I've been told that it's generally the school's money, and that they pay ahead of time when they make their reservations. (Prices are not based on the quantity you consume at meals like this---they just keep on giving you food until you stop eating.)
Your school festival definitely looks great---bigger productions do not mean better events. I was shocked to see so little cross-dressing in your movie... there were definitely a lot of kids in their own gender's clothing, which hardly ever happened at my festival.
So your school told you that you didn't have to come in just because there were no classes? Man, Napo really is fantastic!
Finally, don't worry about missing chance for hosik pictures: you'll get another. I get out to eat with co-teachers/staff at my schools at least once a week (a few Fridays ago I did it twice!) so just keep your camera handy and watch out for the potato cakes, they look weird but they're totally delicious.
The prizes turned out to be a fancy pen, three tubes of toothpaste, a bunch of soap, and three boxes of tissues. I guess they are encouraging good habits and hygiene among the middle schoolers :)
As far as how I guessed, your guess is as good as mine: I just went with my intuition. Just another example to support my theory that odds are nothing more than a useful tool (i.e. they help us think about reality, but don't actually correspond directly with anything in reality).
Well, we all just read and watched today's blog. Fabulous. I get more jealous every blog. Now I want to visit your school, meet your co-workers & students. I'm wondering if they treat visiting parents (or at least fathers?) to some of the Korean Spectacular Spectacular? I am particularly interested in the eating and drinking events (my "anthropology of eating" interest).
So what were your prizes / presents for winning the quizzing? And how did you guess, if it was all in Korean? And do your students look at you with new awe, having won?
And we are anxiously awaiting news of the weekend, especially to see whether Marisa gets a cool new Korean haircut... :-)
My students also really like hangman. REALLY like hangman. REALLY LIKE HANGMAN! I think Marisa must have an odd bunch... either that, or Marisa is playing a different game with them and calling it hangman. Do you know how to play hangman Marisa?
Maybe you should try whole phrases instead of inidividual words... my length record was "Come away, O human child, to the waters and the wild." They gasped at all the blank spaces and cheered when they finished it successfully. Then I was able to use the phrase to illustrate patterns of stress in English. (Usually I start with "To be or not to be, that is the question," since it's pretty easy.)
At any rate, you have my sympathy... even my ninth-graders are hairbrained for hangman.
Actually, none of my classes have screamed when I've played hangman. In fact, I think I'm going to have to give it up. One class stared at me, one class responed somewhat favorably, and one class was too smart and just guessed the word. Perhaps I'll try it someday with my first years, but I guess the second years in Gunsan are just too cool for hangman.
I think you would be shocked by how well behaved the students are most of the time. Despite their enthusiasm when I was introducing myself, they can actually be quiet while I'm speaking.
You have beaten me to the hoe table---I just found out that I'm having some for dinner tonight. (We're actually going to a restaurant for a special teacher's meeting, so I suspect I'm going to be doing a lot of drink-dodging and listening to Korean speeches by mildly inebriated school officials.) I like sashimi but the Korean variant is a bit different, so I'm keenly anticipating the experience. My co-teacher also stressed how expensive it was.
...These are a few of the words to which Mrs. Kim decided to introduce the class while we were doing that lesson. I love that you have a wannabe-entomologist; the most interesting answer I got from my students was "diplomat." (And remember that they only say that because everyone in Chungbuk wants to be like Ban Ki-moon. Which is not really a bad thing---if you're going to model yourself after a political figure he's definitely one of the most admirable possible choices---but still.)
Your co-teacher was unsure about Frankenstein?! Dude! One of my co-teachers showed "Jumper" in class to reward them for... I'm not sure what, but anyway she didn't mind all the sex and violence. And I think every middle-schooler I've asked has seen "Oldboy," which is a great film but is at Takashi Miike levels of ultraviolence/incest.
I guess that I'm lucky with my school computers; they take forever to boot, but once they're up things move reasonably fast.
And that class who didn't start screaming the second you mentioned "hangman" is clearly not Korean. Marisa, you've found a nest of illegal immigrants or Communist spies! Report them immediately!
Well, I've got to say that being Karith-stalked sounds an awful lot better than being Creepy-Korean-Middle-School-Girl-stalked, and I managed to survive that long enough that they finally discovered that I pretty much go around town doing the same sorts of things that their parents do and decided that I was too boring to stalk after all... so go ahead and stalk me if you want, just don't expect any thrills.
Yes to the ARC, and yes to the cell phone. When Mr. Song told me 400,000 I just stared at him blankly, not understanding what he was talking about. "No no, we want the cheapest one" I said. "Yes, 400,000 is cheapest for foreigner" he replied. At this point I decided that having a cell phone was maybe not so important after all . I explained that we would probably have to go without, so then he got on his own mobile and started calling one person after another... after about half an hour he said, "okay, you can have cell phone for 70,000 because I say you Korean." [Sigh of relief]. Then we got to the place and they told us we could have it for 50!
(I then proceeded to do a really bad job bargaining on a blanket after school, but getting the 50,000 cell phone made up for it -- I don't know what it is about bargaining outside of the Middle East: I simply can't do it!)
That was very fast (I had my medical checkup on my fourth day...) and you got an even better family deal on your cell phone than I did, so congrats! Doesn't that laminated ARC make you feel all nice and official?
400,000!? They told me my cheapest option (before the discount) was 290,000...
I ate a meal at a Korean restaurant which featured the legs from these crabs in some kind of hot sauce, and they were probably the hardest-to-eat thing I've yet encountered. Not because they were bad (actually they were delicious even though the sauce stung my lips), but because I could not for the life of me figure out how I was supposed to get at the meat... and the person I was eating with had fairly minimal English. "Suck!" he kept on telling me, but all I ended up doing was sucking vigorously on a crab leg. At last I figured out that you need to bite down firmly and scrape back with your teeth; the carapace will collapse but not break apart, so that you wind up transforming the sauce-covered crab leg held in your chopsticks to a sauce-covered length of crab meat in your mouth.
(This is yet another instance of the most difficult feature of Korean food: you never know when you're supposed to eat all of something and when you're supposed to avoid part of it.)
But it's pretty cool that you live in Gunsan and you get to see the things before they've been cruelly slaughtered and amputated.
Well, it's not as if you're missing something absolutely life-changing, but still: Lotteria's some darned good fast food, so I may just take you up on your offer. ;-)
I do of course hold all my fast food experiences up to the very high Hong Kong McDonald's standard, which very few places, including McDonald's in the states, live up to. Despite the cold french fries, my hamburger also tasted funny, and they used Lotteria ketchup (there is nothing more sacred to me than Heinz ketchup, any place that uses other kinds of ketchups is clearly inferior). I will say that our milkshake was good enough that I would have another.
I am always willing to give things a second try though. Perhaps you can show us your Lotteria and redeem our experience.
Yeesh, then it sounds like you've got a bad Lotteria (or maybe you were there at the wrong time). My "potato" were piping hot, and a heck of a lot better than the McDonald's Sodium Sticks. I'm sorry your unfortunate experience has put you off the place, it's really quite good (good enough for me to eat there every three weeks or so).
(Also, McDonald's gave me cold fries all the time.)
I'm sorry to disagree with you Matthew, but I would have to say that there is no hope for Lotteria. They served us cold french fries. There's nothing fusion about that, just lack of knowledge that french fries should be hot.
I've been told that it's generally the school's money, and that they pay ahead of time when they make their reservations. (Prices are not based on the quantity you consume at meals like this---they just keep on giving you food until you stop eating.)
I have no idea. I never saw anyone pay, and when we finished eating we all just got up and walked out.
Oh, and when you go out for these extravaganzas, who pays? How does that work?
-Baba
Your school festival definitely looks great---bigger productions do not mean better events. I was shocked to see so little cross-dressing in your movie... there were definitely a lot of kids in their own gender's clothing, which hardly ever happened at my festival.
So your school told you that you didn't have to come in just because there were no classes? Man, Napo really is fantastic!
Finally, don't worry about missing chance for hosik pictures: you'll get another. I get out to eat with co-teachers/staff at my schools at least once a week (a few Fridays ago I did it twice!) so just keep your camera handy and watch out for the potato cakes, they look weird but they're totally delicious.
The prizes turned out to be a fancy pen, three tubes of toothpaste, a bunch of soap, and three boxes of tissues. I guess they are encouraging good habits and hygiene among the middle schoolers :)
As far as how I guessed, your guess is as good as mine: I just went with my intuition. Just another example to support my theory that odds are nothing more than a useful tool (i.e. they help us think about reality, but don't actually correspond directly with anything in reality).
Well, we all just read and watched today's blog. Fabulous. I get more jealous every blog. Now I want to visit your school, meet your co-workers & students. I'm wondering if they treat visiting parents (or at least fathers?) to some of the Korean Spectacular Spectacular? I am particularly interested in the eating and drinking events (my "anthropology of eating" interest).
So what were your prizes / presents for winning the quizzing? And how did you guess, if it was all in Korean? And do your students look at you with new awe, having won?
And we are anxiously awaiting news of the weekend, especially to see whether Marisa gets a cool new Korean haircut... :-)
Baba
I definitely want to know what your students think of the r-e-c-y-c-l-e music video... :-)
Doug
My students also really like hangman. REALLY like hangman. REALLY LIKE HANGMAN! I think Marisa must have an odd bunch... either that, or Marisa is playing a different game with them and calling it hangman. Do you know how to play hangman Marisa?
I missed that last part---I am shocked at your students' quietness. They have got to be drugging them... or at least denying them caffeine.
Maybe you should try whole phrases instead of inidividual words... my length record was "Come away, O human child, to the waters and the wild." They gasped at all the blank spaces and cheered when they finished it successfully. Then I was able to use the phrase to illustrate patterns of stress in English. (Usually I start with "To be or not to be, that is the question," since it's pretty easy.)
At any rate, you have my sympathy... even my ninth-graders are hairbrained for hangman.
Actually, none of my classes have screamed when I've played hangman. In fact, I think I'm going to have to give it up. One class stared at me, one class responed somewhat favorably, and one class was too smart and just guessed the word. Perhaps I'll try it someday with my first years, but I guess the second years in Gunsan are just too cool for hangman.
I think you would be shocked by how well behaved the students are most of the time. Despite their enthusiasm when I was introducing myself, they can actually be quiet while I'm speaking.
You have beaten me to the hoe table---I just found out that I'm having some for dinner tonight. (We're actually going to a restaurant for a special teacher's meeting, so I suspect I'm going to be doing a lot of drink-dodging and listening to Korean speeches by mildly inebriated school officials.) I like sashimi but the Korean variant is a bit different, so I'm keenly anticipating the experience. My co-teacher also stressed how expensive it was.
...These are a few of the words to which Mrs. Kim decided to introduce the class while we were doing that lesson. I love that you have a wannabe-entomologist; the most interesting answer I got from my students was "diplomat." (And remember that they only say that because everyone in Chungbuk wants to be like Ban Ki-moon. Which is not really a bad thing---if you're going to model yourself after a political figure he's definitely one of the most admirable possible choices---but still.)
Your co-teacher was unsure about Frankenstein?! Dude! One of my co-teachers showed "Jumper" in class to reward them for... I'm not sure what, but anyway she didn't mind all the sex and violence. And I think every middle-schooler I've asked has seen "Oldboy," which is a great film but is at Takashi Miike levels of ultraviolence/incest.
I guess that I'm lucky with my school computers; they take forever to boot, but once they're up things move reasonably fast.
And that class who didn't start screaming the second you mentioned "hangman" is clearly not Korean. Marisa, you've found a nest of illegal immigrants or Communist spies! Report them immediately!
I'm all for stalking... especially if it involves stalking Matthew :)
Well, I've got to say that being Karith-stalked sounds an awful lot better than being Creepy-Korean-Middle-School-Girl-stalked, and I managed to survive that long enough that they finally discovered that I pretty much go around town doing the same sorts of things that their parents do and decided that I was too boring to stalk after all... so go ahead and stalk me if you want, just don't expect any thrills.
Yes to the ARC, and yes to the cell phone. When Mr. Song told me 400,000 I just stared at him blankly, not understanding what he was talking about. "No no, we want the cheapest one" I said. "Yes, 400,000 is cheapest for foreigner" he replied. At this point I decided that having a cell phone was maybe not so important after all
. I explained that we would probably have to go without, so then he got on his own mobile and started calling one person after another... after about half an hour he said, "okay, you can have cell phone for 70,000 because I say you Korean." [Sigh of relief]. Then we got to the place and they told us we could have it for 50!
(I then proceeded to do a really bad job bargaining on a blanket after school, but getting the 50,000 cell phone made up for it -- I don't know what it is about bargaining outside of the Middle East: I simply can't do it!)
Be prepared to be Karith-stalked.
I don't know Matthew. Since Jordan, to some degree, followed YOU, even if I exclusively follow HIM, won't I still be partially following you?
Gosh, the food keeps looking amazing.
I definitely want to eat a 20lb crab.
That was very fast (I had my medical checkup on my fourth day...) and you got an even better family deal on your cell phone than I did, so congrats! Doesn't that laminated ARC make you feel all nice and official?
400,000!? They told me my cheapest option (before the discount) was 290,000...
I ate a meal at a Korean restaurant which featured the legs from these crabs in some kind of hot sauce, and they were probably the hardest-to-eat thing I've yet encountered. Not because they were bad (actually they were delicious even though the sauce stung my lips), but because I could not for the life of me figure out how I was supposed to get at the meat... and the person I was eating with had fairly minimal English. "Suck!" he kept on telling me, but all I ended up doing was sucking vigorously on a crab leg. At last I figured out that you need to bite down firmly and scrape back with your teeth; the carapace will collapse but not break apart, so that you wind up transforming the sauce-covered crab leg held in your chopsticks to a sauce-covered length of crab meat in your mouth.
(This is yet another instance of the most difficult feature of Korean food: you never know when you're supposed to eat all of something and when you're supposed to avoid part of it.)
But it's pretty cool that you live in Gunsan and you get to see the things before they've been cruelly slaughtered and amputated.
Well, it's not as if you're missing something absolutely life-changing, but still: Lotteria's some darned good fast food, so I may just take you up on your offer. ;-)
I do of course hold all my fast food experiences up to the very high Hong Kong McDonald's standard, which very few places, including McDonald's in the states, live up to. Despite the cold french fries, my hamburger also tasted funny, and they used Lotteria ketchup (there is nothing more sacred to me than Heinz ketchup, any place that uses other kinds of ketchups is clearly inferior). I will say that our milkshake was good enough that I would have another.
I am always willing to give things a second try though. Perhaps you can show us your Lotteria and redeem our experience.
Yeesh, then it sounds like you've got a bad Lotteria (or maybe you were there at the wrong time). My "potato" were piping hot, and a heck of a lot better than the McDonald's Sodium Sticks. I'm sorry your unfortunate experience has put you off the place, it's really quite good (good enough for me to eat there every three weeks or so).
(Also, McDonald's gave me cold fries all the time.)
I'm sorry to disagree with you Matthew, but I would have to say that there is no hope for Lotteria. They served us cold french fries. There's nothing fusion about that, just lack of knowledge that french fries should be hot.