Fall Fun

While it may seem early to you all, in Korea it is already time to think about Christmas vacation. So, a few weeks ago I booked myself a plane ticket to my Christmas destination...Thailand. Marie, Marina, the two Ashelys and I will be flying out Christmas Eve after work. We plan on spending a couple days in Kanchanaburi (an hour or two outside of Bangkok) to hang out with elephants and tigers. Then we will be heading to the island of Ko Samui where we will be spending about 6 days staying right on Chaweng Beach (the island's most famous beach). From here we can take day trips to other islands or enjoy other beaches on Ko Samui. Not only will it be nice to spend Christmas in a warm location again, but I will be crossing a few things off my Thailand list that I didn't get to when Meg and I went last year. Plus, this group of girls is going to be a blast to travel with!

On Saturday the ninth, some co-workers and I decided to make our way out towards the Han River to see the fireworks for the Hi Seoul Festival. The Hi Seoul Festival is a cultural festival held 4 times a year (once each season) that includes things like musical performances, traditional dances, and parades. We had been told that the fireworks are spectacular and also warned that it would be rather crowded, however, nothing had prepared me for this crowd. The fireworks were slated to start at 7:30, so a big group of us decided to meet at a subway stop near the river around 6 so we could get a good spot to sit. As the subway approached the stop, it began to get more and more crowed...quickly to the point of being uncomfortably jam packed. Now, I have gotten used to crowded subways, and the Koreans definitely don't shy away from cramming people on, but this was getting board line ridiculous. People were actually screaming because they were getting shoved so hard as more and more people tried to board the subway. My face got smashed into a poor Korean lady multiple times (who then tried to hold a conversation - in Korean - with me. I am not sure if she was angry with me or not). It was almost impossible to not exit the subway when everyone else did because the sea of people carried you with them. In fact, there were so many people trying to go to the stop where the fireworks were that the subway wasn't even stopping at that stop. The first time it happened I thought I had zoned out and just missed the stop. So I got off, turned around and tried to go back. This time I noticed that before the stop there was a big long Korean announcement by the driver and then I watched the station whiz by. Turns out the third time was the charm, and I finally was able to exit the subway about 1. 5 hours after I got on (on what should have been a 50-60 minute ride).

The fireworks turned out to be great, they lasted for almost 2 hours and despite the fact that we ended up viewing them from behind a row of trees (we thought they would be shooting them off over the river and chose our location based on this assumption..whoops) they were phenomenal...especially with the Seoul skyline in the background. When the fireworks ended there were rows of police officers blocking the entrance to the subway because there were so many people. We waited around for over an hour and still weren't being allowed on, so we gave up and decided to walk to the next station over to get on there. I thought the subway was crowded during the World Cup...it was nothing compared to this.

After finally making it on the subway, we decided to stop at a traditional Korean bar because we had Ashley's boyfriend with us (who is Korean). Korean bars are different than American bars because you are required to order food with your drinks. Dooshik ordered us two pitchers of soju cocktails (a strawberry flavor and a pineapple flavor) and then got us three huge plates of food - a fruit plate (pretty standard, fruit with a sauce over it, except it came with tomatoes as well), a sausage and pepper dish (and by sausage I mean hot dog), and a plate of various bacon wrapped items (including mushrooms, shrimp, potato, and squash). I always love going to the bars with Koreans because they can order stuff that we aren't even aware exists. Plus, they teach us Korean slang (for example, I learned how to say 'do you want to die?' in a joking manner. It is pronounced chew-goo-le) and different games that Koreans play at bars.

The next day (Sunday) I was invited to go visit the art gallery of one of my old students. Last year I had a student in the Nemo class named Shine whose mother is an artist. Shine's mom just opened her own gallery with a series of work in which Shine was used as a model. She invited our principal, Shine's current teacher (Kate), Jenny (my old supervisor) and me to come see the gallery. The art work was very unique, several pieces featured Shine with her own head, but the body of a tiger. In another series of photos, Shine's mom used her own facial features but painted the face to look like an animal (ie, a tiger, panda, and so forth). Unknown to me, Brad (a current student in my Bambi class) and his family were there as well because Brad's mom and Shine's mom are good friends. Brad is normally shy, but he would barely even look at me while I was there. I think he was so shocked at seeing me out of school, in an environment where people didn't speak solely English. After looking at the paintings, Kate had to leave, but Shine's mom took the rest of us out to lunch. It was kind of weird to be the only non-Korean and they spoke Korean for a good portion of the meal so I did a lot of smiling, talking to Shine, and trying to get Brad to speak to me. The meal was a fairly typical Korean meal - sit on the floor, 17 (yes I counted) side dishes, and a bowl of rice with mussels. I found it interesting that I was the only person who ate kimchi (what does that say about how Korean I have become?) Brad also has a younger sister, maybe 2 or 3, who was with us. She spent the entire meal sitting on her dad's lap as he alternated giving her food and eating his own. I had never even noticed, but it suddenly dawned on me that I have never seen a highchair in this country. Also, it makes sense that this is how a younger child would eat if you were sitting on the floor, but again it had never dawned on me. I guess it is one of the those things that until you experience it, the situation doesn't even cross your mind.

We are gearing up for Halloween at CIS, and I take the cake as having the best decorated classroom! My mom bought a ton of stuff after Halloween last year (you know, when it all goes 70% off) and saved it for me, so I picked up stuff while I was home. I have adorned most surfaces with something Halloween related, and even managed to convince my children that the spiders in the fake spider webs are real. I told them they are nocturnal (we learned this word while discussing bats) but if they were too noisy or tried to touch them, then the spiders would wake up, bite them, and they would have to be rushed to the hospital. Over the weekend one of the spiders fell out of the web and onto the floor. When I came into the room on Monday morning my kids were all circled around it screaming. I also have them believing that all the teachers go out at night and round up monsters for the haunted house. Excellent. In other Halloween stories, my kids always have to bring in a show and tell item related to our theme when it is their turn. So, this month many of my kids have been bringing in books about Halloween or Halloween items (like Warren brought in a really cool body book because there was a skeleton on the cover). Anyway, Justin brought in candy for his turn to share since we expose the children to trick-or-treating at CIS on Halloween. What kind of candy did he bring in? Mini candy canes. It took a lot of strength to not burst out laughing and inform him that candy canes are a Christmas candy. Guess he will learn that come December.
Finally, right before I left for America CIS had a PJ day. The school has been trying to incorporate more activities that American schools do, so we told Sae Hee about spirit days and she loved the idea. The kids got to go to 4 different classes and listen to teachers read stories and played some little carnival games in the afternoon (like a cake walk and a fishing game), nothing to exciting, but I did want to share some of the photos with you. The little girl is actually one of Marie's Nemos, but I just love her stuffed animal.

Coming up soon, stories about our field trip to pick chestnuts and of course, Halloween stories!