BRRR... it's cold outside!

It is 10 degrees outside right now and even though I have experienced worst, the cold seems to be unnnbeeearrraable. With that being said, this week has been quite a breeze! There are 3 english kindergarten classes in my school. One of the teachers who usually has about 13-14 kids in his classroom, had NONE on Monday due to the "swine flu". When I say "swine flu" I mean the kids got a common cold and their mothers think it is the swine flu. So Tuesday I only had 2 of my 9 kids show up which made a perfect day to cut out snow flakes and make little Christmas ornaments! My boss finally decided to have a 2 day break for Wednesday and Thursday for the school which was a nice surprise for all the English teachers! I took the time on my two days off to fill out Christmas cards, do some last minute shopping, and send out some Christmas packages.

On Thursday, Karla, Rebecca and I went to Dongdaemun which is a huuuuuuge shopping area with decent prices. Unfortunately, the shopping area has their best things available later at night so we didn't get to experience the entire area, but I still got to atleast scratch my shopping itch just a little bit. The shopping here is EXTREMELY agressive a long with everything else in Korea. The area we shopped in was basically a hallway sectioned off by curtains for each clothing vendor. There really wasn't much time to sit there and look and debate what you wanted. You had to make a quick decision whether or not you wanted to buy something or else your life was endangered of being trampled on by a line of Koreans. Afterwards we headed to a large shopping area which was more foreigner friendly called Myeongdong. It had many American brands including one of my favorite stores, Forever 21. I about died and went to heaven. It was nice to finally go somewhere and not everything be a "free size" because let's face it...there is nothing "free" about the clothes sizes here. The girls and I ended up having dok galbi for lunch which is chicken marinated in this red pepper paste mixed with vegetables cooked on a grill. So good that I needed a bib. :-)

Now I am back at work today and had a pleasant surprise finding out that all of my kids were not coming today because some were still not feeling well or it was "too cold" outside. I can't leave, so I finished my book, surfed the net a bit, and decorated my classroom some more for Christmas. Now THAT is what I call a hard day at work...

T.G.I.F.

Thanksgiving

If you know me then you know that Thanksgiving Day ranks up there as high as Christmas for me. Food, family, food, naps, sweatpants, relaxation and did I mention food? I was a little worried that my first holiday in Korea away from home would take a major toll on me. Korea’s thanksgiving, Chuseok, has already passed so the nice thing was that I didn’t have to be reminded of the American holiday coming up that I would be missing away from home for the first time in 22 years. On Thanksgiving Day here I got to make paper plate turkey with the kids. It was fun to teach them about eating turkey, stuffing and how American Thanksgiving traditions usually consisted of football and watching the parade on TV. Turkey here is rare here in Korea unless you want to pay a pretty penny for it. I was already going to deal with the fact that my Thanksgiving dinner would consist of rice and kimchi. Fortunately, we had a potluck dinner and had a friend that was able to pick a thanksgiving set from the military base for a whopping 130 U.S. dollars. We were able to divide the cost between about 10 people or so. The set had one cooked turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, vegetables and pumpkin pie. Then we also had the sides everyone else brought which turned out to be an impressive Thanksgiving meal in Korea. I missed out on eating in my sweatpants, taking a nap, being with the family, and having leftovers for a week, but all in all I would say it was still a good Thanksgiving!

It was really expensive to buy whipped cream for the pumpkin pie so we thought maybe we could make our own...bad idea. We were stirring for litterally an hour and it never turned into whipped cream. Can't say we didn't try!

Sorry I haven't blogging as much as I like, but I will try to keep everyone up to date more.

Miss and love you all!

Happy Pepero Day!

Today is November, 11th. I came in to the school with everyone telling me "Happy Pepero Day!". Come to find out, Pepero day is a little similar to valentines day but not to that extreme. Pepero is a thin stick cookie usually covered or filled with chocolate. The pepero sticks are given to resemble the date 11/11. The day is centered around the exchanging and eating of these Pepero sticks with as many family, boyfriends, girlfriends, and acquaintances who are willing to accept your offering. Peperos Day is usually celebrated by younger children and young couples. I have been bombarded with tons of peperos today in honor of today. I thought there would be a deeper meaning to the Peperos sticks but looks like just another holiday made to sell a product. Either way, my tummy and I enjoyed the little holiday!

Halloween in Korea

The Halloween weekend began with Halloween day with the kids on Friday. The teachers had spent all week decorating all out for the big day just to get the kids excited and also because they said that they thought it was important to us English teachers as well! Friday morning all the kids came parading in their cute little costumes. There aren’t very many places to get costumes so the kids all came in your good ol’ Halloween characters such as witches (or “weetche” as they would say), wizards (or “magic man”), and princesses. Either way- all adorable! I ended up being a generic black cat made out of some leftover felt we had… boring I know but I was lacking creativity at the time. We spent the day playing games, making trick-or-treat bags, and doing a haunted house. We set up a little station in a classroom so all the kids could come in to “trick-or-treat”. Before we started handing out candy the Korean teachers suggested we not give them TOO much candy because the parents don’t like them eating all junk food. All I could think of is how these Korean parents would die if they ever saw my trick or treat bag when I was little which was basically a pillow case filled with about 10 pounds of all the delicious and teeth rotting chocolates and candy you could think of. And there I was passing out candies made out of real fruit juice and rice candies… I felt sorry for the little suckers knowing what they were missing! The day was exhausting but it was a fun day for me and the kids. For a few hours it was nice to be celebrating a little piece of something I was actually familiar with.
Sophia (Chinese Girl) and Jackie (Spider Man) having fun playing my mummy wrapping relay game!

One of my students, Ashley, after trick or treating with me.

One of my favorite students from Joshua Teacher's class dressed as a bulky Spider Man. He claims he was hitting the gym a lot before the big day.

All the english kindergarten kids dancing to "Shake Shake".

Rebecca, Karla, Joshua, Me, Kim, and Lena on Halloween Day at school.

Saturday night a few friends and I celebrated Halloween in Itaewon. The streets of Itaewon were craaaazy! It made me feel embarrassed of my lack of creativity in my own costume. We went and saw a costume contest which came down to Mario Kart who was literally throwing out old banana peels or Quasimodo. Quasimodo ended up winning the grand prize of 500,000 won. The night was fun as usual but still made me miss my Halloween holidays back in college!

The weather has automatically turned ICE COLD…ok so maybe I am being a little dramatic. But it is very cold now! One day it was t-shirt and jeans weather, the next I want to whip out my parka and ugg boots! The apartment has been a little miserable because the heated floors in my apartment won’t seem to heat up as much as they should. (God do I miss blowing HOT air!) The weather is also slowly turning me into a little hermit. I don’t even have the motivation right now to get groceries. I came from Indiana and have experienced Minnesota winter so you would think I would have developed a shell for this weather, but it never fails I become into a big baby the moment the temp drops to below 50 degrees.

I am missing home more and more everyday… especially as all these holidays creep up. First it is Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then will come Christmas. I have been surprisingly stronger than I thought it would be but more and more I find myself wishing I was just home at times. The feeling comes and goes, but I always have to remember that the things I have waiting back at home for me aren’t going anywhere.

Love and miss you all!

Hiking Sobaekson

Here is a video I made of my hike up Sobaekson. Enjoy! Copy and paste this URL in your web browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TelpC5-HHsA

Father's Open Day

This Saturday was Father's Open Day where all the dads came in to see what their kids have been learning so far. I was hoping that I would get some dads who spoke decent english and I would have been able to gotten to know them better, but that wasn't the case. Unfortunately, I got dads that weren't very good at english and looked at me like I was from a different planet everytime I opened my mouth. Luckily my korean co-teacher was there to translate. It still made things akward because they didn't seem to have much fun playing the games we were playing. None of them seemed to interact with their kids throughout the whole day either. Most of the kids were extra wound up as well because I am sure they knew it was a special day, but it was hard to discipline them infront of their dads! Either way, I am glad the day was over. It was too fake and stressful for me. Afterwards, 2 of my coworkers and I went out for lunch. We had pork belly...I know I know it sounds gross but it is really good! They serve it with lettuce and this red pepper paste and all together it is very good!

This Friday we are celebrating Halloween. I am really excited because the kids LOVE the idea of Halloween even though they really don't celebrate it here. So it has just been fun to teach them about vampires, haunted houses, mummies and just the idea of going trick or treating! Today I taught them what a mummy was and how a mummy walked and they started walking around the class room like a mummy. This Friday the school is giving the English teachers the responsibility of creating the whole Halloween day for the kids. We plan on playing a lot of games and they all are coming in dressed up. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find places that sell adult halloween costumes. If all else fails I plan to dress up as an actual kindergartener. Most of the kids here dress up in these adorable outfits with hello kitty outfits and hair in piggy tails. I know I could probably throw something like that together.

Love and miss you all!

2 Month Mark

Long time no blog! I am 2 months in now. The fall weather is here! Korea is gorgeous during the fall season, although I am not too happy about this cold front coming in. Burrrrrr!

In Korea, they don’t have heaters, only heated floors. Heated floors can be REALLY nice actually, but unfortunately for me the heated floor in my apartment seems to take FOREEVVVEERRR to heat up. Luckily for me, my relatives here got me a heated bed mattress. I crank that sucker up at night and I am good to go!

This weekend on Saturday we are having Father’s Open Class Day. It is a day where the dads come in and sit in on your classroom to watch a “real” class, when in reality it is a bunch of lessons we had been practicing for 3 weeks to make sure it is done perfectly on the open day. I was not here in Korea yet when they had Mom’s open class day. Supposedly preparation for that was A LOT more stressful. The parents put a lot of pressure on the teachers to make sure their child is doing well and sometimes that can be hard to show when they have a child who is not on the level as everyone else in the classroom. This week we will just be practicing the lessons more and making sure the school looks presentable. It will be interesting to meet all the fathers of my students! We went around the room to ask what each of their dad’s did. I have 5 dads who are “businessmen”, one pilot, one lawyer, one English teacher, one dentist, and one boss (haha yes, one of my students said “My dad is a boss.”) The kids love to ask me what my dad does because I just say “He is a computer man.” And they all start cracking up hysterically. I guess computer man sounds funny to them, but it was the easiest way to say it for seven year olds!
I feel like I am in the swing of things now. The only things I still feel hesitant about are the subways and the buses. The subways seem pretty easy, but I still feel like I feel more comfortable when I am with someone else who knows what they are doing. As for the buses, I am not sure if I will ever be able to truly figure them out!

This weekend some friends and I went with a tourism company called Adventure Korea. We went to a Ginseng festival. Ginseng is a root from a plant which is supposed to be very healthy for you. The Koreans love it here and make drinks and food out of it. We got to shave our own root and then make Ginseng wine out of it! Then we went to a traditional Korean village which was my favorite part. We got to stay in an actual Korean village and sleep in a traditional room with the heated floors and had to sleep on the floor. The next morning, they took us to the most beautiful hike I have ever been on (even though this was only my second one). It was a 4 HOUR hike—about 2 and ½ hours up and 1 and ½ hours down! After lots of swear words and jello legs, we did it! The view was amaaaaazing going up as well as at the very top! There were waterfalls on the way up as well as a Korean temple we visited. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

2 1/2 hours later...at the top of the mountain!

The little Korean village we stayed at

My friends and I posing with the ginseng root mascot

My very own ginseng root I harvested myself!

A field full of ginseng...