Animals for sale

My heart goes out to them, really it does. Each time I see someone with a basket full of puppies or bunnies I want to buy them. We were in Itaewon and a guy was selling bunnies; he had five in this little basket with a light on them. Not even a heat light. No blanket, no water. The poor things were freezing and I wanted so badly to adopt them all. Rich made a good point though; if we buy them then it just encourages these people to keep doing business like that. In Dongdaemun we saw someone selling puppies who were shaking and scared. I can't get over how this is okay to do here. I guess this post is simply made to urge people to think before they buy animals in this manner. It is so sad to see this happen, but buying them will perpetuate the cycle. Next time I see that man or any other with animals in the street (with temperatures at zero) I will be more tempted to run off with the basket. I am feeling sad that we didn't save the little guys last night...

Bus blunders

I felt that the past few experiences on the bus traveling through Korea warranted their own post altogether. I have mentioned before the sheer insanity of drivers here in Korea. Well, bus drivers are the worst of all. Maybe this is because they drive by a different set of rules than all the other drivers; a set of rules that cannot be clearly articulated as they make less sense than anything. Regular drivers (as in car drivers) weave in and out of traffic at a pace that is not permitted in Canada; note: on the way home from Seoul the other weekend I was in a cab traveling up to speeds of 160 km an hour. This is normal in Korea. Buses have their own lanes and seem to take precedence over other vehicles. They do not need to stop for red lights, or wait behind cars at any time. They just drive into an open space and overtake everyone. The point to this story is while en route to Seoul Jaime and I were on a bus when we heard a loud horn followed by a distinct crashing noise. That crash was caused by us, or rather our bus driver who was impatiently trying to overtake the vehicle just in front of him slightly to the left, but not left enough. Alas, our first car accident in Korea. The best part was the driver got out and he and the guy he hit were laughing. Jaime and I decided they must have been saying "oh, you again, our third accident this week!!". Honestly it would not surprise me. Note the smile on the bus driver's face:

We have witnessed a few other crashes here but that was our induction into the crash hall of fame so to speak. After a few minutes we were on our way back into the city. Last night, while on the way to Itaewon, Erin Jaime and I were talking on the bus as we normally do, nothing loud or obnoxious when we were tapped on shoulders by a Korean man yelling something in Korean. Now his tone was not friendly and we got the impression we were doing something wrong. The lady behind me leaned over angrily and said "You are talking, it is loud, do you know how many people are on this bus?? Very many people." Jaime and I just looked at her and thought, 'okay what is your point? Thanks Captain obvious, there are a lot of people on the bus'. Apparently we aren't allowed to converse on the bus. If we were being really loud and annoying I could see her point, but we weren't. It makes sense to talk with friends on a long journey to make the trip go faster. So the rest of the voyage was somewhat awkward and I tried to make sense of the "no talking on the bus" rule. But I couldn't. The only conclusion I could come up with was "In order to get by in Korea (at least on the bus) take everything you think is logical and do the opposite".

Halloween, new friends and field trips.....

So we pulled it off, the Halloween Party was a success. As were the teacher festivities that followed on Friday night; hey, we earned it! We stayed about 11 hours (at least) each day of the week to prepare for the Halloween party for the kids. We had a haunted house (more like a haunted maze in a darkened room), a games room, a snack room with Halloween themes (spider crackers, ghost lollipops and jack o lantern tangerines, along with gummy worms), a story room and a photo room. The kids really seemed to enjoy it, so we were all pretty proud of that. It made the long nights worth it. Sort of .

Nothing too major happened the weekend of Halloween as we were all pretty well exhausted, but Jaime and I wentout to Hongdae and met up with Heather (my friend from back home) and her fellow Maple Bear teachers. It’s Heather’s birthday this weekend and we are celebrating with Thai cuisine and Pilipino music. Random is the only way to go. Anyway, back to the past week. We had a welcome dinner for our new teacher and her teaching partner; Erin and Grace respectively. Mr. Im and his wife (the school owners) took us all to this new Korean BBQ place called Gorilla. I like Korean BBQ’s - you get to cut your meat with scissors! On Thursday night, Jaime and I met up with one of Jaime’s friends from back home who just arrived a couple weeks ago. It’s always fun to meet new people, especially when they are from the area you are. It’s the stuff instant friendships are made of in Korea. So we went to pick her up at the subway; check out the pictures of the washrooms there. I don’t know about you, but does the dude look more like a girl? The men here ARE somewhat feminine, but c’mon, this is a little crazy, don’t you think?
So we went to our favourite Western meets Korean cuisine establishment and indulged in some dokkboki and quesadillas, which was the perfect split. The best part is that it all came with three servings of complimentary French fries. Love it. We returned home after a night of good food and good times to get some sleep for our big field trip to the Fire Station. That field trip that will go down as the most disorganized event to date. Let me just clarify that this is NOT one of the ones I had a hand in. We were celebrating fire safety week at school and someone suggested going to the fire station, which is a great idea. We just lacked some serious organization from the higher ups. We had no idea what was going on until it was happening. Luckily, the fireman pulled it all together and told the kids (what I assume) were some very important things about fire safety. This language barrier thing is tricky sometimes. The whole presentation was in Korean so the Canadian teachers had no idea what was being said. I mean, we got the jist of it, we heard all that stuff when we were kids, too; however, the fireman threw in some jokes here and there and all the Korean teachers got a chuckle out of it and we were in the dark. Sometimes you just feel left out from a big secret. I have come to terms with this feeling though and I don’t really mind anymore...well not as much as I used to. So the kids learned some important things, and our teaching partners got a lesson too. I hope that means we are all covered in the event of a fire in the school- which hopefully never happens. Obviously. We got to play with a fire hose and take pictures by the fire truck. The kids loved it. The kids, not me, I swear.














So being stoked that it was Friday and the weekend was here (finally), I set out to teach my afternoon kids and engage in a riveting lesson of cutting snowflakes out of paper. Needless to say I forgot how many little pieces of cut triangles land on the floor. The upside is the kids created some pretty cool designs that will look nice around the classroom- which is nice because it will save me from making more than I have to in order to decorate! Let the weekend begin!