I-suh Copy, E-mart-uh, one week finished, and Amy the tour guide

So I walked into a western looking coffee shop trying to escape the horrible heat and pick up some iced coffee. Aside from no barista appearing for a good twenty minutes, it was a nice enough coffee shop. And ah, what luck, there on the menu (in English) was iced coffee. I triumphantly made my order only to have the cashier blink twice with an empty look on his face. So I sighed, and said "I-suh copy" which, of course, was immediately understood. Same with Emart, the superstore type store here in Wonju. If you tell the taxi driver "emart" he stares blankly. So you begrudgingly spit out "e-mart-uh" and he goes "ooooooh.......e-mart-uh!" And you shake your head. In case you were wanting the analysis, they rarely finish syllables with consonants, especially not at the end of words...

I'm now an officially registered Alien. Haha. And I have a cell phone and a bank account now too. I'm set. And I'm finished a week of teaching. I found it tiring, trying to control the boys especially. Kids here do so much school! Normal school, piano school, math school, and english school. It doesn't seem like they have much time to just be kids, so that dynamic comes out in the classroom too. Its especially challenging controlling the manic kids in a different culture, with them all speaking a different langauge too. The first couple weeks were probably always going to be tiring - making the adjustment anyway - so I'm not really concerned about feeling so tired at the moment. Amy said the first couple weeks were pretty draining.

Speaking of Amy, its been good having her (and Kyle too) around to show me the ropes a little bit. What to tell the taxi drivers, where to eat, where to get different groceries, which hot dogs are gross, when to hold your breath walking down the street. You know. All that good stuff. I think its been fun for her to be the one in the know and pass on some of that knowledge instead of being the newbie. Here's some pictures of my school and my classroom.