Very Macheetah! Or not...

Here's my info on school lunches: First off, I eat with a different 6th grade class a week. I don't particularly like this. I teach kids all day, I'd like to have my lunch to myself. Anyway, this week I was in the 6-10 classroom (10th 6th grade class)...and it's the last 6th grade class, so I'm hoping I'm done eating with the students. I think they wanted me to eat with the 3rd graders as well, but their whole point in wanting me to eat with the students was to have as many students as possible get to talk with me (since I only teach 4th and 5th graders). But next semester (starting in February) the students all move up one grade so I'll be teaching the current 3rd graders making my eating lunch with them unnecessary. So I hope I'm done with it.

Anyway, it's just kind of awkward. Most of the students are either too shy to talk with me or just don't know enough English. I mean, you can only say, "Hello. How are you? I am fine thanks. And you? Nice meeting you." so many times. So I just kind of sit there feeling like a moron. Also, the kids usually dish up my meal for me, giving me no say in what food items I want lots or little of. Some classes give me heaping portions of everything, which is not good. Many of the foods I don't even want to eat any of, but here I am with a big ol' plate of it. I was originally concerned with offending them by not eating most of it, so I'd try to eat some of everything. But now I just say screw it, and if I don't like it, I don't eat it. No one has voiced their outrage yet. Other classes seem to give me small or large amounts of food by guessing what I'd like. Usually they're pretty accurate, which is good. For example, they'll just give me a small portion of kimchi. But it can also be bad. The other day one of the items on the menu was little hotdogs. I liked the little hotdogs...but in moderation. Because I'm American and Americans eat hotdogs all the time (according to Koreans) they gave me the most gigantic portion of mini hotdogs imaginable. I thought I was going to hurl after eating them. Plus, there's always a huge portion of rice. Rice fills me up quickly on its own without the million other side dishes. And there's always soup. And some sort of kimchi. And usually some sort of other green fermented vegetable that I usually don't eat. They also eat a crapload of tofu here. I don't even know if I had ever eaten any tofu before coming here.

This may come as a shock, but many of the soups I can't stand. You all know how I love my soup...I used to say that aside from clam chowder and Wisconsin cheese soup there wasn't a soup that I didn't like. That was until I hit the Korean fish flavored soup market. Most of the broth base in the soups here is made of something that I find unpalatable. I don't know what it is (fishy or not, I don't really know), but I don't like it. Now, there are some I do enjoy...I've had some good chicken noodle soup, and some beefy kinds. I even like the kimchi soup. But most, not good.

The other day one of my students gave me this cheese roll thing. It's like those cheese and beef tubes you can buy in the US. Kind of like string cheese, but not stringy. More mushy-like. Anyway, I'm glad I waited until home to crack it open. I was pretty excited about it, so I open it and take a big bite out of it. I almost puked all over my table. It was squid flavored cheese. Seriously, one of the grossest things I've ever put in my mouth. No wonder the girl was giving it away... :D

So most Koreans don't have carpet. But, they do have heated floors. So you crank your heat on and your floors all get warm. It's kind of nice. I guess that's why a lot of Koreans sleep on the floor...because it's warmer.

Ok, to add excitement to an otherwise boring blog, here are some pictures. Not ones I've taken, but ones that do represent things I've seen here.

The first picture is a classic example of what you'd get at a restaurant...only the main dish seems to be missing (and I've never got peanuts). Since there's a basket of lettuce on the right, I'm assuming they're eating galbi...which is beef fried over some coals that you then wrap in lettuce with rice, etc. That would also explain the red sauce in front. Seriously, no matter what you order you get a plethora of side dishes. Most of which do not get eaten. Or much of it, anyway. The soup in the picture actually looks like one I'd enjoy. Side note: Korean chopsticks are harder to use than the ones we're used to...aka the cheap-ass wooden ones from Chinese restaurants. Korean chopsticks are flat and thinner and harder to manipulate. I'm getting pretty good at them, however. Hopefully I am, considering I use them on a daily basis! I even eat my ramen noodles at home with them. I bought a chopstick/Korean soup spoon set and they're really pretty. I'll take a picture of them sometime so you all can see them. I'm sure you'll all be waiting with bated breath.

The middle picture is soju. The last is Hite, a Korean beer. Koreans drink a lot. And when they drink, they either drink soju or Hite. At least from what I've seen. Soju is made from rice and apparently it packs a wicked punch. It tasted like rubbing alcohol. I haven't had much of it, but I think it makes me feel like shit (how odd...an alcohol that makes me feel bad). I think the only beer I've drank here is Hite, a cheap-ass beer. To be honest, I don't think it tastes much different than any other beer--bad. But according to those who fancy themselves beer connoisseurs, Hite sucks. Whatever.


On the left is the South Korean flag. I actually don't know what the North Korean flag looks like. I should really look that up. In the middle is a picture of Suwon Station. It's the subway, train, and bus station in Suwon, a big city. I think it's the biggest city in Gyeonggi-do (not including Seoul, which is not techinically a part of Gyeonggi-do, even though it's in the middle of it). It's pretty nice and new looking. Pyeongtaek Station is much smaller. Seoul Station is much bigger. The last picture is of Michael Jackson in Korea. No, I didn't see him here. I just thought it was funny that when I did a google image search for "South Korea," that picture comes up on the first page. What a creepy guy. I think there was a headline on Yahoo News today that was, "Jackson says he may never live in the US again," or something. I didn't read it because, frankly, I didn't care.

So that's all I have for now. Or, I'm sick of writing. Or both. And maybe you're sick of reading...