His mom took us home and asked me about what I like to do. We discussed hiking, camping, and from there- Amtgard. The son acted as interpreter, so I had a fun time trying to simplify Amtgard into terms he can understand. I'm pretty sure neither of them got it. But him mom said I should join their family to for hiking and camping. She is so sweet; I would love for that suggestion to pan out.
I made my first trip to the post office today to mail a parcel to my sister. I was nervous about how many mail options and questions there might be and whether anyone would speak English. But I worried for no reason. Everything went simply and smoothly and only cost W9,000 ($7.64). I have a whole mess of things to mail home first thing next week.
On my way home, I passed a vending machine where you could try to win prizes by positioning a pole to push through a small plastic hole to push the prize from the shelf to the receptacle below. I am not the kind of person who indulges in midway games of skill. But two tries for W1,000? OK, I gave it a go. And then I had to have the unlicensed crappy crap prizes. 12 more tries for W5,000. OK. I got two prizes! But the toadstool remained behind the plastic, mocking me, and I was out of small bills. :0(
I braided my hair on the bus today so it would stay tame beneath my Santa hat, and I wondered to myself why I had yet to see a Korean with braided hair. Sure enough, one of the students brought her friend to school who wore pigtails. It made me smile.
Today was Market Day at school. Instead of teaching, the children get to spend their accumulated "dollars" from the semester on crap to give their families for Christmas, including pens, erasers, notebooks, sleep masks, animal purses, and clocks.
And one of my students "bought" me this. I think it's a bastardization of "petit dejeuner," meaning "breakfast." What is a girl to do with a coffee mug as big as her face anyway?
Last night one of the teachers tried and failed miserably to teach us a polka dance. Instead, I taught everyone a Middle Eastern dance performed at weddings and such (I learned it from belly dance performances) that consists of five steps and is easy to teach and to learn quickly. Everyone approved, so for every class hour today, I taught the dance to a mass of children and led them through the different rooms.
Each new group of students was asked if they'd like to perform a talent. The first one of the day has made an indelible mark on my memory. Little 8-year-old Romeo got up and did an awesome sexy boy band kind of dance to some pop music. <3! Two boys did a karate demonstration and one did a card trick. I got to perform poi every hour. *Glee!*
After work, I swung by the Baskin Robbins for ice cream and to break a 10. You know where I went next... back for the toadstool! I got a pair of hula dancers in 3 tries, but in 9 more attempts, the toadstool still eludes me. I departed with a stony glare, planning to return tomorrow. I've only blown W13,000 ($11.06) so far on three toys with wins on 1/10 tries.
12/27 update: I wandered into a store last night that happened to sell these particular toys. Awesome, this will make things so much easier, though I was secretly disappointed at not having to win them. So I checked the price... W12,000 for one toy?! Didn't I just get three of them for that price? Today I spent W6,000 on 14 tries and got three more toys, improving my average to a 16% success rate (I had to hit one of them twice because it got stuck) and spending W3,167 ($2.70) per toy.
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