I'm Turning Korean

Check out John's new glasses and haircut!!! SO CUTE!

Never in my life have I had such an obsession with painting my fingernails. As in, they have been a different colour every week or so, for the past month. My left hand is currently bright pink, and my right is lime green. Five of my nails have a black layer overtop of the colour. The black layer has this crackle effect so you can see the colour underneath. The five fingernails painted like this are in no particular pattern - two on my left hand and three on my right.

I'm obsessed. Is that a little strong? It's a new hobby, perhaps? All the Koreans are doing it. They change their nails WAY more frequently than I do. Perhaps this is my "make-up", since I don't wear anything else. The colours out right now are just so fun, too.

I also wear bow and flower headbands, as the girls do here, and order from the "I'm Korean" portion of the drink menu at zoo coffee. I've picked up Korean mannerisms and little expressions from hanging out with Elly. So much so that my students think I'm speaking Korean, the way I say "mmm" instead of "yes".

Moving on...

My produce vendors continue to amuse me. The guy I go to still continues to ask me the same questions EVERY time I buy fruit from him (after telling me I'm beautiful haha): name, age, relationship status. The woman I go to continues to treat me like a rock star. Earlier in the week I was buying tomatoes from her. There was a crowd around. She threw in a cucumber and made sure I put my wallet away first before taking the bags from her (can she sense my spazziness? that I always try and do this walking, with a million other things in my hand?). Then she turns and says something to the Koreans there, what I can only assume is "she's my most regular customer". Haha. Anyways, it was super cute. And she always gives me this great smile every time I pass her.

Speaking of produce, all things red here are so delicious. The strawberries and cherry tomatoes are SO FULL OF FLAVOUR. And of course, RED BEAN. Have I mentioned my love for it before? Only about 65 and a half times, eh? Ok. So that's three things that are red and delicious.

I started composing this on Wednesday evening, however the site has been down and I haven't been able to finish writing until now (Saturday morning).

Monday morning the weather was quite overcast, so our zoo and picnic field trip was scrapped for a trip to the Coex aquarium in Seoul (which I went to last September). It was fun to see the kiddies all excited.

Julian

John and Sunny having nap time with Elly teacher on the bus ride back. (In fact, about half of the bus fell asleep!)

Monday evening I went out for Jerry's birthday (Jerry is Elly's boyfriend, and Tuesday was a holiday). It was a FANTASTIC night out. I was in the mood to go out dancing. We started at Flair bar. The bartenders do lots of cool tricks. Shortly after I arrived, Elly was entering me into a kai-bai-bo tournament, against some Korean guys. I had to go behind the bar with them, and was fed intructions all in Korean. Before the little tourney started, I had to have a staring contest with one of the guys. They held a piece of cardboard between us, our faces up close, and pulled it away when the music started. This guy cracked and totally lost. He looked away within seconds. I continued to stare, as I wanted to be sure I won. Meanwhile, the music that started playing was some romantic Korean ballad. Only after-the-fact was I informed that they actually asked us to stare lovingly into each other's eyes. Haha Anyways, I was out after the first round (I guessed that I had won too many kai bai boy games at school that day, against my kids.)

I know you are wondering...kai bai bow is rock, paper, scissors. EVERYONE here plays it. It is used to solve any problem or conflict, I swear.

The male bartenders dressed up like girls and brought out Jerry's birthday cake. It was pretty funny. My favourite K-pop song came on (that is, Korean pop), and I rocked out. Some of the bartenders joined me. The party moved from Flair bar, to Turn bar, to Slang.

Happy Birthday, Jerry!


Selina and me

Yesterday (Friday), was Teacher's day. I received some nice gifts from some students - some high-end make-up, some really nice hand creams, vitamins...wait a minute. Should I be offended by this gift? Haha My favourite part is receiving cards though.

"Leah Teacher,

You are very hard and teach me. I will work hard. Thank you. I love teacher.

From, Eddy"

A.DOR.A.BLE.

And speaking of adorable, I was practicing morning speech with Venus earlier in the week, and one of their sentences for this month is "I love my parents". Then they all started saying, one after the other, "I love my Leah Teacher" (I think Sunny started it). To make matters worse, right after this we had storybook class, and the book we are reading right now is Robert Munsch's "Love you Forever". Talk about needing to pull out the tissue box! *Phew!*

Magda and I had coffee on Thursday evening. She is the Polish Canadian gal I met on my bike trip. I really love spending time with her. We met around 8:30. When I checked the time it was already 11 and we decided we should go. When I checked the time again when we actually DID leave, it was almost midnight! Apparently we can't get enough of each other. She is so awesome.

I'm going to another language exchange tomorrow (Sunday). There is a Korean guy I'm interested in talking too...he was at Jerry's birthday party. Jerry and Elly are sort of setting us up? It will be a group setting...and we've both seen each other before, but just never spoken. A near-sighted date/meeting? Haha

Time for a run! Happy weekend! xo