Getting Sick in Korea

In early April I got sick. It started out as a cold and ended up as bronchitis. I just wanted to mention it because of the stark differences in health care in Korea and the U.S. At first when I got sick, I thought it was just a cold and that I would get over it in a couple days. As anyone who has worked with kids would know, they are germy little things and you can't help but catch things from them from time to time. In Korea the first thing you do when you're feeling sick is go to the pharmacy. It's the same as in Kenya. You go to the pharmacy, explain your symptoms, and they can give you some medication right there. It's a nice way to skip the high price usually charged by doctors (back home).

The second time after I went to the pharmacy and explained that things still weren't better, and I had an intense pressure in my entire face, the lady's response was "go see a doctor". First, I have to say that I'm lucky in that there is a private women's hospital literally on the same street as my school. It was one of my busy days at school; I don't get any breaks after lunch except for one 20 minute break. I decided to go during lunch, and see if I could see a doctor in that hour slot. Everyone at the hospital was very nice, the doctor spoke a lot of English. I was in and out in under 40 minutes. The total cost without insurance: $13. My first prescription: $7. I ended up going back to the doctor twice more, but each follow-up visit only cost $9 each. The most expensive of the three prescriptions was the one when they finally gave me antibiotics which turned out to be a whooping $17.

I want to show you a picture of the way the give prescriptions here because I thought it was cool.

The pills are in their own little sealed compartments. They even wrote "M" "L" "D" so I know what meal to take each little pack with. (I think the dinner one had an extra something that might make you drowsy, hence why it's different)

Sometimes I really love Korea. On another fun Korea services note, tonight I got a new pair of glasses. I heard that they were cheaper here, and I haven't gotten a new pair in maybe five years. I went in, picked out the frames, and they checked my eyes free of charge. They assembled my new glasses in 15 minutes, the cost: $58. They even had glasses as cheap as $25 a pair. Part of me wants to stock up, but I know that's unresonable and just my bargain hunter-self catching the wind of a great deal. If you go to Korea though, I highly recommend getting some glasses. Although it's cheap, I can't really recommend getting sick...

Icheon Ceramics Festival

In April I went to the Icheon Ceramics Festival. I really enjoyed it because after going to a couple museums here, I'm kind of getting into Korean pottery. At the very least, I know the history more and can appreciate the simplicity. There's not a lot to write about this particular adventure but I wanted to share some pictures from the day. There were a couple buildings that you could walk through and purchase pottery. There were a lot of amazing pieces, but I'm not exactly in a place in my life where making a lot of pottery purchases makes sense. I can't exactly bring them everywhere with me. So instead I appreciated their beauty from afar. There was also a tea set competition that resulted in a lot of modern and cool looking sets. I'll post the pictures of my favorites so you can see.

The entrance

Inside the gate

One of the tea sets from the competition

Traditional style, Korean ceramics

Competition piece

The main building where you could buy ceramics

A wall filled with ceramic pieces!

A close-up of the wall

One of my favorite modern ceramics pieces

Another cool piece

Another :)

A metal tree filled with wind-chimes

My New Kindergarten Class: 6y-1

When I first came to Korea and LCI (my school) I was teaching the 7y-2 class. The kids were seven years old and had been taking English for two years. As I wrote earlier, in February those kids graduated and are now first graders in Korean school. That meant that starting in March I was getting an entirely new class. I now have the 6y-1 class. These kids had never studied English before.

I'll admit that getting settled with them took some time. I had been with my old class for eight months, and we had a rhythm. I was also spoiled because their English was already so good when I came. The first day with my new class we literally stared at each other. I was so nervous, and I'm sure the kids were thinking 'what in the world is this funny looking lady saying?'. They spoke to me almost exclusively in Korean. Whenever they said something to me that sounded like a question I just pointed to the bathroom because I was terrified someone would have an accident because I didn't understand them asking to go. The whole first week was a learning experience. On a positive note though, I do now know how to say 'bathroom', 'pee', and 'teacher help me' in Korean.

The first thing I did was make signs with pictures for the class that said "May I go to the bathroom?" and "May I get a drink of water?". I figured even if they couldn't say it, they could at least point. It's worked very well, and has the added bonus of them not only now knowing how to ask, but doing so in a full sentence. From there we've kept moving forward. Now, three months later, their progress is amazing. It's so exciting and rewarding for me looking back on how we started and how far we've come. They're not reading yet but they are remembering some sight words. Whenever they speak to me they always use English (and a lot of gestures of course). One of our activities in class is poem and I do each poem for two weeks. Many of the kids are now able to memorize the poems! So far two that we've done that were the most popular were Fuzzy Wuzzy and Hickory Dickory Dock.

It took me a little while to get attached to this class. In the beginning I was certain that they couldn't compare to my old class. They've wormed their way into my heart though, and I know I'll be sad to leave them in a little over a month. I can only imagine how they'll be speaking in a year's time. I'll attach some pictures of my class below. We went on a field trip to a zoo and there are some pictures from that too. (As a side note, one of the boys in the pictures left my class, and now I have two new boys not in the pictures that started last week). I have 11 kids in my class now.

Me and the Director's wife

The entire kindergarten program.

Namsan Tower

I'm sorry that I've been on such a hiatus. I've been doing a lot in the last few months and I want to bring you some of the highlights. First: Namsan Tower. Namsan Tower is the Seattle Space Needle of Seoul. It's a tall skinny building/structure on top of a hill in the middle of Seoul. It allows you 360 degree views of the city. It was on my list of places to visit and in mid-April I went with my friend/fellow teacher Laura.

To get to the base of the tower your options are taking the cable car, the bus, or hiking/walking up the mountain. Laura wanted to hike so we did. I'm using the word hike loosely here because it was more like sets and sets of stairs. Here's how it looked "hiking":



The weather was perfect for our adventure. When you finish climbing all the stairs (I definitely had to take a couple breaks) you get to the top where the tower is. Even without going up into the tower itself there are amazing views to be had from up there. Here's a picture of the tower from the platform:

Before we went up in the tower we walked around. At Namsan there's a long fence that couples attach locks too. It's a fun tradition; couples will go and "lock up" their love at Namsan. For all of the couple things that I think are over the top here, I thought this one was kind of sweet. It was overwhelming to see all of the locks. They even had a box to throw away the keys.

I liked that underneath the new plastic locks you could see old metal ones rusting with age.

Seoul in the background.



After we looked at all the locks we walked around the platform. In the gift shop there was a wall where couples could buy tiles to write on in addition to the locks.

Those pictures that you see on the tiles are big in Korea. There are little shops you can go into and take those pictures then doctor them with hearts, stars, cat whiskers, etc. So cute (Korea's motto). Finally, after a full dose of couples and love, we went up into the tower. Here are some pictures of Seoul from the top.

It was really amazing seeing Seoul from the top of the tower. I've visited so many neighborhoods in Seoul but I never really had an idea of where they were in relation to each other. It was cool being able to figure it out. Afterwards Laura and I were even confinent enough that we decided to walk down the mountain to a neighborhood called Itawon that we've been to many times. Itawon is the foreigners district. We definitely took the long way, but we successfully made it there. It was nice to end the day in a cute little bar drinking amazing drinks. Of course, I have to share those too :)

The bar was called Bermuda Triangle

 A mojito and Kiwi makgeolli (a Korean rice wine)