Ocean View

Some pictures of the view of my friend's apartment in Busan. The school he teaches at is only a five minute walk.

This wonderful view is from the 17th floor. He's far from downtown, but I guess close access to the beach makes up for it.

While this area is still part of Busan, the place we were staying at is on an island. It took us about 45 minutes to get here from the train station, but it was worth the trip.

Tainted canned bamboo?!

A few days ago, my aunt sent me this informative, but disturbing message to me about canned bamboo made in China. Her message basically said to avoid this product at all costs because they come from old bamboo chopsticks. I asked a few Koreans if they were aware of this practice. They told me that they knew about this several years ago!  All of them also said that its the main reason they avoid eating bamboo at cheap restaurants. Even worse, some informed me that there are several reports every year of Koreans being hospitalized from continuously eating canned bamboo from China. I think I had better follow their advice and not eat any bamboo unless I know it's fresh! This reminds me of all of those food industry documentaries all over again!

 Don't these chopsticks look familiar?

After cutting, some unknown ingredients are added

 Flour being added

Is this soy sauce? I have no clue!

 Receiving the boiling treatment

 Placed in a jar for storage

 Storage in a fridge

 This is the result 24 hours later

 Ready for take out

 Yikes! This almost looks like the real thing!

Don't forget to...

Just a few samples of what I have my students do in class. The topic was about forgetting things. I would put up a picture on the screen and ask, "What would _____ _____ forget?". Each team had two minutes to think of an expression for each picture. After that I had them speak out their expressions. The students got pretty competitive once I mentioned the team with the most points would receive a prize. Great interactive activity to use for sure.

Sunday Martial Arts Stroll...

As some of you may know, Taekwondo is the official martial art of Korea. Our middle school has a team, and the students on the team are very dedicated. Since I used to practice taekwondo, I definitely appreciate watching them compete. I see the whole team train whenever I go over to use their exercise room. The team gets quite intense, as they practice about 2 hours a day.  In preparation for the junior national tournament, the training was about 3 hours on some days. I attended the quarterfinals yesterday and it was fun to watch. Even at the middle school level, the students are very skilled. On several occasions, I saw students pull off jump turning side kicks to their opponents heads with no hesitation. For the ones unfortunate to get hit by this, they go rolling about 5 or 6 feet. Some of them will just get back up as if nothing happened - talk about tough competitors! Two of our students advanced to the semi-finals. As much as I'd like to go, the semis start on Friday morning, so my attendance is unlikely. The top three in each weight class will receive a medal and a plaque for their respective school. Last year our school brought home a gold medal in the middleweight division. Best of luck to my students and hopefully they will bring home a medal or two!