Day 147 of Living in Korea-General updates

Wow, it's been a long long LONG time since I blogged...I really need to do better about keeping this updated. I do have a good excuse though-I've been really busy!! I have a Korean class once a week, I meet one-on-one with a Korean teacher once and a week, and the rest of my time is filled out by hanging out with friends or seeing the sights of Seoul. Or going to Costco...but it's always for a good reason!


Here are some of the blog posts that I'm working on for the not-too-distant future:
1) Our school held its sports festival last Friday! It was similar to a field day in KS, but also pretty different. There were only three events and I have videos of all three, plus pictures of my kiddos being CRAZY! Unfortunately they don't want their pictures on the internet (and honestly, I can't blame them) so I need to modify every picture. That takes time! The good news is that the videos are formatted and ready, they just need a blog post to go with them!

2) I was recently able to rearrange my apartment with the help of a friend (thanks Hadley!) so with some extra duty cleaning, I'll finally be able to show you all a video of my apartment. It's pretty clean right now in general (no really, it is!) but it of course needs some touch ups. It's quite a bit different from anything I've ever lived in before and different from anything I've seen in the States. I'm excited to show it off!

3) New camera lens!! I've been wanting to upgrade my basic camera lens for a long time, so last Saturday, with the help of a new Korean friend, I purchased a a gently used Canon lens. Love my Canons! I'll be breaking it into tomorrow at Dongdaemun and the Cheonggyecheon Lantern Festival, which leads me into my next blog topic...

4) DONGDAEMUN! I've talked about this a lot on Facebook, but not much here. The Dongdaemun (Great East Gate) area is a shopping mecca in South Korea. If you can't find it here, it doesn't exist. The bulk of my shopping takes place in Dongdaemun Shopping Town, which is 4 (I think) connected buildings with 4 floors each FULL of fabric. I pee my pants just a wee bit every time I go there...it's REALLY exciting for me!

5) Every expat that lives in South Korea has at least one good subway story and I'm no exception. I've racked up some crazy stories in the 5 months. Some of them I have shared on Facebook and some I have not.

6) Korean school system: In two weeks we'll have a four day weekend! Students will take the national SAT test on Thursday, November 18th. For high school students, this test basically determines the rest of their life. Where they go to college is determined by how well they do on this test. For middle school students, the test is also very important. High schools are set up quite a bit differently: there are many schools that specialize in certain areas. If a student wants to go to a foreign language school or a fine arts school, then they need to do really well on this test. Korean children and Koreans on the whole are incredibly competitive by necessity. I'll explain a little more about the Korean education system and how it's set up in this post.

7) Upcoming trip! School is canceled for the test on the 18th and also on the 19th. The principal wanted to allow the teachers to rest on the 19th since they are working just as hard as the students right now, if not harder. So I'm going to take advantage of the 4 day weekend and do some traveling around Korea. A friend told me about a free bus for foreigners that goes to Gyeongju and Jeonju, two very historic cities in the southern part of Korea. I also plan to go to Busan and then ride the high speed train back. I'm super excited about this trip!!!!!

These topics have been brewing in my mind for a while, I just haven't had the time to sit down and put the words in the computer. I absolutely will make time to do it in the coming weeks!!!