Dukbokgi

When we walked into work today, we sat down and began working diligently at our presentation for next week.  I think it's coming along nicely and we were discussing parts.  As we were talking about our format and how we were going to address our Elementary School audience, a Korean girl who works with us runs in with handfuls of food.  Everyone kind of looks at her as no one really knew what was going on and then they remembered: today there was a Korean cooking class.  Surprise, we're helping with it too.

I really like work with "foreigners" while I'm here in Ehime because it makes me feel a little more at home.  Sometimes seeing only Japanese people all the time puts me in a little bit of cultural shock you know?  I don't think there are even place left in Hawai'i where only Japanese people live.  It was a welcome break from the norm and we got to make Korean food with lots of Japanese people.  It was interesting because many of them wanted to learn about Korean culture and Korean language, so I made sure to take a backseat as they purposely brought in Korean kids to interact.  People tried asking questions about Hawai'i, but I didn't go into detail because it wasn't my day for the spotlight.

There was however two people who wanted to practice speaking English, so I ended up sitting by them for a bit and trying to talk to them.  It was really difficult to control my speech patterns, but I think in the end they were really getting the hang of how I talked.  It was kind of rewarding, and I got a new Facebook friend out of it.  

(^_^)