Slow But Steady Week

Well, it's official. The highs are consistently above 80 degrees and I'm melting. Pray for me friends, for I shall be a puddle soon. NO fans in the English room yet, and the air conditioning is not cleaned so we can't use it yet, plus we can't use it a lot cause we're a government entity and there's an energy crisis and blah blah. Can't we start using solar power or wind power more so I can use the damn AC?!?!?

Anyway, despite the heat, I had a good week. Classes went ok, open classes are pretty much over, I understood Korean class this week, I'm feeling relatively healthy. Overall, life is pretty good. 

Since it was a basic week, I don't have a ton of pictures or stories... sorry. Sometimes my life is just mundane and normal here too!

Remember how we met Eunhuk last week? If you look at the
corners of this photo, you can see mine and Sarah's hair haha.
I'm in the left corner. I know this because I was the only blonde
girl in the shop when he tried that hat on. Bam.

My 5th graders have a food based unit
this week, so we had a cooking class. They
made dumpling dough pizza, and one group
made one for me!

My co teacher brought these awesome little
coffee packs to the office. They're like $1 for
lots of different flavors. I love iced coffee
so they're perfect for me, especially since I
can get caramel macchiato flavor for around $1.50,
which is like $4 less than they normally cost
at coffee shops

I don't normally take pictures of my lunch unless there's something interesting, but Friday was MY FAVORITE SOUP EVER. 

ricecakes, mandu, beef and potatoes. It's basically
heaven.

On Friday, we also had a subject teacher's dinner to celebrate our awesome open classes (I guess). We went to a Vietnamese restaurant and I just went with what my co workers ordered, which ended up being this:

Crab fried rice

It was delicious

I'm moderately concerned though, because at the restaurant, I started getting hives on my hand. Just a few, and only on my right hand, so I'm not sure if I had a reaction to something I ate or that some bug bit me and it bothered me. I stopped at the pharmacy on the way home for allergy meds and took them, and the hives went away, but now I'm nervous that I can't eat crab or that I'm developing an allergy... I should go get that checked out... I'm not sure if something they added made me react, or it was a pollen thing again. I seem to have more sensitivity and susceptibility to hay fever here, so I'll be keeping an eye on that and keeping the allergy meds with me at all times.

Since I had the dinner and we ate a lot, I went home kinda late and basically had a food coma for a bit, before spending the rest of the evening chatting with friends and going to bed. 

In the morning, I cleaned and relaxed, then headed out to Gangnam with Cesca to meet her friend Helen and see Pitch Perfect 2. We had to sit separately because the movie was so crowded! But it was still fun, even though the Korean couple next to me probably felt weird, since I was laughing so much at the jokes that most Koreans didn't catch. The first one was definitely better, but I loved this one too (except for a few awkward, not super great jokes). 

The movie theater happened to be near GiGi's cupcakes, which is developing a reputation aomong foreigners as having the best cupcakes ever. Koreans don't usually do cake and cupcakes, so when they do, it usually isn't as moist or, well, delicious as they are at home. But Gigi's, man. Their flavors are all awesome and deliiiicious. 

cupcake mobile!!

They always have about a dozen flavors. I always want to eat
about a dozen cupcakes. 

We limited ourselves to 4 kinds. They're a bit expensive, like any dessert in Korea, but they're sooo worth it and we usually can make them last a couple of servings. 

We got cookie dough, tiramisu, chocolate caramel
and double stuff oreo. They are all wonderful.
10/10 would buy again. 

Saturday night and Sunday morning were reserved for Korean variety TV, which I'm watching more than dramas these days. When you watch too many k dramas, they become too predictable and annoying. I'm currently only watching one that airs once a week, Orange Marmalade. It's about vampires and humans living together in a tense compromise, and is a little bit Twilight esque, with a vampire girl and a human boy falling for each other. I'll have to see where it goes, but since it's only once a week, it's not too crazy. 

I recently got OBSESSED with a new variety show though, because my other one (Abnormal Summit) takes forever to be subtitled. This one is called I Can See Your Voice, and it features famous Korean singers trying to determine if the people on a panel of around 8 guests are tone deaf or skilled singers. Through elimination rounds (visual, speech, lip sync and questionnaire), they must pick who they think is tone deaf, and MUST sing a duet with the last one. If that person (revealed literally in the middle of the duet) is tone deaf, they win like $500, and if they are skilled, they get to record and release the duet digitally. Everyone gets a chance to sing, and it's heartbreaking when a skilled singer is eliminated, but hilarious to see the tone deaf people succeed in deceiving the audience and the singer.  It's highly entertaining. Korean variety TV is really out of the box and awesome, plus it's an easy way for me to hear more natural language use and improve my listening skills. Win/win!

This week, I've got 90 degree temperatures and kickball practice to look forward to. Woooohooo 

>.<

Can't believe tomorrow is JUNE. Whaaaaaat?

I do get to use my AC in my apartment tomorrow though. I promised myself I'd last till June with just my fan. I made it! But once the humidity kicks in, man I'm gonna need something extra to survive. Wish me luck!!

Stay cool out there, friends. Enjoy your last day of May!

~~

I'm obsessed with the song one of the singers, Hwang Chi Yeol, sang on episode 2 of I Can See Your Voice, because it's really mellow an djust awesome. It's nothing like kpop either, so don't worry about that! He sang it for an OST like 9 years ago, so I can listen to it over and over again, thankfully!

We learned part of Infinite's Back at dance class this week. It's crazy hard and I'm exhausted, but it was fun. I LOOOOVE this song, so it was awesome. Those guys are incredible dancers, man.