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Tuesday March 22nd, Once every month, Wonderland takes all of the morning students on a field trip. Today we went to a
natural history museum. I thought that my kids would be little terrors-- I mean, come on, I can barely get them to stay inside a
classroom, much less keep track of ALL of them in a museum. They were surprisingly well-behaved-- we didn't lose any kids, nothing got
broken. In my opinion, that's a pretty good field trip, albeit pretty dry.
In the afternoon I tried to cash my traveller's cheques at the bank, as I am running out of cash. (In Korea, most people receive their paycheques once a month, so I have to wait till the 5th of April to get my first paycheque). However, it didn't occur to me
that they would want to see my passport. This poses a minor problem due to the fact that my passport is still at the alien registration office. If you live in Korea for more than three months, you have to register as an alien at the immigration office. They
then give you an id card that you can use at the doctors, at the bank, etc. It's just kind of unfortunate for me that the office was really backed up when I came to Korea, so the whole process takes a month. This means that I only have 35,000 won to last
me til next week when I get my alien registration card (that's like have 35 CAD). It's going to be a long week . .
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Friday March 25th, Tonight we had a big staff dinner at a seafood restaurant. We had our own private room, and
the meal consisted of several courses of raw fish, sushi rolls, gimbap (which is kind of like a sushi roll except everything is cooked in it), rice, chicken gizzards, etc. Everything was great! I ate a lot of sushi in Toronto, so the idea of eating raw fish on
its own wasn't too daunting to me, but seeing a whole fish on the table that we were supposed to pick at with chopsticks was kind of creepy. Also kind of creepy was the raw baby octopus-- I tried one, just to say I did it, but believe me, I'll never eat one
again! In most Korean style restaurants, you take your shoes off at the door, and you sit at low tables on the floor (heat comes from the floors here, not the walls). A lot of restaurants specialize in one kind of food, and often you can tell what to expect from
the menu from the little cartoon characters that are on the signs (for example, you'll find cartoon cows on a place that serves bulgogi beef). With most restaurants, nobody actually orders an individual meal; everyone shares big plates that are placed in
the middle of the table. Often the food is cooked in front of you on a grill in the middle of each table. It's pretty common for co-workers to have a big dinner out together every couple of months. Everybody came, so I think it's a pretty big deal here. But hey, I'm
not one to turn down a free meal, especially one that would have been expensive!
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