Nina in Asia

It’s been so long since I’ve written….more of an announcement today with hopeful inspiration of a future blog…….

This Feb I will be visiting 3 countries Malaysia, Thailand and The Philippines…will let you know more when I return. N

This week in Korea for most elementary schools it’s Sports day activities, which means for the foreign teacher there is really not much to do.

I however, have been trying to put this music together for this drama performance for over a month now to no avail.  So I made an appointment with the grade 4 teacher who has a music editing program and the know how to help me.

I go to see the Grade 4-1 teacher at 2pm prepared with a USB of the music I require to be edited… when suddenly one of my grade 3 boys shoves this clear plastic canister in my face of the rear of what looks like an undetermined rodent….I did the usual OHHhh nice…what are they rats? hamsters? mice?  NOO stupid teacher Nina they imply….they are CATS, Agi Goy Yong ee,  Agi Goy Yong ee (baby cats)!!!  Mwuh?? Cats I say?? Ya look…A Ni Yo, no Am Boy oh (No you can’t see what it is) and they bring them down so I can look inside…and yes they were in fact kittens…the size of hamsters with their eyes closed..(You can see where my Korean cat Yongi gets his name from now more clearly!!) Simply short for Cat in Korean.

They beamed at me with pride and excitement….I looked at them with despair and concern of OH NO what have you done?? I asked them Oma odi issoyo?  “Where is the Mommy cat?” They said they didn’t know (Moll Ai Yo, Amado Oma Up soy yo)…They weren’t sure, maybe she was of nothingness… I looked at Teacher Yu and asked him to tell them to wait here before we walked over to the Onuari Animal Hospital (Kee del io yogi, chokum eu bun Nina Sun sing nim chonay Onuari Dong Mual beong wan  gai oh, chu say oh) while we went and did the music CD and I would then walk them over to the animal hospital… which thank goodness just happened to be across the street…actually I originally asked them to hand them over to me and I would take care of it and I knew that was a bad idea and wouldn’t work because we really needed to find the Mommy cat and hope she would take them back……

So the boys agreed to wait….Mr. Yu and I went into his classroom and we tried to do the editing but the kids were too much, yelling screaming etc…and the boys outside were getting impatient yelling to me Nina Sun sing nim bali wa…which means hurry up teacher Nina…with the impending doom of the kittens in that plastic canister I decided to have Mr. u download the program for me and give me a quick lesson on how to use it…looked simple enough..and then went and met the boys.

We walked over to the animal hospital together, twins, and 2 other boys, one on a bike and 3 on foot, one of the twins was the proud owner/slash founder of 2 male gray tabby/white kittens.

I go to the animal hospital a lot and they know me well there, but when I walked through the door with 4 8 year olds and 2 1 week old kittens the jaws dropped… I didn’t expect they would take the kittens, but they did just as I expected the Veterinarian came down picked one of the kittens up (who looked fairly healthy at this point, well fed, squaking etc.)  and I could see they both still had their umbilical chords attached…I felt sick….the boys were good and I told them in Korean to be careful…and to not touch them….and the vet did the same…and gave them a brief lecture on “animal husbandry”…they were told to put the kittens back where they found them and to not do that again….the boys promised they would said they were sorry and that they would keep and eye on them….

As we left the animal hospital the boys had clearly learned something and left with a new pride and a mission to save these precious little ones…they thanked me for my help as we parted ways and promised they would do their best..

I went over to where I thought they lived to check today…who knows the fate of these poor little souls I won’t find out till next week.

I downloaded the music editing program and tried to do it myself today….waste of time….apparently you don’t absorb anything when kids are screaming all around you and 2 kittens are on their deathbeds because of innocent well meaning little boys…or so they think.

Sorry no photos, I wish I had my camera yesterday….and my Korean is atrocious, my apologies!

Well I havent given an update on life here lately….its been the same old same old..up until last week..

I Have been getting organized for various things including winter vacation and winter camps…I will be doing a music section with the kids so I really just need to find all my old fun lesson plans and appropriate music to coincide.

As I write this its 6:45 pm and the Sidae apartment guy is here fixing my water heater and floor heater, and its frickin cold in here…..I called last week to have them come fix the heat cuz it broke while I was sleeping last tuesday night, I woke up at 5am shivering and tried to fix it to no avail…now, some would say just add more covers and you’ll be fine…however..I had an allergic reaction to gosh knows what and my eyes have been swelling….. so I had washed literally everything including the blankets, so I only had 2 flimsy blankets to roll up in…So the guy comes the next day to fix the heater and there is no problem its working fine now…..forward to today……I have been experienceing dry scalp in this dry weather….so I got home and put some conditioning balm on my scalp in prep to use my new expensive anti scaling shampoo, sounds lovely so far eh?? So, I went to hop in the shower and….no hot water so I hopped out covered up and ran to the water heater re set it and ran back to the shower…leaving a trail of wet behind….well this went on 4 times….till I finally had to rinse in cold water as the heater will not come on….the guy is here now he can’t fix it…and has told me to wait a minute…..more on that later..

Moving back to a month ago I bought a new car…well an old new car…but if you leave the lights on while the car is off, it immediately drains the battery..so I had to go buy new booster cables, and a new battery and have used them 2x now since the new battery….once in the middle of traffic a taxi stopped to help me as did a passer byer who nudged me out of the way and got it going for me…God bless em….So now am OCD about turning the lights off.  BUT, now the windsheild wipers and power windows don’t work…..grrrr….they do work but only if you turn the car half way off….????

Moving to yesterday….I have been teaching the kids the same way every lesson for 7 chapters now, when they wouldn’t co operate (ie raise your hand answer the easy question get a candy), and gave me blank stares yesterday in class and my co teacher would only stare into space rather than assist me, and the bell is broken to get their attention (a bell I tried to fix and did make functional, but my co teacher keeps sabotaging my repair by rudely undoing it after I tell her not to lift it!!! if you press down it works fine if u lift it it comes apart, she doesn’t seem to be getting this, who lifts a bell??  I fix …she lifts it and gives it back to me  “Nina not fixed”…she’s lucky to have her fingers..anyways…grr…moving on…), I very seldom lose my cool, but when we have been over it and over it and there is candy involved and its the easiest question of the bunch, I banged on the desk with my palms and asked them to pay attention and as I did so my hands went through the glass that covers the computer screen in the desk and it shattered into 2 big pieces…well I ignored this apologized and continued teaching to their distraction…and they finally got it, and I cleaned up the glass while still teaching and replaced it from another source by next class….fyi the glass had been pre broken and taped up….so any amount of force it was ready to break…so I took the glass down to dispose of it and the first person I saw was the Principal….he laughed and gestured questioningly if I had punched through it???…Close Buddy, very close….

Moving back to today….they have these gas floor heaters in class that sit on the floor and are about the size of a shop vac….well the teacher of this class had her heater up against the desk for herself and of course all the windows were open…..so I came in put my bag down near it within safe distance and started teaching…..during my talking to the kids my bag had fallen backwards unbeknownst to me onto the heater….and i look over and see smoke rising…. to my dismay my bag was just about to catch fire, it had only destroyed and melted the 3 zippers of my good and fairly new Roots knapsack and was between melting and catching fire, I caught it just in time…and well we had to open the windows further to get the smoke out…and I just kept on teaching….my bag is destroyed…:(

So after school today I went over to the police station to get fingerprints done for our Criminal Record checks which are now mandatory for teachers teaching overseas here…and for visa and employment purposes the law passes December 15th….so any new teacher coming over here has to have one before they come and any old teachers are responsible for acquiring their own from abroad.  This entails going to the local police station and sending the prints to the RCMP unit in Canada if you are Canadian…. So I got on the ball to get it done as processing of said records takes 120 days.  I walked in and told them what I wanted in Violent Crimes Unit and they took me to an office, discussed it at length, made many phone calls, took my passport, went and got and English speaking head honcho from next door, sat me down and gave me tea…..they gave me 2 sheets to do it on as Canada requires a rolled set and a flat print, and we translated the sheet together….now.. let me fill you in.. I am the first teacher to have gone there to make this request, so it was a learning experience for both of us….the most serious dude in the office took me over to his desk and covered my fingers with ink and told me to relax and we went through it and he stamped and signed it and put it in an envelope for me…..all in all I gotta love the Koreans they are so warm and giving and with a little Korean under my belt you can eventually get anything done..you just need patience….

In addition….my computer sounds like its gonna take off when I start it..whir whir whirrrr…my finger just went through my favourite gloves….my scooter Big Red just barely started a few minutes ago and is on empty….my change portion of my wallet busted the other day, i am was dropping change all over the place till I figured it out…now I have a collection of change and need to get a container for it and a new wallet….And  yesterday I caught a cold….:(

The Good news is my water heater is now working… !!!

Yongi is speaking to Virginia now…

P.S. Canada has taken 3 months to send me back my non residency forms they didn’t say yes or no just do it again….grrrr….

Happy thoughts….N

It was such a pleasure to return to Taiwan and re visit some of my old stomping grounds.  I was blessed to see some old friends and take some new friends with me to show them about and share my love for the city, people, and food of Taipei.  We visited the Jade market first, then saw Linda Su an old student from Fuxing Middle School.  We (Christa, Virginia and I) took her to my favourite chinese restaurant where we had chow fen (beef fried rice) chinese pastries, won ton soup, et al….then we went to the Eslite Bookstore, the bakery and home for a rest….one of many shopping days.. We also visited the Mirimar Ferris Wheel, the CKS Memorial, which is under construction, btw, the suspended bridge at Xindian, the underground Mall at Taipei Main Station, the Shilin Night Market, where Christa and Virginia got foot massages. ..we ate at the Far Eastern Hotel Buffet….yumm…then went to the top and sat outside by the pool and took in the city on the outside patio all to ourselves on the 40th floor….. In addition to the many things we packed into the 4 days we were there, we went to the hot springs in Xin Beitou, walked along the Danshui…more shopping…more Christa and Virginia doing the shopping, saw some temples, and ofcourse went up to the top of Taipei 101  to our surprise they let us walk up to the outdoor observatory on the 91st floor, and I swear the building was moving…after which we went to the basement to the food court…oh so many choices …then hit up the other huge book store called Pages and then headed back to our hotel…the Leofoo, where we shared a room with 3 beds….

 

I love the days where I have been in 2 countries in one day, but the travelling home from Incheon airport at the very NW tip of SK is the most taxing part of the journey…ya poor me..

 

A month ago I was in Canada for a 2.5 week visit home to see my family and friends, I got to see my new nephew and spend some time with my niece…sister, Mom, Dad, Uncle, Grandma, et al….

 

I have 3 months of solid teaching ahead of me until I decide if or where I will visit next…

 

In closing of this blog I would like to mention that the girls I travelled with to Taiwan were a joy to have with me, and I love seeing places through the eyes of others…we had great laughs and will forever have inside jokes of dialogues and situations only known to us as a result of this trip…excuse me…..

 

"Anyone seen Christa??"

"O.K. Virginia, I’m coming……"

 Maesan Girls Middle School in Suncheon S Korea experienced a tragic accident this past friday afternoon..5 students died in a bus accident.  Many others are in the hospital.  There was a convoy of buses on a field trip coming home from Jirisan Park near Wando and while they were going down a very steep and narrow windy road the brakes of the last bus failed and they crashed down the side of the mountain..

 The bus driver made a decision to the best of his ability to help slow the bus down and minimize how many would get hurt, or how they would get hurt.  However, no one could have predicted the outcome to be as horrid.  He could have crashed into the back of the bus in front of him maximizing injuries and creating a domino effect, he could have driven into the cliff to his right causing a head on collision and risking a t-bone collision with oncoming cars, or what he chose, use the guard rail on the left as a buffer to help slow him down. Unfortunately, the weight of the bus broke the guard rail and the bus fell through and down a 300ft drop to the bottom..the people in the centre of the bus were the most affected on impact, and this is where most casualties occurred…

 The girls had just finished their midterms and had recieved their new uniforms and were out celebrating and taking a rest… Suncheon is holding a 5 day memorial for the lost girls and their families who are still in shock from this tragedy.  The girls were all level 1 students and 14 years old.

 

If my facts are incorrect please let me know.

So I had a 4 day weekend.  On Thursday and Friday, my co-teacher Jong- Mi and I headed up to Hwason just a little outside of Gwangju to the Kumho resort/spa/waterpark/(hospital cuz it looks like one)  we rented a 2 room apartment for super cheap, it had a view of the  heated blue floor painted outdoor pool and waterslides…we had a living room balcony and kitchen… with minimal utensils.  Thank god I brought a knife..and there were forks for midgets or pickle parties?? so we had to make do..we brought our own food.

 So on Thursday we went to the water park with the rest of the S Korean child population, go figure, it was a holiday!! The indoor waterpark is huge and has many “water” stuff stations, ie. massage jets, wave pools, balance ropes, steep slides or tubes, a current pool, a foot massage walking stream, a fish pond that eats your dead skin….yes and you have to pay for that one extra so i went and all the fish were eating me, it was so gross at first, and the Koreans were jealous i was there getting all the fish attention (cuz i wasn’t getting enough already being the only foreigner there)…now I was confused at the jealousy cuz it meant that I had the most dead skin…eww…either that or the fish were sick of Korean food and in the mood for a little Canadian dead skin food, Yumm!!

 So we swam around for a few hours and finally we went to the spa for another 2 hours, was I ever water logged, we sat in hot pools, cold pools, medicinal pools, elfan fog sauna, red light district sauna’s, and then we went for a scrub down and cucumber mask…now these women literally get everywhere on your body, so I asked my co teacher to tell the black panty and bra ladies(what’s up with that uniform by the way, their bras are see through anyways!!??) to heed caution with me in my eh ehmm private area as we were all exposed for all the world to see, which they have no problem with as is so obvious cuz after I finished this old gal smacked me, yes smacked…on the bum 5 times, I moved away and told her to ha jee ma(don’t), she laughed???  So anyways about the scrub down….I think when they were finished scrubbing me I was bleeding?? Anyhow, we had our 20th shower then Jong-mi wanted to go swimming again and test her courage at the big waterslide, which I had already done 2x…she has an adversity to pain she says ie. waxing body hair, yet loves to get the body scrub which I find excrutiating??

So finally I get dry…after 5 hours in the water and we go back to our room and I cook up bruschetta, zuchinni and corn, she loved it and i made her full enough after an exhausted day to not have her drive me 30 minutes to a busy beef restaurant..with a side of the horrid kimchi…:)  So the next morning she walks into my room and says to me so proud of herself she bought me breakfast….I asked her what it was…oh she said I have Kimchi (fermented cabbage in hot pepper paste), vermicillian beef noodles and mushroom (glass noodles), rice and korean zucchini….nooo… to be clear, I don’t eat Korean food, I can’t stand it, she knows this…we have NOT eaten lunch together for this reason for 4 months now….so to have it for breakfast was a little shocking.  Needless to say I apologized to her and we exchanged the food.  I made egg/tomatoe omellete, she bought her own spicy noodles and ate that, and I fried her up some Taiwanese style fried rice, and she cut up a greenhouse full of fruit.

After breakfast we had one more detox bath in green tea just incase there were any toxins left in our body from the day before, then packed up to go home….where we proceeded to Gwangju and Sinsegae department store where I spent way too much money on a face cream….

All in all good times…a year and a half here now, and yes still haven’t lost my sense of aww/humour/sarcasm with the lovely Koreans, nor have I found a remote liking for their food….

See video here…

Well folks another year has come and gone…my Korean speaking is coming along slowly…Big Red is having better days (knock on wood)…the sun is shining and everything is in full bloom….

 

I lose my co-teacher at the end of this month…another good one bites the dust…she is off to greener pastures in Australia and Seoul.

 

New people have arrived to teach here, have only met a couple of them….more coming in August.

 

I may go home to visit my family in the summer, not sure exact date yet..

 

My Principal made me pinky swear I would start changing my shoes when I entered the school…..still won’t wear those awful brown slippers, am stubborn that way…

 

I posted some new pics, of Big Red, the pizza parlour pic, my toes…my patio garden, and ofcourse….Yongi…I know I promised I wouldn’t but he’s just so darn cute!!!

 

Take Care

– the girls arrive at my house 10am, Jessica, Jeannie, Virginia…

– bus to Boseong, a Korean Man makes himself comfortable between me and Jeannie and compromizes us on the bus, but we finally get rid of him.

– he comes back, I get rid of him nicely

– we discuss free trade and soak in the view of spring in S Korea

– We arrive in Boseong and there is Nickola and Meleesa..I flash Nickola my matching yellow shirt to let her know its us!!

– We hop on the oldest bus in the world destined for Daewonsa…it smells like poo

–  Did I mention its a gorgeous day?

–  We dominate the back of the bus to Daewonsa, however, its every old person and their vegetable wares and us, so to be polite some of us must stand up!! That being me playing rag doll on the windy roads…

– so the oldest woman in Korea sat between the girls happily, we were the talk of the bus, by this time we were 6 white women in the middle of nowhere destined for nowhere..but they respected us because we were so polite except for a few out bursts by …M

– we arrive almost at our destination Daewonsa Tibetan Temple….5km or so out, so we start walking

– the cherry blossoms are beautiful but still a long way to go….

– I see a flat bed truck going to our destination and flag him down, and hop on, 5 other white girls do the same,,,,too funny….I have bruises

– he drops us off a little ways from the restaurant, we give him gifts of oranges….

– we eat veggie bimbimbap with flowers on it, and then make our way to the temple…

– once at the temple there are many people there..not only is it flower festival but there will be a music concert later, as we have just met the the head of the temple and the concert master

-we take lots of pics and look around its beautiful

– we go to the museum, then to the concert

– the concert has a boy band, they are hot, we are a bigger attraction than they are dancing and singing along, everyone had fun. There is a huge crowd by this time, they are filming it/us.

– the concert ends and we wait for the bus and meet some new friends from the university in Gwangju and local kids with matching piggy back packs, but the bus never comes so we start to walk….

– so we decide to hitch a ride and this sweet lady in a SUV by herself picks all 6 of us up and miraculously we fit in her car and she drives us to the nearest bus stop 30 miles away in Boseong….

– All in all it was a great day…I just went to see a Tibetan temple, I never imagined it would turn into such an adventure…

– to read more Virginia will eventually post a blog about this day here with pics…