The weather has really started to warm up so running and more outdoor activities are becoming more frequent. Saturday was gorgeous and I needed to get out of the apartment, and I actually ended up running three miles. I know it's not much to some, but considering I haven't run much in quite a while, I was quite proud of myself. Later on, a group of us drew a Four Square court and played until dark. The school kid in all of us came out pretty quickly and I have a feeling we'll be playing a lot more...along with hacky sack and basketball of course! Next weekend the entire staff will even be participating in a race! Some in the 5k, and some in the 10k. We were given a new workout shirt to wear and were told "no excessive running" because our boss doesn't want us to "have a heartache" or die. Very glad for his concern; he is kind.
We spent Sunday in Daegu. We did a little bit of shopping, a little bit of eating, and a lot of walking around looking at the new and interesting things (we're in month four and still find things surprising). I've mentioned it once before but "crane games" are all the rage here. There are thousands of them all over the country. Walking down a single street in Daegu, we probably saw at least 10. They are small little narrow rooms filled with crane games and all the stuffed animals - mostly Pokemon - that you can imagine. In some of these rooms, they have other games as well. One that we went in on Sunday had a shooting game where you had to hit so many targets before you won a prize. Luke hit the first 12, and then the targets popped back up one row at a time. He won the game... and was awarded a pen as his prize. It was a sight to see haha!
Stephanie, Sam, Luke and I found a restaurant called Wild Sushi. Luke had been craving (real, non-Korean) sushi since we arrived in Korea and he finally got it. We were able to split a chicken fruit salad, a plate of raw shrimp, and a large bowl of soup between the four of us for under $9 a person. It was delicious and was probably the nicest restaurant we had been to yet. Score! After some more meandering, and checking out some neat stores like Tomato (which was one of my favorites, it is like a Korean-style H&M/Urban Outfitters mix) we took another break at Korean Dessert Cafe. We ordered a Green Tea Snowflake Sherbert dessert. Sound weird? From the picture (which is pretty much all we rely on to order food) it looked like a huge bowl of ice cream, with a ton of chocolate and two scoops of green tea ice cream on top. So naturally, we went for it, with the mature decision to split it among the four of us. As we all attack the bowl with our first bites, the dessert immediately starts crumbling to pieces - snow dust flying all over the table. The "ice cream" that we assumed was underneath, was actually shaved ice from frozen milk. It tasted like snow. Like they went outside, scooped up some snow, and put green tea ice cream on top of it. It was like they pranked us, but with something many people in Korea eat and enjoy. Needless to say, we were very disappointed.
"The Green Tea Snowflake Sherbert Experience"
BEFORE... 
AFTER...
This week, we have 14 students total so very small classes, therefore we are co-teaching again! Although instead of teaching every class together, we are alternating classes. Towards the end of the week, we will begin interviewing and testing students for evening class so half the teachers will need to be in the Teacher's Room working on paperwork. Luke and I have the lowest level class, with only four students. The students are very low so we slowly went over days, months, seasons, and weather words the first day. There was a lot of repetition, drawing and hangman but there was also a lot of patience. Most of our students are excited and very sweet and are really trying to learn English, but we do have a student that Luke and I have found to be a bit troublesome and distracting. It's just another obstacle to overcome and learn from. Giving the student something to do that will be engaging and not take away from the other student's learning environment. It was only day one so hopefully we can get a better grasp on it as the week continues. It also helps that we are alternating classes and have each other to work with!
I shall end this post by gifting you with a handful of interesting yet unexplicable things from our day in Daegu.
I'm so sad it's blurry, but I had to document our exciting trip back home to Gyeseong!
