The many bizarre foods Koreans love

Today was my second day at Seokseung. I caught the bus and everything on my own. Joo said he had been a little worried that I'd get lost or something, and yesterday he reassured me if I messed up and got to school at like 11 or 12 I shouldn't be upset... he said they understand I'm not from here and everything is more difficult for me. I was glad to catch the bus though because then I don't have to worry about calling someone to come get me or whatever.


I taught the first/second grade class (it's combined for English because total there's only like 12 of them anyway), and the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades essentially by myself today. The teachers were in the room, but mostly to kind of be the intermediary. I think that eventually I'll be totally by myself.


Lunch today was particularly difficult. I think instead of learning to like Korean food the more I eat it, it's more like the more I have the less I like it, which is pretty unfortunate. I can no longer bring myself to eat more than a few bites of kimchi. We had some very dodgy-looking soup with tofu, kimchi, something green that wasn't seaweed but Joo didn't know the name of, rice with some kind of beans or something, and this delicious potato-and-chicken with some kind of sauce. One of the worst parts about not having anything to drink with your meal is that if something tastes bad, there's no water to wash it down. So pretty much I ate the rice, potato-and-chicken thing, a couple spoonfuls of soup and some kimchi and then just left the cafeteria. Joo came into my room after lunch and asked if I like pizza, and I said of course, so we went into the teachers' room and for some reason there was pizza! I think maybe it was for the kids? I'm really not sure. Joo said to me that he thought maybe lunch was no good for me today, so he must have noticed I didn't really eat it, so I didn't want to ask if they got pizza for me. I don't really think so, but either way it was a good deal. The pizza was pretty good even if they did put corn on it. It also came with a side of pickles in what looked kind of like the dipping sauce containers in the States. I love pickles, so I thought it was great. "Pickle" is "pickle" in Korean. Seriously.


On the plus side, Koreans love coffee. Everywhere I go I'm offered coffee. They have premixed coffee packets that look like giant pixie stix, and they've got instant coffee, creamer, and sugar. Perhaps they have these in the States and I've just never seen them, but they're awesome and very handy. Just use one of the electric kettles that are everywhere and bam! delicious coffee in like a minute.


Joo and I taught the 3/4th and 5/6th "study group" classes. Joo explained to me that he asked for volunteers to be in this supplementary English class, and I guess all the 3rd and 4th graders volunteered but he and the vice-principal thought 12 was a good number (I am so thankful they capped the class). Only two 6th graders volunteered though! So my 5/6th class is only eight kids. I still don't understand the Korean schoolday because Joo told me that these were extra classes beyond the normal school time, but maybe there's other optional classes because there are kids running around here still.



The other teachers invited me to the teachers' room to eat some mini sweet potatoes. They were actually pretty good... it was just different to eat baked sweet potatoes by themselves at like 3:30pm.