새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Sae hae bok manee badusaeyo! Happy Lunar New Year! We have spent the past weekend exploring the Korean holdiay of Lunar New Year. Last Thursday and Friday our parents came to school and watched us teach. Our kids also came dressed in hanbok, traditional Korean clothes. They had to bow to us, the directors, and later also to their parents. We gave them both money and a blessing. It would have been interesting to understand what each of the parents said to the kids. We also played games like Korean hopscotch, arm wrestling, and yut nori. Yut nori is a popular game, which we plan on buying, where you throw four sticks and get points to move around the board. There are ways to overtake other players and to take short cuts to win. This is a picture of Matt throwing the sticks while playing yut nori outside this past weekend.

On Saturday we traveled to the more traditional district of Seoul called Insadong. There we explored a park, window shopped some, and tried to stay warm. The windchill was below 10 degrees Fahrenheit I think. We did end up finding some hanbok that fit Matt! We had wanted to buy some but, being hand-made from silk, they are pretty expensive. This one was the only one like it, the right size, and super on sale! Now we are in search of hanbok for Eileen.

On Sunday we hoped that everyone would be with their families so we traveled to one of the ski parks near Seoul. While it was a little busy, we are guessing that it is nowhere near what it is normally like during a weekend. Eileen tried snowboarding for the first time and did pretty well. She then switched to skis later on and we had a lot of fun trying out different slopes. It was not a very big place, although some of the runs were a little longer, which was nice. The ski boots were the most simple boots we had ever seen and thought that was funny because the skis were nice shaped skis. There were a few interesting differences between our ski resorts. There were no maps for us to follow. Each chair just had labeled what kind of run was most likely on the other side. Luckily, that was also listed in English. There were mirrors at both the bottom and top of the hill so you can make sure that you still look good all the time. Once you were about to get on the ski lift, there was a little moving walkway thing that moved you until the chair came under you. We also found that they shut down the ski slopes from 5 to 6:30. To ski after 6:30 it cost a lot more money. However, we also found out that after we stopped skiing at 5 we couldn't go home until 10:30. We hung out in the "lodge" (there was no fireplace or hominess about it) and then ended up finding this large, kinda freaky, underground mall run by the ski resort.

Finally, we spent the actual day of Lunar New Year, Monday, at the Namsangol Traditional Korean Village in Seoul. Here we got to play lots of traditional games like yut nori (a board game), nurtwigi (seesaw), throwing arrows, bean bag toss, stick and hoop game, kite flying, and jaegi chagi (hacky sack). We watched a cool performance of traditional dancing and musicians. We also watched a tightrope walker. We saw traditional food being made and other traditions that go along with the holiday. We had a very fun and very cold day trying lots of Lunar New Year experiences. See our pictures to check out what else we saw. Also, below, I am going to post videos that go along with this post so that you can see all that we saw. Enjoy!

Snow in Seoul!

This week we finally got a little taste of what we think of as winter. It has just been pretty cold and dry but on Friday we got fluffy white snow. While it seemed to snow for a long time, the result was what maybe could be considered an inch of snow. Either way the kids, and us, were super excited. It was very pretty. By Saturday it had been melted, been packed down, and refrozen to a make a nice layer of ice that was pretty fun to navigate. You realize that when your main mode of transportation is walking, the weather affects you a lot more.
Other than that, life is pretty much back to its normal routine. We are happy to say that our Korean dinning experiences are increasing and we are finding more and more Korean food that we can enjoy. I guess it just takes a while to get over the intimidation factor of food that looks different, a menu in a language you don't speak, and a set-up that is a bit unfamiliar. We have favorite spots and even discovered that our favorite mushroom place actually also has the best pork galbi (a marinated piece of pork that is grilled at your table) that we have eaten. As far as our teeth go, while we don't understand all of what happened to us in our initial dentist visits or in our follow up appointments, our mouths feel great and our teeth look good. Korea is treating us well.

Korean Dentistry: Hi-tech in appearance, Medieval in practice

We have recently had the pleasure of visiting the dentist here two different times. We were excited when hearing from others that the price was super cheap here compared to what it can be in the States. We found a dentist office where the dentist spoke some English, although no one else did, and went to have our teeth "cleaned". When we first went in the took some high tech 360 (or would that be 180?) pictures of our teeth. When we were lead back to the dentist's chair, we were able to view our X-rays on a flat monitor that was mounted in front of us. He explored our mouths using a small camera, and pictures of problem teeth could be seen on the screen. It is kind of weird actually seeing a big blow-up of your own cavity. While they wanted to wait to fillings and such done for another time we still wanted to get them cleaned. We should have been tipped off that cleaning here is called "scaling".
We were a little worried that none of the dental hygienists, nor the dentist, wore gloves. Also, none of the tools had little plastic covers like they do here. I know they are very communal about food sharing and I am still wondering if the same thing applies to dental tools. Before the "scaled" our teeth, they covered our faces with a big green cloth. There is only a whole for your nose and mouth. While maybe this was supposed to be nice that we couldn't watch, it made me a little nervous not being able to see what was going on. I am guessing it is there because Korean's are very protective of their faces. If a kid gets a scratch on his face he'll be wearing a bandage for the next two months so as to not leave any scars. As we were blind to what was going on, they started in on one of the most painful dental procedures we have ever had. Instead of cleaning with a tooth brush, they grind away the plaque with a drill like thing (I could only hear and feel it, not see it). It also appeared to be too bad if your gums happened to get in the way of the grinding machine. We will not be doing that again and our teeth can wait for America to be clean.
This past weekend we were aided by our super awesome Korean friend Eula as we traveled to her dentist to see if we couldn't have some better work done. While it was much smoother it wouldn't have been so if Eula hadn't translated everything. Eileen got a cavity filled and to keep the tooth separate they used something called a dental dam (we only know this now because we searched it online.) Here is a picture of what one looks like:
While I am sure it helps to keep the tooth dry, it is a little uncomfortable to have this metal and rubber apparatus across your face for 30 minutes or so. They also had to stick us both multiple times with Novocaine. I have never had to be stuck so many times before! All of our procedures were again done with no rubber gloves, although we did witness the dentist scrubbing in. As it is the day after, we are feeling much better...that is until we have to return again next Saturday. South Korean dentistry: cheap and a cultural experience that we will not miss.

Holiday in Cambodia

Well, not really Cambodia, but the same general part of the world so to speak. (If you don't get it look up the Dead Kennedys.) We just got back from a 9 day vacation around southeast Asia. It was a wonderful break and was really relaxing. We never had to wear long pants or long sleeves and got plenty of wonderful sun. (A little too much sun on a day near the end). We began our trip in Singapore. We left on Christmas Eve. We had to get up around 5 in the morning to make the trek to the bus stop to get to the airport which is over an hour away. We traveled on Singapore Airlines which was by far the nicest airplane I have ever traveled in. It was so nice, and it was even decorated for Christmas. Once in Singapore we traveled through the city by light rail to our hotel which was near Little India. The thing that suprised us the most about Singapore was how different it felt from Seoul. I always thought that being a city state on an island, it would be super built up. There was so much green and the buildings were so many warm colors. In some ways it reminded us of Florida (though a very southeast Asian Florida). It felt so much less congested and relaxed. We had a great time exploring the area we were in until downpours put a little damper on our evening excursion plans. We wish we could have spent more time there.
Very early the next morning we got up and traveled to the train station. We then took a train through the Malaysian countryside up to Singapore. We kept making jokes that we were back in central America. It looked so similar. The housing in the poorer rural areas was similar to things we had seen there. There were palm trees everywhere! Forests of palm trees! We also came upon forests of what I suspected, and later confirmed, were rubber trees. It was nice to get to see parts of Malaysia that we would not have gotten to see in the city. We ended our ride in Kuala Lumpur and traveled through the city (after much confusion becuase they don't give you a visa stamp when coming in my train) to our hotel near the Petronas towers.
We spent about a day in Kuala Lumpur and enjoyed the breaks in the weather when it was not raining. At this point it was Christmas day but it did not feel like it at all. It was hot and humid and we even went swimming under the stars on Christmas night. The Petronas towers were one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture I have ever seen. I loved them! From there we traveled again to a little tiny airport. It was the kind of airport where the baggage claim sign was a piece of paper taped to a door that lead out to the tarmac. We flew on Firefly Airlines, a domestic carrier that flies only turbo prop planes. I was a little nervous about flying in something small with propellers and it didn't help that they sat me in the seat where the propeller was only a few feet away from my window. However, it was one of the smoothest flights I have ever had and for around $30 a ticket, I can't complain. They even gave us food and refreshments!
We spent the next few days on the island of Penang in Malaysia. It is right near the Thai/Malaysia border on the western side. Our hotel was wonderful and the wall of windows in our hotel room gave us a panoramic view of the ocean and the distant mainland with mountains. We spent a lot of time exploring the city and its ethnic diversity. We especially enjoyed the Indian culture and had some of the best and most authentic Indian food of our lives. (Most people were eating with their hands from their banana leaf plate. As foreigners, they offered us utensils.)We explored many shrines and temples and relaxed and drank coconut juice from coconuts while watching the waves. We had delicious food and fun experiences finding our selves the only white foreigners in many areas (not like that doesn't happen all the time here in Korea). We really enjoyed the ethnic diversity of Malaysia which is something we really miss here.
We then traveled by Firefly/turboprop plane, to the island of Phuket in Thailand. This was a beautiful tropical island where, after much traveling, or only activities were to consist of sitting on the beach and enjoying a good book. We had a very relaxing time. I really enjoyed swimming with all kinds of tropical fish right off the beach. It was a great experience. We were suprised to find ourselves the only people speaking English even though everyone looked western. It appears that Penang is a hot spot for Scandanavians and Europeans. There were lots of big people with blond hair. Our resort was great and was on a hill between two beaches. We were surrounded by mountains and had a great view of the ocean on two sides. We also ate a lot of delicious Thai food. Since one of Matt's favorite dishes is curry, we ate our fair share, and it was so cheap! Our last day there was New Year's Eve. Since our flight didn't leave until 2 am on New Year's Day, we spent our last night at a New Year's Eve Gala hosted by our hotel. We ate lobster and other delicious food while watching hours of Thai dancing, boxing, and other souteast Asian entertainment.
Overall it was a great trip and we wish we could have spent even more time in each place that we visited. If you want to see all of our pictures, check out the link on the right hand side of our blog.

Christmas time is here!

This has been a very busy past couple of weeks. Since the beginning of November, we have been practicing Christmas plays with our preschool and kindergarten students. All plays are teacher written and directed. Matt wrote a version of the Christmas Carol, and I (Eileen) rewrote "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to be about Santa coming to our school. We have rushed academic subjects to get in play practice time everyday for 2 months. This past week we had a Christmas festival where parents came for 3 different days to watch their children preform their Christmas plays and songs/dances taught by the Korean teachers. Blaise teacher's (Matt's) class preformed on Wednesday. They did a great job and pulled off a challenging play. They also preformed handbells (which will probably be posted soon). On Friday, my class preformed, and it was...well...if you met my class it was Pluto class showing off their true colors. Since many of these kids are so advanced, most plays are really spectacular for kindergarteners and preschoolers. However, mine was what you would label a typical preschool play. I was blessed to have a group of students who have great difficulty focusing and are not always with the program. They did a really great job on their play, but it was pretty funny (unintentionally). One student hit his head on the standing mic and was so embarrassed he just stood there frozen for a minute or so. When students hesitated to stand up to talk, other students would yell their name or start to recite their line for them. Many students, frozen by the parents in the crowd, forgot to stand up or sit down at appropriate times. They really were cute though. We were also the only class, as told to me by my supervisor (who was in tears laughing), to heckle Santa. She said there were no other words to describe it. Most classes sat quietly while they got to go up and see Santa and get gifts while their parents watched. They had to stop to get my class to be quiet. Many students where yelling, "Where are your reindeer??" "Why can't we see them?" One girl got up, and on the microphone (see picture) while talking to Santa, told him that Santa is only Korean (a white American was playing Santa). People were cracking up, which is a great thing because many times Korean parents are stone faced and won't crack a smile at some of these school events.
After all the Christmas fun was over, we had a school end of the year party on Friday. They took us on buses to this really nice cafe. We got a steak dinner (of course still served with a side of kimchi) and then exchanged secret Santa gifts. We then had a school wide Norea-bong competition (karaoke) with both Koreans and foreigners. It was really funny watching some of the Korean staff, because it is a whole side that we felt like we had never seen. The directors both got up and sang solos and the president of our school (like the CEO, in the pic above) got up and sang. Here the cleaning and cooking ajimas (what you call a woman who is older than you or of this age) sang a song together.Everything was hysterical. I won first or second prize (I can't remember now) for group singing while preforming Hurts so Good with a bunch of the girls. It was a fun time.
We are very excited and looking forward to our winter break that starts on Wed! We have gotten in the holiday spirit and I even baked "gingerbread" cookies this past weekend. Due to the absence of molasses in Korea (even in foreign food marts), I made an alternative recipe using corn syrup and dark brown sugar. They turned out pretty well and tasted like "light" gingerbread. We miss everyone at home and hope that everyone is having a great holiday season!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

All I Want For Christmas is You

This is a video of Eileen's preschoolers dancing to Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You". They did it for me during class, but it will be preformed in front of their parents next week at the Christmas Festival. Keep your eye on the girl near the middle in the black dress. She gets into it the most and you can sometimes hear her singing over the CD. The boys are pretty hysterical and the girl in white close to the end can really shake it. Enjoy! The more you watch it, the funnier it gets.

Winter has begun

So we haven't posted in a while. Life has been moving very fast. In November we were able to go to the DMZ, or demilitarized zone. This is the strip of land between North and South Korea where no military forces are allowed to build up. I don't think we realized how tense things still are. There was no real treaty, just a cease-fire. It was an interesting experience. We got to set foot inside North Korea while inside a room with guard Republic of Korea, South Korea soldiers. We got to go to different points along the DMZ where they have stations to look out into North Korea. The other side seemed pretty, there were lots of nice mountains. However, they pointed out things like jamming towers that jam all signals from any part of the world into North Korea. They also have a town known as Propaganda village. It is a ghost town and is maintained to show how "well" North Korea is doing. It also has an enormous flag pole with a flag that was just as big as some of the four story houses. When we were in a joint area run by the UN, we got to see North Korean buildings and soldiers. In some of our pictures we can see how some windows are open and they had cameras taking pictures of us. We were not allowed to point or make gestures as that could be used as North Korean propaganda. We also got to see a tunnel that North Korea made in the 70's in an attempt to reach Seoul. When discovered, they painted the granite ceiling black and said it was a tunnel for coal mining.

On a very different note, we got to host a Thanksgiving dinner for all of our co-workers. We searched the foreign food stores in Seoul and found a turkey to cook in our little oven. We are the only people who have an oven out of the 24 or so employees that have apartments. We were really nervous cooking it in an oven whose temperature we didn't exactly know and not having any kind of meat thermometer. It turned out great and Matt carved his first turkey. We also made stuffing and green bean casserole (yum!!) with the help of some food from care packages. People brought lots of yummy food and we fit 15 people into our studio apartment. Everyone was so happy to be full with good western food. There was no kimchi at this dinner.


The next day we ate leftover turkey sandwiches. Honestly, turkey sandwiches have never ever tasted so good. Didn't think we would miss turkey that much. We put up the few Christmas decorations that were left by past occupants of our apartment and made stove top leftover casserole. It was an absolutely wonderful day.

School is going well for us. We have fallen more into a routine and are excited that we are not leaving before 8:00 almost every night and not taking work home with us. Things are very busy this month with lots of Christmas activities. We are preparing our preschool and kindergarteners for their Christmas plays. In about a week and a half they will preform plays for their parents and those of several other classes. Matt's class is preforming a Christmas Carol and Eileen's class is preforming a new rendition of Twas' the Night Before Christmas with words changed to be about our school. Both of the scripts were written by us. They are also learning a song, dance, and instrument playing from their Korean teacher. Many classes are preforming dances to "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey. It's pretty hysterical. We will try and tape these performances to share.

A funny note to end on...

Even English schools aren't free from mistakes...

Ha-Ha!! Merry Christmas!!!