Korean, work on summer camp, and work with my summer camp co-teacher to get things set up. One of my other co-teachers came up to me with a printout from a website, wanting to know if I'd go on a free vacation. She doesn't speak a lot of English, but she pointed me to a website, which it turns out is the website for the city of Guri (where I live.) They're sponsoring a two day, one night trip to Samcheok in Gangwon Province. We'll be visiting a mountain village, experiencing Korean customs, learning about Korean etiquette, exploring a cave, and most importantly, visiting a BEACH!!!

The trip is completely free for up to 40 foreigners living in Guri, so I'm glad I got registered early!

I've also been doing some research into Korean classes in the area. I found some that charge, but I found one after some digging that's free. You have to sign up in advance to take a pre-test, and you're placed in a class based on how well you do that on that test. One of my co-teachers offered to take me in to Seoul last night, which I of course accepted! I hadn't been on the subway yet, so I didn't have a transportation card and I didn't really know my way around. The subway ride was really nice-very clean, and the transfer that we had to make was very easy. There's Korean signs, but they also have signs in English. Fortunately I'm to the point now where I'm fairly comfortable reading Korean. I don't always know what I'm reading, but I can read it!

We arrived in the city at about 6:45, looked around for a bit so we could figure out where we were going, and headed to the Cultural Foundation, where the classes are. We quickly discovered that there was more than one entrance, but fortunately we got things sorted out pretty quickly. I got signed up for the test, so I have to go back to the Korea Cultural Foundation (KCF) on July 30 to take the placement test. I'm going to keep studying hard, because I really don't want to end up stuck in the very beginning class!

BTW, I'm going to dazzle you all with my Korean skills now:
저눈 스테파니입니다. 자눈 미국사람입니다. 산생님입니다. Inchang Middle School 에서일합니다.

It says: I am Stephanie. I am an American. I am a teacher. I work at Inchang Middle School.

Pretty awesome, right?!

Ok, it's time to leave school. I'm going to go ahead and post TWO blog posts today!! I'm going to "Knight and Day" with some of my friends and we need to leave soon. I will post more later!