Taste the Rainbow

It's not St Patty's, unless there's green beer!

So St Patricks day just passed and I had quite the adventure. Well the Thursday itself wasn't very interesting. My school had a themed St Patricks activity day, which can only be described as fun but exhausting. But the real fun was had at Seoul's St Patrick's Day Festival in Insadong.

NO BEER?!!?!??! What the hell!?

Insadong is already pretty touristy at the best of times, so on Saturday it was pure madness. I've never seen so many Westerners in one place (in Korea) in my entire life. The main event was held in a square, where there was 'traditional' dancing, free balloons (who doesn't want that?), a U2 cover band, and more! The festival can be best described as foreigners standing in a circle with drinks in hand and chatting for 4 hours. Good times! In fact there was so much drinking that the GS25 & Family Marts (the local convenience stores) were either filled with foreigners waiting to buy alcohol, or completely empty of beer.

Dear random man in skirt, I wonder what voices & songs you were dancing to in your head

Later that evening we all headed off to Hongdae (one of the bar areas near a university near where I live), for some evening drinks. We first stopped off for some green beer and checked out the rather disturbing sites of hongdae (Why would a guy dance around randomly in a skirt? Did he want to feel pretty?)

To anyone else it just looks like people dancing to silence

One of the cooler sites of hongdae was definitely the 'Silent Disco'. Basically you trade in your ID card for a free pair of wireless headphones (with a balloon so you can look extra cool), and everyone is plugged into the same network and listens to the same songs and tunes that a DJ is playing. It's pretty damn fun! Furthermore, there are random photographers who wander around taking photographs which appear on an overhead projection screen. A pretty damn cool experience!

The 'Used Cassettes'

Then to finish off the night, we headed to a bar to check out 3 local bands playing. We couldn't really hear any lyrics, but the music was good. In fact, it was one hell of a good day! Thank god for St Patrick's Day!

The Little Critters

So it's been a long month with lots of ups and downs. My visa was delayed because of unfortunately timed holidays in Canada and Korea, so I missed my orientation because I was a week late. So I arrived at the airport at 5am (after a delightful flight that included me passing out from exhaustion/dehydration and a 2hr delay), and was taken to the hagwon for a week's worth of an orientation stuffed into one day!

Needless to say, it was quite the first week. It's still pretty crazy. I'm sick already (darn kids), and because I was taking Canadian medication (much stronger than Korean over-the-counter meds), the pseudoephedrine ruined my drug test. So I can't take any medication until I take my second drug test. So it's been a week of tissues and water!

But onto the hagwon!

I currently live in a richer area of Seoul (there are a couple of ex-Presidents who live here) and there's also a fairly high foreigner population here (as in foreigners who've actually started families and aren't just partying teachers). Wizville is the name of my hagwon and it's a VERY nice hagwon that brings in the young children of more affluent families. This is quite a change for me, as my old student's parents were taxi drivers or store owners, and now all these children have doctors or professors for parents.

The other huge difference is the age and style of teaching. In the morning we have lots of activities, snack time, and I even teach the science class for the hagwon. Then in the afternoon I have more traditional classes. My morning class (named Monet) is the youngest group in the entire hagwon, the 5 yrs. Although that's the Korean age, my kids are actually closer to 3-4 years old.

I definitely work harder, work longer, and have more homework, but I enjoy my job a lot more. It's interesting, different, and I feel like I'm accomplishing something here. But to call it exhausting would be an understatement.

I'm looking forward to next month. We'll be heading off to Hanok village for a Spring picnic, and we'll be going to the Seoul Museum of Animation for field trips!

PS- I am 100% safe and unaffected by any tsunamis, earthquakes, or nuclear meltdowns!