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.