January

So I've been really busy! Saturday I only taught Seung-Hwa on Saturday morning because Jimmy slept in then we went out to eat some pho which was delicious as always. Then he helped me drop off my film so hopefully we'll have pictures soon! After that I had a lesson with Emily and Melody then I went to Jihyan's house and had dinner then had a lesson with Alex (her husband).

We watched the movie Tae Guk Gi which is an amazing story of the Korean war. It was really sad especially because the characters reminded me of Eddie and his younger brother. If you know them and you ever see the movie you'll see what I'm saying!! It was super sad. The older brother is a shoeshine boy working in South Korea just so he can pay for his younger brother's school and the younger one is a really good student. Then the military tells everyone a war has started and they need everyone between 18 and 35 so they take the younger brother. They aren't aloud to take all the men because one is supposed to be left behind to help the family but the older brother runs on the train and tries to get his brother off in trade for him because his brother is the future of their family. This begins their story of the older brother trying to take care of the younger brother and the war. It is a very bloody and tragic story but it was very good.

Sunday I taught Amy and Sery then I headed to Yongsan to meet with Eddie and Danny and his family.....

We walked together over to Dragon Hill Spa and paid the $10 to get in then we put on bracelets that tracked our spending and had a key on them. The first stop was to lock up our shoes then we walked to the main entrance and sad good bye to the guys and we took a "Women's Only" elevator to the 3rd floor and Danny and Eddie took a "Men's Only" elevator to the 5th floor. Once there we found our lockers and striped down. Keep in mind I was with Melody... so she that look interesting to she kept poking at me and her mom would yell then she would run away... I grabbed my tissue size towel and covered up a little and walked to the showers. After showering we went in a 38 C then a 40C then 42C then outside to a Japanese type of spa with hot tubs in the cold air. We went into a salt bath and a ginseng bath and a honaoke bath (?) after that we sat in the sauna for a while then.... I got a scrub down! Its a room with 4 tables and older women in underwear with scrub towels called "Italee's". This was the scariest part!!! I laid down and she got all my dead skin off from EVERYWHERE. She scrubbed for a while then dumped water on me then soap and water again then she gave me a strange massage where she hit me a lot then it was finished. I felt like a dog getting a bath. It was very invasive and unusual but when it was over I was clean so that was nice... After sitting in a cold tub in a hot sauna for a while with Melody we changed into our Sauna outfits (shorts and t-shirt) and we went down stairs to the main area we went into Jade Sauna's and Egyptian Sauna's and green air sauna's and ice sauna's (just a room full of snow blasting out cold air) then we walked down to the cafeteria and had dinner together. I had som U-don noodle soup and rice with kimchi (still not my favorite but I ate it). Then we got out swimming suits and all went swimming together in a warm pool outside! It was really nice but the temperature was almost too hot so we had to jump out occasionally.
Danny talked to as a lot about everything... but he gave us some good news that Eddie will be working with 2 little boys. Since Eddie doesn't have much experience he is going to get $20 from each of them but he is going to play games and just talk not really teach and it will be at the same time. AND! Sean the other boy Eddie and I started teaching may cancel his English school lessons because its a really bad school so then we will teach him 2 times a week!!
After the pool we walked around to more sauna's and spent a long time in one pine sauna that was like sitting in a kiln for pottery... We walked into the small brick building and sat up against pieces of pine wood. while we cooked out all our water. We were very tired at this point (we had been there for 5 hours) so we decided it was time to head home. We gave back our bracelets and paid for our $20 scrub down and $5 dinner so it wasn't too expensive. We said our good byes and made it home around 11:30! So we watched a little TV then I fell asleep immediately!! I spent yesterday (Monday) drinking lots of water to recover!

So yesterday I met with my new student Enzongcha at her home. I got to the area 30 minutes early to give me enough time to find her house but I was lost and I couldn't find it... Finally I asked someone for help and he directed me further down the road then I was looking... When I finally got to her apartment it was 11:30 so I was 30 minutes late but I had called her and notified her I was lost. She tried to explain where it was but it was very confusing so she mostly kept saying "10th floor" because that's where her apartment was. So I finally found it and we had a good lesson.

Enzongcha is in her middle 50's but looks about 30. She is the youngest of 8 children. Her father died went she was very young so her mother raised them by herself and they were really poor. She is married and VERY wealthy now she has two son's one is 27 and the other is 24. The 24 year old son is in the military and the 27 year old son just moved to Minnesota to study English. She is planning on taking a trip there in June to visit him so she wants to study English with me until then. We had a great lesson. Her level is very low but it is easy to teach her because she is so friendly and wants to learn. She told me she goes to bed at 2am then wakes up at 5am to go to church and pray then she spends her day at the gym (training center) swimming laps and doing aerobics then she comes home and cooks or reads her bible or goes shopping. She told me her husband is the captain of the company then we changed that to boss because that made more since... She also told me they have traveled the world many times and she ownes a actual house outside of Seoul and in a couple of years she and her husband are going to pay for a new church to be build for their church group. So our lesson went on about 2 1/2 maybe three hours then she took me out to lunch to a really great Thai restaurant. We had a chicken salad (with dressing! EWW) then egg rolls (with pork so I ate pork for the first time yesterday!) then chicken on bbq skewers with peanuts that was really delicious then chicken stir fry and we finished with a beef pho soup which I ate the noodles and drank the broth from. Its so stressful to tell people I don't eat red meat so I just let it happen and did my best to eat around the meat and not look crazy. After lunch she walked me to the subway and gave me an envelope with money. I headed home but when I looked to see what she had paid me I found $40 for a 4 hour day I was expecting maybe $80 but we'll see if the lesson's go long like that again next time or if it is just a first time introduction thing...

When I got home I was tired from walking so much so I laid down for a while then we met Kenny at teh gym at 5 and worked out for a while. I've been running on the ellipticals each time and its been getting easier so thats nice. After we worked out for a while Nick met us outside the gym and we went to an all you can eat BBQ restaurant and I had a lot of chicken. What you do is you sit at a table and they bring bags by and you put all your stuff in the bags to keep them clean then you fill up plates with raw meat and you cook it youself on a hotplate in the middle of the table. It costs $5.90 then its $1 for bottomless soda so its pretty cheap and I got enough protein for the week.

After dinner we had ice cream and went to a board game room and played Sequence again and Eddie and I won 3 out of 5 games! After the game room we found a PC room and played star craft for a while but Eddie and I were destroyed by Nick and Kenny mostly because I am really bad at it! Around 1:30 we said good bye to Nick (he's leaving for the US today) and we walked home and passed out. We usually don't do very much but these last few days have been packed with excitement. Today we're working out then I'm off to teach Sery for 1 hour! We also have to go to the post office to pay our really high electric bill and mail out a letter to my grandma Wanda because she doesn't have a computer so I have to snail mail her.

Our bill: usually about $83 but this month it was $94 so we think that the whole building gets the same bill because we didn't use much electricity at all in fact we were gone for 8 days and yet its $11 more... so hmm.. and we still haven't even turned out the heater just to save money... but I guess not... so thats frustrating that we can't control our own bill but its only once a month. The only other bills we have are the cell phones and they are like $15 a month which is amazing!