STUDYING HARD

Poor Eunmi has decided to attend an English classes every weekday this month. So that means after a long day of work Eunmi comes home at around 6:45 or 7pm and then at 7:45 she goes to her 2 hr class which finishes at 10pm. And this is every weekday!
It's a big commitment on her part, and she is enjoying it, but it's also very demanding to go so long without really resting during the week. It's great to hear her speaking in English though, and she's impoving all the time.
Anyway, so we figured we should try and do something fun this weekend, like to go a water-park or something haha.

FAMILY PICNIC

It's been difficult to see Eunmi's family altogether since the wedding, in particular Logi, Eunmi's 2nd brother because he's not only very busy but also been prioritising his time to see his delightful daughter Chae-yi. She has been living with his wife's parents family ever since she was born so Logi has to travel to the other end of Busan from us so we haven't seen him much. Anyway. So that's why it was really special for us to all go out on a picnic together by the river. Chae-yi has grown up a lot and she's just learnt to walk last week, but she's so cute. So we had a delicious and lazy picnic in the park which was just what we needed I think.

VISITORS FROM SWITZERLAND

A while back we had a couple of visitors come an visit us all the way from Switzerland. My second cousin Olivier and his wife Nadège. Actually we'd never met them before but they were doing a Tour of Korea so we gave them a place to stay as they visited Busan.

We had such a great time with them, it was only a couple of days but we went to all the tourist spots like the fish market, Busan tower, and even had time to go on a coastal walk followed by a true Korean karaoke experience, not to mention eating great food and having great conversation. The following day they came with us to church and we went on a church picnic which was nice and warm, everyone had prepared food to share and there is one guy in our group who is excellent at cooking so we enjoyed gourmet food out in the sun with all our friends.

So it was a really wonderful time for us, and I think Olivier and Nadège had a positive expereience of Korea too. I just hope that one day soon me and Eunmi can go and visit them in Switzerland!

4D CINEMA

A bunch of guys from church wanted to watch the new Superman movie last week so I decided to go with them.

We then decided that we would watch the movie in 4D! Which is basically a 3d cinematic experience with the added effect of water that sprays in your face, wind that blows your back and chairs that move like a roller coaster ride.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I was quite surprised at just how much the chairs moved, I think I got a bit of motion sickness. Also, during the fight scenes my chair would poke me in the back or swipe at my ankles. 

It was a fun experience but i'm not sure I'll be going again, the action in the movie itself is enough for me I think.

DISCIPLINE

My co-teachers are great, while I'm happily teaching they keep a close eye out for any misbehaving students. The scary part is that they use solid wooden sticks when dishing out punishments. In most cases the students are given a choice of either doing cleaning or lines or a whack from the stick. About just over half of them seem to prefer stick.
It's also not uncommon to see students lining the halls or back of the class on the floor in press-up position.
I certainly don't remember have anything like that kind of punishment at my school growing up.

SPEAKING EXAMS

I've been doing speaking Exams all last week. That means interviewing all 700 of my students individually!
It was quite fun, those who had prepared did well but there were a lot of students who just tried to wing it... unsuccessfully I might add. Korea is well know for having a high success rate in education, which is great, but actually kids are drilled for acing exams. They do exams every few weeks which are often multiple choice and especially with english they learn how to spot the questions and work out the grammar without, in some cases, actually understanding the meaning or being able to use that language in practice.
So actually their test scores don't seem to reflect their ability to communicate with the language very well.

CHAE-YI'S 1st BIRTHDAY

Chae-Yi, Our nice, just turned 1 year old (Western Age). She was born only a couple of weeks after I arrived here in Korea. So it reminded me that i haven't been in England for over a year already.
Anyway she's really cute, she's not quite walking or talking yet but she's almost doing both (making lots of noises and coasting along using tables and book cases).
We bought her a British Bunny as a present.