Cookie house

Leaving work (a little bit early)

Leaving work (a little bit early)... for my second Christmas in korea, my first with all my family.

The first Christmas was in 2002 when I asked Ji Gong to marry me.... it was today, Christmas Eve... seems like a long long time ago...

Lego city at jukjeon emart.

This is the most awesome lego city.. I still want this even though I am pushing 40!!  come on kids, hurry up and love lego as much as me...

Who am I?

As a native English teacher in a Korean public school - understanding your position within the school hierarchy can sometimes be difficult, 

Last week - My co-teacher was late to one of my 5th grade classes and  one girl in a state of mild panic asked me "Where is the Main teacher" - Low blow? Maybe not Korean co-teacher and assistant teacher are not synonymous terms. 

In the Native English teacher community I hear about a variety of different levels of responsibility required of foreign teachers, from "No lesson planning or teaching, only games" to "My co-teacher is never here" Or "My co-teacher may as well not be here" - My own situation is somewhat different but I will save it for another post depending on where I end up working next year.

In Japan we are referred to as guests, cosy - no responsibility with that title!

Today, a 3rd grade student was looking for my Co-Teacher and asked me - 

"English teacher, where?"

I replied, correcting her sentence 

"Where is the English teacher? - I am here (Raising my hand)" 

She looked confused and said "No, the ENGLISH teacher!" 


If my Co teacher is the English teacher, who am I?...



Oh yeah... I am that person who comes to English class and stands at the front and talks funny!

1st class in the 5th Grade

I have a class of 5th graders who are the most wonderful class of students to have ever attended an Elementary school. 

 They walk into class and casually talk and the usual messing about while I greet them at the door, the bell rings and I walk back to the front of the class as I turn around they are all sat in their seats looking straight ahead in complete silence waiting for the lesson to start.

The result is that in the lesson we cover the book work, extend the language learning beyond that covered in the book, today we were studying about shopping and the book unit doesn't cover numbers but a couple of students asked about bigger numbers...

만 원 - 10 thousand, then 십 만 =100,000, 백만 원 = 1,000,000 and they asked what was next so I wrote them on the board I only went up to  10¹⁵ = Quadrillion, but for that they gave me a sincere round of applause, which I found highly amusing...  Anyway my point is we were able throughout the lesson to extend the learning from outside the boundaries of the textbook (and this is not the first time), have a bit of fun at the same time and still have time to play a game!

Be choir! And Bill Gates invented the internet!

Lunch 14-11-11

First here is a picture of my lunch - Awesome... LOL - this is published on our school website - 헐... -  daily...Today it was a radish (?) soup water kimchi Fried squid and a kind of  Bi Bim thing with of cours the Bap (rice). 



On Monday the Seongnam Metropolitan choir visited our school to give an hours performance, highlights for me were the School Mistress of Authority and Discipline Ajuma! (I don't know what her correct title is so I will call her that, MAD for short and a belting performance of  Nessun dorma by some guy who looked like the phantom of the opera without the mask...

After about 40 mins of rousing show songs and smiley dance routines the kids started to get a bit restless and started talking and playing with their smart phones... so MAD stopped the MC Mid introduction of a weak Solo number to take the mic and 'calm the crowd'. Now MAD does this by  picking on individual students and making them stand up and walk to the back of the room where they can sit down and carry on talking (This is OK because their sound is drowned out by all the teachers who are also stood at the back talking and playing with their smart phones.  As the performance resumed MAD weaved her way among the crowd to 'select' some more individuals for the comfort of the back of the room. Her selection methods ranged from a gentle shoulder tap,  a poke in the ear, a series of short sharp "HARD" taps on the head with a knuckle which was audible from across the auditorium and a kick in the spine that Messi would have been proud of. The kick launched the unsuspecting 6th grader into the adjacent row, Luckily the performance ended before there was more people at the back than in the crowd and before anyone was hospitalised.

The following day a grade 5 student asked me 

"Rob Teacher, yesterday... singing... enjoy?"

I replied "Oh, the Choir..."

He looked at me rather distraught and said "Be Quiet...  Oh Ok"

I apologised and explained that I had said 'The choir' and explained what a choir was... 

During a lesson this weeks the invention of the internet came up and students were guessing the year, They first thought it was around the year 2000 and they kept talking about Bill Gates. Bill Gates (see my recent post with another It was not Bill gates fact) didn't invent 'the internet' I said... "Really they replied" looking confused, I think one of them mentioned Steve Jobs... "No" I said it was a US university and it was then developed by the US military... 

They think I am mad, it has to be  either Bill or Steve they invented everything but bill won because Steve is dead!

New Books and basic skills lesson

 

New Books and basic skills

We have just had a set of 32 dictionaries delivered to my school at 30,000 Won each I thought we had better start using them. 

So, I did a dictionary skills class with 5th grade today, just to give them the basic skills practise. 


I gave them all a dictionary and after checking they had all used a dictionary before, I got them all to find the work dictionary, when they had found it I asked them what page it was on, then got them to tell me the Korean meaning of the word and I went through the examples of word usage in the dictionary.

The activity

I then split the class in to two teams and explained the activity.

1. I will call out a word
2. find it in the dictionary as fast as you can
3. raise your hand and shout out the page number
4. I will then ask you to tell me
1. the meaning
2. read out the 1st example sentence
5. Your team gets 1 point

I gave them the following words to find, selected (almost) at random:

1. impact
2. forgive
3. transform
4. wink
5. container
6. memory

Surprisingly engaging activity

They really enjoyed the activity far more than I expected. They wanted to continue playing, which really surprised me.  I was so proud of them, even my noisy classes (2 & 5) got on with the follow up 'individual' activity to find and write the definition of 12 key vocabulary words for Lesson 12 of the text book.

Never a dull moment

The dictionaries that we have also have a Ko -Eng supplement. One girl stayed behind to look up the word "Chubby" so that she could say "Rob teacher that is you..." 

Thanks a lot, she learnt a new word, at least!

Why I hate Waygook.org

I know I am not alone in this but this site is depressing, racist and most of the stuff on it with the exception of a couple of power point games is a bit rubbish.

This irritated me today.....  Where do you self centred people think you are living, adapt or move on despite the big US influence in Korea... this is not America!

A bit further down the page

I am also constantly irritated by the old women who push you on the subway, but this is their country. They are probably constantly irritated by us.

This is just typical of the mindless crap posted on Waygook.org.  And they recommend this site at GEPIK orientation...

I wish someone would create a similar site without all the bullshit...  Oh, you have - thanks Shane!  - ESLHERO.COM

Unrelated: Korean car show

Recently I had a day out with my son - we visited a Korean palace in the centre of Seoul

and had a great time exploring, afterwards I bought him a Cola and I had a beer and we had a good old chat!  On the way to the subway station we stumbled across a Korea classic Hyundai car show.

... and some models

Hosting the School English Song Contest

My Script hastily prepared....

Seongsu English Song Contest Script

Good Morning and welcome to the 2^nd Annual Seongsu English Song Contest.  I am very happy to host this event.  I have heard the students practicing over the last few weeks and I am really excited to see the results of their hard work today. I would also like to thank the teachers for supporting their students and for making today possible.

Before we start please all stand for the National Salute.

I am pleased hand over to Seongsu Elementary schools’ principal who would like to say a few words before we start the competition. Students please bow to welcome your Principle.

One more thing before we start, I would like to tell you about the judging criteria for today’s competition.  The criteria are as follows…….

Please give a round of applause for our Judges today…

We will start the competition today with Grade 3 class 4 and they will perform 2 songs for us today; Happy birthday and I have a crayon.  Please give a big round of applause for Grade 3 Class 4.

Thank you Grade 3 class 4.

Next we have Grade 3 Class 2 who will be performing Jindo Arirang, please cheer for  class 2!

Thank you Grade 3 Class 2.

The next performance is by Grade 3 Class 3 who will perform 2 Songs Stand up, please and How many cats? Let’s have a round of applause for class 3.

Wow. Great! etc

The last performance from grade 3 will be class 1 who will also perform 2 songs for us today

firstly Hi, I'm Jina followed by Look at the elephant.  Please cheer for class 1!

Wow that concludes the performances from Grade 3 Lets cheer once again for Grade 3 who sang brilliantly for us today – well done to you all!

The first performance from grade 4 is class 4 who will be singing the People in my town, please cheer for class 4!

Thank you class 4 I will be singing that all day!

The second performance from grade 4 is class 3 with Don’t do that please clap for class 4!

Thank you class 3

I think there are some monkeys here…. please cheer for Grade 4 class 2 and 1,2,3,4… 5 little Monkeys.

The last performance from grade 4 is class 1 with If you are happy … so if your Happy and you know please show it and clap your hands for class 1!

Please cheer for all the performances from Grade 4…

We are now half way through the competition, all the performances have been great so far… but ‘ We are all in this together’ so let’s continue now with grade 5 class 3.

Please show your support for Class 3!

next up we have Grade 5 class 5 who will sing a song I am sure you all know and love from the Movie Grease please enjoy Summer nights!

That was fantastic, well done!

Next is Grade 5 class 2 and we are off to the Jungle, the quiet jungle where…  The Lion Sleeps tonight

Well done!

Next is grade 5 class 1.. It has been a wonderful competition so far…. and they will sing it’s a wonderful world!   

Forget about the New Kids on the block, there is definitely so new talent here… please cheer for Class 3 who will sing Step by Step.

Next is grade 6 class 4 to cheer you up with their performance…. HAPPY

As we approach the last 3 performances today I am pleased to introduce Grade 6 class 2 with a song that I remember from when I was young (so long ago)…  Uptown girl

The penultimate performance today is Class 5 with a favourite of mine

It’s sk8er boi.

The last student performance today before life goes on is Grade 6 class 1 with ObLaDi, ObLaDa

Wow – Lets give a special round of applause for all the performances today! 

Before we give you the results and tell you who the winners are I am pleased to tell you we have a special performance from the teachers and parents who will sing Heal the world..   Please all cheer for them.

Thank you

It is now time to reveal the winners…

In 3^rd place ……

In 2^nd place ……

And our winners today, I am pleased to announce are ……

Thank you very much for all our performers today – you all did really well each and every one of you are true stars! Thank you also to the parents and teachers for their wonderful performance and also to the teachers and staff at Seongsu Elementary school who made today’s even a success and finally thank you all for your coming today and sharing this special day with us.

Looking to 2013

I am now having to think hard about what to do in 2013... Obviously this involves staying in Korea and in the apartment but my contract runs out at the End of February.  I have albeit informally been offered the same position for next year but there are, as always pro's and cons to this.

For

• Comfortable
• Easy 
• Lessons already planned
• Know the students
• Know the school and it's policies
• Know the staff
• Know my place
• Relationships already established

Against

• Does it help further my career?
• Some personal relationships are not comfortable

Well there is probably more I could add but the main reasons I will focus on against staying at my school for another year is the one about furthering my career,
Does it? No.
Will it delay any development? Probably not?

There is a Job at a Christian International School (really close to my house) - this would be great to get my Kids into! Especially as usually the education of teachers children is normally free.  This job is teaching advanced placement English and History to 9 - 13 year olds following a , sounds like fun but do my qualifications hold up to this?

Well while writing this post I decided to bite the bullet and I applied anyway so we will see what happens.

I have a loose but rather ideal plan, 1 year working at Elementary, 1 year at middle and 1 year at high school before moving to a University position. This would involve gaining a Masters degree while working at the schools.

Exciting times.... maybe!

Grade 6 - the nice ones!

Tomorrow, due to a rehearsal of the English song contest, that I am hosting (but will not be attending the rehearsal of.(???)..) I will be teaching Grade 6 by myself, without my co-teacher...  I am very much looking forward to it as if all goes to plan I will teach classes 2, 3 and 4:;These are the best behaved, most fun and easiest to talk to students. Class one is always asleep and they NEVER, EVER, EVER want to talk and this makes them extremely hard work... and Class 5... they are just noisy and disruptive.

Should be fun - I am looking forward to it!


UPDATE

As  expected had a great day teaching grade 6 I taught classes 1 - 4 and even the quiet ones spoke... yey.
'on the fly' I implemented a discipline system.  Basically when they wouldn't listen or were talking to each other while I was talking I put 1 mark on the board and at the end of the lesson I they had to stay behind 1 min for each mark on the board.

Class 1 - 3 mins
Class 2 - 4 mins
Class 3 - 2 mins
Class 4 - 4 mins

So the most number of times I had to stop the lesson to tell them off was 4... result! As this usually eats away at about 10 mins of every co-taught lesson!

Anyway I enjoyed it, a lot so now thinking seriously about what to do next year.

Dance like a chicken... boys!

Getting  a whole class of 5th grade boys to dance like a chicken as a punishment - priceless

Family Time

I have had my parents come to stay for the last couple of weeks - It has been great and my Kids, especially have loved having their grandparents here...

Will write a new post soon - just far to busy at the moment!

No playing games during break!

No playing games during break!

Another Korean funny today... We have a new poster in my classroom - all about classroom rules. Rules for during class and rules for during break.

The rule During Break : 

"You should not play games with your classmates." 

Seems a little harsh!

Not just a jester!

Ok, a bit of fun for today... and the social commentary that is the genius of PSY!

Probably the artist least expected to break the US music scene and probably causing a few ruffled feathers through the 'ministry of tourism and promotion of South Korea' (the official department name is somewhere close to this!) due to mocking of the high credit socety that is South Korea

With Psy currently breaking records around the world for a Kpop artist and with the song being totally in korean, I thought I would share with you the English subtitled version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUk69c72UlY&feature=youtu.be

Using your Head

Using your Head

Another classic today as well we played a blindfold telephone game where one student is blindfolded and the sit back to back with each other, the blindfolded student has to guess who the other person is, but they can disguise their voice. In one round the blindfolded boy suddenly threw his head back and head butted the other guy paused for a moment then guessed his name correctly... we gave him 25 points for his correct guess.

Another classroom classic

Another classroom classic this week

Grade 5 text book - write a short telephone dialogue based on the picture... 
Model Dialogue:

"Hi, we are playing basketball can you join us?", "Sure I can!"

Grade 5 student:

 

BALI!

Just back from a week in Bali, was a great family holiday.  It was more expensive then I expected especially the price of food and beer.  Also the people were generally not very friendly and always trying to rip you off.  I felt that they had a lot of resentment towards tourists and their history shows this.  When I try to view Bali from their perspective. I can understand their feeling.  their whole way of life has been affected by tourism both positively (a great source of income) and negatively (their way of live and environment).   I would love to have seen more of Bali, but with 2 young children who were only interested in the pool we felt that we would just stay close to the hotel...  I bet the island is beautiful and on the last day as I sat on the beach I felt saddened by the continuous, monotonous drone of the speedboats, jet skis and various other water craft dragging parachutes and inflatable tubes dragging tourists at inflated prices.  I fact the beach at Benoa, Nusa Dua was so busy that you could smell the fumes from the hotel balcony long after the tide had drifted beyond the reef and the touts had packed up for the day.

The Holiday was expensive; first there was the visa fee $25 US per person (even the kids), food and beer was much the same price as UK (more expensive than Korea) then just in case they hadn't managed to sting you for every last cent you have to pay Indonesian the departure tax  150,000 rupiah (about $20 US) in cash!

Beer was about 30,000 rupiah and food about 60,000 rupiah

  

Another classic moment!

Yesterday in my grade 3 lesson, my co teacher said "Rob teacher will show you a gesture can you guess what it means"... I crossed my fingers and raised my hand showing the palmside of my hand with my crossed fingers. One boy raised his hand enthusiastically and shouted "Fuck You!"

... priceless!

Another classic moment!

Yesterday in my grade 3 lesson, my co teacher said "Rob teacher will show you a gesture can you guess what it means"... I crossed my fingers and raised my hand showing the palmside of my hand with my crossed fingers. One boy raised his hand enthusiastically and shouted "Fuck You!"

... priceless!

Get in FIT!

Today is thursday   on monday I started going to the gym... I am pleased to be able to say that I have made it there everyday, so far, this week at around 6:20 am.

even this morning when I only had 4 hours sleep and knew that 15.5 hours later, as I write this, I would still be 30 mins from home. to be honest I am knackered!  but proud of my 1st week, if I make it  in tomorrow.

The gym is in a local government building, is very cheap and full of people twice my age and twice as healthy!  I am almost embarrassed as I break out in to a heavy sweat after 5 mins on the exercise bike.

open class 2

I had my second open class today. We had no time to prepare properly for the class...but it went really well! There was 8 people watching. They said pyo and I comunicated well and that we taught all children well. I hope it is also going to be good feedback from p and vp! I actually enjoyed it as kids were quiet and listendd...and engaged in the lesson... wish every lesson was like that!

today i recorded the listening test for grades 3 and 5. despite not getting past q2 for 15 mins due to sponanious laughter we cracked it. just grades 4 and 6 to record on monday.

MMM Magnetic field source map, my favourite!

Google translate made lunch sound more interesting:

Hello? Fried rice is the source of the magnetic field on the menu today. Rub rice to eat in the magnetic field source map please. The weather is getting hotter. Washing hands before eating map please. Thank you.

MMM Magnetic field source map, my favourite!

Summer COLD and Korean lessons!

It has been circa. 30 degrees for the last month or more... and I have a cold! a proper winter cold runny nose, temperature, cough, sore throat and I am so so tired!

I need to sort myself out physically as I am seriously lacking energy, lately.  I have joined the gym but can't start until July! - I shall be using the free facilities along the Tancheon until then, once I shake this cold!

I have also started proper Korean lessons, through my church, on Sundays at 12pm!  I am so excited to finally get some proper korean lessons.  1st lesson was great. I have been told to start at level 3 Korean, as I Can read and write korean and speak (a bit)!  To be honest it was a bit hard for me but I am looking forward the challenge!  My Grammar is poor... I know the work I need to do!  The text book is simple and dialogue based....  I am looking forward to next week!

How they see us...

I love 신새개 ' s (shinsegae) dept stores Loves Britainia campaign I especially like the punk drinking a pint of Guiness... I never associated punks with Guiness. The only thing I have ever seen punks drink is white lightning or tennants super... enjoy

audio clips

just got asked to record about 3 pages of random sentences as an audio clip on the principles mobile phone.

it took me 2 attempts as the sentences were just so random... “She's my girlfriend“ “I ate a hamburger and salad“ ”put your clothes on quickly“ Just another interesting and unusual thing to have done in my interesting and wonderful life...keep smiling I may post the highlights later!

/////// O P E N \\\\\\\\\\ CLASS!

We had our open class on Wednesday!  
It went really well about 8 parents came to watch.

 The pace of the lesson was good and my "Time challenge game" worked brilliantly. The challenge was against the other classes that we had already taught the lesson to and on attempt 2 the open class group beat the previous quickest time and all the kids cheered and were so happy. The fact that the record has now been beaten considerably by class one doesn't matter...  Class for rocked it on the day!
 I was a bit worried about this task as in 2 of the 3 classes we previously did the game a kid ended up being blamed by the others and  there were tears.

The highlight for me was that the style of the lesson changed and became more focused on the kids speaking, it should BE like this all the time.  I knew that, it was drummed into us at the CELTA training and the GEPIK orientation...   So why did it slip our minds.  I guess the biggest reason was that the kids were so well behaved; there was no one getting out of their seats, running about, calling me FAT or any of the normal things we have to put up with. Don't get me wrong I think the students in my school are awesome - Even the naughty ones  genuinely have something that I do like about them, but it disrupts the lesson so much with this going on that you struggle to just get the crappy pages from the textbook done so you have time for a game that THIS becomes your priority rather than maximising their learning.


The feedback forms came back with all positive comments on them from the parents.

My co-teacher said that I did a really good job and I thought she did too.

P E R S O N A L S P A C E !!!!!

P E R S O N A L     S    P    A    C   E   !!!!!
I have always kind of had an issue with personal space... I mean in.a "its mine get out of it" kind of way! Korean people seem to have no concept of this. This is obvious by the way boys and even grown men will be seen holding hands and wrapping their arms around each other in public without any sense of it bekng wierd. It will probably be "never" that there is a time when I am comfortable with the thought of talking a walk by the river holding hands with a guy! But I have noticed that even after 3 months here I no longer really notice it but become increasinly shocked when a young couple embrace on the subway!

Any way back to personal space...

Link: toilet etiquette for men!

Korean men will always stand at the urinal next to you even if others are empty at a safe distance. They will seem to peer at you will you are taking a piss and they will think its ok to start a conversation or make excessively loud noises of relief at taking a leak... 

In school multiply this by 10! 
The girls shout hello from their toilet block next door while I take a leak! And expect an answer!!!
And yesterday while in midflow at the urinal next go the window I heard "Hi Rob teacher" and looked up to see 4 boys waving at me from the building opposite. I mean come on I am taking care of my business here!

The subway into Seoul is crowded and this is when i feel the invasion of my personal space the most "Do you have to stand with your arms around me? With your leg between mine. breathing down my neck"  Who is wrong? why are we so protective of our personal space? This is definitely a cultural difference.

keeping scores!

today was sports day and I was tasked with keeping scores.  The scoring system was crazy points were awarded left right and centre for no apparant reason. The team that won fair and square on sporting ability ended up losing by 10 points after the other team were awarded 160 points because they cheered a lot...?

Needless to say it was a good day even though i ended up with a sun burnt forehead and nose...

some photos of the day...

interview tears

this time an interview situation has resulted in tears. not mine!

I had to interview for an english reporter for our school broadcast. Again painful silence was endured after the first question. despite my friendly prompts! afew minutes later the tears started but we did establish that she was born in australia and that she doesnt like kimchi!

today was hilarious a girl in my 5th grade is a comic genius... see attached picture. she had to write her own dialogue based on the situation in the pictures for the statements she wrote ! for the questions she put a ? ~ absolutely pure comic genius!

also today one 5th grade student suddenly shouted that he loved me! ha ha so cute. my co~teacher said it must be his real mind as he didnt laugh afterwards!

School Paper Interview

Had a gruelling interview with the School

Newspaper... It was So Cute the girl came andsaid... ''Question" after 10Mins we were no Further forward! i tried everything. to get her to ask the question! i even got her a chair! After much prompting Google translate and my poor Korean the question was asked you... why did you come to korea ? I kept. the answer short for obvious reasons!!!

Moving in!

Finally moving in to our new place!

I came home from work to collect my stuff from ok gils house with some chocolate for the kids..
Expecting to have lots of boxes to move go find that most of it has gone... but no one here!

Gong rang after 10 mins to say she would be back in 20 mins!

So just waiting now.

Hopefully the furniture is already there.

Really looking forward go the new place!♥♥♥

Our apartment

Our apartment on the 5th floor

Spent the day cleaning the apartment!

It was dirty and took allday

Cute faces / White day / Steve jobs from Microsoft!

Today i taught the principle, yesterday I was told 9:00am but apparently I was meant to be there at 8:35 - she didn't seem to mind, the 40 mins went quickly as she showed me photo's of all her holidays... rather than the english lesson I had prepared...


Today is `White day`...  a kind of  korean valentines day so on the way home I purchased to specially packaged sweets for the occasion, one for nuna and one for ji gong! I was a little unsure of the correct protocol of white day but she seemed pleased!

Today I also taught 2 periods of 3rd grade!! - Ha ha they were so cute!  but at that age they need songs... repetitive songs.. Hi Hi Hi I'm kevin, nice to meet you kevin bye bye bye kevin! etc etc....  They loved it,but really not my thing!  The kids however were very cute,  I got given some biscuits and a chupa chup lolly, not sure if that is for white day or just because they were pleased to see me! However they squealed with delight when I said Anyong!

I looked through some of the teaching materials we have at school and this one caught my eye...
A picture of Bill Gates with a windows logo, labelled as Steve Jobs!!  He will be turning in his grave!

Special Needs!

I found out I have a special needs kids in one of my sixth grade classes... I found this out when I tried to find out why he wasn't doing the  tasks in class.  It wasn't initially obvious... sometimes the inane grinning at my requests in English are due to the novelty of  my being a foreignerand not having a high level of Enlish rather than learning difficulties so i persevered, until the rest of the kids and finally the teacher told me that he "just cant do it, he is not normal"  .

I feel some kind of responsibility, but I guess that responsibility lies with the school not me.  they have a special education program for him in which covers Korean and maths but not english.  It seems unfair and pointless to put him through so many hours a week of classes if he is getting no benefit from it... I dont want to exclude him I want to find a way of including him.  I know there is a special care teacher at the school as  I answered the phone once when she called and she seemed to speak English quite well.  Maybe I will message her about a plan for him...

I was quite surprised that it wasn't mentioned before.

You'll love how you fell everyday...

Spent Saturday shopping for furniture. As always my Ji Gong got a good deal.
She has a unique negotiating technique which consists of dragging the process of buying something out so long the the sales guy loses the will to live and agrees to whatever demands, and in the case of Ji Gong - Discounts, are being requested.

Highlight for me was this brochure and it's English language mistake.

You'll love how you fell everyday...




We managed to buy a bed each for the kids (one pink one blue) a bed for us, a wardrobe for one of the kids rooms (as one is built in) A GIANT wardrobe for us. A dressing table, a bedside table, a rice cooker unit with a cabinet door that turns into a table, a computer table with a shelf unit, a computer chair, a Dining table and chairs...  I think that was it... oh, of course mattresses for all the beds.

The table we wanted, but couldn't afford

A heated bed with a surface like the floor (hard) point?

Some wardrobes

We finished the day off with an great meal in a BBQ restaurant, with lots of steak and pork... and beer!

 Sunday we went to Sunae Lotte department store, Harvey and I had been craving pizza so we had that as well as some sushi! We went there to meet a friend from Cambridge at who owns his own investment bank.  He has offered to help me connect with Seoul based people. He is a very nice guy and it is good to know well connected people, especially in Korea.  As no where is it more true that "it is not what you know, it is who you know!"




Erin is becoming Quite the Poser... HA HA