Concerning the real Asia in all of its glory...

To start off, things are much better on the teaching front. I found out that the complaints were pretty exaggerated and the one class that I did make a mistake in, I bribed with chocolate bon bon pie things so we're good to go. Most of my classes seem to like me a lot, I have been dubbed "Banana Teacher" in one...I think because banana and Becky start with the same letter but I am not entirely clear on that. I am feeling more and more competent as I get up to speed, and I'm up to being able to plan two days in advance which is definitely progress. I feel less frantic running around the school, order is cautiously peaking out from behind the chaos. The one really interesting thing about hogwon life (Korean private academies), and I suppose Korean life in general, is swine flu. As far as this country is concerned, this is the next god-sent plague and it is treated with fear roughly equivalent to a coming apocalypse. There is a new national policy that the school is also implementing of quarantining anyone coming back from international travel for about a week from work or school along with mandatory testing. This may alter my plans to galavant off to Thailand, but we'll see how that unfolds.

This weekend was a nice rest after my first full week. Asteria and I spent all of saturday trecking to the nearest mart, buying cleaning supplies, and attacking our apartment. As the blackened water that clogged our tub later will suggest, it was an out and out war. It is probably only breeding 3 kinds of E. Coli now, down from the 50 it must have been before. Saturday night, we went out to a bar called "The Santa Clause" for this foreigner open mike thing. I am certainly learning soon here that the prospect of living abroad attracts all types...I have met my share of eccentric expats already but they are mainly really amusing. It was a fun, relaxed night.

Next day, we ventured into old downtown via the very nice, shiny new subway system. We wandered the underground mall for a while, and I have never seen that many cell phones stores in my life. Seriously, Korea is obsessed- for as strict as it can be about etiquette, the one rule they notably do not have is answering or talking on the phone during meals. It's practically an unnamed extra dinner companion. After, we wandered around some of the winding market outside. THIS was cool. I finally really felt like I was in the Asia I expected- disorienting, dark tunnels filled with the really suspicious smells of cooked intestine, spices (yes, dad- kimchi), and every kind of fish and sea food. The corners would usually be punctuated by really bright and luscious looking fruit stands, interspersed with second hand clothes and (more commonly), shoe stalls. I totally felt like Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods, except I didn't try any of the gross stuff. Some of it looked good- for example, Korea has these potato pancakes that are kind of like spicy latkas that are pretty yummy. However, I am perfectly content to remain a spectator to the vast majority of what I saw. After the market, we went into a more affluent shopping area and got some cheap DVDs to watch and nail polish. Nothing but the essentials, of course.

After we got back, Asteria and I were tired and worn out so we decided to bite the bullet and experience the Korean bath house. We went to one of the nicer hotels in a region of Daejeon that is over Yuseong Hot Springs, where royalty used to bathe in ye good old days. Yusoung Hotel was pretty cheap- 5,000 won to use the spa, or about 6 dollars. It was like I fell off of Korea and accidentally stumbled into a harem. It is gender segregated, so all of the women get naked, thoroughly rinse off, and then soak in any one of five pools in a big room, all just sort of hanging out together in every possible sense. Each pool was slightly different; there was a warm one, a cold one, a really really hot one, one with a waterfall jet to massage the muscles, a scrubbing pool, a steam room, and a really really hot tiled bed area. Once you were done soaking, you'd thoroughly scrub (or pay some fiersome looking women to do it for you) and presto, clean as a whistle. I got pretty used to it after about twenty minutes, despite all of the stares of being the only foreigner there, when a 10 year old girl named Michelle came up cool as anything and had a whole conversation with Asteria and me about where we were from and then fetched us ice for the next 15 minutes. Pretty relaxing...though I do beg to differ about the healing properties as I pulled a neck muscle somewhere along the way and have been moving like a grandma the whole day.

Oh well, still worth it if only for the experience. All in all, still going well! Love you all!