I'm a bit out of habit with the blogging, so it may take me a few entries to catch up on the past two weeks. (Plus I'm watching Christmas Vacation in the background.....I love this movie!)
I left school last a week ago Friday (that would be the 5th... sheesh, no wonder December has flown by so far!) right after classes to hop on a bus up to Seoul. I missed the 2pm bus by a few minutes, and got on the 2:20 bus which turned out to be perfect! I was meeting up with Dan and Anne in the Seoul bus terminal, and we actually bumped into each other at the rest stop on the way up, so we had perfect timing! It snowed for the first time at school on Friday -- great big flakes coming down pretty hard. It was beautiful! And I saw snow the majority of the bus ride up to Seoul -- it was beautiful on some of the pine trees. Anyway, we stayed at Yim's House near Insadong and it is a great bargin for the price, and very clean! (unlike the last hotel we stayed in in Seoul) Seoul was FREEZING when we got there (I think 14F or so) so we ventured out for pizza and then quickly made our way back to the hotel to warm up. Oh teachers, early to bed....
Saturday morning we slept in a bit and then got coffee and donuts before our training session later that morning. Sunday we were going to proctor the Certified Financial Analyst exam. Training was pretty boring, but succeeded in making me nervous I would screw up or not follow all the procedures to a "t". The instructions manuel was 50 pages long. Unfortunately the office didn't tell us about the dresscode for exam proctors: no jeans. Which, coincidentally, was all I brought with me. So, that afternoon Anne and Matt and I went shopping and ended up getting some jeans. We also got some delicious bogumbap (fried rice) in Myeongdong. And, we saw a horrible movie called.... I don't remember what. It was a pretty slow moving movie with only 2 actors. I didn't hate it as much as Anne and Matt did, but I wouldn't recommend it nonetheless. That night we were early to bed again, as Sunday we had to be at the test center at 6:50, that means we got up at 5:25 that morning. YUCK!
It was snowing again on Sunday and it was quite beautiful. Proctoring the exam was pretty shitty -- the exam started at 9, but we had to be there 2 hours early to help set up and to check people in. I got to examine everyone's pencils, erasers, tissues, etc. We had to be super thorough -- I had to throw away eraser paper covers, and even look for cracks with cheating written inside of them in tiny letters before letting people answer. I also got to confiscate highlighters, exacto knives (I guess many Koreans use these as pencil sharpeners), and rulers. Pretty exciting stuff. Then was the first part of the exam, which was 3 hours of us all being silent and pacing around the room. BORING. There were 4 of us proctors in a room with 89 desks, but only half the registered people showed up. This is supposively the most expensive standardized test out there, and half the people didn't even show up? Come on... anyway, you know it's bad when you're hoping people will have to go pee so you can escort them to the bathroom and escape the fun vacuum that was the test room. After the 3 hour test we had a 45 minute lunch break, in which no one told us there would be NO food near the test center. I practically ran with Anne and Josh out of the campus and to the nearest food vendor we could find -- a bakery, where I got a bagel and sweet potato latte. Then we ran back up the hill to the test center, making it just barely on time, and then I scarfed down my food before the test takers (or "candidates" as our booklet called them) returned for sign in for the 2nd half of the test. The second half of the test was about the same, and I was just thinking of our $300 check that *hopefully* I will receive in the mail anyday now. $300 is sooo much better than being paid 300,000won right now. I will be mailing that puppy home and depositing it in my checking account. (Matt depressed me when he told me that our contracts are worth about $7000 less now than when we signed them due to the strengthening of the dollar against the won.... waaah!) Oh well, life goes on. After finishing proctoring the exam, I headed with Matt and Anne (and Dan met up with us later) to an Italian restaurant where I shared pizza and pasta and got myself a nice big glass of red wine, yummy! Then it was time for everyone to head back home, except for me! Since Mom and Dad were arriving bright and early the next morning, I was staying in Seoul. I actually left my suitcase at Yim's and just went to the Namdaemun jimjilbang (public bath/sauna) and spent the night there. I scrubbed up and called it a night around 9:30pm that night. The sleeping room had paper-thin floor mats and a snoring ajumma when I crawled in there, but with the help of my ipod I fell asleep pretty fast. I woke up often, but then finally got up to my alarm at 4:00am Monday morning.
I was to catch an airport limosine bus from the other side of Namdaemun market to the airport. The first bus was at 4:50am, and I didn't want to miss it! Well, I ended up getting to the bus stop super early, at 4:20. I stood there freezing my hiney off in the dark with the cold drizzle getting me wet, wishing I had stayed in bed for another 20 minutes, damn me and always wanting to have cushion time. Anyway, the bus came right on time, I crawled in, and tried to sleep but the lights were blaring and the driver wanted to practice his English, no biggie. I got to the airport right at 6am, when my parents' flight was scheduled to arrive. I made my way to where they would be coming out of the security area, and saw on the flight board that all these flights scheduled to arrive after theirs had landed early, but that they hadn't landed yet. So, I waited. And I waited. AND I WAITED. No update on the board. Finally at 6:30 I got up and followed the signs to an information desk, but it wasn't open. When I got back to the bench where I was sitting, there was an update that the flight would be landing at 6:40. But then 6:40 came and went and still no update. Then it changed to 6:50. Same thing happened. Finally at 7am the flight status said "landed." It turns out they had a strong headwind the entire way over, so their 14 hour flight turned into a 15 hour flight! It was so great to see them! I even made a crappy sign that said "Welcome to Korea Mom and Dad!" For some reason (that reason being that I'm a female) I teared up when I saw them! I couldn't believe they were here in Korea! It felt so strange to have someone from home visit me in this strange place where I've been living for 5 months. They looked surprisingly good considering the long day they had had. We made our way to the Tek-bae (Korea's Fed Ex) and mailed the two big suitcases filled with gifts down to Suncheon to my host family's apartment. (Best suggestion ever from my co-teacher! It was enough of a hassle with our 3 small/med sized suitcases all week, let alone these 2 large ones!) Then we hopped on another airport bus back to Insadong. Mom and I talked the whole way, but Dad dozed off after awhile.
The sidewalks were nice and slushy from the snow the night before, which made hauling their suitcases to the hotel a bit of a bitch. BUT, we made it!
I'm going to stop there for now, more of mom and dad's adventures in Korea to come....
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