Suwoning Around: It's Blog, It's Blog, It's big, it's heavy, it's wood

Hey All! So I've been in Suwon now for almost two weeks, and it's been great so far. Everything is so different to home and yet kinda the same in funny ways. Arriving was cool, it definitely looked very different, this is a culture that has totally embraced neon - all the churches have giant neon crosses on top, and advertisements in neon cover the buildings (at least, that's what I assume they are, so far my Korean stretches to "hello", "thank you" and "awesome"... so I'm definitely going to have to fix that.
School is fun, it's hard as the kids are mostly super young (our age 5) and are at school all hours of the day so they just want to play, and it's hard to get them to focus on any work except science and art, and even then I have to do 90% of the work as it's all too hard for them and they're total perfectionists. Very cute though, and most are very smart when they actually knuckle down to work.
I was pretty lucky as I had my first three days of school followed by five days of holiday, which was because of labour day, Budda's birthday and Children's day all rolled into one. So that was cool as gave us a chance to have a look around Suwon and beyond.
A Canadian girl Sara started the same time as me, and we live next door to each other, so it's nice to have someone who's as clueless as I am. We were also lucky that the Australian teachers were replaced were hanging around for another week, so they've been introducing us to everyone and showing us around the place.
We took a trip to the Suwon fortress, which was cool but we only had a quick look around, so will have to go back there. Also went into Seoul and checked out the Namsan tower, which was amazing, very high, you take a cable car on a wire up (a little freaky) then walk up further then an elevator to the very top for a panoramic view around Seoul. It was a bit cloudy when we were there so couldn't see heaps, but at night it was beautiful, all the lights were amazing. And there was a huge fence covered in locks which people write love messages on, pretty cute!
Also went to Caribbean Bay, a huge waterpark not far from Suwon. It was a fun day, although a lot of the big slides outside weren't open yet because of the time of year, probably in a month or so we will go back and go on them.
Some very cool people here, which is making the transition a whole lot easier, and I am enjoying getting to know a whole new bunch of people - all of whom have been giving me assholes for my accent, which I'm pretty fed up of! But they should get used to it soon (I hope!) So that kinda catches up to now - this week was only 3 days too, so I am looking forward to the weekend. There's a bar everyone goes to, the lady who owns it, Mrs C, is so cool, and she lets the people she likes take over the place. She's taken a warming to Sara and I (I think helped by the fact we're New Amy and New Claire, who she loved) so heading there after work (Wednesdays and Fridays are the big nights there apparently) other than that, unsure what the weekend holds.