Hallelujah Hallelujah

Last night George and I made the trek to Seomyeong, and area of Busan that apparently has a bookstore with a great selection of English books.
We weren't disappointed!

I was so spoiled at home ... able to read a few new books a week, and had a steady steam from the library and Pam. I haven't been able to do much reading in Korea so far and it's been killing me! I brought 4 books with me but they are all long finished, so this bookstore was soooo exciting.

Seomyeon is about a 25 minute subway ride away, and the bookstore was literally steps from one of the exits and clearly marked. The selection of English books was great considering we are in a foreign country, and I managed to cut my selections down to 4, but I'm sure I'll be back soon enough.
I'm happy to have reading material again, especially since I am on the bus for half an hour each morning and night and can only play so many games of sudoku on my cell phone!

Today my school played host to a national news network. Apparently our school was chosen most beautiful in Busan. They seem to spend a lot of money of plants and flowers, which have taken over the entrance ways, hallways and every spare corner, so I'm sure this honour was well deserved. The took a quick video of my afternoon English class, as well as a few other classes that were going on at that time - I'm a celebrity!

I also made headlines last week - in my school's newsletter. The picture of my staff room birthday party made the newsletter, a picture in which I was forced to wear a birthday hat- super attractive! I'm not sure what it said. Again, I need to learn some Korean.

Teaching is going well, I now teach on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons without a co-teacher. For the older students I actually prefer it, but grade 1 can be a little difficult! Their vocabulary doesn't extend much past numbers, letters and very basic words. I often ask, "How are you" and get answers ranging from, "My name is...", to "It is rainy today". Luckily they understand the commands "Be quiet" and "Sit down".
My co teacher brought name tags to class this week and I think I know most of the names of the Grade 1, 3, 5 and 6 students. I'm getting there!

I did some nice intervals on the beach with Erin on Tuesday morning and plan on doing a longer run tomorrow morning and a swim on Friday before work. Add that to the 100000's of stairs I climb daily and I'm staying pretty active!

The stairs here really are wild. To get in or out of any subway station there are at least 4 flights of stairs. And if you have to transfer between lines there are even more ... so a minimum of 16 flights per subway expedition! We usually take the subway about 5 days a week. And I figure that at school I go up and down the 2 flights about 10 times a day between trips to and from classes and the water cooler. My calves are getting huge!

Tonight the teachers from my school are going out for dinner, and if i have time afterwards (and am not dragged to noraebang) I might check out a Korean language class in Haeundae.

Thanks for reading! :)