Here are some videos that I took back in August (before my camera broke).
You can read more about this cultural trip here.
Kapsa Buddhist Temple
Riding in a wagon to the mud flats
Mud flats: Eastern coast of South Korea
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Busan, Seoul, Misc Updates
Busan was fun. I reunited with some friends from orientation and stayed with a friend on Yong-do Island. We spent a lot of time walking around, navigating the city, taking the subway from place to place, window shopping at a couple (massive) department stores, and checking out the beach at night. The weather was overcast & rainy during the day, so we couldn't fully experience the Busan beaches. However, Gwangalli Beach was gorgeous because it is in the shape of a huge half-circle and offers a nice view of the Diamond Bridge --lit up and everything-- and of the rest of the city twinkling around the shore. I want to return in a few weeks to attend the Busan International Fireworks Festival.
This past weekend, I took a 4 hour bus up to Seoul to meet up with more friends from orientation. I traveled with one of my Mokpo buddies, Joanne.
Teaching is getting somewhat easier, but no less redundant. I teach my lessons 7 times: once for each grade and slightly harder as I go up from K-6. I have been teaching the alphabet & phonics for the second straight week and playing the same ABC Timebomb game over and over and over. I can hear the difference in the kids' pronunciation, which is reassuring, so hopefully I can move on by the start of next week.
Kindergarden sucks. I think the kids fall into a deep food coma or forget to take their A.D.D. meds before my 12:45pm class. Some of them have no attention span whatsoever. After two minutes, their heads are already on the desk or they're standing by their chairs (instead of sitting) or they're sitting in their chairs facing any and all directions but mine. What in the world is going through their minds????
I tried a different approach today and gave the kids a chance to stand up and interact rather than sit down for 30 minutes. I struggled to get the kids to stand in a circle. My translator didn't even get up to help me. She eventually convinced them to hold hands and that got them into a reasonable arrangement. Then I tried to explain that I wanted each kid to say one letter of the alphabet and go around the circle. My other grades figured it out, but kindergarten was a disaster. Before we were half way through the alphabet, the kids were pulling each others hands and falling on the floor. Then all of the kids started singing every letter of the alphabet in unison, which wasn't the point of the game at all. Meanwhile, my translator was still sitting there. The situation was ridiculous, and she wasn't even laughing. I think she was bored. I struggled to get the kids to start over, but they were lost, so I told them to sit down. I ended up doing the same exact PowerPoint presentation that I did for them yesterday, which was a drill on the letters A-J. For my closing activity, I put magnetic letters A-J on the board (in alphabetical order -- easy right?), split them into two teams, and called on two volunteers to slap the letter than I called out with a paper paddle. I first called the letter A. Neither of the kids could figure it out right away. Then I would have them recite the letter and the sound that it makes. I rotated kids and proceeded through the letter J (still in alphabetical order), and nobody caught onto the pattern. I think we're going to be doing the alphabet forever.....
With that said, kindergarten makes teaching the other kids seem easy. In all of my other classes, the kids get really excited, want to play my games several times, and shoot their hands up for a chance to recite the vocabulary every time I introduce a new word. I have also been drilling them with the alphabet and phonics, but I have been able to pinpoint their weaknesses and fine-tune their pronunciation: "L" vs "R"; "C" vs "G" vs "Z"; turning "epuh" into "F" and "A-chee" into "H." It's so redundant, but I can hear the kids getting better by the end of class.
The weather is getting a bit chillier. As they would say on Game of Thrones, "Winter is coming."
I need to buy a multi-plug powerstrip because I can't watch my television without unplugging my refrigerator, something that I can only do for 30-60 minutes at a time. I have dozens of channels. Most are in Korean, and I probably wouldn't watch any of them even if they were in English. I don't find any of the variety shows the least bit entertaining. There are some stations that play American movies at night -- boring. And then there is CNN, which is the only station worth watching or listening to at any time of the day. The sound of an intellectual, fluent conversation in English stimulates all of the unused vocabulary in my brain. I'm growing a bit weary of thinking in and of ways to explain myself in broken, caveman English.
Tonight, I made an egg & kimchi sandwich. I made an omelet with kimchi and chopped garlic stems, then put that in a roll with more fresh kimchi. It was okay, but sounded better in theory that it did in practice. The kimchi omelet could do without the bread (and likewise).
 |
| Busan at night |
 |
| Overlooking the city in Seomyeong |
 |
| Hello Kitty donut at Krispy Kreme yummm |
 |
| View from Yongdo Island |
This past weekend, I took a 4 hour bus up to Seoul to meet up with more friends from orientation. I traveled with one of my Mokpo buddies, Joanne.
Teaching is getting somewhat easier, but no less redundant. I teach my lessons 7 times: once for each grade and slightly harder as I go up from K-6. I have been teaching the alphabet & phonics for the second straight week and playing the same ABC Timebomb game over and over and over. I can hear the difference in the kids' pronunciation, which is reassuring, so hopefully I can move on by the start of next week.
Kindergarden sucks. I think the kids fall into a deep food coma or forget to take their A.D.D. meds before my 12:45pm class. Some of them have no attention span whatsoever. After two minutes, their heads are already on the desk or they're standing by their chairs (instead of sitting) or they're sitting in their chairs facing any and all directions but mine. What in the world is going through their minds????
I tried a different approach today and gave the kids a chance to stand up and interact rather than sit down for 30 minutes. I struggled to get the kids to stand in a circle. My translator didn't even get up to help me. She eventually convinced them to hold hands and that got them into a reasonable arrangement. Then I tried to explain that I wanted each kid to say one letter of the alphabet and go around the circle. My other grades figured it out, but kindergarten was a disaster. Before we were half way through the alphabet, the kids were pulling each others hands and falling on the floor. Then all of the kids started singing every letter of the alphabet in unison, which wasn't the point of the game at all. Meanwhile, my translator was still sitting there. The situation was ridiculous, and she wasn't even laughing. I think she was bored. I struggled to get the kids to start over, but they were lost, so I told them to sit down. I ended up doing the same exact PowerPoint presentation that I did for them yesterday, which was a drill on the letters A-J. For my closing activity, I put magnetic letters A-J on the board (in alphabetical order -- easy right?), split them into two teams, and called on two volunteers to slap the letter than I called out with a paper paddle. I first called the letter A. Neither of the kids could figure it out right away. Then I would have them recite the letter and the sound that it makes. I rotated kids and proceeded through the letter J (still in alphabetical order), and nobody caught onto the pattern. I think we're going to be doing the alphabet forever.....
With that said, kindergarten makes teaching the other kids seem easy. In all of my other classes, the kids get really excited, want to play my games several times, and shoot their hands up for a chance to recite the vocabulary every time I introduce a new word. I have also been drilling them with the alphabet and phonics, but I have been able to pinpoint their weaknesses and fine-tune their pronunciation: "L" vs "R"; "C" vs "G" vs "Z"; turning "epuh" into "F" and "A-chee" into "H." It's so redundant, but I can hear the kids getting better by the end of class.
 |
| Playing games with my 5th graders |
 |
| I improvised a game where they could sit down because they were all over the place. |
 |
| This also kept the noise level down (not really). |
The weather is getting a bit chillier. As they would say on Game of Thrones, "Winter is coming."
I need to buy a multi-plug powerstrip because I can't watch my television without unplugging my refrigerator, something that I can only do for 30-60 minutes at a time. I have dozens of channels. Most are in Korean, and I probably wouldn't watch any of them even if they were in English. I don't find any of the variety shows the least bit entertaining. There are some stations that play American movies at night -- boring. And then there is CNN, which is the only station worth watching or listening to at any time of the day. The sound of an intellectual, fluent conversation in English stimulates all of the unused vocabulary in my brain. I'm growing a bit weary of thinking in and of ways to explain myself in broken, caveman English.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Status Update
Didn't eat breakfast and overstuffed myself for lunch. The food is too good at Daebul Elementary School! Teaching grades 1, 3, and 5 today for the first time. And I might get a phone today -- so stoked!
Teaching Tactics
Teaching English is getting easier with each lesson. I am falling into the routine of reviewing what I taught in the previous class and introducing a new, yet related topic, drilling the vocabulary / key expressions, implementing a game / activity, and wrapping up with a brief conclusion. Powerpoints are also getting easier to make. I just copy slides and images from previous presentations, then tack on more slides with different colors and pictures to keep the kids engaged.
More often than not, my classes fail to go as I intend. I'll start with my review and suddenly be on my activity twenty minutes before I want to. Or my lesson will segue into another topic, and I will teach the students about something that I didn't even think of until that moment.
Today I attempted to teach the alphabet.
First of all, I might have showed up 15 minutes late to my own class. I am scheduled to teach kindergarten from 12:45pm-1:15pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I came up to my class at 12:35pm only to find my entire class and my translator there. I was confused because everyone was 10 minutes early, so I gestured at the teacher if class was still at 12:45pm by pointing at the clock and holding up four fingers, then five. She nodded yes. [Disclaimer: Even though she is the school's English teacher, she doesn't speak a lick of English. Anything she communicates to me -- whether it be a nod or a gesture -- cannot be taken seriously.] So I am sitting there at 12:40pm, and everyone else is just sitting there waiting. Awkward. I gesture at her whether I should just start the class, and I think she was confused because she didn't really respond, but I took a slight nod as a 'yes' so I began. I stretched the class out to 1:15pm, then looked at my time table to see that my next class was scheduled for 1:00pm-1:40pm. (Oh yeah, Wednesdays are shorter days, so all of my regular classes are 40 minutes earlier. Kindergarten is an irregular class.) Long story short, I was confused and later brought up the issue to my mentor teacher, who was also confused....then later he told me that Wednesday's kindergarten class would have to be moved to another day. I picked Tuesday.
So as I was saying, today I attempted to teach the alphabet. Teaching kindergarten sucks because the kids don't know what I am talking about and neither does my translator half of the time. 2nd grade was a little easier, but I can tell that they still get lost in translation.
--Example Dialogue--
Me: Hello!
Class: Hello!
Me: Good afternoon!
*cricket cricket*
Co-teacher (not the other translator I was talking about): *translates to them in Korean*
Class: Good afternoon!
Me: How are you?
Class: How are you?
Fail.
My 4th grade class is my favorite. They actually understand me enough to get really excited about the activities and are very eager to repeat the vocabulary / dialogue that I teach them. At times, they can be really rowdy, but my co-teacher (Hannee) does a great job at raising her voice and keeping them under control. She also understands me enough to translate effectively, so no one is lost in translation.
My 6th grade class had four students on the first day and only two students for the past two days. Both boys are pretty well-behaved as boys go and pick up the dialogue at a reasonable pace. They are also friends, so the class is easy-going and fun. Today, I segued from the alphabet to an improvised lesson about the difference between the "L" sound and the "R" sound. In the Korean alphabet, one of the characters is between the "L" and "R" sound, which is why native Korean speakers struggle with those letters in the English language. I drilled them with familiar vocabulary that contained both consonants, which greatly improved their pronunciation by the end of the class. I am changing "Engrishee" to "English" one student at a time.
I now carpool home with two of the staff. On the ride home, they teach me at least 5 new words everyday. My vocabulary is slowly expanding with the cultural immersion. Many of the staff also want me to teach them English, but I think it will be a bit difficult because I do not know the key expressions in Korean to be able to translate it to them in English. I'll have to figure that out later.
More often than not, my classes fail to go as I intend. I'll start with my review and suddenly be on my activity twenty minutes before I want to. Or my lesson will segue into another topic, and I will teach the students about something that I didn't even think of until that moment.
Today I attempted to teach the alphabet.
First of all, I might have showed up 15 minutes late to my own class. I am scheduled to teach kindergarten from 12:45pm-1:15pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I came up to my class at 12:35pm only to find my entire class and my translator there. I was confused because everyone was 10 minutes early, so I gestured at the teacher if class was still at 12:45pm by pointing at the clock and holding up four fingers, then five. She nodded yes. [Disclaimer: Even though she is the school's English teacher, she doesn't speak a lick of English. Anything she communicates to me -- whether it be a nod or a gesture -- cannot be taken seriously.] So I am sitting there at 12:40pm, and everyone else is just sitting there waiting. Awkward. I gesture at her whether I should just start the class, and I think she was confused because she didn't really respond, but I took a slight nod as a 'yes' so I began. I stretched the class out to 1:15pm, then looked at my time table to see that my next class was scheduled for 1:00pm-1:40pm. (Oh yeah, Wednesdays are shorter days, so all of my regular classes are 40 minutes earlier. Kindergarten is an irregular class.) Long story short, I was confused and later brought up the issue to my mentor teacher, who was also confused....then later he told me that Wednesday's kindergarten class would have to be moved to another day. I picked Tuesday.
So as I was saying, today I attempted to teach the alphabet. Teaching kindergarten sucks because the kids don't know what I am talking about and neither does my translator half of the time. 2nd grade was a little easier, but I can tell that they still get lost in translation.
--Example Dialogue--
Me: Hello!
Class: Hello!
Me: Good afternoon!
*cricket cricket*
Co-teacher (not the other translator I was talking about): *translates to them in Korean*
Class: Good afternoon!
Me: How are you?
Class: How are you?
Fail.
My 4th grade class is my favorite. They actually understand me enough to get really excited about the activities and are very eager to repeat the vocabulary / dialogue that I teach them. At times, they can be really rowdy, but my co-teacher (Hannee) does a great job at raising her voice and keeping them under control. She also understands me enough to translate effectively, so no one is lost in translation.
My 6th grade class had four students on the first day and only two students for the past two days. Both boys are pretty well-behaved as boys go and pick up the dialogue at a reasonable pace. They are also friends, so the class is easy-going and fun. Today, I segued from the alphabet to an improvised lesson about the difference between the "L" sound and the "R" sound. In the Korean alphabet, one of the characters is between the "L" and "R" sound, which is why native Korean speakers struggle with those letters in the English language. I drilled them with familiar vocabulary that contained both consonants, which greatly improved their pronunciation by the end of the class. I am changing "Engrishee" to "English" one student at a time.
I now carpool home with two of the staff. On the ride home, they teach me at least 5 new words everyday. My vocabulary is slowly expanding with the cultural immersion. Many of the staff also want me to teach them English, but I think it will be a bit difficult because I do not know the key expressions in Korean to be able to translate it to them in English. I'll have to figure that out later.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
A Glimpse of Daebul Elementary School
 |
| Yes, that is a SMART BOARD! |
 |
| Happy English Town |
 |
| A typical lunch at Daebul :) |
 |
| The area around Daebul in Yeongam |
 |
| Walking up the concrete road to Daebul |
Home-Cooking
I am living out my Food Network fantasies and making delicious meals made for television!  |
| My first home-cooked meal: Korean side dishes, rice, fried tofu with egg, orange juice |
 |
| First home-cooked meal |
 |
| Mixing it up: Korean side dishes with fried rice with egg & tofu |
 |
| Cooking for two: Fried rice with egg & tofu sprinkled with seaweed; Side of mandu (dumplings) on a bed of seaweed |
 |
| Yummy |
 |
| Kimchi fried rice with an egg on top |
 |
| Rice with tofu, Korean side dishes, boiled egg on a bed of lettuce with kiwi sauce drizzle on the side |
 |
| Fried bananas with kiwi drizzle on the side |
Monday, September 5, 2011
Greetings from Mokpo!
Disclaimer: This blog entry is way overdue.
Finally moved into my apartment in Mokpo!
Finally moved into my apartment in Mokpo!
Tuesday (August 30) was a very long day for the TaLK Scholars in Jeonnam. Woke up super early so that we could finish packing our bags and be physically ready to leave at 8:45am (even though we weren't scheduled to leave until after lunch). The conference room was full of formally clad scholars and heaps of suitcases. We were told to say our 'good-byes' before the closing ceremony began because as soon as we lined up, we were instructed to act professionally and stay close to the representatives from our elementary schools. Everyone looked sharp, but a little hesitant to go our separate ways for the long run. It's going to be a while until we are all in the same place at the same time again.
During the closing ceremony, we filed into 2 rows on the stage. Our schools were announced in geographical order, and each scholar stepped up to the podium to say a brief introduction about themselves. Then we walked off the stage to our school representatives in the audience.
I was greeted by the vice principal of my school and a teacher, who has been the official driver during my transition into Mokpo / Yeongam. We ate lunch together in the cafeteria. They don't speak English very well, so we didn't talk much.
After lunch, we departed for Mokpo, a 1.5 hour drive during which I (accidentally) fell asleep. We arrived at my new apartment, and I was confused because I thought we were going to Daebul Elementary School instead. [Language barrier issues.] At first sight, the room was small. There was no furniture: no bed, no television, no fridge, nothing ... and the floor was sort of dirty. A guy was there cleaning my apartment, and I thought, "Hell no, I can't live here." They asked me if this room was okay and offered to find me another apartment if I did not like it. So I asked / gestured in broken English if another place would be bigger and have a bed. They said that they would have to keep looking and proceeded to talk among themselves in Korean for a long time -- one of many long, foreign conversations that I've had to sit/stand through with deaf ears. My vice principal kept gestruing at me when she spoke. She looked concerned. In my mind, she was vouching for me: "No way. This girl is a TaLK Scholar. She cannot live here!" but after a while the teacher/driver told me that they decided that this would be my apartment. Who knows what she was actually saying. They drove me to the Immigration Office to apply for my Alien Registration Card. I need this to apply for a contract mobile phone and to return to Korea if I ever decide to travel outside of the country. I also finally cashed my travelers cheques at a KEP Bank. (I was running short on money and struggling to find a bank in Jochiwon.) Then we spent over an hour at E-Mart, which is similar to a small K-Mart or Walmart. I dropped $200 on supplies to furnish my new apartment, such as bedding, kitchen utensils, pans, a rice cooker, plates, toilet paper, the essentials of life. The school is supposed to reimburse me come payday.
I didn't have Internet access for about a day. I found myself channeling WiFi on my phone down the street...in the middle of the night...behind a dodgy van...and getting bitten by heaps of mosquitoes. Luckily I only had to do that for a day.
I visited Daebul Elementary School for the first time on Wednesday, August 31st. The teacher came to pick me up, and we drove for about 20 minutes out of Mokpo, over the Young San River, through an industrial area of Yeongam, and up to the school. Daebul is in the middle of a field, in the middle of no where. The area is windy and hot, but my co-teacher (Hannee) tells me that it will be windy, cold, and snowing (yes, snowing) later in the year.
I met Hannee on Thursday, September 1st. She goes to Daebul University and is studying English Education. Her English is not very strong, but she is really nice and will be in charge of translating / controlling the kids on Tuesdays & Thursdays.
I ate lunch with the staff and faculty. The food was delicious as usual, and I was lost in translation as usual. I briefly introduced myself, and my mentor teacher (Dae Ho) translated for me.
Dae Ho is another teacher at Daebul. I think he is only 25 years old, but he is already married and has a daughter. We had dinner together on Tuesday, the day I arrived. (We were supposed to eat dinner with the principal, but I think that shopping took too long that day, so it got postponed.) Conversation was a bit scarce because of the language barrier, but I think we will get along fine. He has been very helpful about answering my questions / miscellaneous demands about my Internet problems and broken camera issues. (Yeah, my camera stopped working in Gwangju. I am in the process of possibly getting it fixed, but that is another story.)
On Friday (September 2nd), I went to Daebul to work on my lesson plans and eat lunch -- their food is delicious -- better than any Korean food I've eaten in the States. Instead of lesson planning, I cleaned 95% of the surface area because it was really dusty, reorganized the supplies, watered the plants, and took an inventory of the resources in my classroom. It was a productive day!
I spent the weekend trying to hash out a monthly plan with my friends Joanne & Nari. It's harder than it sounds. More on that later.
I am cooking for myself these days. I is a grown up. I cooked rice like half a dozen times this weekend because I was bored, and I did it for every meal because I had all the time in the world. I recently learned to cook a lot at once and then save it in my fridge for later. Silly me. I also know how to make fried tofu, different kinds of eggs...I bought some Korean side dishes to go with my rice. Yummy.
Today I accidentally bought 13 bananas. Back in America, I usually pick the number of bananas that I want and stick them into a plastic bag. I noticed that the bundles of bananas had a price sticker stuck onto one banana in the bunch, but I disregarded it and plucked the bananas off. I brought my bananas to the register with the rest of my groceries and confused the cashier because she didn't know how much the bananas cost. She walked off with my bananas and consulted another sales clerk. The other clerk came over to me in the line and started speaking in Korean and gesturing if I plucked the bananas. I replied 'ne' (yes), and she shook her head / finger, indicating that I should not have done that. I said 'mian-hamnida' (I'm sorry). She left and brought me the rest of the bananas. So I ended up buying the whole bundle, all 13 bananas, for about $3.50. Maybe I can fry them and make plantains? I will probably try that tonight.
Alright, I am all blogged out. More next time. Peace out.
During the closing ceremony, we filed into 2 rows on the stage. Our schools were announced in geographical order, and each scholar stepped up to the podium to say a brief introduction about themselves. Then we walked off the stage to our school representatives in the audience.
I was greeted by the vice principal of my school and a teacher, who has been the official driver during my transition into Mokpo / Yeongam. We ate lunch together in the cafeteria. They don't speak English very well, so we didn't talk much.
After lunch, we departed for Mokpo, a 1.5 hour drive during which I (accidentally) fell asleep. We arrived at my new apartment, and I was confused because I thought we were going to Daebul Elementary School instead. [Language barrier issues.] At first sight, the room was small. There was no furniture: no bed, no television, no fridge, nothing ... and the floor was sort of dirty. A guy was there cleaning my apartment, and I thought, "Hell no, I can't live here." They asked me if this room was okay and offered to find me another apartment if I did not like it. So I asked / gestured in broken English if another place would be bigger and have a bed. They said that they would have to keep looking and proceeded to talk among themselves in Korean for a long time -- one of many long, foreign conversations that I've had to sit/stand through with deaf ears. My vice principal kept gestruing at me when she spoke. She looked concerned. In my mind, she was vouching for me: "No way. This girl is a TaLK Scholar. She cannot live here!" but after a while the teacher/driver told me that they decided that this would be my apartment. Who knows what she was actually saying. They drove me to the Immigration Office to apply for my Alien Registration Card. I need this to apply for a contract mobile phone and to return to Korea if I ever decide to travel outside of the country. I also finally cashed my travelers cheques at a KEP Bank. (I was running short on money and struggling to find a bank in Jochiwon.) Then we spent over an hour at E-Mart, which is similar to a small K-Mart or Walmart. I dropped $200 on supplies to furnish my new apartment, such as bedding, kitchen utensils, pans, a rice cooker, plates, toilet paper, the essentials of life. The school is supposed to reimburse me come payday.
I didn't have Internet access for about a day. I found myself channeling WiFi on my phone down the street...in the middle of the night...behind a dodgy van...and getting bitten by heaps of mosquitoes. Luckily I only had to do that for a day.
I visited Daebul Elementary School for the first time on Wednesday, August 31st. The teacher came to pick me up, and we drove for about 20 minutes out of Mokpo, over the Young San River, through an industrial area of Yeongam, and up to the school. Daebul is in the middle of a field, in the middle of no where. The area is windy and hot, but my co-teacher (Hannee) tells me that it will be windy, cold, and snowing (yes, snowing) later in the year.
I met Hannee on Thursday, September 1st. She goes to Daebul University and is studying English Education. Her English is not very strong, but she is really nice and will be in charge of translating / controlling the kids on Tuesdays & Thursdays.
I ate lunch with the staff and faculty. The food was delicious as usual, and I was lost in translation as usual. I briefly introduced myself, and my mentor teacher (Dae Ho) translated for me.
Dae Ho is another teacher at Daebul. I think he is only 25 years old, but he is already married and has a daughter. We had dinner together on Tuesday, the day I arrived. (We were supposed to eat dinner with the principal, but I think that shopping took too long that day, so it got postponed.) Conversation was a bit scarce because of the language barrier, but I think we will get along fine. He has been very helpful about answering my questions / miscellaneous demands about my Internet problems and broken camera issues. (Yeah, my camera stopped working in Gwangju. I am in the process of possibly getting it fixed, but that is another story.)
On Friday (September 2nd), I went to Daebul to work on my lesson plans and eat lunch -- their food is delicious -- better than any Korean food I've eaten in the States. Instead of lesson planning, I cleaned 95% of the surface area because it was really dusty, reorganized the supplies, watered the plants, and took an inventory of the resources in my classroom. It was a productive day!
I spent the weekend trying to hash out a monthly plan with my friends Joanne & Nari. It's harder than it sounds. More on that later.
I am cooking for myself these days. I is a grown up. I cooked rice like half a dozen times this weekend because I was bored, and I did it for every meal because I had all the time in the world. I recently learned to cook a lot at once and then save it in my fridge for later. Silly me. I also know how to make fried tofu, different kinds of eggs...I bought some Korean side dishes to go with my rice. Yummy.
Today I accidentally bought 13 bananas. Back in America, I usually pick the number of bananas that I want and stick them into a plastic bag. I noticed that the bundles of bananas had a price sticker stuck onto one banana in the bunch, but I disregarded it and plucked the bananas off. I brought my bananas to the register with the rest of my groceries and confused the cashier because she didn't know how much the bananas cost. She walked off with my bananas and consulted another sales clerk. The other clerk came over to me in the line and started speaking in Korean and gesturing if I plucked the bananas. I replied 'ne' (yes), and she shook her head / finger, indicating that I should not have done that. I said 'mian-hamnida' (I'm sorry). She left and brought me the rest of the bananas. So I ended up buying the whole bundle, all 13 bananas, for about $3.50. Maybe I can fry them and make plantains? I will probably try that tonight.
Alright, I am all blogged out. More next time. Peace out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)