Sanbon Market and Café Tranae

On the way to Sanbon Market with Alyssa this Saturday afternoon, I saw a Coffee shop that looked nice: wooden walls and door and pictures hanging out in the windows. I suggested that we'd go have a coffee there on our way back. 

It was a great idea: the place not only looked amazing, the coffee was great too. The place itself looks like the type of coffee shop I would like to open if I ever own a Café one day. Wooden interior with coffee making tools on on nice shelves all over the interior walls and expensive English cups on display. They make drawings in the foam and aspect of the place has this nice feeling of calm and happiness one gets when relaxing without looking at the time going by. 

 If I had to find a flaw in this coffee shop, I'd go with the price of the items on the menu. They go from 6 to 8 dollars the cup. I suppose that is a decent price to have awesome coffee in a nice ambiance and use the free Internet do to homework or any type of work actually. 

We also went to the Sanbon market <3 (which was the original goal of our little trip) and I had an overview of the stuff they had there. I actually bought body cream (!?) at the market: the weather is much much drier than I expected and my skin is slowly dying... I am thinking of buying a humidifier for my room because my throat sorts of hurt every morning from the dryness... 

Theme Cafés 1

 Small Coffee places are like insects in Korea: you can walk up one street many times, and notice one that you never had seen before, and even if you think there are none in a sport, you just need to look a bit more, and you'll find one in a matter of seconds. I'll be uploading a few posts throughout the year about those, because I intend on trying many different ones. 

This small coffee place is on the main street I walk along to get to work. I found it mainly because I was looking for a place to get a quick coffee on my way back from the hospital (general test to get my Korean Alien Registration Card). What attracted my attention was the fact that they sold their coffee $1.50. Usually, coffee shops sell them $3-$6 so this was really cheap. I remember telling myself that I'd just try it, and if they'd good coffee I'd go again. Korean coffee shops are usually very small, and I have no idea how they can keep going because they mostly have space for 10-15 people only. They are rarely crowded (or I was just lucky) so either the rent is very cheap, or they have millions of take-outs. I liked the coffee there but oddly, I never got to try it again. I should just go :P

Another thing about coffe places, but also most of the restaurants and buildings in Korea is that they don't have their own bathrooms. They usually give you toilet paper and a key and if you are lucky, you go out in the corridor and get to a non-heated bathroom. If you are not lucky, you have to get out of the building completely and walk around a corner to get in the building through another entrance and use the toilet there. I suppose that might help with lowering the rent: having only one toilet per floor per building, but it's really inconvenient, especially since the toilet, in winter is freezing, and I suppose that in the summer it must be unbearably hot. There is also the happy moment when you realize you forgot to bring the toilet paper on your way and you are sitting with your pants down...

I went to a sort of theme café by the Sanbon metro station and when you get there, they place you in your own small room, with pink wallpapers and old- style frilly furniture. You order a drink, and between 1 and 6 pm, you get a free cake. The coffee is quite expensive but it's a fun place. It was a bit awkward to go there alone to be honest, but I suppose I'll be awkward often since I need to go around by myself, people I know not being that interested by random cute coffee places...

Day to day: Busy, but Happy

I find myself writing another entry tonight, but I doubt it will be great reading material: I am writing so that I will not fall once more in the I-stop-once-to-write-my-blog-and-then-ten-months-later-I-realize-I-haven't-written-al-all sort of trap. So here I am: every single day since I got here, I have been studying songs and stories to learn them per heart (and know each single word of stories that sometimes don't even follow any patten when it comes to "the/a" etc. yay!). I realized yesterday, that I had been silly in my observation of other teacher's classes. I had focussed on learning the songs and see how to intervene with students when they did not do as they're told - which surprisingly does not happen that much - and had forgotten that while the order of things and the way they interact with the students might be natural to the teachers, I personally haven't taken enough notice of those small and important details. 

Now I am studying both songs and stories, while trying to learn the course activities' order and make sure that everything ends up looking and feeling natural for the students. 

I tried other coffee places around Gunpo but up so far the best I have tried is Café Towb: both the coffee and the place are really nice. I went once more yesterday to study in a different environnement (and give Alyssa, who's housing me, some time for herself: while I don't think I am a bad guest, I AM taking a lot of space in her flat, and I know having time on your own always is nice) but this time I tried getting a tea. They do have a large variety of nice teas and herbal teas so even if I end up going often there, I don't think I'll be bored of the place or the beverages they have there. I tried sweet ginger tea: it came in a pretty glass teapot and they brought it in a wooden tray. I also had a sandwich, but while it was tasty, I would not get that another time, $8 is a lot for a sandwich: I will got for dessert next time, it fits more with the place, and also they look amazing. 

NESQUICK IS EVERYWHERE! They have the pink one too! <3 

Happy Psy advertising Shin Ramyeon black

강남의 고다방

First time walking around Seoul today~~

The weather was above zero for the first time since I got here so it was quite pleasant day to walk around, even though I cannot say that it was "warm" yet. The weather was still not inviting for hiking or the like, so I thought going to a museum and try a nice coffee shop could be sweet. 

I really want to go see a Teddy Bear Museum while I am here ( I know the most popular is in Jeju island, but I read in a couple places that there is also one in Seoul) so I asked A if we could try to go there. Not being familiar with the place, I left the direction taking to her but we somehow never got to have clear information on where it was and turned in circle for quite a long time, including a complete bus circuit going up Namsan (it was supposed to bring us at the Museum, but no one seemed to know which stop it was so we just ended up looking around. Result: we had a complete bus tour around Namsan for 10 cents). 

We decided to leave the Museum search for another day and try our second destination choice: CAT CAFÉ! The Cat Café was in Gangnam, right beside the exit of the subway station. It was quite easy to find but we got to wait some 30 minutes before entering (there was space to sit so it did not seem that long). 

The Café has tons of rules to follow to make sure nothing goes wrong with the cats. And they many. Like, a lot. Like, tons of them. As you enter, you change into slippers (typical in Asia) and sanitize your hands (less typical) so you don't pet the cats with hands full of whatever can be on them. You need to buy at least one drink, that will cost you 8,000won (approx. CAD$8) but that will allow you to chill out there for as long as you want. The drinks are poured in takeout format cups (I suppose that is to avoid having cat hair in them) so you don't really need to worry about them spilling. 

All in all it was really sweet, I love cats, they're such cuties.

I just realized that most of the pictures I took of cats were of
the big rounded faces and small eared ones: easy to know
what type of cat I think is the cutest  <3

This cat is a male called Honda (like the car: all of the cats there have
car company names)and has a special story: he is a TV commercial diva

Yooga nae : awesome food, cozy place

After we finally got back to Sanbon in the crowded subway, we decided that we should get a well deserved pancake from a little takeout store in front of the apartment building teachers live in. This was just amazing: the pancake sorts of have a sugar coating that makes it slightly crispy, while being tender enough to be cut in pieces with a plastic spoon/fork. I wanted the strawberry one, but I got banana-choco since they did not have them. I think it was the right choice in the end, I know know if the strawberry one would have been half as tasty as that one was. 

Cat Rounds

I don't remember where I know this from - don't even remember from which language I learned it from, but I was once told about the idea of "cat rounds": just how cats wander around new places in circle, slowly increasing the size of the latter until they get acquainted with all their surroundings...

That's what I'm doing right now, at least, that's what I try to do. The fact that the weather is so cold right now does not help me go out when I finish at work (10pm : COLD) and in the morning, for now anyways, I am trying my best to keep learning the stories and songs I will be tested on this afternoon at 1:30. Meh. Not like I can do anything with my brain: I am still a bit jet-lagged so I get tired quickly at night and I never was a morning person when it comes to study. 

I initially thought bringing my cloak-like coat to Korea would suffice for the humid winter of Korea, thinking that wearing warm clothing underneath would be enough, but I was wrong. I decided to get a coat here (with actual sleeves) as well as a scarf and mittens. That should keep me going for a while I think. 

I really like the fashion here, but I realized that at least 80% of what I like here is way out of price: I found a nice coat in a store that had nice shades of green (color I don't have much so it would make a nice change) and when I looked at the price - $780; I look at small not-supposed-to-be-pricy items to hang after cellphones, I pick the only one that is $30 (the rest being between $3-$10). The coat I ended up buying is orange (!!!) and was %50 off. I got lucky, I think that color of falling out of fashion, so I got it cheaper, but I don't really care about what's in and what's out: I am more of the I-like-it-then-that's-enough type of buyer.

One of the Cafés I was introduced to is Café Towb. It has that homey feeling to it that I like very much. There actually is a second floor but I haven't gone yet. The coffee shop is right by the place I work and they have free wifi so I might end up there often to study for my classes or just chill. Their coffee is really tasty and they bring tea to you in very nice looking china. I haven't tried tea yet but it's on my list. I love to have warm drinks when it's cold outside: makes me happy. 

Oh, and the people who work there are all good looking. If I ever open a store, I want to have that: people can say what they want to delude themselves, good looking people make a place much better in so many ways.

I'll keep doing cat rounds, see if I find other interesting Cafés and keep updating when I find the time

A-Class Academy

Today I followed the teacher I'll replace in February in three different groups she teaches to. There are two things I can say for sure after today: the place looks awesome, all the rooms are bright and well decorated, nothing looks cheap and everything seems brand new; and the kids are incredibly adorable. My favorite classes are what they call the Meysen groups of young kids, a name that comes from a Japanese curriculum using songs to teach English. I've seen level 20 of young 8ish years old kids, who are actually really advanced, but I found it amazing how they love learning. It might just have been because their teacher is really good at what she does, but well, at least I have got to see an awesome example <3

I like the small kids' classes better than the older ones because there is more energy and movement, but then, I was told that the older students I saw today were particularly amorph if compared to other groups. I'll be watching classes all week and should start co-teaching starting of next week. Now the challenge is that I have to learn all the songs and stories for level 1 and level 20 kyaaa >.<

This is the desk of my roommate of the moment, a sweetheart who's got
a lot of stories to tell

Doesn't that look awesome? I'll take picture of the classrooms later.

Here is the very inviting A-Class Academy hall

I just realized I hadn't had any picture of me taken since I came
here! Truth be told, I don't really like that picture because it looks
like my waist is super large T__T