Back to Muuido

We had to have one last beach weekend before fall came in full force, so we went back (for me) to Muuido - It was beautiful!

Here's the group, excited to get on the road!


You should know almost everyone in that picture - The Korean in the yellow is Tyler's girlfriend, Juri.





I love this picture because it looks like it's from a photo booth:


The crew at dinner on the beach:


We first ordered some sushi (but not like the sushi at home):



And I couldn't handle it. So we also got some samgyeopsal:



And Tyler found an eyeball in his soup:



And ate it.


Here is another interesting soup discovery:



And after all that fun, making the hot journey home on the ferry:



Of course, just going to the beach wasn't enough, so on Saturday we went to this really delicious Italian place in Gangnam. They had a wine buffet too, so for a minute I felt like an American again... at an Italian place... in Korea... :)

Afterwards, Stacy and I found a little bar and made some new Korean friends (who took us to the noraebang too - second time was just as fun!)



But the best part was the decoration in the bar:


Really - it's like Kansas is everywhere here!

Love you all!

Birthday Thursday!

Happy birthday Callie!!!!!!

I called her from the future to tell her, but I needed something more public :) In one of my advanced classes I was teaching them how to write a friendly letter - I always put an example on the board. And this time, I took a picture of that example to share with my sister:


(ps - the kids know about my dog now, and when it was their turn to write their letters, a couple wrote to Chachi, hahaha)

It was also Kathleen's birthday in my Kindergarten class. Her cake ended up being a big rice cake, and was pretty difficult to cut - notice the strain in our faces:


And no birthday is complete without a funny face picture of the whole class:


Last - Eileen has this little pencil box that turns into a keyboard - she spend half the morning singing (and "playing") Happy Birthday to Kathleen - SO CUTE! I'm just sad I only caught the last little bit:



Love you all!

Live music (and soup fun)

Remember the field of flowers I posted about earlier? Well, in a matter of about 48 hours it was transformed into a party zone - here was the new view out of my classroom window:



The music started around 6:00, which was horrible because it made the last 50 minutes of class (for all of us whose windows face that field) totally worthless - the kids couldn't stay away from the window. The rumor was that the Wondergirls were going to be there (they of the earworms "I'm so Hot" and "T-t-t-t-tell me").

So since I'm here for the cultural experience as well as the teaching, Stacy, Steve, Tyler and I decided to go check it out after school. But first, as is Tyler's obsession, we had to get some samgyeopsal and soju:





The concert/festival/whatev was really fun - I'm still not sure what it was for, but it was a good time :)







The next day, Jordan and I met for lunch. Often food is served with some kind of soup. It's always an adventure, particularly when the soup is opaque and you go digging around at the bottom for veggies - needless to say, Jordan and I were both done with the soup after this gem:



For the record, that's not such an unusual sight here :)

Love you all!

Milk School!

Every day at around 11:00 one of the Korean staff comes by our classrooms with little cups of milk for the kids. Inevitably, one or two children will say "Teacher, my no milk," at which point the milk-deliverer will plead with the child in Korean until they finally take a half-cup.

In an apparent effort to make milk seem fun and delicious, we took a field trip on Friday to Milk School!



The school got us there (about an hour-long ride) in a pretty fancy bus. The kids were pumped to go see the cows.





Of course, organizing over 100 kindergarteners is no easy task, but being super-teachers, we were able to handle ourselves and them quite well :)



They got to take a tractor ride:


And milk a cow:






At one point during the cow-milking presentation, the guide asked the kids a question in Korean, to which all of my students responded by chanting "EmilyTeacher! EmilyTeacher! EmilyTeacher!" This was extremely frightening. I didn't know if he just asked who they wanted to sacrifice to the cow, or who was the coolest teacher :) I found out later that he asked "Which teacher do you think would be the best at milking the cow?" Apparently my kids know I'm from Kansas :)

But really, this was my first time milking a cow:


Then we went to this room where the kids got to make and eat homemade ice cream!





It was at this point when I realized I really don't care much about germs anymore. I had at least 6 different kids feeding me ice cream out of bowls over which they had sneezed, coughed, and not-washed-their-hands-after-milking-cows. Which now sounds disgusting, but at the time, it was just my kids showing me they love me :)

After lunch (SIDENOTE: Lunch was ridiculous. The kids all packed a lunch, and HOLY COW. I remember in gradeschool, when your mom packed a lunch, it was a sandwich, small bag of chips, maybe an apple, and Capri Sun (if you were really lucky, it was a can of soda). These kids had boxes and boxes of food: Gimbap, fruit, chocolates, sandwiches, veggies, two drinks, etc etc. It was nuts)

Ok - anyways, after lunch, they got to bottle feed baby cows and give some hay and grains to grown-up cows (the stink was horrible at this barn!)


Then we left, and I and most of my kids fell asleep on the bus ride home. No rest for the weary, though, as we had to immediately run upstairs and start teaching our afternoon classes. LCI showed us some appreciation and delivered iced coffees to us as we were teaching. It was a really nice gesture, and delicious coffee.

Ok, much more to blog about - soup adventures and live music and Itaewon - STAY TUNED!!!

Love you all!

Fun pictures

So I did my first bulletin board ever... Just stapling these things up made me really want to pursue teaching (again... yes, family and friends, go ahead with the jokes) when I come home...



The kids made the leaves and the pumpkins - Too cute!

Also, they made trees which I put on the window to accent the view:


Finally - Remember when I was whining about being sickly? Well, thanks to the wonders of Korean medicine, and the fact that you just have to go to the corner pharmacy and tell them your symptoms to get drugs, I feel much better!



Now Tyler and Steve are feeling the same yucks I had... And being male, they won't just go get the dang medicine!

Love you all!

Beau-ti-bul

I feel like I need to get something else posted STAT so you're not all left with just a whiny post!

So here you are, a comment on Korea:

This is an extremely image-obsessed culture. Rarely will you see a woman over 20 without perfect hair, makeup, stylish clothes (usually a short skirt) and at least 2 inch heels. Another teacher told me that all their sunscreen has whitening agents in it to maintain their milky skin. And even one of our former supervisors, as she was leaving, talked about how she was leaving the care and control of LCI to supervisors who were "Much more beau-ti-bul and will get more students because they are so beau-ti-bul."

So the other day a bunch of us had to get yet ANOTHER set of passport photos taken. Apparently the 12 I got in the States wasn't enough :) We went to E-mart, the local two story superstore, to get them done. They told us one hour. At Kinko's it took me about three minutes to get my pics, so I thought this was strange.

Anyhow, after an hour (well, more, because SIDEBAR: we saw the horror flick "Mirrors") we picked up what turned out to be the most airbrushed passport photos I've ever seen! I look like a mannequin with nary a flaw in my skin. I even think they reddened my lips a little and brightened my eyes! And we got 6 pics for only $8. So I have two extra photos to send as my headshot in my America's Next Top Model application, hahahahha.

Anyways, anytime I want to feel pretty, I'll just go to E-mart and have some pictures done. It beats two-inch heels anytime!

Kind of a whiny post...

It's very rainy today... I actually heard thunder for the first time here. A bunch of us trekked to Butterfinger Pancakes and it was an extremely damp excursion. Also, I'm feeling sickly today, so I didn't get to eat all of my $13 breakfast.

And first thing this morning, I found out that my Grandma Rosie (dad's mom) died - I wasn't particularly close to her but she was the only one of the WHOLE Weigand family who made an effort to show me she cared that I was alive. So I'm fairly upset that I can't go to the service and say goodbye.

Also, selfishly, I'm upset that I won't get to go and see my dad. It's pretty much the only way I'd get to see him. Now it'll probably be HIS funeral when I see him next. I'm not even sure he knows I'm in South Korea...

So yeah, kind of a whiny post.