Japan = AWESOMENESS!

Wow…so for my summer vacation at the end of July, I spent a week in Japan and absolutely LOVED it! The people were so nice and helpful, the train rides beautiful as Japan is some ridiculous like 80 percent mountainous due to the fantastic earthquakes, and my experience was just amazing really! I have so many pictures so I’ve posted a few with captions to tell of my adventures :)

(They're not in perfect order..please forgive...if you want to see more, check out my photos on http://www.myspace.com/ingridannalisa)

Almost forgot to bring this with me...kinda need it to leave the country and to get into another country....

The Busan Skyline at night....quite lovely actually :)
(Busan is a southern coastal town....very laid-back beach town though also a major port city, so lots of businesses here.)

Some foreign teachers I boarded with on the ferry over to Japan...here we are eating dinner at a fabulous Indian restaurant in Busan - it's where I boarded the ferry to Fukuoka/Hakata, Japan.

Busan Fish Market
(I saw an octopus trying to escape and the adjuma [respectfully older lady] just smacked it on the head and threw it back in the bucket!)

Boarding the Ferry!

Land in Fukuoka/Hakata (not sure why it has two names), jump on the Shinkansen bullet train and head to Yokohama, borrow about 3 cell phones on the way and meet Cousin Thomas!

Yokohama Tower - tallest building in Japan but on a humid day, it doesn't allow much in the way of city views as you can see below...

Cute group of young people in their yukatas (sorta the summer version of the kimono)

The Sony building had awesome aquarium setup to show off their latest and greatest gadgets. This stuff was sitting there for photo display? Haha, I seized the opportunity!

The Japanese version of "fast food." You put your money in a machine, the machines gives you a ticket, you give the ticket to the person at the counter and they bring your food. Quick, efficient and you don't have to speak a word of Japanese to eat here! Only problem is the machines are all in Japanese....so if you're not careful you could end up ordering horsemeat! When in doubt, look for surrounding pictures and order whatever looks good on those!

Girls of Harajuku (ijime-ko Cosplay-zoku)
They dress up like this, carry around their suitcases so they don't have to go home like this I believe, and want to have their picture taken - even though they act like they don't sometimes. There are certainly worse ways to rebel as a teenager, so I am glad these Japanese teens have made theirs entertaining for the rest of us :)

INVASION OF THE KUDZU!!!!!!!!!!
(Mom, Dad - This pic is for you and all May's Chapel Folks)

Imperial Palace Gardens at Sunset

HUGE Electronics Store

Haha...I'm addicted to Guitar Hero...this is as geeky as I got in that HUGE electronics store...

Tokyo Tower...and Thomas's thumb :)

Statues for protecting children

Tokyo fashion....all movements are alive and well in fashion - the hippie, the punk, the emo, the hip-hopper....but the messages of these movements are sorta lost...or non-existent haha.

Park leading to the Imperial Gardens

Rotating sushi restaurant - yum!

It was DELICIOUS!!! (OK, so I didn't eat all that...Thomas helped...a lil ;) )

I met fabulous folks along the way in Japan. In Kyoto, I toured around with a Japanese and his American friend. We kar-ah-ok-kayed our first night - good times! Below, Tak is demonstrating how Japanese guys can rock the purses (my purse in particular - HAH!).

Rokuonji Temple (Golden Temple)

Ryoanji Temple

Niji-jo Castle (Shogun)

Geisha hunting...not much luck

Peace Memorial - Hiroshima


Self Expanatory


The T- Bridge - the aiming spot for the atomic bomb


Children's peace memorial - made of origami paper cranes

The A-Dome - where the atomic bomb actually landed

The famous Shibuya Crossing! More people cross this interesection than cars!

North Korea vs. South Korea

What better way to watch two countries duke it out than on the field? Granted…it was a soccer field (the men are a lot sissier in the Asian countries haha jk jk) but it was still loads of fun and some awesome Koreans taught me how to say “Go South Korea!”

P.S. This was mid-Juneish? Still playing catch-up ;)

Friends and Field

After the game with the Korean Friends

This reunification flag went up during one of the breaks and my friend and I jumped underneath it! This was taken by the Japanese media friend. (Explanation below.)

We ran into a member of the media...haha BIG surprise. He writes for a Japanese magazine that specializes in Korean tourism. Click on the below link and scroll to the bottom to see it!

http://www.konest.com/data/korean_life_detail.html?no=2193

Here is the translation he gave me:
"Foreigners also support the re-unification!!"I happend to meet Americans who seemed to support South Korea. Infact, they were not for the South, but for re-unification of thedevided Koreas. One of them said; re-unification of Korea must begood, because she knows what it means with her father experience. Herfather is an American from Germany. They were under that big fragwishing the re-unification day came.

Haha I love Engrish ;)

June Weekend Trip to Gwanju

This trip requires its own post….it was really a fun, eye-opening experience for me.

Finally, I was able to see some of Korea’s country side….which is a lot of agriculture. I’m not sure if land zoning restrictions even exist in this country….I think you can just plant a garden anywhere you so choose if you own the land, hence the many many many many many rice fields and soy bean fields, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.



In Gwanju (Korea’s 5th largest city), I attended my first Korean sporting event - a Gwanju Samsung Tigers baseball game. Yeah companies blatantly own the teams here haha. They were playing the LG….Seoul….don’t remember the other mascot…oops. Guess the advertising gimmick works….good job Korea. Anyway the game was loads of fun! The packed stadium of people was so enthusiastic about the game with their cheers and spirit sticks, we (other foreign friends) couldn’t help but conform.



The most important thing one can see when visiting this area of the country is the May 18th Memorial. In 1980, the citizens of Gwanju gathered the strength to rise up against the military dictatorship of their city. Protests were a daily activity until one day, the military opened fired on the unarmed citizens. A few days later (May 18th), the people gathered together ready to defend their city in the name of freedom. The memorial and museum, located a few minutes outside of the city, is dedicated to the citizens that lost their lives and/or were injured in the defense of their city.

More recently, a Korean movie was made depicting the event. An exact replica of Gwanju in 1980 was constructed for the movie and never torn down. The pictures of the town and the tank are from the movie set.

I quite enjoyed this trip. It gave me a chance to really get to know this strange country in which I live. I was particularly effected by the May 18th memorial, as it happened not so long ago and the faces of the victims seem to still haunt the city…

(A protest sign on the movie set against American beef...really needed a Big Mac for the right affect but oh well haha)

Playing Catch-Up

I’m incredibly behind so for the next few posts, I will update you as best as I can on things....in no particular order.



~ I’ve visited the electronics market once and WOW! It spans as far as the eye can see. (Sorry for the cliché. I know it is bad writing, but I am trying to get as much info down as quickly as possible and it is the only thing I can thing of to describe how vast this place is. And yes, I know as much time as it has taken me to explain my bad writing, I probably could have thought of something better in its place but oh bother dash it all! I am only human….) You can find anything and everything related to electronics in this place. You have to be careful though. Fakes and phonies truly do look like the real thing in Korea….clothes and electronics included.






~ I went to a barbeque in Itaewon on the rooftop of a friend’s friend’s apartment building. The view was abasolutely awesome, as you can see from the picture! We had yummy hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, salads, casseroles, dips, etc. It was like a barbeque back home! Made up of mostly foreigners, I met an interesting group of people, older than most others I’ve hung out with. Many of these people either used to teach or are still teaching. Several I met are involved with the Seoul Players, an English community theatre group here in Seoul! I’ve ushered one show for them and might audition for the next show that comes around…




~ Shopping in Korea is amazing and overwhelming. There is SO much stuff…it is no wonder Koreans are so into fashion when it is everywhere and sold so incredibly cheap! The problem I am finding, however, is that I am much bigger than the average Korean girl. I have to be careful of what I buy…most places don’t let you try things on!








~ I really wish I had a picture of the HiSeoul Festival for Buddah’s birthday. I went on a Sunday evening, and wasn’t sure what to expect but what I saw was nothing I would have imagined. Koreans know how to put on an entertaining show. There were three stages set up in the middle of City Hall, with lights and streamers everywhere that changed colors. The most interesting thing of the evening was the repetitive event of young people wearing strange jester-like neon-colored costumes as they danced the same “Macarena” style dance (similar to what we did at the lantern festival) about 7 times over the course of an hour. While they did these dances, these TV screens flashed pictures that I found humorous looking of Buddah doing a happy dance overtop of various psychedelic backgrounds. I also got to hear (and sort of see from what I could stretch) “You’re the One that I Want” from Grease….in Korean. It was also incredibly strange! There were famous Korean singers, one who was famous about 10 years ago who is now in a wheelchair, and all kinds of different acts such as an all-girl drumming group, a tap dancer with a violinist, and the list goes on. At the end of the “shows,” my Korean friend told me that the announcer basically said, “Old people and children go home because it is late and we are going to have a dance party for the teenagers now.” Hahahaha, sometimes it is funny how blunt Koreans are…




~ The 2nd Annual Seoul World DJ Festival was…well a DJ Festival. I’d never heard of any of the DJ’s or bands…which confused me in the first place. Why were bands playing at a DJ festival? Oh well…. It was not as big as I had thought it would be but it extended over two days. There were a lot of people there, both foreigners and Koreans alike, all dancing to very loud unce unce music. That’s about all I have to say about that really….






~ “The BBoy and the Ballerina” was an amazing show! Korean teenagers are REALLY into hip-hop right now so it was basically a show made for teens to go watch some really good live hip-hop dancing. I was a little disappointed in the ballet portion of the show...they weren't even en pointe! Oh well.... I have pictures and video clips of some of the dancing but it really doesn’t do the show justice. There was so much talent in this dance fest!

Check out this video clip of some of the guys in the show!

OK enough for one entry….second one coming up soon with more catching up!

Teaching Tots

Wow…I’ve been here two months…can you believe it??? Where did the time go???

Well with that much time in, I have a well-rounded perspective on my teaching experience here - something I know many of you are eager to know about!

First of all, I LOVE it (most of the time). The kids are ADORABLE (most of the time) and VERY smart (most of the time). There are certainly frustrations, as there are with any job, but there is nothing that a double shot of espresso can't get me through haha. No seriously, the reward of teaching is much greater than the stress level of the job (for me anyway).

My first week was information OVERLOAD. I was given an observation schedule for Tuesday through Friday and I just watched classes and tried to understand what was going on. No one really explained anything to me but luckily I’m not afraid to ask questions – which is what I did the entire second week when I was thrown into the fire! But my first teaching experience actually came on Friday - my last day of observation. They asked me to teach my first afternoon class: storytelling. It was EXTREMELY overwhelming because there were so many kids of different ages AND I was by myself. YIKES! I have since discovered that afternoon classes aren’t as big of a deal as regular day classes...wish I had known that at the time but hindsight is an ability we all wish we had.

I work for the Pine division of YBM - a large education company that has several smaller branches underneath it. (You can view the website at http://www.ybmpine.com/schools/overview.asp.) We’ve added another class in just the two months I’ve been here and will be adding another in July. My schedule has changed already because enrollment has continued to grow, as it is a relatively new branch in the school system. However, the basics are the same. My work day is from 9-6. Regular classes are from 9:30-2:30 with classes running in 30 minute increments. I teach about 8 a day, plus I have a couple aftercare and afterschool program classes every day that run till 4:30. My afterschool classes vary in their schedule. Some days I teach from 2:30-4:30 and other days I might teach for 20 minutes.

Days can be difficult because I have SO many classes to prepare for and I basically teach babies haha. We have children that are as young as 18 months up to 5 years-old (in Korean age which means they are really only 4!). They are ridiculously smart. Some of the students have parents that speak perfect English and those are typically my best students BUT I am amazed at how some of them understand with little or no English experience. I am sure all the media and Western influence has a lot to do with it, but either way, I am humbled by 3 year olds that speak more languages that I do. (FYI - Some are learning 3 or 4!)

I am more grateful than EVER for my musical upbringing. It has a wonderful effect on the children. When I can't get them to pay attention to a book or to a particular lesson I'm trying to teach, I sing one of their favorite songs and BAM - I have their utmost attention. So I think it only appropriate that I use song lyrics to explain how my teaching experience has shaped over the past two months. Rodgers and Hammerstein expressed it best through “Misses Anna” in the musical, "The King and I":
"The children, the children,

I'll not forget the children
No matter where I go I'll always see
Those little faces looking up at me...
At first, when I started to teach,
They were shy and remained out of reach,
But lately I've thought

One or two have been caught

By a word I have said

Or a sentence I've read
And I've heard an occasional question

That implied, at least, a suggestion

That the work I've been trying to do

Was beginning to show with a few... "

My Oldest Class - Puppy Class!

They offer an afterschool ballet class on Fridays - too cute!

Adorable little Damien! One of my babies who was selected as "Student of the Month." (I had to tickle him to get him to smile.)

Our Picnic Field Trip was rained out so we had a sort of "Field Day" in the gym. Here is Judy - the child that is my sister's reincarnated Korean spirit....seriously...if Helena had been born Korean, she would be Judy.

The kids had a "No TV" week. It took forever to get Jay to take the picture with his certificate so we um...tricked him basically.


This is from "Crazy Hair Day." We had a lot of fun with this one!

With Zane's mohawk and suglasses, I only thought it appropriate to teach him how to do the "Rock and Roll" symbol... (Lothar should be proud!)

HAHA! One of the teachers actually wore this wig for the day but the kids had fun trying it on!

This is a class that I only have once a week. They are ALWAYS full of energy so once a week is enough! But they are cute, aren't they?! (Note Hyunsoo bottom left that looks like a really cute little gelfling from "The Dark Crystal" and the "Peace" signs.)

Don't worry...more to come! I'm a busy girl!