I just finished my first week of work in South Korea, so after we finished work on Friday night, my director and the other teachers took me out for a dinner to a sit-on-the-floor Korean barbecue type of restaurant. As you can see in the picture, in Korea they like to have a lot of side dishes. This was the first round of several for the four of us at our table (there were 8 of us in total). I made it clear from the time of my arrival in Korea that I don't eat seafood, so we had beef and they kept bringing it. Most of the side dishes were vegetables of one kind or another. Some of the food was not my favourite, but most of it was excellent.
As for my first week of work, it went quite well. I'm still trying to get my head around it all, but I had a pretty good time. My director and the other teachers are great, although I'm the only guy working at the school, so we'll see how that goes.
Most of the kids are pretty good, also. Some of them are a handful, but I'll figure out how to handle those ones soon enough.
The school has all of the kids choose an English name when they start, so fortunately I don't have to learn a ton of Korean names that I can't pronounce. However, this means that some of the kids have rather "interesting" English names. I've got a little girl named Cutie, a boy named Lucifer, and a BOY named Iris. I thought the kids were just joking when I called the name Iris and they pointed to him. But they weren't. It took everything I had not to laugh. I pointed it out to the director and the other teachers that Iris was a girl's name, but apparently he had chosen the name at a previous school. I hope for his sake he never travels abroad using that name.
I came across this ad and thought it was pretty cool. The resolution isn't very good through this blog, but I love the music.
I came across this temple in the park in Hanoi where Ho Chi Minh (a very popular former ruler of Vietnam) was buried.
I spent some time in Varanasi, in northern India, and took this shot down along the Ganges River, the holiest river in India. I think Hindus from all over India come to Varanasi to be cremated when they die, and then have their ashes released into the river.
I spent a day at Angkor Wat (that temple complex you see in lots of movies with trees growing out of the ruins) in Cambodia. I rented a bicycle in town and rode out to the ruins and then rode amongst them all day. It's a huge complex, and in the most famous temple I took this picture of a monk looking out into the sunlight.
I spent New year's Eve in Saigon, the main city in southern Vietnam. It was actually a pretty cool city, and I wandered all over it on foot.
This is a picture of incense coils hanging at a really colourful temple I can't remember the name of.
I haven't posted anything for a really long time, so I'm going to start posting random pics from my recent 4 month trip to China, Southeast Asia and India.
Having lived in Asia for the last 3 years, I've seen more than my share of badly butchered English, but this sign I saw in southern China takes first place. It was at a construction site and from looking at the Chinese characters, I believe it means, "Don't be in the construction site."
I'm down to my last couple of weeks teaching here in Okayama, so I've started taking pictures of some of the students. I teach these 2 little girls, Airi and Nina, on Mondays, and as the last 2 Mondays of September are a holiday this year, we had their last class last week.
I just finished my first week of work in South Korea, so after we finished work on Friday night, my director and the other teachers took me out for a dinner to a sit-on-the-floor Korean barbecue type of restaurant. As you can see in the picture, in Korea they like to have a lot of side dishes. This was the first round of several for the four of us at our table (there were 8 of us in total). I made it clear from the time of my arrival in Korea that I don't eat seafood, so we had beef and they kept bringing it. Most of the side dishes were vegetables of one kind or another. Some of the food was not my favourite, but most of it was excellent.
