Saturday, March 28, 2009
Doorbell
Here is a little video we uploaded to show you the Korean doorbell we talked about in a previous post.
Yoido Full Gospel Church
A few weeks ago Lauren and I went to check out Yoido Church. Yoido Church claims to be one of the largest, if not THE largest Christian church in the world. It was quite an experience to say the least.
According to the "very reliable" source, wikipedia (follow link to the entry regarding Yoido Church), the church (as of 2007) has 830,000 members.
After entering the building and being escorted to one of the many "foreigners" sections we were shown our seats. In the back of the pew in front of us were headsets hooked to a small device listing 7 different channels: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Portuguese. I scrolled through a few of them, and sure enough, somewhere in the church someone was listening and translating into a microphone most of the languages. On the church's website, it lists which of it's dozens of services to go to in order to hear specific languages. From looking around I estimated that they must have seating for 30,000 people at once (according to wikipedia, the real figure is 26,000).
Overall, we enjoyed the service and did feel the presence of God. It was a bit overwhelming, but definitely worth going.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Anna's Birthday
Today we had a birthday party for one of our Kindergarten students, Anna. Here are a few pictures, the first one is all four of us English teachers and Anna. The second is us four teachers and all the kids from Earth, Jupiter, and Universe, the three kindy classes.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Illiterate
I don't know at what point it happens, but learning to read is one of the greatest blessings in life. To communicate through written word is unlike anything else. Scratch a pattern of markings onto a surface and another person with a code to your pattern can decipher the message's contents in their entirety. Simply Amazing.
There is one very important key to it all. Someone else must know the combination to your pattern code, otherwise your scratch is nothing more than a chicken's.
Why is this relevant? Hangul. Hangul, Korean language, is a pattern that Lauren and I are in the process of unlocking. "Learning a new language" is a nice term, however I prefer "code busting". "Learning a new language" to me sounds difficult, but the feeling I have trying to understand Hangul isn't that it is difficult, rather that it appears to be a daunting task that discourages me before I begin, but if I bust the code to that, my oh my, the relief I will have.
There are a few things working in our favor though. First, we're hungry. Go to a restaurant when you're hungry, open a menu, and read this: 김치 김밥. Oh, what's wrong? Don't know how to say it? Bummer...how are the hunger pains coming along?
Exactly -- Motivation #1
We've also heard that Hangul is wonderful once you learn it because it is very easy and logical. It isn't like the Chinese's Mandarin with a different symbol for every word. Rather, it is a phonetic alphabet similar to English. Not only that, the written word is broken into syllables (could be very help for those pesky pictionary games -- 1 or 2 syllables?).
So far we have learned a little bit. We are getting to the point where we can begin to sound out words very, vuh, ehh, rrr, eee, sss, sslll, oooo, slowww, llll, eeee, slowly, slowly! Very slowly!! (See how exciting it is?? Am in Earth class?) We know most of the letters and know it is written in syllable blocks left to right, top to bottom.
Syllable blocks??
Take Bulgogi (one of, if not our #1, favorite dish so far in Korea).
Bulgogi has three syllables. Written in Hangul: 불고기
First syllable Bul. B = ㅂ , U = ㅜ , L = ㄹ , organized into a block 불
Second syllable go. G = ㄱ , O = ㅗ , organized into the block 고
Third syllable gi (pronounced like gee(k)), G = ㄱ, i =ㅣ, organized into the block 기
So, brought together with all three syllables 불고기.
Hopefully that makes sense and wasn't too confusing. It goes (obviously) a little deeper than that, but unless you want to team up with Lauren and I and take Hangul head on, I'll stop there.
Another thing. You might be wondering to yourself or aloud "Well, that's great you can sound out a word, but what good does that do you without knowing the meaning?"
Well now, that depends on how hungry you are (we've tried some interesting things so far... WHO KNOWS what they were?!)
We recently found out from a friend and co-worker, Molly, that a University here offers multiple levels of Hangul classes every Saturday for a few hours for virtually nothing (1000 won = 71 cents right now with the current exchange rate). So hopefully we will be starting the beginners course here shortly. I am so glad I am not doing it alone.
"The man who finds a wife finds a treasure and receives favor from the LORD" Proverbs 18:22
There is one very important key to it all. Someone else must know the combination to your pattern code, otherwise your scratch is nothing more than a chicken's.
Why is this relevant? Hangul. Hangul, Korean language, is a pattern that Lauren and I are in the process of unlocking. "Learning a new language" is a nice term, however I prefer "code busting". "Learning a new language" to me sounds difficult, but the feeling I have trying to understand Hangul isn't that it is difficult, rather that it appears to be a daunting task that discourages me before I begin, but if I bust the code to that, my oh my, the relief I will have.
There are a few things working in our favor though. First, we're hungry. Go to a restaurant when you're hungry, open a menu, and read this: 김치 김밥. Oh, what's wrong? Don't know how to say it? Bummer...how are the hunger pains coming along?
Exactly -- Motivation #1
We've also heard that Hangul is wonderful once you learn it because it is very easy and logical. It isn't like the Chinese's Mandarin with a different symbol for every word. Rather, it is a phonetic alphabet similar to English. Not only that, the written word is broken into syllables (could be very help for those pesky pictionary games -- 1 or 2 syllables?).
So far we have learned a little bit. We are getting to the point where we can begin to sound out words very, vuh, ehh, rrr, eee, sss, sslll, oooo, slowww, llll, eeee, slowly, slowly! Very slowly!! (See how exciting it is?? Am in Earth class?) We know most of the letters and know it is written in syllable blocks left to right, top to bottom.
Syllable blocks??
Take Bulgogi (one of, if not our #1, favorite dish so far in Korea).
Bulgogi has three syllables. Written in Hangul: 불고기
First syllable Bul. B = ㅂ , U = ㅜ , L = ㄹ , organized into a block 불
Second syllable go. G = ㄱ , O = ㅗ , organized into the block 고
Third syllable gi (pronounced like gee(k)), G = ㄱ, i =ㅣ, organized into the block 기
So, brought together with all three syllables 불고기.
Hopefully that makes sense and wasn't too confusing. It goes (obviously) a little deeper than that, but unless you want to team up with Lauren and I and take Hangul head on, I'll stop there.
Another thing. You might be wondering to yourself or aloud "Well, that's great you can sound out a word, but what good does that do you without knowing the meaning?"
Well now, that depends on how hungry you are (we've tried some interesting things so far... WHO KNOWS what they were?!)
We recently found out from a friend and co-worker, Molly, that a University here offers multiple levels of Hangul classes every Saturday for a few hours for virtually nothing (1000 won = 71 cents right now with the current exchange rate). So hopefully we will be starting the beginners course here shortly. I am so glad I am not doing it alone.
"The man who finds a wife finds a treasure and receives favor from the LORD" Proverbs 18:22
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Career Possibilities?
My husband is a wonderful teacher. It has been so amazing to watch Christopher develop his teaching style over the past three weeks. He was so nervous going into this job but I truly have seen him do a 180 to be completely comfortable in the classroom and with the students. The kids just light up whenever they see Mr. Haws – they gravitate towards his easy-going personality. Chris is able to grab their attention with humor and they couldn’t love it more. We’ve noticed that our students are very physical and are constantly offering hugs and wanting to hang on you and that’s exactly what they do to Chris. They love that Mr. Haws is a jungle gym that also makes them laugh. I have had to interrupt Chris’s classes on several occasions and every time it seems like he has the students’ full attention and they are really enjoying the lesson. Quite a few students have even told me that math with Mr. Haws is their favorite class and I could not be more proud. I know his teaching style is a little different than mine, well at least it is according to one third grader who said to me “you so contrast from Mr. Haws, you have very many, many laws.” Even though we’ve only been here just short of a month, I can tell that Christopher is great at teaching and I’m so excited to see how the rest of the year goes.
Cheers to Chris – you’re doing a great job!
Cheers to Chris – you’re doing a great job!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
St. Patrick's Day Parade, Seoul Style
We awoke last Saturday (March 14th) and found out about a St. Patrick's Day Parade in Seoul. Well, of all things, we had to check it out. We headed down to the location where it would be. The subway ride there took about 45 minutes.
Speaking of the subway (Seoul Metro), this thing is enormous. Here is an example of how long a typical subway train is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uCez9voDdM&feature=channel_page
We arrived at the location and found a mass of people wearing green. We waited around and waited around, curious as to where this "parade" was going to be. A green priest and bag pipe player walked past us, followed by a giant Guinness balloon.
We began to follow. After about 200 yards, we realized, we, the crowd, were the parade. We walked up and down small streets in this neighborhood eventually looping back to the main stage in the park where we started at. And so concluded the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Speaking of the subway (Seoul Metro), this thing is enormous. Here is an example of how long a typical subway train is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uCez9voDdM&feature=channel_page
We arrived at the location and found a mass of people wearing green. We waited around and waited around, curious as to where this "parade" was going to be. A green priest and bag pipe player walked past us, followed by a giant Guinness balloon.
We began to follow. After about 200 yards, we realized, we, the crowd, were the parade. We walked up and down small streets in this neighborhood eventually looping back to the main stage in the park where we started at. And so concluded the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Interesting Bus Ride...
The public transportation in Seoul thus far has been A+. We can get around just about anywhere (anywhere we have needed to go that is) on the Seoul Metro.
This is what the inside of a typical car looks like...
We figured that having so much success on the the subway, busses should be the same. With that, we boarded one last Saturday (May 14).
Sidenote: The traffic in Seoul is ridiculous....truly it is a disaster. Jams everywhere, people walking in and out of it, road rage to the extreme.
Here Lauren and I are, along with our friend Lourdes (another teacher at BIS), riding the bus merrily along when suddenly the bus comes to a complete stop slamming everybody forward. After regaining my balance I peer out the front and see that we have been cutoff by a rude blue truck. No big deal, this happens all the time, I am sure the bus driver will keep his composure as he surely experiences this everyday. Nope.
The bus driver, after reversing about 5 feet in the middle lane of 4 lanes of traffic, guns the bus, swerves around the truck and begins heading down the road. "Ok, that was a bit aggressive but I think we're alright" I thought to myself right before the bus lunged back in front of the truck and slammed on its brakes.
Now at this point, I'm starting to consider why a government employee (the bus driver) would endanger citizens (and resident aliens). I am still dumbfounded by this. I didn't have much time to ponder the thought at the time though because it was about to get very interesting.
Peering out the window here comes the little blue truck from hell roaring up in the right line shaking his fist in rage at the bus. Logically, the truck driver, who we'll now refer to as truckman for the story, swerves back in front of the bus and throws it in park. Of course this brings the bus to a screeching hault, and it's passengers to a face full of the person's back in front of them. At this point I turn to Lauren who has a face that can be described as puzzled. A "wow, how did the bus driver get a job with such poor anger management skills" face.
I look back out the windshield to see truckman jumping out of his truck (quite a long jump for a man who is 5 feet, 1 inch tall). He is headed to the driver's side of the bus with a full head of steam. The bus driver, who will now be named busman, quickly opened his window to exchange polite words spoken at high volume (I can say they are polite words out of ignorance, who knows what they were saying?). After about 30 seconds of this back and forth yelling stuff, Truckman goes back to his truck. Crazy right? Not yet...
Busman, clearly had not said what he wanted, so he opens the bus door runs out up to the passenger side of the truck and flings the door open. Busman leans into the car screaming and shaking his pointer finger at the man like a teacher to a child. He then reaches fairly far into the truck, grabbed something of Truckman's, and whips back out onto the street runing back to the bus. Truckman of course hops back out of the truck runs toward the bus door, but not before Busman could slam it in his face. Pounding on the bus and screaming something was Truckman, while Busman sat there for a few moments.
Some time passes (I estimate, 45 seconds). Busman gets up, and steps of the bus to meet his nemesis face to face. They scream more. Busman then slams whatever he grabbed out of Truckman's truck onto the pavement smashing into pieces. Truckman then signs for Busman to "put up his dukes", but Korean style. So imagine, instead of closed firsts raised in front of the face, you get spread hands in the form of Karate chops.
The two men engage in a chopping match that lasts about a minute before a patron of the bus gets off, grabs the Busman and shoves him back onto the bus while yelling something at him (I can only assume something like "Ehem, excuse me sir, will you please get back on the bus and drive me to my desired destination").
Busman utters a few things under his breath at the front of the bus while Truckman returns to his blue truck and remains parked. What to do? Oh, of course, reverse in the middle of traffic, again, to swerve around this blue truck that has now delayed our lovely bus at least 12 minutes.
The end...well except for when we were pulling up to the bus stop (about 30 yards away from it) guess who swerves back in front of the bus and brakes to a stop again? Yes this is true. So, for a third time, this big public bus, reverses in traffic, swerves around the truck, and continues on down the road.
This seriously happened. I tried to snap some pictures from the Karate match, but they didn't turn out too well, here they are none the less to give credit to the story. Truckman, is the short man in the middle picture with his arm raised. Busman is the guy with glasses and a vest. The guy with a hat is the bus patron who wanted to get to his destination.
This is what the inside of a typical car looks like...
We figured that having so much success on the the subway, busses should be the same. With that, we boarded one last Saturday (May 14).
Sidenote: The traffic in Seoul is ridiculous....truly it is a disaster. Jams everywhere, people walking in and out of it, road rage to the extreme.
Here Lauren and I are, along with our friend Lourdes (another teacher at BIS), riding the bus merrily along when suddenly the bus comes to a complete stop slamming everybody forward. After regaining my balance I peer out the front and see that we have been cutoff by a rude blue truck. No big deal, this happens all the time, I am sure the bus driver will keep his composure as he surely experiences this everyday. Nope.
The bus driver, after reversing about 5 feet in the middle lane of 4 lanes of traffic, guns the bus, swerves around the truck and begins heading down the road. "Ok, that was a bit aggressive but I think we're alright" I thought to myself right before the bus lunged back in front of the truck and slammed on its brakes.
Now at this point, I'm starting to consider why a government employee (the bus driver) would endanger citizens (and resident aliens). I am still dumbfounded by this. I didn't have much time to ponder the thought at the time though because it was about to get very interesting.
Peering out the window here comes the little blue truck from hell roaring up in the right line shaking his fist in rage at the bus. Logically, the truck driver, who we'll now refer to as truckman for the story, swerves back in front of the bus and throws it in park. Of course this brings the bus to a screeching hault, and it's passengers to a face full of the person's back in front of them. At this point I turn to Lauren who has a face that can be described as puzzled. A "wow, how did the bus driver get a job with such poor anger management skills" face.
I look back out the windshield to see truckman jumping out of his truck (quite a long jump for a man who is 5 feet, 1 inch tall). He is headed to the driver's side of the bus with a full head of steam. The bus driver, who will now be named busman, quickly opened his window to exchange polite words spoken at high volume (I can say they are polite words out of ignorance, who knows what they were saying?). After about 30 seconds of this back and forth yelling stuff, Truckman goes back to his truck. Crazy right? Not yet...
Busman, clearly had not said what he wanted, so he opens the bus door runs out up to the passenger side of the truck and flings the door open. Busman leans into the car screaming and shaking his pointer finger at the man like a teacher to a child. He then reaches fairly far into the truck, grabbed something of Truckman's, and whips back out onto the street runing back to the bus. Truckman of course hops back out of the truck runs toward the bus door, but not before Busman could slam it in his face. Pounding on the bus and screaming something was Truckman, while Busman sat there for a few moments.
Some time passes (I estimate, 45 seconds). Busman gets up, and steps of the bus to meet his nemesis face to face. They scream more. Busman then slams whatever he grabbed out of Truckman's truck onto the pavement smashing into pieces. Truckman then signs for Busman to "put up his dukes", but Korean style. So imagine, instead of closed firsts raised in front of the face, you get spread hands in the form of Karate chops.
The two men engage in a chopping match that lasts about a minute before a patron of the bus gets off, grabs the Busman and shoves him back onto the bus while yelling something at him (I can only assume something like "Ehem, excuse me sir, will you please get back on the bus and drive me to my desired destination").
Busman utters a few things under his breath at the front of the bus while Truckman returns to his blue truck and remains parked. What to do? Oh, of course, reverse in the middle of traffic, again, to swerve around this blue truck that has now delayed our lovely bus at least 12 minutes.
The end...well except for when we were pulling up to the bus stop (about 30 yards away from it) guess who swerves back in front of the bus and brakes to a stop again? Yes this is true. So, for a third time, this big public bus, reverses in traffic, swerves around the truck, and continues on down the road.
This seriously happened. I tried to snap some pictures from the Karate match, but they didn't turn out too well, here they are none the less to give credit to the story. Truckman, is the short man in the middle picture with his arm raised. Busman is the guy with glasses and a vest. The guy with a hat is the bus patron who wanted to get to his destination.
Is Having Favorites Allowed?
Koreans refer to Jupiter as the Wood Star based on the Chinese Five Elements that describe interactions and relationships in phenomena. Jupiter is considered to be at the "sprouting" phase of these interactions. I definitely see this "sprouting" constantly occurring in my favorite class at BIS, Jupiter.
Eight, wonderfully unique, 5 year olds make up this kindergarten class that I have quickly come to adore. After my first class with Jupiter, I went straight to Mr. Haws's classroom and told him to "watch out for Jupiter, I hate them." Since then, my whole perspective on the class has changed - I look forward to any time I get to spend with them and can't imagine not knowing their sweet personalities. Don't get me wrong, they are definitely a challenge but they are a challenge that I want to face head on. It has only been two weeks and I have already seen the "sprouting" taking place in them. They went from not being able to pronounce their English names correctly to enunciating every syllable perfectly, plus they now push in their chairs before leaving for breaktime...huge improvement!! I can't wait to see them "bloom" over the next few weeks and months.
I was able to get all of the children in one place for a picture but believe me, it was not easy. Can you guess who the biggest trouble maker is?
Eight, wonderfully unique, 5 year olds make up this kindergarten class that I have quickly come to adore. After my first class with Jupiter, I went straight to Mr. Haws's classroom and told him to "watch out for Jupiter, I hate them." Since then, my whole perspective on the class has changed - I look forward to any time I get to spend with them and can't imagine not knowing their sweet personalities. Don't get me wrong, they are definitely a challenge but they are a challenge that I want to face head on. It has only been two weeks and I have already seen the "sprouting" taking place in them. They went from not being able to pronounce their English names correctly to enunciating every syllable perfectly, plus they now push in their chairs before leaving for breaktime...huge improvement!! I can't wait to see them "bloom" over the next few weeks and months.
I was able to get all of the children in one place for a picture but believe me, it was not easy. Can you guess who the biggest trouble maker is?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Happy Birthday Momma Haws
Happy birthday Mom!! We really wish we were there to celebrate with you today. Fortunately, we were able to talk to Joanne (late Friday Seoul, early Friday Denver) and hear about her birthday plans but it wasn't the same as being with her and the family for dinner. Today is the first "holiday" we're missing while we're overseas and it is much harder than we anticipated. We always love spending time with the family and it is hard not to be able to drive 20 minutes to be with you. Mom, you have such a generous and caring spirit - we all can learn something from you. We wish you the best today on your birthday, Friday the 13th :)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Daily Adventure
Our daily schedules are pretty crazy at BIS. There are four full-time English teachers who are responsible for teaching 170 students seven subjects. We each have six or seven different classes per day. Each class lasts 45 minutes and has 6-12 kids. Nearly every class, even within grades, is at different English level. Preparation has been key since there are so many classes to plan and organize. I still don’t know how I’m going to keep them all straight. The picture is our class schedule. Christopher is C and I am L.
Subjects:
RDB – reading
Language
Math
Social Studies
Science
Trophies – more reading
Vocabulary
R/C – reading comprehension
Writing
A Korean teacher teaches Phonics for the kindergarten children. I substituted this class yesterday and loved it!! There is just something about teaching children alphabet sounds for the first time. They are absolutely precious and it’s amazing to see the way their face lights up when they “get it”. It’s also pretty cute listening to them trying to distinguish between the ll sound and rr sound ;)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
You're a teacher, go teach
So far we have been addressing some of the things we were told coming into South Korea, and how they have played out so far. Unfortunately one of the things we were given very little information about was the job itself (this is laughable, I know).
We knew a couple of small details. We knew the name of the school, BIS (Brown International School), and we knew our classes would be no larger than 12 kids at once. From there, we had little clue about anything else. Were we going to be teaching together? How many classes would we end up having? How many total students would we have? What subjects would we be teaching? How old were the kids we would be teaching? What level of English were the children? Would there be a Korean translator in the room to help us out if we needed it? We were fairly clueless about all of these things.
We showed up Monday morning around 9:30 AM (schools starts at 10:00) not sure what to expect. We were given our schedule and the curriculum we would need for each class and told to "go teach". At this point my wife looked pretty calm, I'm sure I was a little green in the face and fairly panicked. Lauren's first period was thankfully a planning period. She would get a chance to look over the material before her first class. I, on the other hand, was fed to the wolves. I had kindergarten Earth Class.
There are three levels of kindergarten at the academy: Universe, Jupiter, and Earth. The Universe children are pretty incredible. They are amazingly bright and their English is very good. The Jupiter class is also quite smart, but their English vocabulary is just slightly smaller.
And then there is Earth.
Oh Earth.
Earth class is the "little to no English" class. So, here I am, never taught a day in my life, and I am supposed to go into this classroom with 6 Korean 5-year olds who know about 15 words of English and teach them math. Uh, excuse me? Now you can probably understand why I was a little green in the face and in panic mode.
I entered the classroom and sat down at their table while they all stared wide-eyed at me. "Good morning!!"...Silence..."How are you guys doing?...Silence...."oh boy this is going to be interesting"...silence.
After getting nowhere quick I decided that "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" would be the best way to get them moving. Thankfully, it worked. After a good couple rounds they were laughing and having fun. From there I was able to ask each of their names and open very small dialogue with them. We spent the rest of the class identifying shapes and singing more songs.
Quite an experience to say the least.
We'll try and capture some photos of the adorable kids to post.
More to come about the students/classes/schedules/curriculum/etc...
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Chomshim tu sha sayo?
Have you had lunch today?
Our first Korean lunch was absolutely delicious. After spending Saturday morning talking "business" with our assistant principal, he offered to take us to lunch (again, something we were told would probably not happen). Christopher and I struggled to keep up with Mr. Kim as he walked the streets in our neighborhood - we've noticed that in Korea people walk very quickly and with a purpose, something that I love and Chris is having to get used to. We were approached by a tiny woman who was talking very fast. She practically pulled us into her restaurant which was fine with us because we didn't know where else to go. Mr. Kim decided we would all have Kimchi Chicken (good thing we like chicken). The food came out within minutes and was piping hot. The entree was served with four side dishes (panchan), rice, and kimchi stew. It was a huge meal! Everything in Korea is served "family style" so we all just dug in.
Our first Korean lunch was absolutely delicious. After spending Saturday morning talking "business" with our assistant principal, he offered to take us to lunch (again, something we were told would probably not happen). Christopher and I struggled to keep up with Mr. Kim as he walked the streets in our neighborhood - we've noticed that in Korea people walk very quickly and with a purpose, something that I love and Chris is having to get used to. We were approached by a tiny woman who was talking very fast. She practically pulled us into her restaurant which was fine with us because we didn't know where else to go. Mr. Kim decided we would all have Kimchi Chicken (good thing we like chicken). The food came out within minutes and was piping hot. The entree was served with four side dishes (panchan), rice, and kimchi stew. It was a huge meal! Everything in Korea is served "family style" so we all just dug in.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Our new home
We had been told from a number of different people to not expect a grand welcoming in South Korea and anticipate a very small, probably dirty, studio apartment. We came in expecting the worst, but still hoping for the best.
After corresponding with Mr. Kim, our soon to be assistant principal, through broken English and Korean, he gave us and Pep Choi, our driver, directions to the new place. We illegally parked and the three of us lugged 6 heavy bags into the elevator quickly trying to avoid a parking ticket.
We reached our room, 624, and rang the charming doorbell (digital version of Beethoven’s fur Elise). Mr. Kim answered and ushered us in immediately giving us a hand with the bags. Once we put the bags on the floor Mr. Kim stared puzzled at Lauren and my feet. We looked at him; he looked longer at our feet. Finally Lauren and I realized we made the unknown (to us), fatal mistake of entering a room with our shoes on.
After removing our shoes, Mr. Kim was happy to show us the details of our fabulous new studio apartment. He had another name for it, “the honeymoon suite”. He was so proud of himself for picking out the floral bedspread to match the gorgeous wallpaper and aptly naming the room in honor of our recent wedding and marriage.
Mr. Kim was kind enough to clean the apartment for us and buy us a few essentials (bread, milk, and a frying pan among other things). We can’t thank him enough for it. All in all, the apartment is mostly what we expected.
After corresponding with Mr. Kim, our soon to be assistant principal, through broken English and Korean, he gave us and Pep Choi, our driver, directions to the new place. We illegally parked and the three of us lugged 6 heavy bags into the elevator quickly trying to avoid a parking ticket.
We reached our room, 624, and rang the charming doorbell (digital version of Beethoven’s fur Elise). Mr. Kim answered and ushered us in immediately giving us a hand with the bags. Once we put the bags on the floor Mr. Kim stared puzzled at Lauren and my feet. We looked at him; he looked longer at our feet. Finally Lauren and I realized we made the unknown (to us), fatal mistake of entering a room with our shoes on.
After removing our shoes, Mr. Kim was happy to show us the details of our fabulous new studio apartment. He had another name for it, “the honeymoon suite”. He was so proud of himself for picking out the floral bedspread to match the gorgeous wallpaper and aptly naming the room in honor of our recent wedding and marriage.
Mr. Kim was kind enough to clean the apartment for us and buy us a few essentials (bread, milk, and a frying pan among other things). We can’t thank him enough for it. All in all, the apartment is mostly what we expected.
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