I spent most of yesterday preparing for classes today. First day of classes, lots to do. I will have  small Kindergarten/First Grade Class (about 3 kids) a more advanced Primary Class (maybe 3-4th grade) an upper level Essay Class (8-9th grade) and a second advanced class that I still have to figure out what is going on it. So it will be a fairly smooth day, I think my last class is sometime around 9:00 p.m.  Most of my classes are out by 9:00, but a few teachers have classes until 11:00 p.m. I don't think I could teach that late into the day, but we shall see what happens.

This will be my first week teaching, and for the most part I think I have everything ready to go, so we shall see what happens.

I forgot to mention that on Saturday, aside from all the other running around that I did, I also went out to the Herb Street, I can't remember it's Korean name, but it contains about 150 herb shops, a few that specialize in oriental medicines, some that sell only different kinds of Ginseng, and others that sell all kinds of different dried herbs. The smells of some of the stores are incredibly, a sweet, anise smell, or ginseng, the entire district smells like ginseng really. Jeanie, who was acting as my guide, took me to the Exhibition that was going on, a sort of on floor museum showing different kinds of herbs and herbals. It was really very interesting to see the different kinds of bottled herbs. All the herbs were marked in Latin names so some of them may have escaped me, but I recognized jasmine, and ginseng among others. At the end of the tour there is a little shop where you can by ginseng soap, candy, tea, or anything you'd like, including motor’s and pestles, etc. the sorts of tools one my need if they are making medicines. Before you leave they have a small pot set up with a ginseng tea made from an ancient recipe. It contained ginseng, anise, cinnamon, and some other things, which they very nice young woman at the information desk could not describe for me because she wasn't sure of the English. It was very bitter upfront, but had a very sweet finish because of the anise. I thought it was quite nice.

After that we wandered through Ladies who Look like Foxes street (where they sell lots of clothes very cheaply) and Rice Cake Street (traditional rice cakes for weddings, and formal occasions) and then back to our car, and from there to the Buddha. It was really a packed day and I was still recovering Sunday so I forgot all about it.

If anyone is interested in having some herbs acquired be sure to provide me with the Latin name otherwise I'm not sure I will be able to find it, the prices are very cheap, though, so I should be able to pick something up for interested peoples.