Santa Claus is Coming...

Angela, Alvin, Liang

Listening to Christmas music, sipping my peppermint tea, laundry is going...my apartment is a disaster. What with my drying rack out, add to that piles of things I need to pack for Thailand. I had a very productive weekend, shopping for some elephant essentials: a mosquito net and repellent, sunscreen, a hat, rubber boots, work gloves, boys bathing suit shorts (we have to be covered up when we go in the water)...all those important things. On Saturday I did my shopping in Yongsan, in Seoul. There is an electronics MALL there...I mean, each floor is dedicated to a different type of technology. It is nuts! I AM SO EXCITED!!!! The week is going to go so quickly. Tony is having a Christmas party on Thursday. We're playing the game (Yankee Swap? White Elephant?) where everyone brings one gift, then everyone draws a number. Number 1 picks the first gift. Number 2 can pick the next gift, or steal the first gift, etc. etc. So I have to go shopping for that gift, and figure out what snack I am going to bring! I am also making cards for my Mercury kids, have Skype dates like it's my job (which I love), and have to pack! That on top of my regular work hours. This is ALWAYS a busy time of year. A good busy though.

Today was my last time to the gym for the year. My pass is up next week, but I have too much going on, so I'll renew in January after the holidays. Maybe this is cheesy, but I am proud to say I've lost 15 pounds since joining. Woo!

Me and Christian

I went out with a group of friends on Saturday evening, and our night ended at Nori Bang, my first time (finally)! Nori Bang (pronounced no-rae bong) is a singing room...basically it means kareoke! You rent out a room for a set amount of time with the group you're with, and sing to your heart's content! Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson was my song of choice for the night. I would totally do it again. The night started at Happidus, and Christian and his friends ended up being there, too. Extra fun! The more the merrier.

Nori bang!

We had another field trip today, to a fire station! Once again it proved a "scary" trip for some of my kiddies...the simulated smoke and fire house drill was quite traumatic and tear-inducing for some. They survived it though.

Mercury

All the kindergarten kids

On the bus ride to the fire station, I asked some of my students what they did on the weekend. Keep in mind they don't always speak in full, complete, correctly-ordered sentences, though they have enough vocabulary so that we communicate quite easily together. Anyways, John, without skipping a beat, says, "We didn't do anything!" I burst out laughing, because this is a line from the play they are practicing for festival in January. I thought it was so clever, because his answer made perfect sense! My students amaze me every day.

Not sure I'll get a chance to blog before I head out on Christmas day. Have a safe and merry Christmas! And all the best for a wonderful new year! Miss you all! xox

Baby, it's cold outside

Eesh! Sipping my morning cup of Earl Grey tea and listening to Christmas tunes, not REALLY wanting to leave the comfort of my cozy bed for the day. It's chilly out, about -13! No snow. We had a pretty snowfall last Wednesday, it didn't stick though. I've been feeling extra busy as of late, with Christmas coming up very quickly. With that comes report cards, tests, parties, and prepping for my holidays.

In case you didn't know, I'm going to THAILAND for Christmas!!! To work with ELEPHANTS!!!! YEY!!! I fly out Christmas day and return January 2 (as work starts January 3). I'll be out of touch for that time, staying in a remote-ish place south of Bangkok. I'll be housed with the other volunteers (8 of us total), food provided, and hanging with the elephants - walking them, bathing them and swimming with them...some dirty work is to be expected, too. I love elephants and am beyond excited for this opportunity! This weekend I'll be busy getting some last-minute items for the trip: mosquito repellent and a mosquito net, sunscreen, and other outdoor essentials. I already found the gardening/working gloves that are recommended, for picking pineapples, of course. This time of year in Thailand is the cool and dry season: temperatures ranging from 18-30. I can totally handle that.

Breakfast with Hunter a couple weeks ago fell through but I went anyways. I had a book with me, and nothing was stopping me from having french toast! It's a good thing I remembered where the place was located! I had a productive shopping day following, at Dongdaemun market, getting some clothing for Thailand, and other fun things. Monday I went out for dinner with one of my new gal pals. Melissa took me to a great Korean BBQ place.

On Saturday I volunteered for Animal Rescue Korea, standing outside at a booth, selling jello shots, delicious vegan baking, and donation for the shelter. Karen has a cat from the shelter, and is therefore connected to the events they organize. The two of us had a three-hour shift in Itaewon, the foreigner neighbourhood in Seoul. Despite the cold, it was lots of fun. We met some great and generous people. When we finished our shift, one million Won had been raised, and the grand total was 2.5 million Won. Awesome! After that I went out for dinner with some new friends. It was nice.

Time is going so quickly! Bah! Oh! I saw Harry Potter last night! It was opening night here. The theater wasn't even full! Can you believe that?

I apologize for the shortness of this post. I'll write again before I leave for Thailand! In the mean time, stay safe and warm! xo

Good morning, Sunshine!

Besties Scarlet and Christine

It's another wonderful sunny Saturday. Mild and perfect for being out and about. Yey!

I have to share some class highlights from this week:

-earlier this week Julian was not behaving very well, and I reminded him that "Julian, you only have one point left"...to this he replied, "No, one point right!" WHERE DOES HE GET THIS STUFF? So clever!

-I like reviewing shapes with my kindies, and I have taught them pentagon, hexagon, and octogon. They sometimes get those mixed up, and fair enough. Wednesday we were studying sea animals so I drew an octopus and an octogon and we counted tentacles and sides, and I could see some of them lighting up and making the connection. Then, when I showed an image of a starfish and asked how many points there were, they answered, "Five!" Sunny shouts out, "Like a pentagon!" I love my kids. They are actually listening to me!

-I don't usually wear my glasses at school but I wore them to my last class of the day on Thursday, when I teach my elementary 10-year old girls. Nina saw my glasses and asked, "are you tired?" Ha. Smart girl.

-The same group of elementary girls said to me another day, "Teacher, you are exhausting!" It was too funny because I was trying to get a lot accomplished in that particular class. Exhausted was a new vocabulary word for them a couple weeks ago, but they added the -ing mistakenly. It was well played though, and they didn't even know it. (Of course I then explained the difference to them.)

-Occasionally I sit down at the Mercury table with the kids (in the teeny tiny chairs) to read them their story. This week, for every story book class, Alvin has made it his job to pull out a chair for me. I was standing and showing the pictures and he goes and gets a chair and pulls my shirt and says "Teacher" and points to the chair. I guess he likes when I sit! Cutest thing ever.

-Liang, little terror number two, next to Julian, has been much better lately. He actually hugs me all the time now and never used to. Angela, another really young one (3 and a half years old) is so quiet and sweet and has started hugging me and never used to either. Yey! I swear it never gets old, but every time I enter the room or see Mercury kids in the hall they SHOUT at the top of their lungs, "LEAH TEACHER!" Makes me feel like a rock star.

In January, the school puts on Festival. It's basically a recital, and all the kindergarten classes perform story book dances, plays, and speeches. My class is performing "The Ant and the Grasshopper" as their play, and I chose the song "At the Hop" for their closing number. It's SO fun playing dance teacher and choreographing routines. I can't wait to see it all come together. For the instrumental part of the song, I just have my kids playing air piano, guitar, and saxophone, and every time I do it they are all in stitches laughing (I rock out pretty hard, after all). I've been helping Karen with her dance routines too, and came up with a sweet number to "Rock Around the Clock". There is also a school-wide dance routine to "Hey Mickey" - costumes and everything! I guess this is kind of a big deal. The six-year-olds are doing a drumming and tambourine routine to "Mamma Mia", so that's been fun to help out with as well.

Mercury rehearsing for festival

All the kindies (5-, 6-, and 7-year olds) rehearsing

Thursday I went out for dinner with Tony and two of my Korean coworkers, Selina and Elly. Then I met up with Christian for a drink. Last night I was at Happidus again, where everybody knows your name! Yet again, met some more cool folks, good tunes, fun times.

Elly teacher!

Happy weekend! I'm off to Seoul tomorrow for breakie (Hi, Hunter) and to check out some markets! xo

Go Big or Go Home

And the "best dressed" awards go to...Liang and Alvin!

Friday was the first time I wore pants to work. Tony said he thought there was something different about me...! Hahaha I'm really more of a skirts and dresses kind of gal, what can I say?

I am continuously being warned that Koreans add sugar to everything. Yes, the tomato juice I once bought was on the sweet side. Yes, some of the breads are a tad too sugary. The garlic bread is the worst actually, and is really disgusting. Last week was the final straw though and confirms that EVERYTHING is sugar-coated. I bought a box of Kellogg's Special K cereal...and it's sweet! SPECIAL K IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SUGARY! Bah!

Christian was so gracious as to host Thanksgiving, round two yesterday. More delicious food, more fabulous company...and we played Apples to Apples! A group of us ended up going out in the area to a club called Slang. It was a lot of fun! I hadn't been dancing in a long time. Met some more people, and ran into some familiar faces. Another late night...like 4:30am late. How does that always happen?! All or nothing...

Wednesday evening we had a staff dinner, which was fun! Lots of food and drinks flowing. We had a very long table at the back of the restaurant. We had to take our shoes off, and we sat on pillows on the floor. So many dishes and refills of dishes kept coming - various fish and seafood, soups, salads. YUM.

Shana, my coteacher for Mercury

Thursday we had a field trip to the Natural History Museum. Some of the wee ones were scared and crying because of the dinosaur displays. Slightly cruel that I think that's cute? I like having field trips once a month, to change things up.

Doing laundry

Chatting with my mom the other day made me realize I have yet to share the joy that is doing laundry chez moi. Let me indulge you.

First of all, my washing machine (if you can even call it that...see object to the right of my toilet) is a very tiny plastic box, with two compartments. You first put your clothes into the space on the left, along with the amount of water you see fit, and detergent. You then spin a dial to select the amount of time, the maximum being fifteen minutes. (I have never actually run it multiple times through for a load of laundry.) The next bit, the extra fun bit, involves wringing out all of my clothes, and putting them into the second compartment for the spin cycle. Here's the catch: it fits about four articles of clothing at a time, and runs for a maximum of five minutes per dial rotation. Then, when that's all done, I hang my laundry to dry on a drying rack, that takes up my entire living space, so that the next twenty-four hours of drying time involve me crawling and ducking to get to my wardrobe, fridge, and bed. Exciting, no? I miss the days when I could pop a load of laundry in and actually leave and use the time a little more productively. Laundromat, anyone?

Something else I never really think about - I eat with chopsticks every day. I really love it.

I saw The Social Network last evening with Christian (friend from McGill living here) and his girlfriend. Excellent film. We saw it at a mall called Times Square, located eight metro stops away from me, towards Seoul. This mall is amazing and beautiful and I will definitely be returning. Good place to be when the weather gets cooler! The movie theatre has the largest screen in the world (we didn't see our movie on it though). Fun fact!

Koreans are blunt

So my little "hello, how are you?" friend at the gym was leaving at the same time as me yesterday, so we walked and chatted before separating to our respective residences. Now, all we've ever said to each other is as stated above, along with a friendly smile. The first question he asked as we descended the stairs was, "how old are you?" Then, he uses his arms to gesture a belly, then brings his arms in to make it a smaller belly, and says, "you slim"....hahaha. I know he wasn't trying to offend, by suggesting I was fat before. Just a little lost in translation. But another guy at the gym, when I first met him, asked if I was at the gym to lose weight. He has since said that I have. And it's not just the men, and it's not just the gym. Some of the female Korean teachers I work with won't hesitate to point out of someone looks like they are gaining weight (to the foreign staff too). Seriously. I guess it's not rude for them...!

Last night I went to Happidus again. More laughs, more darts (I beat the boys), more groovy tunes. Less sleep. Patrons have control of the music. Someone put on Journey's Don't Stop Believing, and we (me and a bunch of guys) had an intense sing-along/belt-at-the-top-of-your-lungs session. The crowd went pretty wild when I put on Buddy Holly's Rave On too. My taxi fair en route to the bar came to 2600 won (that's about $2.50). I gave the driver 3100 won and he looked so confused. Then I literally witnessed the lightbulb, as he fished out a 500 won coin for me. I've done that at the grocery store too and they get all confused. Apparently people don't do that here.

Random fact: my banker here knows McGill! I mentioned going to school in Montreal (he asked) and then asked if I went there. Some Canadians and Americans I meet don't know it, yet my Korean banker does! I found that amusing.

Another sunny, mild day. Was out and about with Karen, Romo, Trevor, and Patty for lunch and errands. And now I rest. I may just call it an early night...! haha Happy weekend!

The perfect day

Karen and Patty

Rant I must get out of the way: HARRY POTTER DOESN'T OPEN IN SOUTH KOREA UNTIL DECEMBER 16! NOT FAIR! So to the rest of the world, enjoy the opening! And don't tell me anything!! Bah!

Ok. *phew*

Reason number 62 why I'm the worst (best?) teacher ever: the other day I called Liang a "cheeky little bugger" and immediately Julian repeated it. So then I said it for the whole class, "Mercury, listen and say...cheeky little bugger". Scarlet and John pronounce it particularly well (some sound like "chicken booger"), and they seriously won't stop saying it, the whole lot of them. They remember it every day. It's really quite hilarious though, and never fails to make me smile. At such a young age, they repeat everything I say, whereas some of my elementary 6- and 7-year olds are much more shy to speak. Also since I've been here, all my Mercury kids go around the room exclaiming "oh my goodness!" every time something gets knocked over or a mistake is made or whatever. Totally another thing they picked up from me. I'm creating little Korean Leahs. Muahaha. (I totally should NOT have introduced "pick your nose" when I taught them Simon Says. They all pick their noses anyways, but now they constantly announce it to me when they do. Eww.)

I sacrificed my Wednesday evening at the gym to go shopping for warmer pajamas. Though the days are still mild-ish (12 to 15 degrees) the mornings and evenings are fresh, around zero. Priorities, right? If I turn my heat on I'll be heating the outdoors, as the tube for my air-con unit thing goes out the window. Geniuses, the old Korean buildings. So part of my window is always slightly open. I think I'll invest in a space heater. In the mean time I've constructed a really cool fort to sleep in. Not really. But now I think I'm onto something...

View from Karen and Romo's...our destination (Gwanak-san...that's the name of the mountain)

Saturday was a wonderfully beautiful postcard day. After a refreshing five hours of sleep, I awoke to a lovely sunshiney day. And perfect because it was planned to be a hiking day - Gwanak-san. This mountain can be conveniently accessed from about a five minute walk from my front door. Woo! I love this city for that. City and nature within minutes from me. Anyways, Karen, Patty, and I did the hike. With the warm sun, we were sure to stop in some rock spots to enjoy the mountain, the view, and some girl talk. We saw an old man walking with his dog, whoo, when he reached a certain lookout point, started yelling, like some sort of victory yell. It went on for some time. All the power to him. Our walk included checking out a Buddhist temple, Manghaeam. On our descent, we ran into Charlie (my student) and his sister Chloe with their dad. Gosh they're just the cutest kids. And oh the fall colours are radiant, though I will say, Canada still wins for prettiest autumn leaves. No questions.

Oh! And the food on this most perfect day! We went for lunch at our close-to-home loal family-owned Korean spot. I got tapoki, these thick rice noodles, in a sweet and spicy red sauce. Mmmm. And for dinner, Karen and Romo took me for Shabu Shabu (a Japanese meal). DELICIOUS. You are given a big pot of broth to boil on your table, and lots and lots of veggies, noodles, and thinly sliced meat, some mandu (which are like dumplings), and all kinds of yummy refillable sides, like pickles and salad and kimchi and radish. You cook it all yourself, and dig in. YUM. And you really can't complain when it's only $8 each! The perfect end to my day...I definitely went to bed early that night.

Yes, I did say I got five hours of sleep. I'm becoming a bit of a regular at Happidus on Fridays. I like the crowd, the beer is cheap, and it's a nice end to the week. Plus there's a dart game on Fridays, and if you hit one of the targets, you win something! Of the four times I've played, I've hit it three times, so I win lots of my drinks! It's great! So yes, that's likely where you'll find me...

Oh! Good news! Sunday I submitted my University of Toronto application, so now I am officially done applying!! YEY!!! (I have yet to drink my celebratory North Korean beer.) As I said before, now I wait until April to find out!

Pepero, pajamas, and pay day

Wednesday was my first official FULL pay day since being here. WHAT A RELIEF! Woohoo!

Angela!

John

In South Korea, 11/11 is Pepero Day, a day much like Valentine's Day, dedicated to these specific chocolate sticks (called pepero) that people give to each other. It's a recent holiday, from the mid-90s, and its origin is debatable. Some sources say some middle-school girls in Busan started it, while others say Lotte noticed an increase in pepero sales around this time, and therefore began advertising for it. Supposedly the numbers in the date look like the sticks. So basically there were a lot of chocolate sticks being consumed at school today! It coincided with a theme day for this month - pajama day! I took full advantage and wore sweat pants and a comfy t-shirt. A nice change from my dresses and skirts (not that I don't love wearing those)! All the kids brought in snacks for the morning - fruit mostly. Julian ate THREE WHOLE BANANAS, among other things. It's no wonder he threw up minutes later. Who eats three bananas? What a little monkey. After some activities, all the kindies gathered in the auditorium to watch Sleeping Beauty. My kids were scared of the witch and were all huddled around me. All the other kindy classes (the six- and seven-year olds) stayed sitting nicely in their lines. We were the only blob. Haha It was nice and cozy though, like a real pajama party!

Alvin WOULD wear this

After lunch was story time. Some of the Korean teachers dressed up and went around scaring the kids. I was on break and missed this portion, but only two of my twelve kids DIDN'T cry! Haha Some of them are so sensitive. It's kind of adorable and awesome, although some cry over the silliest little things. All in all, it was a fun day!

There was a crazy storm the other night. And I would just like to mention that the current weather in Seoul is "dust"...good thing I live in Anyang, where it is currently forecasted as "partly cloudy".

I can't believe another weekend is almost here! Saturday's plan is to go hiking up one of the mountains here. Yey! Last time we planned that it rained, but it's supposed to be 16 and sunny this time. Fingers crossed!

In other news, I mailed my teacher's college application to University of Ottawa and submitted my online application to Western! The only one left now is University of Toronto. ALMOST DONE! Then I get to play the waiting game until April. Love to all! Remembering today...

I caught camera-shy Julian!

Always hanging on

DMZ and other adventures

Soldiers take photos too

A picture of the North Korean view from Dora Observatory

The actual (lack of) view that day

Here I am. Another Monday. Winding down my evening with a little blogging and a cup of peppermint tea.

On Saturday, Karen, Romo, Jennifer, and I took a tour with the USO of the DMZ - that is the demilitarized zone. It's a safety zone between North and South Korea, running 250km in length, and about 4km wide. A US military official toured us around the Joint Security Area (JSA), a part of the DMZ where negotiations are made. We were able to see North Korean soldiers watching us with binoculars, curious about who we were. There are very strict behaviour and dress codes on this tour, you see. There are also lots of bus rides, to various areas. We technically stood on North Korean territory! And we were able to stamp our passports at the Dorasan train station (not operating) that joins North and South Korea. The only path allowing transit between the two is a highway. Unfortunately it was super foggy out, so when we were taken to an observation tower, to have a view of North Korea, we only saw whiteness. That was the only thing the fog effected. The rest of the tour was kind of neat with the fog - it set an eerie mood (we were driving through areas with active mines)! The tour also involved going down through one of the tunnels that the North Koreans built underneath the DMZ. Their cover story was that it was being used for mining. BUSTED. There was too much evidence that it was being used to attach South Korea. It was a very interesting tour, to say the least. It started very early though, so Friday was early to bed, as I had to be up at 5:30am on Saturday: we had to get to Seoul for 7am.

Dorasan Station

JSA - South facing North

Saturday after the tour, a friend from Happidas texted me to go out for coffee. Coffee turned into a walk, turned into cell phone shopping for me, turned into dinner. It was fun! I ended up getting a new (used) cell phone. The one the previous teacher left for me was under her name, so even though it's pay-as-you-go, I wasn't able to put more credit on it. I found a cheap replacement though, so that's all settled.

When I got home Saturday evening, I thought I'd beat the Sunday crowds and do my grocery shopping then. I was mistaken. E-Mart was booming on Saturday night at 9:30! Who knew? Anyways, I called it a night after that.

Sunday I was very productive once again, working on teacher's college applications. I'm officially applying to Ottawa, Western, and Toronto. I'm getting close to finishing! I bought myself a bottle of North Korean beer at the DMZ tour! I have yet to drink it...it will be a celebratory drink when I submit all of my teacher's college applications!

Friday was fabulous. No particular reason other than my kiddies were simply wonderful. Liang, big little terror number two, is coming around as well. Perhaps because he admires Julian.

I'm sure there were more observations I had to share, but for now they've escaped me. Pictures soon! Hope you had a lovely weekend. xo

The Bridge of No Return...

Boo!

I can't believe I'm actually into my sixth week of teaching. Time sure flies. By this time next week, I'll have spent as much time with my students here as I did with my students in Poland ALL year, as I only saw my Polish students once a week, different classes each day, for thirty-three weeks. NUTS! I really like having the same kids each day...you really get to know them better.

I would just like to point out that last weekend I experienced a balmy high of 24 degrees...and woke up last week to temperatures close to zero! WHAT HAPPENED?! The weather has been getting cooler, but it's still sunny and bright. Most days are still in the upper teens, but MAN does it cool off in the evenings. There is such a drastic change between day and night! I've started showering at the gym, rather than going home in my gym clothes. Or bringing warm snuggly clothes to go home in.

A cute (Korean) guy started talking to me at the gym last week. He doesn't know much English, but we say hi now; he knows enough to tell me that he thinks my name is beautiful. I'll take it. Haha

Last Thursday we stayed late at work to decorate the already decorated school even MORE for Halloween. The director ordered pizza too, so that was thoughtful, though none of us really wanted it! It meant we had to stay longer! Haha It was a nice gesture though.

Friday was Halloween day at school. The kids all looked so fabulous (and adorable) in their costumes. It was a day full of activities. All the kindy classes started in the auditorium for song and dance (lead by moi), then they rotated to different classes - all decorated by theme - for various things. I was in the face-painting room. We did all the activities with the elementary kids too. Everyone loved it.

Friday evening I went to Happidus for a chill night. I didn't sport my costume (a colourful and generic superhero); only a few people did. There was a good crowd there. Went with Romo and met up with some folks I met the previous week. There is a computer set up so that the patrons of the bar can control the music. I was having fun with that for a while - Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Van Morrison, The Temptations, The Cure, Journey, The Smiths, Otis Redding...the crowd seemed to enjoy my choices.

Saturday I did some more teacher's college application work (surprise surprise) then went to an Anyang Halla hockey game with Romo and Neil (Happidus friend). It was a really exciting game against Japan! We were up by one, then down by two, then tied, then down by one, then tied...and we won in over time. YES! Following that, Karen, Romo, and I watched the Rocky Horrow Picture Show. I can't believe I had never seen it before! I knew lots of the music. It was fabulous. I love Tim Curry.

Sunday I did more work, then did some necessary shopping - warmer clothing basics. Excellent. And here I am now! Happy belated Halloween!