Uyu and Waeguk

I've been trying to write a new post for a few days now but Teaching!
It will be a learning curve...I've taught my first few classes, so at least my feet are wet now but my goodness, there's a lot to learn. The teacher who I'm replacing is, like, teaching queen so I'm just hoping the students don't compare us. The older kids are much easier to work with. I enjoy the littlest ones because they're cute, but the material is harder to teach even though it's simpler. I think because the older kids are learning, like, what I learned in English in high school. It's easier to be analytical than to communicate with 6 year olds when I don't speak Korean. MUST LEARN MORE. The 7/8 year olds are super brilliant, though! And super cute.

I thought I'd learned the word for milk ("oyo") and was sooo proud of myself. In fact, the word is "uyu" (우유). At the coffee stand in E-Mart (the grocery store/market closest to me,) the lady was very nice and gave me milk when I asked for "oyo." I think she remembered me from the day before when I simply said "Milk??" (gesture gesture.) Good Lord.
This afternoon, I wanted to use some internet, so I brought my laptop down to a cafe downtown and asked "Americano Juseyo?" There was much confusion due to my amazing accent. They had to speak English to me. But couldn't. I got my drink and said, "Oyo?" The lady stared at me blankly. "Milk?" She gives me frothed milk, I DON'T KNOW! I hate not speaking enough Korean it feels douchey! I also said "Juseyo Americano?" the other day. WHAT I WILL DO FOR COFFEEEE!

(I'm not actually sure what is being said here.)

Fun facts: Cars here are basically all black, white, and silver.
Cars do NOT stop for pedestrians, but biciclysts are about a thousand times more polite than Seattle ones, even though it is customary to ride on the sidewalk.

I am getting BBQ in a little bit here with my co-teacher and her boyfriend. First Korean BBQ experience in Korea!
It is odd but expected, the waeguk (외국--foreigner) community here is larger than I thought it would be. I went out last night and met some awesome foreigners from all over the west! In fact, I was one of only a few Americans. The funny part is that walking to find a cafe today, I ran into fellow foreigners on the street. I'd heard about the EYE CONTACT--TALK phenomenon, but...you must. It seems like you are bound to run into all of the foreigners in Chungju at some point, so meeting on the street is a fine way to do it! And perhaps it is even rude if you don't say hi, you know? It reminds me of living in LA as well as traveling culture (staying in hostels etc.) I don't know, this is very scattered. I thought I'd be able to formulate a coherent blog post, but alas!

Photos will happen as soon as I move into my apartment, which will maybe happen tomorrow.