I went to my first Korean wedding yesterday.  It was very nice, but I definitely prefer the Western version better.   It was the wedding of the art teacher at my school, Tiffany, who was the designated punisher of small children.  She recently quit because she didn't have the new principal in her pocket and there wasn't going to be a class of four year olds to teach this year.  It was apparently a huge wedding in terms of Korean weddings.  There is still a ceremony, that is similar to a Western ceremony, but it is much shorter, and there wasn't even room for everyone to sit.  Also, many people skipped the ceremony all together and headed for the food.  There is a public ceremony and a private, more traditional ceremony afterwards while people are eating, but basically the focus of the wedding seemed to be food.  It was all held in the same building with the food buffet a floor down from the ceremony.  They had huge screens of the ceremony set up in the banquet hall so that you could eat and watch.  The bride and groom didn't even eat with the rest of the people, they came in much later and said hi.  There was no dancing, no cake, no speeches, nothing like that.  It just seemed really impersonal and more focused on the food than on the union of the two people getting married.  It was also ridiculously crowded.  I personally prefer the Western style.

After the wedding I had some lovely shopping time with Kelsey and finally fulfilled my dream of owning a trench coat.  It is blue and lovely.  I also got some awesome polka dot heels.  The trip reminded me why I don't go shopping often.  I have a problem.

A new teacher arrived last week.  Her name is Carly and she seems very competent and has a lot of experience teaching already so I'm fairly excited.  She moved into her new apartment and apparently during cleaning they had taken away all of her towels and sheets and things that Erik had left, like most of the foreign teachers leave for the new teachers.  I mean, what are we going to do with a pile of bedding and towels, take them back to the US?  It's just not logical.  It's also much more helpful to the new teachers because then they don't have to worry about finding these things right after they get here and haven't been payed yet.  It's not in our contracts that they provide these things so I guess they thought it was okay to throw them out.  Still sucks though.  I gave her some pillows and blankets.

The weather really sucks lately.  Today it's rainy, windy and disgusting.  It wouldn't be so bad except for the wind.  Thank goodness for rain boots.

Korean number of the day: 십삼 (ship-sam) or 열세 (yeol-say) - thirteen
Korean word/phrase of the day: 짜증나 (jjah-jeung-na) - How annoying!/That's annoying!