Hey everyone! I hope you're having a great week. Well...about this time last week, I really thought I could put my coat back into the box and forget about it for 6 months. I went to Seoul Saturday and the weather was absolutely amazing. I mean, sunny, warm, birds singing, flowers blooming amazing. I was basking in the sunlight, walking around with a smile on my face. I almost wore shorts, and I pretty easily could have. Sunday cooled off a bit and the winds picked up...and by last night after school there were snow flurries as I was leaving! Yeah ugh is right! The trees are starting to blossom though, and there are some flowers starting to pop up...so I am anticipating that it won't be long until I really can put that big bulky brown coat up and not have to look at it or think about trying to get warm!
School has been going well...I've really enjoyed my middle school classes this year, there are some really smart, nice girls in those classes. I am so amazed at Koreans and their ability to master two languages. So many people here speak English really well. A lot of Koreans are quite shy, so they play it off like they can't speak English well, and then I can sit and talk to them for an hour and understand 99% of what they're saying. I think most people here are perfectionists, so they feel like if they aren't perfect and don't sound like a native English speaker then they can't speak it. But, I am amazed everyday at the skill that the kids show...some of the kids at Kids College are like 6-8 years old and they can speak almost perfect English and of course Korean. I envy them so much...funny that I'm the teacher when really they are the ones with the knowledge. Anyway...things are going well. One of my classes has drove me a little nuts some days, but most of the days are pretty good and the kids are for the most part pretty cool.
Back to Saturday...I went to watch Seoul Samsung Thunders (yes, it is Thunders, not Thunder HAHA). It was a fun game, it was cool it was played in the same basketball arena that they played the Olympics basketball in in 1988. The USA got a bronze medal that year, and that was the last time they used amateur athletes, the next Olympics was the original Dream Team with Magic, Bird, Stockton, Robinson, Laettner, etc. So, kind of cool to be in a venue like that. The Thunders weren't very good really, they got beat down pretty bad. The other team KT&G was pretty good and I think they are one of the top teams in the Korean Basketball League. I think I still like Dongbu Promy the best, maybe since they were the first team I went to see! The game was fun though, my friend got us some discount tickets from a woman on the street. She said that she hoped they weren't counterfeit! HAHA! When we got to the door though, they let us in...so I guess they were OK! :) They were like half the regular price, which still wasn't much. That's one thing I keep saying...Korea actually prices stuff fair, like we paid 9,000 Won for 2 tickets (about $7) and we were sitting pretty close. At the Bobcats games those tickets would probably be $60-75 each. Obviously the level of competition between the NBA and KBL aren't even close, but basketball is basketball and I still have fun going to the games. They had some nice give aways (Papa John's pizza and Krispy Kreme doughnuts) so we yelled loud, but didn't get anything. It was a good time! When we left after the game, they were playing a soccer game in the Olympic Stadium, so we went in there for a minute. I got a little better picture of the stadium then I did in August last year. I think it's so cool to think that's where Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson ran against each other!
I'm hoping to go the West Sea in the next few weeks as the weather warms, and also to the Cherry Blossom Festival the first week or two of April...so hopefully I'll have some great pics here soon!
