1. I love to watch my school's t-ball team practicing in the morning. Mostly because the coach uses a tennis racket in order to hit the ball out to the players for fielding practice. One day I hope to get a picture of the coach using a tennis racket. A little bit about t-ball at my school: It's a big deal and the team is really good. They won the Busan wide tournament and earned an opportunity to go to another city in Korea to play against other teams. It's like t-ball in the states played like baseball but you hit off a tee. However, these kids are ages 10-12 I think. Maybe 11-12 or maybe its 11-13. I know there are 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students on the team. I believe school starts at Korean age 8 which means 4th grade is 11?? So maybe its 11-13 Korean age. I think that equals between 9-12 in Western ages. Anyway, the kids are not little 5 year olds running around. They take the game seriously and practice a lot. I know they practice before school every Tuesday and Wednesday. It might be Thursday and Friday too but I honestly don't pay enough attention to know. I do know they don't practice Monday mornings. On a side note, my school also has a baseball team. They practice everyday after school for hours. The other day I left the school after 6pm and there were still about 8-10 players at school conditioning with the coach. They start practice around 3.
2. Today, I talked with one of my kids from my Saturday class on the way into school. I saw her just as we go to the steps to exit the subway station. This equals a close to 5 minute walk (we walked slowly). She was able to have quite the conversation with me. I was impressed. She told me she was tired and asked how I was doing. Then she told me why she was tired. I was shocked! She was up until midnight studying for her science and math tests!!! She' a 4th grader so Korean age 11 which is somewhere between 9-11 Western age. She was up until midnight! This evidently is not a super rare occurrence in Korea. Kids are often up late studying. Education is highly valued. In one of my in-service training videos the lecturer said there is a saying in Korea "Four you pass, five you fail." Which means is you get 4 hours of sleep you will pass but if you get 5 hours of sleep you will fail. No wonder the kids always say they are tired! They need some sleep! I hope her studying paid off and she did well on her tests!
3. They changed the name on my shoe cabinet. In Korea, you always take your shoes off before you enter a house. You also take your shoes off at school. I wear "indoor shoes" while at school. Basically I wear sandals at school everyday but they are only worn while at school and inside. I change at the door. There are three entrances at the front of the building. They all have small little lockers that are shoe cabinets for the faculty and staff. Mine cabinet is at the middle door so I enter the school there every morning. Since I arrived my cabinet has always said Rebecca. She was the previous Guest English Teacher at my school. I wasn't concerned about it. It is obvious that that cabinet is for the Guest English Teacher because all the other name tags are in Korean. Well on Monday I walked in and Surprise! It now says Caroline! I never said anything about it but someone realized it and changed it over the weekend.
4. Before arriving in Korea, I found on the internet something about boiling different items to create a wonderful fall scent in your house. There were recipes for this. Although it is becoming fall here with cooler temps and leaves changing colors, its definitely different. So I thought I would try one of the recipes I had read about. Well I ended up just combining my one stuff and not worrying about finding specific amounts of anything. The main thing I was looking for and it took me ages to find was whole cloves. But I finally found some at Homeplus this week. Basically it took a couple of whole cloves, a whole lemon cut into slices, a few pieces of tangerine rind that I had frozen from a few weeks back in order to do this and some cinnamon. Then I added water and put it on the stove top. Heavenly! I love the smell and bonus when the water runs low you just add more AND you can just put it in the fridge overnight and use it again. Evidently you can use it for about a week or so. I'm on my third day of using this one pot. It is amazing! I love how it makes my home smell. No more nasty smell and its saving me on air freshener too! Totally worth the cost of the cloves :)
5. Random coffee tables or even actual tables... When I get off the bus at the tunnel, I walk around the corner and up a slight hill. Last Friday when I got to the corner I looked up and saw this...
Table after table of beautiful wood tables. To me they are like coffee tables but traditional Koreans eat on the floor so this could be like dining tables too. Then there were the beautiful craved giraffes as well. It was like I wasn't in Asia but Africa for a brief moment. Even more random, there wasn't anyone there watching them or selling them. On a few of the tables was a block of wood with a phone number. The next morning the giraffes were gone but they tables were still there and still unattended. By Saturday evening, they were all gone. Random. Absolutely random. Oh but in this picture you can see the slight hill I walk up and the cross walk where I cross the road and walk down a hill to go home which means I walk up the hill every morning to the cross walk :) I didn't realize how many hills there would be in Busan when I put this as my preference.
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