This is my toothpaste. Apparently it's "anti-calculus"... I don't know what that means exactly, but hey I don't want calculus on my teeth anyway.

I absolutely hate going to the doctor just because I hate being on anti-biotics. I always try to self-medicate until it gets serious and there are no other options. One of the reasons I hate taking meds in Korea is that you never know what exactly you're taking.

When you go to the pharmacy to collect your prescribed meds they give it to you in seeled packets ~ one sachette per intake. It's all measured out or chopped up so that you take exactly what you need without any fuss. It is pretty cool I guess, but I'd love to know what it is that I'm consuming.

Below is a picture of one day's worth of my tablets. Marked 1 to 4 for each time of the day. Even my cough syrup was measured out into a container so that it's just enough to complete my course.

Despite the fact that in Korea it's okay to not cover your mouth when you cough, or to spit on the street, Koreans are actually concerned about hygiene ... when it comes to clean hands.

These are some of the posters at my kindergarten. The first one  is a reminder of what you need to do, especially when you have a cold; the other  is  step-by-step instructions to ensure you've scrubbed all the important parts.

And these are just some of the posters at one basin. The kitchen, dining hall and all the bathrooms have more posters.

Just something random (because I find it so useful and efficient) is the payment system for utilities or any other type of bills. When you receive your electricity bill for example, you simply tear off the little slip and put it in the ATM, the money is deducted from you account and you get a receipt...how easy is that?! 

I really wish SA would implement this system, as well as bank books. At first I thought having a bank book was very old school, but then I realized how useful it is. You can use a bank book at the ATM instead of using your card, and when you do this it automatically updates your book - listing all your transactions. It's way better than drawing a statement and receiving a piece of paper that will just get lost amongst all the other papers in your bag.

Totally random... but just another cool thing about Korea!

So yesterday was my birthday...but I'm not one to ever advertise it, so I've never mentioned it to my students or fellow teachers. However, it did come up at the beginning of the year when teaching Gr6 lesson 4, When Is Your Birthday? and we discovered that I shared my birthday with two (out of my seven) sixth graders. Because of this the students remembered and reminded all the other students. It made me feel quite special when I was greeted with "happy birthday" this morning.

My fifth graders blindfolded me before I could enter the class and then sang Happy Birthday to me and handed me a poster with bday messages on it, and a gift ~ a scarf knitted by one of the girls.

The white board was also decorated with messages ^^