Korean Jesus loves ramen

Yesterday was another experience ... I went to church with my host-mom and oldest host-sister. They are self-proclaimed Catholics but have started to attend a local Presbyterian church so as to impress my host-sister's boss who is Presbyterian.

Koreans: 1
God: 0

I asked my youngest host-sister if she was going to come with us, and she was shocked I even asked. She then explained to me that Korean middle and high school students don't usually go to church because to do so would be to waste 2 or 3 precious hours of study time. She instead opted (well, her mother opted for her) to stay home and study.

Koreans: 2
God: 0

Church was ... interesting ... to say the least. It was all in Korean (it would be a little silly to think they would attend an English speaking church), so I sat through about 50 minutes of a sermon and about 20 minutes of some really beautiful gospel music of which I understood about 1% of what they were saying. For the first 10 minutes or so I attempted to pick out certain words to try to get a feel of what the pastor was saying, but soon realized that was too ambitious of myself. Our 6 weeks of Korean class did not cover holy words. A real shame, as I am not prepared to preach the gospel in Korea ... one more point for the Mormons. (There are tons of American (duh) Mormon missionaries over here)
I was, however, able to understand when exactly to bow my head and clasp my hands together for prayer. Success. Jesus would have been proud. I also found it interesting and slightly amusing that Koreans use the English word "amen", they do not have a Korean word for it. They spell it out in Hanguel, but it is still pronounced "amen". Well, their pronunciation differs slightly ... after each prayer and song the congregation would say a group "amen" which I understood to sound exactly like "ramen". But maybe they were actually praising the delicious noodly dish. Around 12:00 with lunch nowhere in sight, I probably would ask for some ramen too.
Following the service we hurried down to the basement and competed in some type of competitive eating contest to see who could scarf down their rice, kimchi, and bean sprouts as quickly as possible. We were in and out of the lunchroom in about 10 minutes ... which was fine with me, I did not desire any second helpings of kimchi.
We then hurried to what my host-mother continued to call "churchy education". A group of me and about 10 other old Korean ladies sat on the floor and drank tea (almond tea - which was absolutely delicious) and listened to a man who came in and spoke for about 20 minutes. Again, I had no idea what he was saying, but I was able understand that in various parts of his lecture he mentioned hair, honeymoons, English (probably referring to me in some way), and Samson. He also gestured a lot and drew invisible maps on the wall ... but that didn't really help me understand.
Overall, it was a good experience ... I'm glad I was able to witness a Korean service. I'm not too sure if I will be a regular church-goer during the rest of my time in Korea, but now that I've gone once I'm pretty sure that my host-mom believes it will be a regular thing.

After church I went with my host-mom and my host-brother shopping for shoes and bread. My host-mom buys the oldest daughter shoes and makes her dresses, while makes the youngest one study. I'm starting to see a Cinderella story in the making ... I just hope I'm not another evil-stepsister they somehow recruited from America. Anyways we arrived at the shopping district in Gwangju and my host-mom and I set out for the shoes while my host-brother did God knows what. She spent a solid 45 minutes trying to pick out the best shoes while I was showed a bench and given a juice box with "Orange Drink" written on the label. Absolutely fantastic. I can't say I wasn't too upset, most of the shoes were too small/narrow and I have no desire to own 4 inch heels. After buying 3 pairs of shoes we then walked around for a bit and in a very nice gesture my host-mom took me to a store where they have "big size" for Rauren. Great. Regardless, I didn't buy anything and we looked around for a while. My host-mom bought me a couple hair accessories (apparently my hair isn't too big) a GIANT blue bow and a sparkly heart. Both very cute ... both very Korean.

I now find myself finished with the very first day of school (the first for me, not ever) at Hwasun High School. I only teach two classes on Monday and have already planned my lesson for the week, so I hung out / amused myself with the computer for a couple hours. (you will now likely see an increase of blogs during the weekdays because of my new found free time at school) I would like to socialize with the teachers and get to know them better, but have found that none of them in my teacher's lounge speak English and are extremely busy preparing lessons and teaching.
This morning I was officially introduced by the head principal to all the other teachers. I stood in front of all of them as he spoke about me (in Korean, of course) as I nodded my head and smiled. They seemed fairly happy and clapped when I did my fanciest bow. I then found out that I had to introduce myself (also in Korean) and managed to mention my name, that I'm from Indiana, and that I like Korea and the Korean language, but it is hard. This was also met with applause and silly grins. Making a first impression. Check.
The two classes that I taught today went relatively smoothly ... as smoothly as a first class in Korea can go, I guess. I played 2 truths and a lie with them and they all seemed to enjoy it. Most of the students wrote very basic sentences "I am a sexy guy" (yes, that was one ... a truth to be exact) "I am 15 centimeters tall" (pretty sure that one was a lie). All in all it went well, I really just wanted to establish myself as their teacher and gauge their English language ability. Check, check(I guess).
A few observations from my first day of teaching.

Korean kids are absolutely adorable. Way cuter than American kids ... hands down.
They all wear school uniforms here - and today, unknowingly, I wore clothes that are really similar to their uniforms - I hope they don't think I'm a new transfer student.
They probably won't seeing I'm about 1 foot taller that EVERYONE here.
Korean high-school students have no shame. They will ask you anything.
I will have to get used to being stared at when I do everything. Everything. In the cafeteria today I'm pretty sure I was the center of attention. Though I guess it is pretty fun to watch me shovel rice in my mouth. (and I actually do shovel) I was allowed about 5 minutes to eat this afternoon. I think all of Korea is in one giant eating race.
The students speak Korean way more in the classroom than I expected ... I guess I was spoiled from Camp Fulbright where the kids didn't speak Korean at all. Definitely something to work out throughout the year.
My students are much lower-level than I first expected. My work is really cut out for me.

Well it's now time for me to study some more Korean with my host-mom. Today: transportation. Hopefully after this I will be able to explore the busy streets (they aren't busy - unless you count the bales of hay that roll through the town) (there's really no hay here - joke) of Hwasun sans host-family.