Saturday, April 16, 2011

What a day! What a day!!!!

Today was definitely one of those days where we flew by the seat of our pants!!! The day started with teaching Middle School students, which was fun, but hard, but interesting... I was told to teach them about debating, so with basically a day and a half to prepare, I decided to try and teach them an introduction to debate. What is debate? How do you debate? What kind of research do you do before a debate? Worst. Idea. EVER. As I started to talk to them and go through my handout, our manager came in and told me that they said they had no idea what I was saying! Frustrated, because I thought I was doing what I was supposed to, I gave up and went with the flow. Instead of teaching them anything, I let them ask me questions and just free talk the rest of the class because I was just getting blank stares as I asked them, "What do you like?" At the end of the day, I felt defeated and frustrated, but reminded myself that this is going to happen.

The next adventure began when we decided we wanted to go downtown, even though we had no idea how, which way, or even how the buses worked... After being total waygooks staring and pointing at the bus schedule, we gave up and hailed a taxi. We forgot what downtown was called, so we pulled out our "trusty" Korean Phrasebook. Carl then said, "Joong-seem-gah" which SAYS downtown. A $11 cab fare later we were dropped off at the base of a mountain. Not just a base of a mountain, but a Temple. Apparently we were taken to "Jeungsimsa" which is a popular hiking area. I looked out of place in my Converse sneakers and Carl in his Marshall hoodie.



 The next challenge was to get to downtown!!!! This was the end of the bus line, so we finally got to figure out the buses. We got on and then got off at a random place, meandered around until finally stumbling upon a coffee shop where I got up the nerve to ask for help. Luckily, the girl understood me and knew enough English to tell me, "Go straight. Turn right." FINALLY!!!!!!! DOWNTOWN!!!!!!!

We found out way to yet another bus station, but accidentally got on the wrong bus. Not only the wrong bus, but a bus that didn't have any English on it at all... So we had no freaking idea where we were. About 4 stops later we got off and tried to get a taxi, but with very little luck. Our fellow teacher had given us a taxi card with his address on it, and luckily, when we found a taxi we showed him the card to take us there since we live close. Well, the taxi took us to our dong (neighborhood) but definitely not to the address!!! Lesson learned? Speak clearly to taxi drivers or have it written down in Hangul because they will drop you off wherever the heck they want to!!!!!

4 comments:

  1. Um...next time bring a map and point to where you want to go?

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  2. don't have a map... or really know how to get ahold of one. We just went with the flow and it definitely was just one of the many lessons we've learned this week!!!

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  3. jesus christ... at least you don't have to figure out all this stuff by yourself. i miss you and i'm reading your blog! just letting you know. :)
    -jenni

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  4. Sounds like an interesting day!

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