Welcome to A Side Order of Kimchi!

Hey dudes!

So here it is! The already infamous blog that you all (okay, maybe only some...) have been waiting for! Sorry about the delay; excuses include, but are not limited to: not setting the blog up while still in Canada so that all pages/tabs/instructions/etc. are in pure English as opposed to Korean or Konglish (more on that later), not having the internet until a couple of weeks ago, not having a computer able to connect to said internet, and finally having a nasty bout of various colds and flues since our arrival (no doubt a team effort between all you microscopic Korean bugs and you cute, innocent-looking little germ incubators at work). Luckily, I've been jotting down our goings-on and will be posting entries over the next few days, as though I'd been doing it since Day 1, and hopefully get everyone up to speed on what we've been up to over here in South Korea. Miss you guys!

Once this blog gets underway, I'll try to finish up some shorter posts with entries from one of four categories, as follows:

Chalk One Up

Here, I'll be assigning a point to either Canada or Korea, based on something that is super awesome in one country, while-not-so-awesome in the other. I can't provide an example, because that would be taking away from a future post, but I'm sure you'll all get the idea.

Konglish

If you haven't already figured it out, Konglish is the hybrid language of Korean and English, similar to Chinglish (Chinese and English) and Frenglish (French and English). It's usually the result of translating each word in a Korean phrase into English, in the hopes of making an English phrase, with no regard for grammatical rules, proper sentence structure, idioms, etc. And it's EVERYWHERE in Korea. For some reason, Korean manufacturing companies feel the need to plaster English words and phrases all over their products (clothing, stationary items, kitchen ware, etc.), as if in the hope of increasing sales (English = cool, you want to be cool --> buy something with English on it??? I'm still not sure...). Regardless of the reason, it's freakin' hilarious, and I'll be keeping track of the best/worst of it here.

Student Quotes

Here, you'll find some of our favourite things that students have either said to us directly, or written in one of their books. I almost forgot how random and hilarious kids can be.

Korean-English Dictionary

Here's where I'll introduce you guys to some Korean terms and/or concepts that don't necessarily have a direct English counterpart.