Another week is over - time is flying by. I can't believe it's almost July already.
This Friday Mr. and Mrs. Lyu (the directors/owners of my school) took all the staff out for dinner from both of their ECC schools in Uijeongbu. They are two of the richest people in Korea but it still must have cost them a fortune because there was about 40 people there. We went to a galbi restaurant and Mr. Lyu even got me some vegetarian kimchi deegai (I think - it's basically like a kimchi soup) and rice, which was surprisingly good. In Korea it's really disrespectful to decline something offered to you by your elder so we had to accept all the food and drink Mr. Lyu presented us with. It was a really fun dinner with so much to eat and drink and then he paid for us all to get a VIP room at the nearby noraebong (private kareoke place). It was really fun with people singing songs and everyone clapping and singing along.
Analie, Me, Jamie, and Kately singing Brown Eyed Girl.
The reason for the big dinner was because a couple of foreign teachers, Jamie and Sarah, are finishing their contract this week and it was a goodbye dinner for them and a thank-you for all our hard work with the open classes.
After the noraebong, Jesse and the other foreign teachers we're friends with, met us and we all went to the downtown part of Uijeongbu where there are beautiful fountains and park areas and we hung out and played in the fountain for a few hours.
The girls relaxing by the fountain
Saturday night was Korea's big World Cup game against Uruguay. Lots of people were heading in to Seoul to watch the game with the huge crowds at City Hall but, while it would be cool to watch with a huge mass of people, we opted to sit down at a bar and get some fries and chicken wings and watch the game indoors since it was also pouring rain. It was a disappointing loss for Korea but it was fun to watch it with all the fans and they put up a good fight.
Sunday we got up fairly early and headed in to Seoul. We wanted to check out the Coex Mall, which is said to be Asia's biggest mall - I don't know if that's true or not but it was pretty big. We didn't buy a lot but we had lunch at an Italian place, went to this really awesome aquarium, and went to a casino where Jesse broke even on the slots and I won $70... pretty good deal.
Jesse with some sardines at the aquarium
Me with little fishies nibbling my fingers
Shark attack
A woman feeding the penguins at the aquarium. Penguins are too cute for words.
Anyway, we had a really fun day exploring the mall and now we're back home, ready to start another week.
Jesse has his open class this Wednesday that he's busy preparing for. I am training our new teacher, Jonathon, because he's Sarah's replacement, so we both should have pretty busy weeks.
Anyway, that's all for this week.
Miss you all!
Ali
