개울가에 올챙이 한 마리...

The lyrics to a children's song we learned in 발음 수업 pronunciation class "At the riverbank, one tadpole..."

개울가에 올챙이 한 마리
꼬물 꼬물 헤엄치다
뒷다리가 쏘옥 앞다리가 쏘옥
팔딱팔딱 개구리 됐네
꼬물 꼬물 꼬물 꼬물 꼬물 꼬물 헤엄치다
뒷다리가 쏘옥 앞다리가 쏘옥
팔딱팔딱 개구리 됐네

At the riverbank, a tadpole
Squirming, squirming, swims
Hind legs sso-ok (sound for shooting outwards)! front legs sso-ok!
Hopping and leaping, it becomes a frog!
Squirming (x6) it swims
Hind legs sso-ok! front legs sso-ok!
Hopping and leaping, it becomes a frog!

Cute song isn't it? ^^

Why I chose this line? I went with friends from class to Seoul National Zoo this Tuesday, which was entertaining, taught me a lot of animal names, and made me realize that a lot of animals in Korean end in the "ee" (이) sound, maybe because it sounds cute? Kind of like when we say "teddy" or add that "ee" sound to people's names to make it sound cuter? Just a thought :).

There were absolutely no clouds that day but the sun wasn't so strong either so there was a very tranquil, peaceful feeling what with the zoo being very empty (after all, it was a Tuesday afternoon, unlikely for there to be families) and with the sky being fully blue but somewhat foggy. Perfect day to go. We rounded off that day with a dolphin/seal show that was really fun.

Being the picture-taking freak I am, I of course have plenty of pictures to share, including some that I took of my friends to take advantage of the high-quality-ness of the lens :).
Seeing a magpie 까치 is good luck in Korea!
Something about the backs of my friends and the overall scene is very tranquil and beautiful.
Love taking "sun shining through the trees" pictures ^^.
Welcome to the Seoul Zoo!
Back to front: Leng, Kana, Naoko, Meng Ju, and Xue Qing. No idea why Xue Qing's making that expression hahaha.
Flamingoes! 홍학 Such vibrant feathers :).
Two giraffes 기린.
A rhinoceros, whose Korean name 코뿔소 I find very interesting, since it's literally "nose horn cow."
So peaceful...
This confused me SO much. I have no idea why there is a Pokemon on this diagram. I get that Mudkip is kind of supposed to be a tadpole...sort of, maybe??? But what???
I love this animal! It's the axolotl--a Mexican salamander that never grows up. Haha its expression. It stayed completely still the whole time we were staring at it.
Praying mantis! I always thought this insect was hilarious because after a female praying mantis is impregnated, it bites the head off of its mate, destroys the house, and dances on top of it (or so I heard from the Cosby Show...)
Whoo! What a tarantula!
Augh doesn't this look so creepy! I'm being a bit tricky though, because this is through a magnifying lens ^^.
Haha this toad looks so scary!
Cool looking frog, and not to be a nerd, but to follow up on the Pokemon picture before...this does look awfully a lot like Bulbasaur...
Love hedgehogs :).
Poor elephant. He just wants to leave ;_;
Leng
Xue Qing
Kana
Meng Ju
Seal handstand!
Seal dancing!
Slow dancing with the seal. Aww!
And the dolphins come out!
Sliding on to the surface.
An endangered species found in Africa I believe, doesn't it look like a pony?
Iguana!
And to round the day off we ate some yummy 닭갈비 (Korean-style barbecued chicken) mm mm delicious.

The next day, Henry and I attempted to put together a Thanksgiving dinner. A valiant effort, but unfortunately we didn't quite succeed T_T. First of all, a turkey would have cut us back 70,000W (almost $70) and probably would have been way too much for the number of guests we had, so instead we bought two chickens (that turned out to be much less than we expected after we removed all the bones and uneatable parts). That turned out pretty well actually. Our first batch of mashed potatoes went well, but due to trying to rush (after cooking for several hours), our second batch did not have enough time to boil and turned out much chunkier than we (or at least I) would have liked...the stuffing turned out pretty well and was improvised buying two garlic bread baguettes from Paris Baguette (har har) and mashing it up with chicken broth and onions (looks like a lot of our food became very mushy haha--but such is Thanksgiving!). What was supposed to become a green bean casserole basically became just our substitute gravy (as with chicken remains, we could not make any decent gravy at all and there was one can of green beans left at the market, not to mention we didn't have an oven to make a good casserole). All in all the meal ended up not tasting too bad but...

1) With only one burner in our kitchen, we ended up cooking a LONG time, not to mention reheating all the food we made, clearly not as tasty as just cooking it once
2) Without an oven, we weren't able to do roast anything, nor make a casserole. So no nice brownness.
3) 6 hours of cooking? So...tiring...

I didn't realize until then that almost no homes in Korea have ovens! No wonder there are so many bakeries here! I guess they monopolize the baked goods!
Cheers to Thanksgiving! (left to right: Henry, Xue Qing, Yu Lin, and Sean)
TOO MUCH POTATO LEFT OVER. And not enough chicken.

A few days ago, Henry had a mini-집들이 (a party you have when you invite people over to your place after you move in--usually it's pretty extravagant, but after all, we're students, and it was a hasukjip and not quite a house haha)
So we celebrated with cheesecake that Xue Qing bought that was delicious! To celebrate Henry's moving as well as Xue Qing's birthday in advance (as she will be in China while it's her birthday in January).
I've recently caught a cold (no fever though--just coughing and a slight stuffy nose, some losing of my voice) so I've taken to wearing this fun mask to prevent spread. Alas, tomorrow's the first day of school but I don't think I'll wear this...it would be pretty upsetting to have everyone thinking I have swine flu when it's just a cough lol. Not quite the first impression I wanna pass on.
Pretty view from the top of Henry's roof! Ah Sinchon, 24-7 neighborhood.
Just some fun from today--playing wii in Korean! Korea really does have rooms for everything!

All right, time to sleep for tomorrow. First day of level 5! :)