Two Weeks - Part One

(I was not in the mood to make sure my grammar spelling and other related things were correct, so get over it)

Partly because I was lazy and partly I forgot, I didn’t do a blog last week. Therefore I will be doing two weeks in the live of Otto here today.

Monday the 25th arrived and I was all psyched up about my last week of school, wondering what on earth I was going to do with them. I arrived at school with half the children dressed in normal clothes. I didn’t worry too much about it. In normal fashion, if it was to effect me in any way then I would be told well in advance by about 5 minutes.

It turns out that my only class for the day was canceled and that I was to be sent home for the rest of the week. However, in accordance with the Korean way of sharing as much food as possible, I was not to go home before having lunch with the few remaining teacher at school. We went to this great place that serve cold noodles. I need to find out where it is so that I can go back some time.

On Tuesday, just before lunch, I went to go get Dumplings from my favourite take-away place. Afterwards I went to Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee and work on my plans for the holiday school. While talking to one of the teacher at school, it emerged that they would also be doing holiday school for English and that they will be doing the reading, writing and grammar part. All that I was expected to do was conversation.

This led me to think that what I have been doing in class up to now is not really what was expected. After thinking about this I decided to teach the students more about English Culture and things like politeness. I will leave the grammar to the other teachers and I will get the children to listen and speak, as is expected of me.

Wednesday I wanted to go to Seoul, but before that I needed to make sure I had money in the bank. I was planning on making a sizable purchase, you see? Unfortunately the money hadn’t been paid in yet, so I just went in to Icheon town. It seemed like a good idea to go find the nice big umbrella and gym shoes I was planning on getting. Shoes here are so cheap! Of course I also need a shoe rack now that I have extra shoes. My closet is just not made for holing things the way I want them, and hence the extra space.

I saw an interesting restaurant a few days back and thought I would have a look. It is called Puffin Café. Turns out it is an Italian Restaurant. It was quite full, but I found a table and sat down. The first things I noticed is that the menu had English descriptions. Wait, let me rephrase, perfect English descriptions. It’s amazing and so nice for a place such as Icheon.

The Puffin café is a charming little place with photographs under the table glass of all the places the owner has been. The shelves and the walls were covered with all the crap he collected on his travel and you can spend hours staring at everything.

By a happy coincidence hours is exactly what you will need if you go there. There is only one chef and one waitress. First come first served and I waited for what seemed an hour and a half for my food. Next time I am brining work or a book of someone along to help pass the time.

I am happy to say, however, that the food was worth the wait. It was amazing. I’m not just saying this because I was in the mood for Western food. It was great any way you look at it, and here is a interesting little thing about the place. A 300ml Coke cost 3000 won and a 500 ml beer only 2500 won. Great, isn’t it?

I really need to get my arse in gear and learn Korean. Even without it I eventually managed to buy myself multi vitamins.

End of Part One

*Please note that the statements in this Blog are not intended to make anyone look bad. I do not look down on Koreans. I'm merely describing how amusing I sometimes find people and I am mostly describing it to other westerners. Feel free to come to South Africa and tell the world how crazy we are because heaven knows, we are.