The Noodle Factory

Rachael and I went with my Bible Study ladies and their children to see ramyun (ramen) being made. We went to the Nong Shim Noodle Factory. It was very exciting and enlightening! Did you know they fry the noodles? Now you can feel even worse about eating them!

Here are the highlights...


This machine makes 502 spice packets per minute. I really wished the man in white had been short and round. Then he really would have reminded me of an Oompa-Loompa.


These are carts full of spice packets that travel (on their own) to another part of the factory. They follow the yellow lines. I had a really cool video of us almost getting run over by one of these carts, but I accidentally deleted it. I know you are as sad as I am!


This is the machine that takes the raw dough and cuts into into noodles. Then it goes on to be steamed, fried and packaged.


They gave all of us these giant boxes with six different types of ramyun and three different types of chips.

Theft by Teachers

Yesterday a group of teachers and I ordered Subway. We had it delivered to the school. (Isn't Korea great?) It was in the break room while we were teaching and some other teachers stole some of it. I guess they thought it was a snack, but I thought it was a little presumptuous.

I was teaching older kids during that hour. I told them about it because I thought it was very strange. They just thought it was funny that teachers steal. I also had a Diet Coke stolen last week. They told me to start shaking up pop and put it in the fridge so I can catch the thief. Not a bad idea...

It was the last day of class, so at the end of the class they had to write me a letter. They had to say what they liked and didn't like about the class. None of them actually wrote about that. They just wrote nonsense, but they were pretty funny. Here is my favorite...

"(Guessing) This is happening about your dissapeared food. (My opinion) The sandwhich may have one days left to become trash. So people are sad about a large amount of sandwhich becoming huge trash. So they ate fastly. I write it very seriously, not joking."

I thought they were stealing, but maybe they were just being practical!

Valentine's in Korea

It's not quite the excitement I remember from my elementary school days, but the students still seemed to be wild at CDI today. A few of my students gave me chocolate. One girl even gave me a fancy, expensive box. They got very excited about being able to eat Hershey's kisses during class. It doesn't take much...

As we were leaving the building, Alpha and I noticed there were hearts taped to the ground. They were a few feet apart trailing all around the school. We followed them for a while, but we got tired and gave up. It looked like they went on forever. We think they were advertising something, but most of them were blank. A few had writing, but I can only read a few Korean letters. Maybe someone can translate this for us (Jennifer)? I was impressed at all the work they went to. But is it a bad advertisement if you get too tired to actually make it to the destination?


Then our cab driver was trying to tell me and Alpha "Happy Valentine's Day." He kept saying "choc-o-lat day!" I had some extra Valentine's cards and candy (thanks to Jamie). Yes, that's our taxi driver with a High School Musical valentine. He was very happy about it too!

Oh my goodness! He's dead!

Not really. I just had a moment of overreaction and that's what went through my head today.

We were just finishing up our five minute break. I started teaching when the whole room (of 8-9 year olds) started saying, "Teacher, Bin is still sleeping." I didn't even realize Bin had fallen asleep during the break. I just yelled his name a couple of times and he didn't move. I thought he was joking around because he has never fallen asleep in class before. The kids around him started poking him with pens and pencils. Still no movement.

I was a little concerned as I walked over, but I still thought he was probably joking. I shook his shoulders a little bit and still nothing. I looked down at his eyes and they weren't moving at all, so I knew he couldn't be faking it. I shook him harder and harder, but nothing would wake him up. I checked his pulse and made sure he was breathing. He was okay, but I was still really freaked out.

Looking back I realize this was a little dramatic (I've been in Korea too long), but I ran to the front desk and told the Korean staff I had a child that wouldn't wake up. One of the desk teachers came in and shook him even harder than I did. He STILL didn't wake up. So finally she pushed his shoulders off the desk so he was sitting up. She shook him while he was sitting up. He finally woke up. He was like someone waking up from a coma for a little while. He asked, "Did we already have break?" I think he'll be okay. He says his mom always has to wake him up like that.

I had NO IDEA a child could fall asleep that quickly and sleep that deeply. I hope I never have a child that sleeps like that because it would not be good for my heart!

Gooam Village Painting

Yesterday Rachael and I joined some of my Bible study friends and their children for an activity day. We took a city tour bus to Gooam Village. There are lots of different arts and crafts you can do there. Most things were closed because it's winter, but the wood painting was open. Rachael and I painted signs that say "Welcome" in Korean. It's not quite as cool as the sign a little girl made in the shape of a dog bone that says "I love my daddy." :)

Pictures

I have been so busy in the last month! My intensive class is finished now. Hopefully, I won't be such a slacker on my blog. Instead of posting all the pictures twice, I will just include the links for my facebook albums (for the few of you who don't facebook).
Here is my Korean album.
And here is my Jeju Island album.

DVD Bangs

DVD Bangs (Rooms) are very popular in Korea. You get to pick out your own movie and then watch it in your own private room with a big screen. Of course you want to select a very clean, nice looking bang (for reasons I won't mention), but we have always wanted to try it out. We finally went to one the other night. We watched a Korean movie with English subtitles. They have a lot of American films, but we decided to watch something no one had seen. The movie was My Sassy Girl. It's so cute! If you ever get a chance to watch it, you definitely should!

Won's Work

I gave the class a writing assignment to work on for about 10-15 minutes. Instead of the actual assignment this is what Won was working on...

(You can click on it to enlarge it.)
(The double T thing is a Korean emoticon for crying.)