Incheon-China Town

Friday I taught Daniel and Stella how to make fajitas. They LOVED them! Also on Friday I went to Hyundai Department Store, I rode the elevator to the top floor and rode the escalator all the way down. And I only bought two things, a curling iron and a sweatshirt, and they were both on sale! Today we went to Incheon, and to China Town. China Town was pretty sweet nothing like the one in NYC though, a lot of little stores with really random trinkets of which I did not buy a single one! And no little Chinese men sneeking up behind you whispering things like, 'Rolex? Handbags? Wallet?' When we were in China Town we ate lunch at obviously a Chinese restaurant, I had these noodles with green and red peppers and onion all fried together they were spicy and oh so good! I am going to learn to make them! While we were in China Town we went into a few museums that use to be old banks, mostly they just talked about the history of the harbor at Incheon. Then we walked up this hill to Freedom Park where there is this HUGE statue of General Megada... Jae Eun, when she was telling me that we were going to go to Incheon was trying to tell me about this American General that helped South Korea not be communist. I knew some Korean history from school but I had never heard of General Megada. So I Googled this park and Incheon after Jae Eun had tried to explain this to me, come to find out its General MacArthur not freakin Megada! haha After we left China Town we went to some island to see the ocean. I'm not quite sure why because right after we got there we got back into the car and drove back to the main land. . but the bridge we took on the way back is the longest in the world so I guess that was pretty cool. After we got home I met Jenny at Lotte Department Store, we walked around, talked and sat at Krispy Kreams for like 2 hours then I took a taxi home (pretty sure the driver was half asleep! he kept nodding off!! so scary)! And now I'm here in bed!

Made In China

I didn't write yesterday and today will be short as I have had a pretty uneventful couple of days. Yesterday I just taught from 9-6 came home had dinner and went to bed. Oh but I did take my first ever taxi ride all by myself, which was a little sketchy because I had to pretend that I spoke Korean when I told the driver where to take me. Don't worry we made it! Today I taught for 4 hours and made fried rice for the fam. Onions, garlic, eggs, shrimp, pepper, soy sauce. It was pretty good. Way better than my failed attempt at brownies. Then it was off to the show Ballerina who Loves B-boy. Yeah, the title should probably be The Ballerina Who Loves a B-Boy, but what can ya do? It was pretty good. I was really impressed with the b-boys. Not so much with the ballerinas but the rest was great! The story was a little hard to follow but the dancing was incredible! Makes me really wanna see the Jabbawockeez when I get home. Then it was home and time for ice cream and bed. I had to order a movie for one of the girls I'm teaching we are reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and watching the movie along with it to point out differences we ordered the movie last night around 11:00 pm and got it today! Shipping here is so fast! But I just figure it's because it's all made in China so they just have to hop on their little boats and pick it up. Too bad our mail system isn't that good in the U.S.

Thank you very much!

Today I went climbing again it was so nice! And it gave me a reason to eat ice cream! Taught English to Minseo and Geeheo. After we decided to go to the Coex Mall and to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I had really spicy soup and some spicy noodles and rice it was so good! After we went on an adventure to the mall. I thought the Hyundai Department store was huge, so was this place! Massive! It was such a cool mall. I wish we would have had more time to shop, I'll have to spend a day there when I have some time! So on the way to the mall some drunk guy came up and was talking to Eric and Minseo and kept saying thank you very much to me. I guess thats all the English he knew. Thank you very much. Then on the way home we ran into another drunk guy on the subway who was talking to the kids and kept pointing at me I guess he didn't know I was with them haha. Jae Eun told me that the old men were talking to us because she has a 'special' family hahaha. Mostly because I am with them I guess that makes her family
'special'. Well check out the new pictures.

Zeebra Leggings

Today was FREEZING! Even more than yesterday I think. Today with my first group of students, Eric, Violet and Eugene we attempted to make brownies. Mind you I have been searching all week for ingredients! Simple things like powdered sugar, vanilla, real butter, ya know things that when we run out at home we just run to Millers, Matthews or Griffiths for. Yeah not here in Korea. Finally I did find what I needed. well kinda the vanilla was in powder form and the powdered sugar was in a bag that was about a half cup and when I got to the house we would be making them, yeah no measuring cups or teaspoons! Good thing I have made the stupid things enough to know how they're supposed to taste before they get cooked (in the random huge square pan) the batter tasted pretty good and we baked them the only problem was that the oven was 1. not level and 2. cooked uneven, but that could have been due to the whole not level thing. the brownie part tasted pretty good but the frosting was bad! We did end up finding realish butter for the batter but only had crisco butterish stuff left for the icing. It was horrible! and the powdered sugar was grainy! But they seemed to like them. Sadly I was not satisfied. So next time hopefully I can have some of the necessities imported by my mother courtesy of Macey's. Korean's clearly are not bakers! At Esther's house today I told her that I would teach the kids to make chicken fajitas on Friday and that if I could find vanilla and dark corn syrup that maybe we'd try for some oatsies. I asked her if she had a measuring cup and she laughed and pointed to a Pyrex glass measuring cup that sits on the sink and holds utensils. (very common here random jars that hold forks spoons and chop sticks instead of putting them where they go in the drawers, which they have places for ha).  So Ester and I laughed about it for a minute and she told me that its just easier to buy stuff she doesn't like to bake. Where is the fun in that? Nowhere that's where! When I got home from teaching today we had dinner Coogoogi but curry this time. It was yummy I didn't take a picture cuz it was mostly gone by the time I got home so just imagine yellow rice with pork, carrots, and onions. After dinner Minseo and I wrote a letter to Sean Choi. Minseo decided that she wanted some cute stickers to put on her letter don't even worry that it is around 12 degrees here and windy so freakin freezing! But, we went out anyway. She was all ready to go in her snow gear, pants and all and I in my sweet 2 dollar zeebra leggings and jeans! Off we went! My leggings are sooo stinkin warm! they are my new favorite! We ended up with some cute robot stickers and some bear stickers! Mineso was right they were just what the letter needed. Hopefully tomorrow isn't as cold!

My name is Brian. B-R-Y-thenumber7-theletterQ

Well it was an uneventful day here in freakin freezing Korea! I got up went to church met two new people that are close to my age that speak English, one just got back from Orem where she spent the last three months and the other I'm not quite sure. The one that just returned from Utah, her name is Quwon like Q 1. She is really nice and hopefully will be someone to do things with on slow days. And the other, her name was Jenny. She was funny they were both cute girls and amazed at how tall I am. Other than that nothing exciting happened today. It was -11 all day and currently is -14 Celsius.. which sounds way colder than Fahrenheit so we'll go with that. Today has been the coldest day of the season and tomorrow is supposed to be colder! Jae Eun says it's Global Warming... um its not warming.. IT'S FREEZING!! She made coogoogi for dinner with rice and of course Minseo and I had to have our ice cream (Hagen Daaz from Costco) It was quite fantastic, despite the current weather. Sad to say it but that is really all that happened today, I caught up on some much needed sleep and do nothing time and just kinda lounged around all day.