Today one of the students brought in Cheeto's for a snack. All of the other students where very excited and gathered around to get their share. After dolling out the Cheeto's I had one myself, and was a bit taken aback by the very sweet, almost carmel taste with just a hint of Cheese, it was very strange. Cheeto's also have prizes in them like cracker jacks, which they kids were very excited about.

I managed to locate a store where one could purchase Doritio's so one evening I bought some to munch on while watching a movie. Alas, Doritios where nothing like I would have expected. They had a very grainy taste and tasted almost exactly unlike cheese. I have not purchased them again.

I went to Donga where there is sandwhich shop. I wanted to buy a vegitarian sandwhich. I asked the sandwhich artist behind the counter to make an italian submarine sandwhich without meat, she smiled politely and then I watched as she put all the various things you would want onto the sandwhich. When we finished we completed with a discussion about why I did not want ham and why ham is actually meat. Korean's understand how to make food without meat, but they do not consider pork or ham to be a meat product. This can lead to some confusion if I ask if something has meat (Co-gee dur-a iss-i-yo) and they say it has no meat only to take a bit and discover some form of pork sausage.

Coffee here is hard to come buy. Fortunately we have a real coffee shop just across the street from the school where one can easily purchase very good quality coffee. However buying real coffee here is pretty much impossible as a pound of ground coffee costs $20,000 won (something like fifteen dollars a pound American). If I want to make coffee at home I have to use instant, but I have to be careful which kind of instant I buy because most of the instant coffee here comes with sugar and creamer pre-added and taste like sweet brown water.

Korean's also make a very strange pizza which has a thick heavy crust, lots and lots and lots and lots of cheese but very little sauce. It is for the most part a very passible pizza, but the sauce tends to be a little two sweet, and the enormous amount of cheese can make it difficult to eat.

Sometimes I would really like to be able to have a conversation with the parents of my students, but most of the parents speak little to no English and when I do speak with non-communitive parents they nod their head politely and smile and then go talk to my Korean partner teacher and laugh while talking about Sara (add korean word for teacher which I think it sanj-nim i.e. Sara-sanj-nim) and make me feel a might uncomfortable for the effort.

I miss T.V. without subtitles.

I miss being able to purchase refried beans. I like refried beans, but they are not available here for some reason. I'd ask someone to send them but they don't have canopeners in Korea. Most of the cans here have pop tops, so it is very hard to open a can that does not have a pop off lid.

I miss allot of sleep.

I think that about covers it. It has gotten quite chilly here quite quickly, I've been told that it is more like December weather than October weather. I'm not quite sure what to do about my laundry as there are no dryers in Korea and you have to hang your laundry to dry. The place where I hang my laundry is sort of outside my apartment and this morning my laundry was damp, and cold, but not really dry. Koreans do the heated fans, and I may find myself procurring one to dry my laundry.

I think that covers it.

I also miss all of you. A great deal, and apologize for not writing more personal emails more often, although I do try whenver I get mail. I teach more classes then the other teachers so I am often too busy to do anything else. For example, while I was typing this e-mail I solved the problem of giving a listening test to 30 students when we don't have a big enough room, confronted a crying child, helped a Korean teacher translate some english, answered a grammer question, helped a teacher figure out how to teach phonics to her younger class, and discussed class motivation with the Director. Talk about multi-tasking.