Kindergarten Graduation

Kindergarten graduation was last Friday. Now, I know what you are thinking. They must have looked so cute in their little cap and gown singing their one song off key and not in unison while some kids are picking their noses and others are doing their own thing. Let me just tell you that Kindergarten graduation in Korea is so much different and that the only part of this that is true is the fact that they looked super cute. They don’t mess around here and kindergarten graduation is NOTHING like the kindergarten graduation’s I am used to back home- IF there even is one. This ceremony has been something that we have been preparing for the past 2 months. It was HUGE and lasted 3 hours!

We started the ceremony with the traditional giving of the diplomas and everyone was in their cute cap and gowns. Each student was called up and given a present and their diploma by the owner of our school and then bowed and sat down. Then all of the Kinder teachers were called out on stage and the students sang a thank you song to us in Korean and gave a speech in unison thanking us for teaching them and letting the future students know they had to be just as good as them in the future.

Then we started the fun part. It began with the majority of students getting to play traditional Korean drums. This was really cool and the students did so well!! Then it was time for each of the graduation classes to shine. Each class (there were 6 classes) did a play and a song.

Stanford (my everyday class- basically my babies) were the first to go. Their play was the Korean version of “The Little Mermaid” It was cute but very hard to understand, as were most of the plays. Their play included snippets of music from a Korean pop band- 2NE1 and 50 Cent’s “Inferno”. Yeah, that was interesting and really inappropriate but it did make all of the foreign teacher’s laugh as you can imagine. This was the first of several inappropriate things to happen.

Then Princeton class went. Their play was by far the best one. It was titled “Broken English” and had students speaking Konglish then being corrected with the real English word. It was really funny and cute. In the middle of their play they had one of the boys do a dance to “Sexy Back” by Justin Timberlake. Inappropriate? I think so. Then the whole class danced to “Stupid Cupid”. The kids did a great job!

Next was Columbia class, a second year 6 year old class who gave advice “from around the world” to the new students coming in. Then they danced to “Beautiful Day”. That has become one of my new favorite songs and they were super cute doing it.

Then all of the classes came back on stage and sang and danced to “Summer Night” from the movie “Grease”. The girls all wore red bandannas around their necks that had suspicious leaves on them. It was cute though and a good showcase of all of the graduating students.

Following the Grease production, Oxford class came on and did a play about a lion with hiccups. The kids were all dressed up as different animals and I couldn’t get over how adorable they all looked as jungle animals. They danced to “Everybody Has Music Inside” which is a song that easily gets stuck in my head, but I love so that was ok.

Next was Cambridge class with their rendition of “Peter Pan”. I am still not sure exactly what was going on in this play but Caroline got to make her debut with her couple of lines in Korean. She was good and the parents laughed as apparently she used some Gwangju slang.

After Cambridge class we watched all of the graduating boys perform some Taekwondo in a Taekwon dance. It was super cool. All of the boys showed off what they had been learning in PE and it made me think that we should take Taekwondo back to the US for our PE.

Following the Taekwondo was Harvard class’s play. They did a play about a traditional Korean family but I honestly have absolutely NO clue what the play was about. Erica and Jason got to make their debut as a swallow and a monster. It was hilarious to watch them say their many lines in Korean and know that they nor any of the foreign teachers knew exactly what they were saying.

The last class to perform was Berkeley class. Their play was about sharing and playing together which was a good message. That class is full of the cutest kids ever so when they danced to “The Locomotion” it definitely didn’t let me down.

After Berkeley class all of the girls who were graduating sang and did 2 songs in sign language. They performed “Winter Wonderland” and a Korean song to all of their moms about how much they loved them. Or at least that’s what my six year olds led me to believe. It was neat to see them perform a song in a different language as well as in sign language.

Then Jake and one of the Korean kinder girls did a short skit that was half in English, half Korean and basically it was the funniest act in the show. It was about how to trick a foreigner into getting married over here. Step one was meet a foreigner at the airport and tell him you will show him around. Step two was teaching the foreigner how to speak a little Korean and trick him into saying I love you. The last step ended with the foreigner down on one knee and the little Korean girl putting handcuffs around him and taking him away. It was really funny and had the whole crowd laughing.

After that hilarious skit came another. This skit involved 2 boys but one of them was dressed up in a dress pretending to be a girl. It was a skit involving a “beautiful senorita”. Other than that, I am clueless as to what was happening in it as it was in Korean, but it was funny none the less.

Next came a miniature variety show where select students danced to several different Korean pop songs. There were a couple groups that had foreign teachers in them and guess who got chosen to be apart of one of those lucky groups. That’s right- this non-dancer here got up in front of so many parents and children and danced! AHHH! It wasn’t too bad actually. The dances were hilarious though so you will definitely have to check them out.

The last act was the foreigners making fools of themselves, but it was fun. First, we all had to introduce ourselves and say something about ourselves. Then we all chose a winter Olympic sport and acted it out in groups of two. Caroline and I did Alpine Skiing. Then came the interesting part. We all wore matching Superman sweatshirts and sang IN KOREAN and danced. It was pretty hilarious to watch I am sure. Most of us just kind of mumbled the words, because let’s be honest, even if I HAD memorized them I wouldn’t be saying them right because speaking Korean correctly is RIDICULOUSLY HARD!!

The show finished with all of the students and teachers on stage singing and swaying to the song “I Have a Dream” from Mamma Mia.

The show was lots of fun even though it had been a lot of work up until then getting it ready. The kids looked adorable in their crazy outfits they had to wear but everyone did SO WELL. There were no missed lines or missed entrances and I think the kids ended up having lots of fun with it. Tanya also said this was the first year where parents actually came up to her and commented on how good the show was which is exciting. I am glad I got to be apart of it. You can see all of the pictures I took as well as almost all of the acts I videoed on facebook. Make sure to check them out because I promise you will die laughing!

This, that, and the other

Man Oh Man. I have been putting off any kind of blogging for about a month and a half now because it just becomes so overwhelming and ends up taking me hours to write these things. But because I know I have regular followers and they have been begging me to update, I am doing this for them.
So... where to start...

Korean Wedding
Last month I went to Lupina's (one of the Korean kinder teachers) wedding. I was excited to go see what a Korean wedding was like and the differences between it and a western style wedding. In some ways it was very similar, while in others it was quite different. We walked into a building called "The Marriott Wedding Hall". Once inside we walked into a small room where we saw the bride in her beautiful dress surrounded by her friends and family. This small room was painted nicely and had a nice chair for her to sit in. Then, all of her friends and family could take turns taking pictures with her. I loved the idea! What was strange though was unlike our traditional weddings where the groom can not see the bride before she walks down the aisle, her groom was brought in to also take pictures with her and their families. After he was whisked off, a few more pictures were taken and then it was time for the ceremony to begin. We walked into this big, open room like area just feet away, took our seats and then watched as the bride stepped on to this hot pink and orange platform runway. Fake flowers surrounded her, but everything looked beautiful. She walked down the aisle with her dad and met her fiance at the alter. There we no bridesmaids, no groomsmen, no flower girl, and no ring bearer. It was just the two of them and a pastor. Oh, and there was a woman who was constantly around her fixing her dress, touching up her hair, and fixing her makeup. There were also several photographers who didn't hesitate to get in her face to get the perfect picture. The pastor talked for awhile, then the happy couple went to both sets of parents and bowed. Best friend and kinder teacher, Gina, sang a beautiful song, followed by the playing of a Korean pop song. During this song the groom took off one of his shoes and walked around collecting change in it. Then, everyone clapped and the ceremony was over. There was no exchanging of vows, no giving of rings, and no kissing. It all seemed quite strange to me. Immediately after the ceremony was deemed over people were being called up over a microphone for pictures- the groom's family, then the bride's family, then both of their families together, then the groom's friends, then the bride's friends, then all of the friends and family. When the pictures were finished, the bride and groom walked down the aisle only to meet the next bride and groom that were up to get married. There was no wasting of time. As soon as the couple exited, all of the friends and family who attended began exiting while the new friends and family of the next bride and groom shuffled in and the groom walked to the alter. It was a very quick turn around. I was almost able to see the start of the next wedding as I walked out. I should also point out that during the entire wedding, it never did get quiet as there were people in wedding hall just off this room talking, laughing and "oohing" and "awing" over the previous bride and groom and the next bride and groom to come. Weird. Anyways so following the wedding there was a reception, sorta. There was a TON of food and everyone sat at tables and ate while the newly married couple walked around and talked to everyone. She wore a Hanbok, he remained in his suit. There was no dancing, no toasting, and no throwing/catching of anything. Oh well. It was a lot of fun and definitely neat to see.


Eating GROSS-ness
A couple weeks ago Caroline, Erica, and I all decided to check out this restaurant we pass every time we go to EMART but have never eaten at. Now, usually when we go to a restaurant we aren't concerned because we have either 1. eaten there before 2. can read something on the menu and know it is ok to eat 3. are with someone who can help us. However, none of these things seemed to happen so we were on our own for figuring out what to eat. Well, this place had a cow on the outside and was a barbecue place so we assumed it was no big deal just to order anything on the menu. We read our options, knew what they said as far as reading them but had no idea what anything meant. Nothing was familiar. So, we did what any foreigner would do and just closed our eyes and pointed. Our waitress brought us our meat pretty quickly. The three of us looked at it with our foreigner big eyes. We weren't sure what we had gotten. We didn't even recognize the meat. It looked sorta like sausage but it seemed to almost be oozing fat. The waitress must have noticed our faces and decided to cook it for us. The more she cooked it, the more the sausage looking meat curled and oozed. I knew whatever we were getting ourselves into was not good. We asked the waitress what part of the body this was from as best as we could using sign language and she just kinda laughed and said nothing. We ate a good amount of it anyways. It was obviously flavored with spices and stuff ahead of time and then after being barbecued it surprisingly didn't taste too too bad. The thing that got to me big time was the texture. It was extremely chewy and squishy. We left about half maybe and then decided to go to Baskin Robbins to finish filling ourselves up. :) The next day at school we had one of the Korean teachers translate what we ate and it was..................... intestine. It was gross and definitely nothing I would have ever tried if I had known. Oh well. When in Korea, do as the Koreans do?!


Lunar New Year
The regular New Years that we all know and celebrate is celebrated over here, as well as the Lunar New Year. This is awesome because that means a couple days off and a gift certificate from our school's owners. (Yes, we work at an AWESOME school!!) We took advantage of our 4 day weekend and decided to go skiing for two of those days. Leading up to the holiday we asked the Korean teachers where we might be able to go that wouldn't hopefully be as crowded but we were assured that traffic was going to be bad everywhere and that there wasn't such thing as a ski resort without a ton of people at it in Korea. And with the holiday, there was no way we would be able to find any place that wasn't crowded anywhere. We have been skiing 2 other times and have found this to be true and is always crowded, but we really wanted to go skiing one last time this season so we figured it was worth it. Jay, a kinder teacher as well as one of my favorite Korean teachers, helped us call the travel agent place we went through the past 2 times we went skiing to get us a discount price. When she got on the phone and told the guy it was for foreigners and to put it under my name the man got excited and told her that he knew me. After getting off the phone she asks me if I know a Mr. Kim. Now, if you know anything about Korea, you know that everyone and their brother has the last name Kim. So to ask me if I knew Mr. Kim would be like asking me if I knew a Mr. Smith back home. Caroline replied for us "Yes. We know lots of Mr. Kims" to with Jay laughed and realized what she had asked. Anyways, I guess he apparently recognized me from he other times and was excited we were going again. So Caroline, Jake, Devon, the new teachers Matt and Melissa and I all packed a backpack full of ski clothes and left Saturday morning at 5:30am for the slopes. There was absolutely NO traffic which started off the day well. Then, when we got to the ski resort and on to the slopes we couldn't be happier. There weren't that many people at all and no lines. The more advanced slopes didn't have many people on them and even the easier slopes were by no way crowded. The past two times we had been we have always had to wait in lines anywhere from 10-50 minutes long. This time there were NO lines. We had a full day of skiing before we met Mr. Kim again who took us to our hostel at the ski resort. We only paid $20 each for the night. That's right, we stayed AT the ski resort in a hostel and only paid $20. You can't beat that!!! I think I am going to build a hostel on ski resorts in America. I think I would be rich because staying at any ski resort in America is ridiculously expensive. Anyways, so we looked around the area for awhile before eating dinner at this very typical Korean style restaurant. As soon as we walked in, they showed us to a table like you would find in America (because we are foreigners) but we pointed to the tables on the floor and asked if we could sit there instead. I think we put the staff in shock. The couldn't believe foreigners would want to sit on the floor, but we have been in Korea long enough to 1. not only be used to it but 2. know that the floors are heated and that we were freezing. So we enjoyed dinner and stayed warm. I had Bulgogi- 불고기 (meat) and mushroom chigae- 찌개 (soup). It was ma-shi-da 맛있다!! (delicious!!) We hungout that night and watched the Olympic's opening ceremony and some of the Olympic games before going to bed on the hot floor. We woke up early the next morning, ate some yogurt and crackers and stuff we got from the convenience store next door for a cheap breakfast and then headed back on to the slopes. We hoped for the best but figured the slopes couldn't be any emptier than the day before but boy were we wrong!!! Day 2 was even less crowded! There was absolutely NOBODY there!!!! Some of the chair lifts had nobody on them and there definitely was never any kind of wait. In the morning and early afternoon,coming down the slopes, you wouldn't see someone for hundreds of feet and then when you saw someone it was another couple hundred feet before you saw anyone else. It was AMAZING. I have never seen anywhere like this. Let's just say we got 2 FULL days of skiing in and had a BLAST!!!! We were definitely glad we went! We were exhausted the next day and just kinda hungout, went grocery shopping and enjoyed the day off. That night we went out for Monica's birthday. She is also a kinder teacher and the most bubbly person I have ever met. After some fun we went to a noraebong or a karaoke room. We practiced our knowledge of Korean pop songs and even danced to the songs we now know dances for due to kinder graduation. It was tons of fun. On our last day, Caroline and I went downtown and saw the movie "Valentine's Day". It was cute and am glad I saw it but won't be a movie I own. We also went to the World Cup Lotte Outlets to spend our gift certificates ( I can't decide what I want so I ended up not buying anything). We had a great long weekend and it definitely made for a short next school week which was just what the doctor ordered!!!


The Typical Week
I don't think I have ever written about my typical day and week. I think the last time I wrote about actual school was back in the beginning when I was REALLY confused about everything. I was just figuring out my hours, my classes, what I was teaching and did not know too much about anything. You will be glad to know that I have more than figured things out and I absolutely LOVE teaching here. It only took about a month to figure things out and another month to get into the groove and feel confident. I have now been teaching a little over 7 months. The days fly by as well as the weeks. I honestly can not believe I have been here that long. For those of you that don't know, I have asked to extend my contract 3 more months and stay until the end of October. Anyways, to explain my days, here it goes. Everyday I teach different things to different classes. There are 10 Kindergarten classes grouped by age and number of years at ECC. To give you an example, on Mondays I teach Art to two classes, story reading to another class, phonics to another class and then English conversation to 2 different classes on different levels. These two classes are my everyday classes. On Tuesdays I teach a theme lesson to a class, art to another class, drama to another class, story reading to a class and then math or cartoon to my younger everyday class and an American textbook to my older everyday class. Wednesday is filled with different classes as well as Thursday and Friday. I like my schedule because it allows me to teach different subjects to different students which keeps it interesting. It also gives me 2 everyday classes that I have fallen in love with. One class is 6-1 which means they are 6 years old and have been at ECC 1 year. The other class is 7-2 meaning they are 7 years old and this is their second year at ECC. They both are fantastic at English and filled with some of the cutest kids EVER!!!
The 7 year old classes (there are 6 of them) will graduate this Friday which will be really sad and I will definitely miss them a ton. At the same time though, I am just as excited though to meet the new students who will be coming. I will update you about the change when it happens on March 4th.


When, oh when, will I get better at this blogging stuff. Definitely not this week as Kinder graduation is just around the corner and I am sure that will continue to be stressful. It is also the end of the month which means evaluations and tests out the whazoo to be be copied, filled out, given, and graded. Maybe look for my next post somewhere around March 6th or so hopefully after the start of the new school year. I love you all so much and miss everyone TONS and TONS. Keep those letters coming, I LOVE getting mail!!!! :)

FIRE!!!

Between my sister and I, we are going to give my parents a heart attack.

In November, a guy with a gun walked into my sisters Engineering office on the 8th floor of a crowded building and started shooting things and people. Thank goodness my sister was able to run and get out of the building before he got to her cubical and call 911. Others were not as lucky and 5 were injured, one killed. It was a very traumatic experience, but she is ok. Thank you God!

On Friday, I too had a very traumatic experience at work but I am also ok! It started off as any other day at school. Fridays are my longer days but it was going pretty well so far. Then we had a foreign teacher meeting where we were informed that someone had to teach a 3 hour Saturday class every weekend. I decided to sign up for the one the next day to get it over with. After teaching 9 classes that day I was exhausted but decided to stay after school to plan for the Saturday class and since Caroline was still teaching, I figured we could walk home together anyway. I was in the big office on the 2nd floor of our school going through tapes with Devon, another foreign teacher, when a Korean teacher walks in and says "I've heard the news that's there a fire next door." She didn't seemed concerned but Devon thought she would go check it out. Sure enough, there was a small fire in the vacant building next door that has been in the process of being torn down for awhile now. Devon came back and reported what she saw and the two of us continued to search for teaching materials. Within minutes a little boy walks into the office (I am not sure exactly why) but he turns to us and says "Big fire, teacher." He was also very calm. Then the fire alarm goes off. Its very quiet and seems distant. I turn to my principal who is close by typing away on the computer and I ask her "Is that OUR fire alarm?" She says "yes" nonchalantly and goes back to typing. Devon and I are confused and go to look out the window again to see if it is in fact our alarm and if the fire has gotten any bigger. This time I go too. Devon was the first to get to the window and see big pieces of fire hitting OUR BUILDING. She yells and starts to run back toward the big office when I am able to see out the window too. The building next door to ours is about 10 feet away and is up in flames- HUGE flames. Our building is being hit repeatedly with fire and we are both convinced ECC is on fire. Devon and I run back to the big office quickly to inform the 2 Korean teachers making phone calls at their desks and our principal typing away on the computer. We both yell "FIRE!" but nobody seems to move. We yell it again and again before it hits our principal what is going on. Rachel (one of the Korean teachers) tells the parent on the phone she has to go because she thinks there is a fire or something and then gets off the phone. Devon and I grab our stuff and I run to the small office to grab Caroline's stuff before running to the stairs to find Caroline. It takes a little while before kids start coming down the stairs and Devon and I act as police men directing traffic yelling for kids to go downstairs and to get out of the building! It isn't a few seconds before those kids are running back up the stairs toward us panicked. Our principal is now directing those kids and all the kids coming from the 3rd, 4th and 5th floor in to the 2nd floor lobby. The lobby quickly fills with all of the students and teachers and is full of chaos. Students are pulling out their phones calling their parents frantically and a secretary is trying to yell something on a megaphone that isn't working. Our principal yells and everyone all of the sudden gets super quiet. She yells orders all in Korean and everyone except the foreign teachers seem to know the next plan of action. Next thing we know a firefighter is running up the stairs of the 2nd floor where we are all huddled and telling us all to go downstairs and get out of the building. As I am running out of the building I pass 3 frantic and crying moms who are looking for their kids to come out. I grab random kids and we started running/walking fast because there is ice on the ground making it hard to full out run. While we are running, huge embers from the fire are landing on all of us. A big one lands on my head but is quickly put out by another foreign teacher running beside me. Not too much later I find myself yelling at Caroline that there are embers on her coat and am patting them out for her. I am scared something or someone is going to catch on fire from the embers but all I can do is run and hope we are all ok. At one point we all stop running because we think we are far enough from the fire but the wind continues to blow huge pieces of fire on to us so we continue to run some more. By the time we stop again, ECC buses have arrived and are picking up kids. I am not sure if they had a system but I was pushing all of the students near me toward the bus to get them on. Finally, all of the students are either on a bus or at least way out of sight.

I can not even begin to explain how chaotic all this was. Students and teachers were everywhere and nobody knew exactly where we were supposed to stop or even where all of their students were. It was a mess but eventually there were no students anywhere in sight and a bunch of the foreign teachers had somehow found each other. We waited in fear for what was happening to our school a long way down the street. Finally we all decided we wanted to see our school's fate and walked together on the other side of the street back toward the fire. The embers weren't falling nearly as bad now and we had to know what was happening. I thankfully had my camera and began to take pictures. All of the pictures have been posted to facebook. Keep in mind these pictures were taken a good 30 minutes or longer after we evacuated the school so the flames were actually much bigger and scarier than you even see in the pictures. And during all of this, the road was not closed to traffic. There were all sorts of cars going both ways past the fire and at one point the fire fighters had even hooked up a hose to a hydrant across the street and it was being run over by the cars. Cars drove over the hose for awhile until a van drove over it and broke it. The hydrant had to be turned off and the hose fixed before being turned back on to help put out the fire that was still burning strong. Everyone in Gwangju gathered across the street and watched the building next to ECC burn down to nothing but the metal frame.

After watching for awhile all of the teachers decided to meet up at a local coffee shop to wrap our heads around what just happened and talk about the next plan of action. On our way to the coffee shop all of the Korean teachers were called back in to school to make phone calls to parents letting them know the evening classes wouldn't be happening and what just happened. The foreign teachers still met at the coffee shop and shared our traumatic stories. We got word that the owner of our school told all of the Korean teachers that they had to be back at school the next day (Saturday) at 9am to help clean up after the fire. The foreign teachers decided that we wanted to show our support and would all be at school at 9am to help too. Come to find out, our help was not needed as the damage to the school was beyond what we could clean up and a cleaning team was being called in. All of us went in the school to check out the damage and take pictures. There were broken windows from the heat on the 4th and 5th floor, glass on the floor of the bathrooms, ashes everywhere, and out back we could see our owner and our school technicians cars that were crispy on the hood and in the engine sitting where they were parked the day before, waiting to be towed. On the fifth floor where the kindergarden classrooms are (middle school classes in the afternoon and evening) one room was in need of serious repair. There were a couple big holes in the ceiling that I guess the fire fighters made to drain the roof of all of the water that was sprayed. Lights were hanging down and drywall was absolutely everywhere. Surprisingly, I think this is the only room that wont be in commission the next week or so.

Everything is now sorta a blur and I can't really explain what was going through my head on Friday night. I know I wanted to get all of the kids out and was concerned about them first and that's why I acted as a police directing traffic on the stairs rather that running out of the building myself. But looking back everything was really just done on impulse. I don't remember thinking about anything, it was like my body just knew what to do. I don't remember thinking about grabbing mine and Caroline's purse, I just did it. I guess it was also impulse to wait to find my roomie before leaving the building as well. I can't remember what the kids looked like whose hands I grabbed and ran with, I just know I was concerned with them getting to safety. I don't remember seeing a lot of fire trucks or a lot of fire fighters but our school principal told us yesterday that over 200 fire fighters and 50 trucks responded to the fire at some point or another. I don't remember a lot of the details but the overall experience I will never forget. It was scary and something that I hope never has to happen to anyone. I am glad the building next door was empty and was in the process of being torn down anyways and I am glad that as big as the fire was, that nothing in the surrounding area really got hurt too much. A middle school backed up to the building and it is just fine as is the electronics building that is on the other side of the building that caught on fire.

School is still scheduled for tomorrow but I am kinda curious how many students show up, especially from the evening classes that were there for the fire. Anyways, I hope my Monday turns out to be way less eventful than my Friday and I hope your Friday was less crazy than mine!

I LOVE you all so much and miss everyone like crazy!

CHRISTmas and New Years!! :)

Merry Christmas and Happy 2010 everyone!!! It seems weird to me that its already 2010. 2009 seemed to fly by! Boy has it been an exciting year!

This Christmas was my first one away from my family (and extended family). I always spend Christmas in Ohio and I get to see all of my bagillion cousins, aunts, uncles and Oma who I haven't seen since the summer. I was expecting Christmas to be rather hard since I wouldn't be with who I am always with or where I am always at. However, thanks to skype it was a lot easier than expected and although I missed everyone, I wasn't nearly as homesick as I thought I would be.

Christmas and New Years this year had an unexpected twist that I absolutely loved. One of my bestest friends ever, Austin, came to visit me for 11 days and spend the holidays with me. When I moved to Korea, I told all of friends that they should really come visit me over here and although I really wanted it to happen, I was sorta just kidding. However, Austin actually came and we had an absolute blast!!

ECC gave us 4 days off for Christmas, then we had to work for 3 days, then 4 more days off for New Years. Too bad we had to work for those 3 days in between but I guess in the long run it was kinda good because Austin ended up getting sick and thank goodness it was only during those 3 days. So Austin got here late on Wednesday and Thursday was our first day off. Poor Austin got a couple hours asleep before we woke up the next morning around 7am to catch our bus to Sokcho. Sokcho is a city in the north-east part of the country super close to the border. It is known for its national park- Seoraksahn. We had never been here but I had read good things about it and it was supposed to be pretty awesome and beautiful. Plus some of our co-workers were going so we figured why not. The last thing I wanted to do was stay in Gwangju for Christmas and think about how I wasn't in Ohio with my family. It ended up being Caroline, Steve, Jason, Erica, Austin, and me who went. It was an awesome decision to go because it was in fact beautiful and we had loads and loads of fun!

The bus ride up was 5 and a half hours long and because we hadn't really eaten much for breakfast, all of us were starved when we got up there. We walked for a bit until we found the first place where we could go inside and eat. It happened to be a Chinese restaurant. We ended up eating some really good chicken and fried rice. After eating we had to hop on another bus which was supposed to take us to our hostel. Hosteworld kinda let us down with the directions because all it said was get on this bus- and that's it. So once we were on the bus we weren't sure where we were supposed to get off or anything. We got off at the last stop which was at the entrance of Seorak National Park but there was no hostel in sight. Lets just say after lots of debate, broken conversations that didn't really help and lack of another way to really get there, we decided to walk 20 minutes back to the town we past while we were on the bus on the way in. When we got to the town we didn't see a sign for our hostel but on second glace, with the help from my eagle eyes, there was in fact a tiny sign that read our hostels name. We checked in and then it just got crazy. The guy started showing us random rooms and none of them had more than 1 double bed which was not as expected because we thought we were getting one with 4 beds. So after a lot of craziness we finally ended up in a 1 huge room with one bed. It was actually more like 2 rooms, one being a kitchen. Anyways, we all decided we would sleep in the one room and close the curtain-ish door to the other room because for some reason the floor in that room only got hot in places and we figured we would be warmer if we were all in one room. It was like a huge sleepover and was actually pretty fun all being in the same room.

So the rest of that day we walked around the area checkin out what was happening, which wasn't much and eventually ate dinner at a traditional Korean BBQ place. It was alright, but nothing special. The next morning was Christmas Eve America time which was when I planned to talk to my family since this is when ALL of my aunts, uncles and bazillion cousins are at my Oma's house celebrating. It was really neat because my mom and sister made sure EVERYONE in the family said hello to me via video chat on skype so I felt like I was actually there. By the way, I have 12 aunts and uncles and I think 21 cousins so that was fun getting to see and talk to all of them like I would if I was actually there! :) After my long skype talk, Austin and I headed to the park to meet everyone. When we got to the park we found them almost right away and did some walking around together. We saw this HUGE Buddha statue that was pretty neat and I of course got some pretty cool pictures of it with the mountains in the background. We then all took a cable car up one part of the mountain. According to the cable cars pamphlet the ride up was supposed to be "one of the most unique adventure attractions on Earth. It was pretty cool but I don't know if I would go that far. I got some great pictures though. When we got to the mountain we all sat for a bit to take it all in. There were frozen waterfalls off in the distance, snow in the mountain tops, and the view was gorgeous! Then, the boys and I decided we wanted to hike up this other little part of the mountain which looked pretty steep. Caroline and Erica sat and enjoyed the view while we took this scary climb up. It was definitely more than worth it because the view only got better! Plus, a guy at the top was selling medals and whistles that he would engrave with your name, I guess for making it to the top. Being the little teacher I am and always thinking about when I get my own classroom back home, I decided a whistle would be a perfect souvenir. I am going to need something to call my students in from recess and this was engraved with my name in Korean, Mt. Seorak, and the date (Christmas!) I wouldn't forget where I was for Christmas 2009 now. We enjoyed the view from the peak and took some fun pictures in front of a Korean flag before going back down to meet the other 2. Once we got down from this climb, it was awesome because it started snowing. It ended up snowing for only about 5 minutes but at least we could say we had a "white Christmas" right?! We took several more photos and enjoyed the view fr awhile and then headed back down on the cable car. Once we got to the bottom we took a long hike through the park to get to a waterfall. We saw a couple smaller half frozen waterfalls along the way. The hike, the view, and the sound from the waterfalls were awesome and quite peaceful. I really enjoyed it a lot. Once we got to the waterfall we kinda just chilled out there for a little while and once again enjoyed the scenery. It really was beautiful in this park! We met up randomly with a couple of Steve's friends and the 8 of us began our trek back to our hostels. We took a shortcut through the woods and over a river and finally made it to our hostel. We cleaned up a bit before heading up a road beside our hostel to a fancy hotel that had a western style restaurant. We wanted something nice (and fancy seemed fun) for Christmas dinner and we got just that. I opted for Chicken Cordon Bleu which was absolutely AMAZING and by far the best thing I have eaten since being here. Others opted for Salmon, Calamari, Steak, etc. It was delicious! Plus, all our meals came with 2 hot dinner rolls with real butter and a very yummy salad with Italian dressing!!!! Let's just say Christmas dinner was AWESOME and exactly what we were looking for. After dinner I spent awhile on skype with the fam since now it was Christmas morning their time. Then we all just stayed up watching a movie, talking, laughing and enjoying each others company.

The next morning Steve, Erica, and Jason all got up super super early to go hiking on this super steep part of the mountain while Caroline, Austin, and I decided to enjoy sleeping in and just check out more of the park. We ended up seeing a temple, some other traditional Korean architecture and more of the park and the mountains. It was lots of fun and again we took some pretty fun pictures. We spent several hours walking around before we all met up again. Caroline, Erica, and Jason decided to get the only bus home that afternoon because it had been a long but exciting weekend, while Steve, Austin and I decided to stay. When we went up to Sokcho I had read about a huge water park that had many hot springs and stuff and I really wanted to check that out. Plus Austin told me before coming that he wanted me to find a hot tub in Korea. Austin and I like to spend a lot of our time hanging out in my hot tub back at home, so he joked that I had to find one here so I did just that. I wasn't about to go back to Gwangju without going to the hot spring water park. I am really glad we stayed because that day turned out to be super fun. We went back more in to the city (away from the park) and found another hostel to stay at for the night. This hostel was nice and the owner was full of information. He helped show us what to do and where to eat. So the three of us spent the rest of the afternoon checking out a pretty awesome light house. We got to go inside which was really neat and check out the water and the view from the top. Then we climbed to the top of a hill and went in this temple looking pagoda thingie (I know, I give some pretty great descriptions ;) ) and enjoyed the scenery from there too. Then we walked around for a bit before catching a bus to the water park. The water park was called Waterpia and was as awesome as expected. Let me just try to explain this place. Its more of an adult water park than a children's place. When you get inside you go to your respective locker rooms and get changed. Let me take a step back. Now, Koreans are usually very conservative. When they go to the beach ALL of the girls wear clothes or cover-ups over their bathing suits in to the water. You wont see any girls with just bathing suits on. So, when i walked in this locker room I was expecting everyone to be modest but let me just tell you they weren't! There were Koreans from 1 to 100 just walking around, lounging, hanging out completely naked. Yes, you might say well duh Whitney its a locker room, but seriously I expected everyone to be conservative even behind closed doors based on how conservative they were out in public- they weren't! Anyways, so you could go out 2 doors- one led to the saunas full of nakedness and the other led to the pool area. Because it was the 2 boys and me and the saunas were separate for guys and girls, we opted for the pool area. We found a couple hot tub like areas but they were packed and I knew there were more so we went on a search for the others. They turned out to be OUTSIDE. That didn't stop us though. We went from hot tub to hot tub checking out the many different kinds. There were several different kinds all of different temperatures and contained different jets and stuff. When we got bored of one hot tub we would get out and literally RUN to the next one. The air was EXTREMELY cold, especially after being wet, but ti only made the hot tubs more enjoyable after getting in them. We spent several hours at this water park and all of us enjoyed it immensely! After Waterpia we went to eat a late dinner. We ate at this place that let you pick your own meet which was marinated in different sauces and you could have "all you can eat for only 7,000 won." This is about 6 dollars and was definitely worth it. It was delicious and you couldn't beat the price. We passed out pretty hard that night and caught the morning bus the next day that got us back to Gwangju around 3pm. It was a FANTASTIC Christmas break!

I went to school the next 3 days which seemed to actually fly by. Austin was sick and was feeling like death so he laid around those 3 days while I was at work which if he was going to get sick this was the perfect time. He finally started to feel better on the 3 day which was perfect because the next day we planned on going to Seoul for New Years. Seoul "gongs" in the new year with a HUGE bell. Basically its the Times Square of Korea and one of my partner teachers from school even ended warned me "don't die!" We woke up in the morning with our bags packed and everything only to get a phone call from some friends from school that were going to go with us telling us to go look outside. It had snowed the night before!!!!! There was about 6 inches of snow on the ground and the roads had not been salted or anything yet. After much debate we all decided not to go get on a bus for 4 hours in the snow and bad road conditions and that we would just enjoy the New Year here in Gwangju. This turned out to be a lot of fun and I am not disappointed that we didn't end up going. We spent that day (New Years Eve day) with several of the ECC foreign teachers. Jake, Devon, Erica, Jason, Steve, Caroline, Austin and I all headed downtown to walk around. We walked down "Art Street" the only famous attraction in Gwangju, but not much was happening, like always. It was still fun though. We shopped for a bit and just enjoyed each others company before heading back home and just kinda hanging out for a little while before going out that night to celebrate. The same group of people along with 2 more foreign teachers from ECC, Sam and Steph and Alan ( the guy from China who we often hangout with who showed us around Beijing when we went in October) all went back downtown that night to celebrate the new Year together. Let's just say we had a LOT of fun!!! I am glad we ended up staying and celebrating with everyone!

The next couple of days went by super fast. We played in the snow and enjoyed Gwangju. Austin and I went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel one day. We did a little night hiking one night which was lots of fun and one day we went skiing. Skiing was a blast but ridiculously crowded! We still enjoyed ourselves though and I think everyone was glad we went.

Basically my Christmas and New Years were AWESOME! I am soooooooooo super glad that Austin came and I had a ridiculously good time hanging out with him! This was his first time out of the country and I think he really enjoyed his time here too. I am definitely glad he came!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years too!!! Happy 2010! I hope its a great year for everyone! I love you all so much and miss you tons and tons too!!

Thanksgiving (FINALLY!!)

So, I promised two things in my last blog- one was that i would post again soon, and the other was that I would tell you about my Thanksgiving here. I guess the first one won't be happening, but at least I am giving you the Thanksgiving update right?!

Anyways, so Thanksgiving here in Korea turned out to be a lot of fun, but boy did I have to work for it. There were several speed-bumps along the way, but nothing sopped the foreigners from celebrating Thanksgiving in Korea. Let's just say that Korea is missing a few essentials when it comes to Thanksgiving. The first being Turkey. That's right, Korea doesn't do turkey. In fact, many of the Korean teachers have never even tasted it before. And what's Thanksgiving without turkey. We made due and opted for Chicken instead. That turned out to be speed-bump number two. We ordered the chicken (over the phone), I'll get to why we didn't cook it our self in a minute, but as you know neither Caroline or I are great at speaking Korea. The 200 random words we know do not include anything that could have helped us order it except the word chicken which is the same in Korean and English. Erica was at our house too, but she too only knows a little Korean so it became a game of whether or not we thought we could do it. Our first attempt we thought went pretty well. We struggled with the language barrier but with our newly learned numbers we thought we were going to be good. We remembered how to say our address and was even able to clarify which of the five Line Apartments in our area that we live in. We got off the phone super excited and couldn't wait to see if we had done it. One hour goes by and finally our door bell rings. The guy hands us ONE tiny box of chicken that maybe has 8 or 10 small pieces of chicken in it. We thought we had ordered FOUR boxes. But we couldn't get that across so we just payed the guy, thanked him, closed the door, and then panicked! That was definitely not enough to feed 14 hungry foreigners plus who knew how many Korean teachers we invited were actually going to show up. So, we got back on the phone (with a different place- we were too embarrassed to call the first place again) and tried again. The second time we called was just as terrifying as the first and the short time I was on the phone I probably said "yes" about 15 times- about 12 of them I wasn't exactly sure what I was agreeing to but I recognized a couple words so I just said yes. My guess now is that they were probably asking where I lived or for me to repeat the order but I just kept agreeing in hopes of them just bringing something to our house. Thank goodness this time the order only took 20 minutes and we got exactly what we ordered. Success!!! With two major speed-bumps taken care of, what else could possibly be troublesome right? Did I mention that our apartments here are very nice but that none of us have an oven. Let me tell you how hard it is to make and cook food without an oven to bake things in. Not to mention, 90 percent of the foods we eat on Thanksgiving back home are not easily or even at all found here. Everyone picked a dish and was in charge of bringing it, and let me just tell you how impressed I was with the spread. Between Caroline, Erica and I, we made mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, cooked carrots medley, corn and sliced some veggies to snack on. The other foreign teachers brought fudge, stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, sweet potato fries, fruit, cornbread and other delicious goodies. Everything was DELICIOUS!!!!!!!

I forgot to mention that there were 9 foreign teachers there and 8 Korean teachers, so there was a good amount of people in our small apartment. It was lots of fun though. Caroline and I turned a long end table into a couch so we had 2 and there were a couple pillows on the floor, so it worked out pretty well. After eating we all played a Korean version of jacks that was really fun and just hung out. It wasn't as weird as I thought it would be not be home for Thanksgiving and having a bunch of friends from school that I now call family definitely helped!

I miss everyone a lot! I am still having tons of fun and enjoying myself though and look forward to the rest of my time here!

Its been one month to the day since I last updated...

Man, oh, man! For the past week, I have told myself that I was going to update my blog, but every time I thought about doing it, I became overwhelmed because SOOOO much has happened since the last post and decided I would just put it off some more. I have finally built up enough guts to write it now, and have just come to accept that it is going to take me many hours to write, and I am just not going to get to tell you everything. So here it goes...

My school, ECC, truly likes the foreigners and really does its best to make us happy. I LOVE ECC because of this but their timing seems to be a lot like my dads- not the best. So 4 weeks ago (wow that sounds like forever ago... I really need to update this more...) ECC took all of the foreigners on a field trip to 3 different places. We went to a temple, a traditional Korean folk village, and to the bay. They all turned out to be super duper fun, but I am getting ahead of myself. So, they pack all of the foreigners, who are all coughing and not in good moods because we are all ridiculously sick, into a small ECC van and drive us an hour away to our first stop. This would normally have been something we all looked forward to because we all like to hangout with each other and travel on the weekends together, but this was the first week that EVERYONE in the office was sick, and the Swine Flu had even hit a couple people. However, it became an unspoken but well known fact that this was pretty mandatory so coughing, sore throats, runny noses, upset stomachs and all loaded the bus. I personally had come down with the office sickness and had it not been mandatory I would have stayed in bed all day in my pajamas. It was bad news bears. But like everyone else, I loaded the van and immediately fell asleep on the way to the temple. When we got there, I was immediately in awe (and maybe it was the fresh air, but I started feeling better, and at least functioning) because there was fog all around us and the sun was hiding behind it but was starting to come out which made for some pretty awesome pictures. And the temple itself was just really pretty and really cool. We even got to see some monks in the temple praying which was pretty sweet too. It was a really big temple and it's hard to explain what exactly it looked like, but it was neat. And I had just learned a week or two before how to properly use my Macro setting on my camera, so I spent the whole time macro-ing EVERYTHING. Thank goodness Erica like to use this setting as well, because at one point we split off from everyone and got some AMAZING pictures. I know this is a side tract, but the macro setting on my camera makes me soooooo happy and has made me realize that I really want to get a super nice camera with a special macro lens and become a professional photographer- BUT only ever take macro pictures. If you don't know what I am talking about, you should check out my facebook album titled "Let's Macro That!" Anyways, so back to the temple... I got some awesome pictures, enjoyed being there, as well as the company and had lots of fun. Our next stop was at a traditional folk village. I didn't know what to expect but it was pretty cool too. We saw tons and tons of hut like places that were made out of mud with roofs made from hay. We also got to walk on a huge wall that went all around the village. This was fun and in a way reminded me of walking on the Great Wall of China. There was a HUGE swing there too that looked super fun but I never got to go on it because I was in the front of the group and got corralled to be in a group picture. The people in the back fell behind and went on it for a bit before someone ran back to get them to make them run and get in the group picture. Oh well, next time I'll go on it. After the village, we went to the bay. This was lots of fun too. A group of us hiked up the mountain to get an amazing shot of the bay. It was AWESOME and quite the view. It was worth all of the hard work to see water surrounding us, with mountains in the background. Korea is so beautiful. And it is soooo neat to be able to see mountains all around us all the time. This is quite the change from Florida, that's for sure. The field trip ended up being loads of fun and I think everyone enjoyed the trip, sick or not.

Two weekends ago, all of the foreign teachers went up to Seoul together because it was Prairies last weekend to travel and she really wanted to see the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone- the division line of North and South Korea) so we all went up for that and took a half day tour of that together. It was really cool. First, we got to see "Freedom bridge" also known as "The Bridge of No Return". This the only bridge connecting North and South Korea and was the bridge where over 13,000 war captives crossed. There were fences and barbed-wire everywhere and also ribbons and flags. It was very interesting to see, but it was very rainy and extremely cold so a but miserable, but none the less, super neat. We stayed here for a little while before boarding the bus again and going to a museum. This museum told all about the DMZ and the history of fighting and friendship between the north and south. We also learned about 4 tunnels that North Korea dug leading right in to Seoul. North Korea originally denied they built them and even went through the trouble of even putting black coal ashes on the ceilings of the tunnels so they could claim their miners must have gotten lost and they were all accidents. However, there is no coal in this area so that lie obviously doesn't stand. Anyways, so after the museum we got to walk for awhile in the 3rd tunnel South Korea found. This was awesome. Its over 2o stories underground and we got to walk for a long while in it which took us super close to the North Korean border. There was a blockade at the ending point of where we could walk, but if you looked closely you could see North Korea which was super exciting. After going through the tunnel we boarded the bus again and got to go to a lookout point where you could see quite a bit of North Korea. Its a lookout point but its funny because you can only take pictures from behind a line which is kinda far back. This was a little strange but I guess its because North Korean doesn't want us getting a good look of their country... or at least not any good pictures. You could pay about 50 cents and look through binoculars to get a closer look of North Korea. I fo course did and it was kinda neat because with them I could see some buildings and stuff and even a basketball court. It was just cool to be able to say I have seen North Korea. Anyways, after that we to Dorsan station which is an almost completely empty train station. It has only one train that is on a track that leads from South Korea to North Korea. It has never run but it will be the first train to go from South Korea to North Korea supposedly when the two become friends rather than enemies someday. According to South Korea it is "Not the last station from the South, but the first station toward the North." This shows South Korea's hope of there someday being a friendship and no longer a divide between the country. It's a nice thought, but I am not sure if this train will ever run. I guess only time will tell. The DMZ tour was awesome and I really enjoyed going. Next time I might try to take the full day tour that actually lets you go to North Korea. This is the tour my Oma and sister went on 15 years ago when we lived here the first time.

After the DMZ tour, Prairie, Steve (new foreign teacher- Prairie's replacement), and I went to make free "paper arts." We weren't sure what this entailed but we thought it could be fun so we went and all enjoyed ourselves- even Steve. We made paper mirrors and paper boxes. I am thinking he is going to have to give his away as gifts because they are quite girly looking but I think all three of us really enjoyed ourselves and had lots of fun. Later that night we met up with Erica, Jason, Devon, and Jake and went downtown to see a lantern festival. It was really cool and I took a bazillion pictures. There were just so many lanterns of all shapes sizes and of all sorts of things, that I could not help myself. I put up those pictures tomorrow on facebook maybe so you can see for yourself just how cool it was. The next day we went Christmas shopping and Devon and I even got to go to Forever 21 and make some fun purchases. We also went to Itaewon and shopped and looked around and ate and then headed out later that night to celebrate Katelyn's birthday. That night turned out to be a super crazy night but loads of fun. The next day we went to Insadong where we did even more Christmas shopping and I got some pretty neat things. You will have to wait until Christmas to see just exactly what I got... I don't want to soil Christmas gifts by writing what i bought here. :) We left later that night which turned out to be a complete nightmare and super long story but we eventually made it home. Lets just say we were supposed to leave at 5:40 and we didn't end up leaving till 8:45 which got us home around midnight... ugggh when you have to wake up early. But I had a great weekend so it was worth it!

Last weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving Dinner which will have to be a separate post because I need to get this one posted and then head off to bed. There's a ton to write about it too so look for it in the near future. I promise I will do it soon and not wait a month before my next post. :)

Be looking for pictures on facebook and another post soon. Love you all lots and lots and miss you guys too!!!!!!!

Say Kimchi!

This past weekend, Caroline and I along with the two other Kinder foreign teachers, Jason and Erica, decided we would check out the Kimchi festival going on about 10 minutes away (by taxi) from our school. So Caroline and I walked from our house to our school where we met the other two and would catch a taxi. Let me just say first of all that this is standard procedure. Any time we meet anyone for anything we meet outside of our school because everyone else, besides us and one other couple lives near the school. We live about 15 minutes away but have now walked the same one route about ten bazillion times that we could probably walk it with our eyes closed. Anyways, so we walked to school and hailed a taxi. The taxi that stopped for us was probably the coolest taxi ever. It reminded us of cash cab. It was pink and swede on the inside and had a red leather roof. His dashboard had a ton of fun decorations, one being a stuffed spiderman. Jason tried to touch it, but got yelled at in Korean. I guess he is protective of his stuff. :) Caroline, Erica and I were sitting in the back taking pictures and laughing. I guess the guy liked us because he then forced coffee flavored gum in to Erica's hands, which we all ended up eating and HATING. But it was a nice thought. Had this been in America, I would have never taken anything from anyone, especially not a taxi driver, but this is Korea where there is no such thing as crime and he ate it so we did too. We finally got to the World Cup Stadium which is where the festival was setup and began walking around. We found a place that said you could rent free bikes so we did that and played on them for awhile. Erica didn't know how to ride a bike so we taught her. This was lots of fun. Plus, every time we rode up and back this one strip someone would take a picture- it was kinda funny. Finally, a guy stopped us and asked if we would ride up and down this one strip so he could get it on camera. We think he was some sort of press for this event. So we agreed. We were taped walking and waving by one other guy as well. We hoped this was for TV. Sure enough, the next day, one of Caroline's students told her that he saw her on the news. SWEET!! :) I wish we would have seen it. Oh well. So after riding bikes for awhile we started to walk toward a tent that read "Foreigners making Kimchi." We couldn't pass up the photo opportunity or the chance to make our own famous Kimchi while we were here, so we stopped in. First we were taken to be shown what ingredients are used to make Kimchi and briefly how to make it, and then it was our turn. We got to put on these super sweet gloves and aprons and then mix ingredients to make the super duper spicy sauce and then spread it on the cabbage. Although, there was nothing to spreading sauce on the cabbage, somehow I managed to do it wrong cause the guy kept coming over to help me. I think I wasn't putting enough sauce on mine. They LOVE it spicy. After making the Kimchi that we had no intention on ever eating (none of us really like the taste of it) it was packaged up and put in this carrying case for us to take it home. We ended up giving it to the owner of our school, the assistant manager, the technology guy and the 5 Korean Kinder teachers to eat and say thanks for everything so far. They liked it and loved that we made it! :) After making the Kimchi some guy who worked at the festival approached us and wanted to be our interpreter. We didn't really need or want him but he wanted to show us around so we let him. He took us into this building where we got to try lots and lots of Kimchi. Like I mentioned bfore, none of us really like Kimchi but we were up for trying a bit so this was fun. I tried way more than I ever expected, partly because if you linger at the booth too long you are forced to try it by the people working the booth and also due to curiosity because I thought all Kimchi tasted pretty similar. Surprisingly enough, some were actually kinda ok, and then others were absolutely awful. Erica and I got forced to drink this water Kimchi juice by someone and I can honestly say it was one of the worst things I have ever tasted ever. It was SOOOO gross. It tasted like drinking straight up vinegar and dirt. bleh! Caroline and Jason at the same time were being forced to try seaweed grossness that they both agreed came straight from the Ocean just a second earlier. They said it was the saltiest thing they have ever tasted and also equally disgusting. Thank goodness this was the last booth so we were able to leave and immediately find a drink machine where we all opted to pay whatever it cost to get the tastes out of our mouths. After that we rode on the "Kimchi train" and looked at some art all about Kimchi. This was kinda funny. After that we went into a building that told us all about the history of Kimchi. Apparently, Gwangju (where I live) is known for it's Kimchi and Kimchi festival and it is considered to be the best in the country. (just ask anyone here, they will tell you. ;) ) We walked around a bit more before getting kabobs to eat and then going home. It was a really fun day and definitely a Korean experience I am glad we did!

This weekend, our school is taking all of the foreign teachers on a mandatory field trip to this Korean traditional festival place. I am not sure what to really expect and they won't really tell us too much except that it will be lots of fun and we will enjoy it so I guess I am kinda looking forward to that.

I hope you all are doing fantastic and am having as much fun as I am here in korea. I miss you all tons!!! LOVE YOU!