Life In Seoul Continues... The April Edition

Saturday, April 4th: Now that the weather is warming up, it can mean only one thing: Back to doing touristy stuff! A group of us decided to go on a walking tour that follows this route: Dongdaemun (Honginjimun) → Seoul (Naksan) Fortress → Biu-dang → Naksan Park → Ihwajang. For your viewing pleasure, here's are a few pictures from that day (Check out my Facebook for a more thorough vieweing experience!):

Group shot overlooking smoggy Seoul

(Top: L-R): Dan, Jen, Meghan, Kelly, Amanda, Me, AJ, Kiki,

Bottom: Susie, Tara

"Built in a massive public project at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty (starting in 1390), this stone wall averaging about 20 feet (6 meters) high encircled the entire city, providing protection from thieves and wild animals as well as military attacks. This part of the wall belongs to the section that reached north and then west from Honginjimun to the northern city gates (which are no longer extant). This city has grown far beyond its original fortress walls and gates, but interest in them as important historical architecture has been revived by proud Seoul citizens, and they are progressively being restored to their original splendor."

"During the reign of Great King Sejong (early 15th Century; he is depicted on the 10,000 won bill) this was the residence of a notable Yangban (member of the aristocratic class) named Yu Gwan, known to history by his pen-name “Hajeong”. Serving as a State Minister in the royal court, he was a leading participant in the reformist Neo-Confucian movement of that time dubbed “the spirit of Chungbaek-ri.” Take a little time to look around this residence (restored in the late 20th Century) to get a good impression of Joseon Dynasty aristocratic architecture, and the lifestyle of its residents. Nearby this house there is a spring called “Jajudong” which was once famous for its clean and clear waters."

Funny story about this part of the tour: We were all sitting at this building listening to our tour guide and the security alarms kept going off. It was a high-pitched siren-type alarm, but while we all looked at each other nervously waiting for the police to show up, our tour guide just get chattering away as if nothing was going on. We assumed that this was a normal occurence, but it was funny all the same.

"This “Pear Blossom Manor” was the home of the first President of the Republic of Korea, named Lee (or Yi) Seung-man but best known to global history by his own adopted spelling Syngman Rhee. He was a dedicated fighter for Korean independence against the Japanese imperialists a century ago, and then spent decades in exile in the United States, diplomatically lobbying for American support for Korea's cause. Becoming a fervent Protestant Christian, he married the daughter of an Austrian Ambassador. When Korea was Liberated in 1945 he was able to return to this house in Seoul, and quickly became a leader of the conservative political forces. Upon the creation of the Republic of Korea under auspices of the United Nations, he was elected as its first President in August 1948. He led the nation bravely through the devastation of the 1950-53 Korean War and then the reconstruction era that followed it. Public discontent with the political and economic corruption of his administration led to his forced retirement in 1960, when he fled to exile in Hawaii. After his passing away in 1970 his wife returned to this residence and continued to live there until her own passing in 1992. Their home was restored as a public exhibition hall of artifacts related to his life and presidency in 1988, and is fascinating for all those interested in Korea's modern history."

Saturday, April 11th: Cherry Blossom Festival Time! My one word to describe this day: BEAUTIFUL!!! A group of us headed to The Yeouido Yunjungno Cherry Blossom Festival, which occurs every April and where you can take in more than 1 400 cherry trees.

Some of the girls: Lindsay, Jen, Kelly, Amanda, Me. If I remember correctly, Meghan took this picture, but Laura and Randy were also wandering nearby.

I'm not exagerating when I say that this area was jam-packed with cherry trees.

It seriously looked like something from a movie, with light pink and white blossoms everywhere. The best part was when there'd be a breeze and the blossom pedals would swirl around like snow. I've never seen anything quite that beautiful and feel so fortunate that I was here to experience it. I think it's safe to say that cherry blossoms are one of my new favourite flowers!

Friday, April 17th: First field trip of the year! In celebration of Easter, we brought the kiddies to a large park and had an Easter egg hunt. Alright, they only actually hunted for Easter eggs for about 10 minutes and they weren't even chocolate eggs. They each had to find an Easter egg that was a actually an egg-shaped contained full of bubbles and they loved it! After lunch and an exciting game of duck-duck-goose, we took a walk and found a large playground where the kids could let loose and run around like hummingbirds on speed. Introducing Banana and Cherry class being their silly selves.

Saturday, April 25th: Not that we ever need a reason to get dressed up and have a girls night, but this night was extra special because a bunch of us went to see the a bilingual performance of Vagina Monologues presented by V-Day Seoul 2009. As described in the
performance brochure, "V-DAY SEOUL is a dedicated group of foreign and Korean citizens who have come together for the third annual bilingual production of The Vagina Monologues. We are raising awareness, through the play, to prevent violence against women and to help shatter sex taboos in the Korean community." To say that the show was amazing would be an understatement. Acts such as "My Angry Vagina" and "Vagina Happy Facts" made me laugh out loud, while others such as "Say It" and "I Was There in the Room" made me cry and most importantly, made me think. A lot of the more intense ones had to do with Korean comfort women, women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during WWII. It's painful thinking about what those women went through and what some women are still being forced to go through in this day and age, but I think it's important that we do think about it because as long as it's in our consciousness, those women won't be forgotten. I'm so happy that I was fortunate enough to see this performance and would recommend to all women (and men!) that if you get the chance, go see Vagina Monologues. I guarantee that you won't regret it!

May - to be continued...

Life In Seoul Continues... The March Edition

Monday, March 2nd: This day was... *cue the ominous music* the first day with the new preschoolers!!! Not gonna lie, the thought of teaching twenty 6-year olds with little to no English knowledge TERRIFIED ME!!! I had been teaching a class of 6-year olds and a class of 7-year olds in the last session, and while they were both first year classes, I started teaching them 6-months in so they were pretty good at communicating in English by now. Now I teach 2 classes of 6-year olds (Cherry and Banana class) and honestly, had reason to be scared when walking into that first classroom. Here were 10 tiny children (They really are tiny, but smaller than my last set of 6-year olds! Especially some of the girls. They look like dolls in their oversized SLP uniforms! Although I had to remind myself that these kids were born in 2004, so are in reality 4 and 5, hence their mininess.) staring at me wide-eyed, whispering to each other in Korean, unsure if this tall wagook in front of them was a monster or not. This day consisted mainly of singing silly action songs and colouring, hoping with all my might that no one would cry. I also tried to learn everyone's names, which wasn't made easy for us foreign teachers. The kids were wearing name tags, but with their Korean names on it. Their lockers were labeled, but again... Korean names. Awesome. A few were able to tell me their English names, but not everyone, so I made sure to ask Jinny if she could help me out with that. Oh, forgot to mention that I'm once again paired with Jinny which makes me so happy! She's an incredible teaching partner and is super easy to deal with so I was thrilled when I found out. Anyways, it took a few days to learn all their names, especially one whom I dubbed Smiley for the first 2 days because whenever I'd talk to him, he'd just smile and giggle. On day 3 I finally discovered that his name is James. And yes, he's still very Smiley. I actually don't think I've ever seen him look sad or angry, now that I think about it. All I gotta say about that first month of teaching these kids is that it was INTENSE because of the immense language barrier, but also very rewarding. These reasons will be discussed at a later time.

Wednesday, March 4th: This marked the first day of the 2009-2010 session, meaning new afternoon classes. I'm actually really happy with how my schedule's set-up now, since I'm off at 4:10 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays (MUCH better than getting off at 7pm like I used to on those days) and off at 5:10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays (that stayed the same). I now teach two IE1 classes, which means I'm teaching kids that were in the one-year 7-year old preschool program last year and who now come in every afternoon for 90 minutes (from 2:40-3:25 with one teacher, 3:25-4:10 with the other teacher). The upside to teaching this level is that I already knew a lot of the kids since I'd taught the majority of them in afternoon preschool. I also teach 3 of my old students from Kiwi class, Julia and Michael in my first class, Anny in my second class, which has its upsides and downsides. Upside is that they're fairly easy to get under control, since they've known me long enough to know how I work, downside being that teaching the same kids everyday for this long gets a little tedious and my expectations towards them tend to be higher because I know what they're capable of. My third afternoon class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is a Hi-Kids 1 class, meaning these kids are fairly beginners at English and the little that they do know is whatever they've learned in elementary school. They're 10 and 11-years old and I'm lucky because they're actually quite bright and know more English than I initially thought they would. They're a very energetic bunch (mostly good energetic, although they can be a bit much at times!) and for the most part all eager to participate.

Wednesday, March 11th: Happy 2nd birthday to my adorable nephew, Logan!!! I can't believe it's been two years since you were born. <3>

Saturday, March ?: Can't remember the exact Saturday that these events took place, but I do remember that it was a good day. That afternoon, I had a girls days out in Insadong with Amanda, Tara, Kelly, Jen, and Meghan. Insadong is a large touristy shopping area that has many traditional Korean shops for all your souvenir needs.

The day started off with a bang when Tara and I discovered WineAid, which we purchased in the 7-11 located in the Balsan subway station. WineAid is a basically a wine cooler, in a can. Yes, you read that correctly... in a can. Here's Meghan, Tara and I showing off our cans of winey goodness. (Pretty sure the girl between Tara and I was less than appreciative of the photo op. The man next to Meghan looks pleased to be included though!)

Once we arrived in Insadong, Kelly and I felt the need to enter the mystical realm known as the 'Auto Toilet':

Not sure if it's clear or not, but the sign inside the Auto-Toilet reads "This is an automatic sanitary restroom. The whole toilet stool is cleaned and sterilized after every use and the floor is washed regularly." I just though it was really funny look and was amused that the doors close behind you as if you're in some secret lair or something. There's also a time-limit which I believe was 10 minutes, but if you want to get out before that time, you get to press this giant yellow button:

Nothing like a giant yellow button to make a girl's day! Anywho, the remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets of Insadong venturing into one shop after another. I ended up buying a pretty paper fan (it was sooo hot that day! Definetly a sign of spring!) a pair of earrings and a pretty amethyst ring. Korea's fairly reknown for its amethyst and since it's my birthstone, I felt it was necessary to buy myself a piece of amethyst jewelery.

That night, a bunch of us headed to Hongdae for a fundraiser at a little bar off the beaten track. I wish I could remember what they were raising money for, but my focus was on the fact that all the bands were covering 'Beatles' songs. Excellent! The bands were quite good, especially one who had a sax player and a trambone and other random instruments that you wouldn't expect to find in a little bar like that, but who rocked! There was lots of singing and dancing involved and I left that bar with high spirits.

April - to be continued...

Life In Seoul Continues... The February Edition

Saturday, February 14th: Ah Valentine's Day. The day of looooove! Not gonna lie, this has never been my favourite holiday. Blame the romantic in me, but I don't believe you need to set aside one day in the year to express your feelings to your loved one. Shouldn't that be an every day thing? I was originally worried that AJ was a V-Day fanatic and that I'd have to suck it up and celebrate the day, but thankfully we share the same point of views on this holiday. And what better way to celebrate a holiday that you don't especially like: Get a tattoo! The day was actually a coincidence, but it made me laugh nonetheless. I'd been wanting to get a new tattoo forever, even when I was still in Ottawa, but I just couldn't decide on what I wanted. I'm not one of those 'Ooooh pretty! I want that forever inked onto my body!' kinda people. I believe I'm one of the smart few who actually takes time to think over my tattoo, even if that means obssessing over it for months. I never expected to get one done in Korea, since tattoos are still fairly taboo here and unlike at home, you don't find a tat shop on every street corner. The fun part about working with such a variety of people is that you get to meet an equally varied amount of people! Several of the guys have had work done by Hojin, who lo-and-behold started dating one of my good friends (sadly they're no longer together). This lead to some of the girls getting tattoos which of course brought back my desire for a new tattoo. After months of research, that "AHAAA!!!" moment came. I explained my idea to Hojin and a few days later, became the recipient of this wonderful piece of artwork, which is located on the left side of my lower back (its about the size of my palm):

Since living in Seoul, where trees are mostly for show (There's many trees, but you can tell there all fairly new and were planted mainly for aesthetics. No 100-year old trees in downtown Seoul, that's for sure!), I've realized just how much I love nature. It's very easy to take for granted those things that surround you everyday; things that you grew up with. But when they're suddenly scarce, you start missing them. Since being here, I've taken so many tree pictures (Amanda teases me mercilessly) because I get so happy to see them. I was looking at some pictures that I had taken and that's when my "AHAAAA!!!" moment came to me. A tree tattoo!!! Now to decide what kind of tree. Well, I've always wanted something that shows I'm Canadian. There came my second "AHAAA!!!" moment. What's more Canadian than a maple tree! I'm VERY happy with Hojin's work and am thrilled to have a permanent memory of my time in Korea. After the tattoo was complete, a few of us went out to Hongdae to celebrate Jen's birthday, which is February 15th. All in all, I do believe this was the best Valentine's Day to date!
Saturday, February 21st: First off, this day is my dearest and oldest friend Sab's 26th birthday! Wooohooo!!! We've often missed each other's birthdays over the years, but never has there been so much distance between us when our birthdays come around. *tear* This day, a Saturday might I add, was spent at school. We had a "seminar day" from 10:00am - 3:00pm which all of teaching staff had to attend. We spent the day talking about the different SLP programs which ended up being more insightful than originally thought. We also had a guest speaker from Oxford Press who was very interesting and who gave us great pointers to increase our effectiveness as teachers. SLP bought us lunch which we had at VIPs, a tasty restaurant with an American-style buffet. To say we ate our fill is an understatement! Everyone was pretty sleepy after that, so we were happy that the day was nearly done. We actually finished earlier than anticipated which was excellent!

That night, we were supposed to go our for Jen and my's combined birthday party extravaganza at Monkey Beach, but a series of events forced a change of plans. Amanda made dinner for some of us, which I started to eat but then had to leave. AJ got hurt on his way here so I went to meet him at the subway station. I didn't really want to leave my injured bf at my place all by his lonesome, so I stayed here with him. I was very disappointed missing the Monkey Beach dance party, but turns out that no one actually made it there. Everyone ended up at Adam's then went to Hongdae and Monkey Beach was rescheduled for the following weekend.

Thursday, February 26th: Today was the last day of the school year for our preschoolers, meaning my last day teaching my 6-year olds and 7-year olds. *tear* It's amazing how quickly our 6 months together went. There was a graduation for the 7-year olds since they'd now be going to elementary school and would no longer be going to SLP every morning. Each class took their turns going into the Rainbow Room and reciting a poem for their parents. They also received a year book-type photo album (with their English name engraved on it...very nice! I'm still sad that I didn't get one too.) and a certificate stating that they had completed preschool at Gangseo SLP. This morning went by very quickly and I was sad having to say goodbye to my little minions.

Friday, February 27th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! 26... YIKES!!! Since there was no preschool that day, I got to go into work a little later than usual. Not by much though, since the morning was dedicated to meetings to discuss the new schedules that we'd be receiving because this was the last full week of the 2008-2009 session. Once work was done at 7:00pm, I headed to VIPs with some of the girls for my birthday dinner. I wore a silly birthday hat (always a requirement!!!) and ate many, many food. It was fantastic! Once we finished stuffing our faces, we headed over to Madigan's, an Irish-pub that's become a popular hangout place for us on Friday nights. It's very chill and not usually super busy, which suits our large group perfectly! We were there to celebrate/mourn the departure of Alisha and her bf Jinmo, as well as Jon. It's not that dramatic, considering they're all returning to Korea in the summer and fall, but a bummer nonetheless. Must of us planned for it to be an early night, until we found a large private room that contained a noraebang (karaoke) machine! The early night turned into a singing all night, especially Laura, Amanda and I who spent many hours singing our hearts out. I do believe it was nearly 4am by the time we relunctantly dragged ourselves away. What can I say, noraebang's addicting and oh-so much fun!

Saturday, February 28th: Official birthday party night! Some of the girls met up earlier in the night for some pre-drinks, then we made our way to Monkey Beach. The rest of the work group made their appearance at some point in the night which made me very happy, although Jen, my birthday-partner, fell asleep and never made it! AJ was sick and also didn't make it. Bummer. :( Their absence was felt, but it was still a fantastic night and the buckets of booze (I'll never tire of this concept and am so happy that I have 2 in my possesion... They're so great!) flowed freely. Oh! And there were glow bracelets and glasses and other funness! Kelly managed to procure us some, which isn't that shocking considering Kel's a pro at getting free stuff: "If it's free, it's for me!" There was much dancing, much drinking, and much laughing. I'm very happy with the way my 26th birthday played out! If anyone's wondering if I received any gifts, I did! Meghan gave me an amazing gray purse which I adore. She knows me too well! Tara got me a glass Hello Kitty phone charm. Jen got me a ginormous panda pen, some Hello Kitty socks, Hello Kitty stickers and Hello Kitty post-its (she also knows me too well!). AJ got me lots of DVDs from his local DVD man, including several seasons of Friends and the Heroes. My favourite gift also came from him: A GIANT TEDDY BEAR! Yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that I still love stuffed toys and this one is especially fantastic! He's at least 3 feet tall and very cuddly, just like AJ! (AJ's definitely taller though!) What's even better is that AJ won him for him at a carnival game that's close to base... Tee-hee! I'm still unsure as to how I'll be getting T Bear back to Canada, but he's coming with me, no ifs ands or buts!

March - to be continued...

Yes, I agree, this is getting ridiculous...

It's been nearly 3 months since my last post. Yeah... that's bad. I clearly recall promising to start posting regularly again, only to go on my longest hiatus yet. *sigh* I guess it's a good sign in a sense, because it means I'm too busy to be sitting around in my apartment waiting for any reason to blog about it. On that note though, I do apologize to those who were checking in and looking forwards to my updates. I'm not planning an overly detailed post of these past few months, mainly because I can't remember every tiny thing that's happened! But I will write about the more important events. So here we go folks, the update of all updates!



Friday, November 14th: Field Trip day! We brought the kiddies to Aiins World, "a dream-like theme park that has 109 replicas of famous structures from 25 different countries." I don't really get why they call it a theme park, since there's no rides or anything, just many, many replicas. Ah well, it was still interesting to visit! I got to see the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of Pisa, the Sphinx, Atlantis, the Statue of Liberty, etc, etc, etc. Many, MANY replicas. My one critique, and this is a biggie... not ONE replica for Canada. Not a single thing!!!!!! That irked me quite a bit, but I tried not to let it ruin my Aiins World experience. *pouts*



Saturday, November 22nd: Presentation for Preschool 2009. Preschool teachers were fortunate enough to go into work at 10:30 on a Saturday morning and stay for 2-3 hours. Yay. The purpose of this day was to give a presentation to parents of potential SLP preschoolers for the new school year starting in March 2009. Parents were invited to come watch a presentation describing the preschool program and they were also asked to bring in their children, who'd be entertained (i.e. babysat) by the preschool teachers. A kind of 'how will my child react to being in preschool' test, if you will. This wouldn't have been too bad had I not been asked to make a presentation explaining the afternoon preschool program. Nothing like giving a presentation to 80-90 potential clients, many of whom don't speak a word of English, all while trying to be approachable, mature, and child-friendly. *gulp* Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck. I think the hardest part was speaking slowly so that I'd be somewhat understood...I can't help it if I talk fast to begin with, then go into super-speed when nervous! Thankfully everything went well and I received good feedback from my boss. Whew!!!



Tuesday, November 25th: At approximately 11:00, I was pulled out of class by my boss with a request to once again make my above-mentioned presentation. Apparently there was another presentation for the parents going on that day. At 11:30. Fantastic. I'd just like to mention that I was having a 'I don't care what I look like' day and had put zero effort into my appearance that morning. Thankfully I wasn't wearing comfy pants and a sweatshirt, but pretty close. It's safe to say that I was more than a little stressed about this and extremely grateful that I had kept my presentation notes in my desk (I'd almost thrown it out!!!). This presentation also went well (not as well as Saturdays, in my opinion, but what can you do?!), and luckily the number of parents in attendance was dramatically lower than Saturday's presentation.



Saturday, November 29th: For any of you who might remember, in my last post I mentioned a boy that I'd met and was dating. To give those of you who are curious more details, his name's AJ, he's from New York City, and is stationed outside of Seoul with the U.S. Army. He was gone for most of November for training near North Korea, and we hadn't seen each other for a few weeks prior, so many, many weeks were spent sending a gazillion text messages in an attempt to get to know each other. The 29th was a special day because AJ was back and we finally got to see each other after nearly 6 weeks. Also a VERY nerve-wracking day, because we'd only known each other for a few weeks when he left, so it was easy to imagine that things would be incredibly weird. We met at our designated 'spot' and wandered that area all day and saw the new OO7 movie. Happy to report that it wasn't weird at all and I came home feeling like I was drifting away on Cloud 9. ^__^



Friday, December 12th: This weekend was a bittersweet one for me, because I knew that festivities were going on back home for Alice, Moe and Celine's birthdays. It was also my Maman's birthday on the 14th, so kinda hard not to be reminded of home when so many special women in my life are having special days. Luckily, it was AJ's birthday on the 13th, so that helped distract me. He hung out with his friends for a good chunk of the night, then met up with me and my crew at Ho Bar 3 later on. Funnily enough, we celebrated Tara's "birthday" earlier on that night. It wasn't actually her birthday, she just likes celebrating her birthday as often as she can get away with. That and it's funny. To us at least!



Friday, December 19th: SLP Staff Christmas Party! Everyone met up at 7:00, once the last class of the day let out, and we rode a SLP school bus to Hongdae. It was pretty funny seeing so many teachers crammed into one small bus! We went to a Japanese restaurant where many of us foreigners ate little. It was hard-core sushi, heavy on the raw fish. They kept bringing platter after platter of slices of raw fish! There was even a fish head complete with eyes at one point!!! I'm still mildly scarred from that experience. Thankfully a few of us had the insight to eat before going, so I didn't go hungry. I felt bad, cause the school was paying for everything and I feel like so many fish were killed for nothing, cause so much of it went untouched! The soju and beer on the other hand... the waiters couldn't keep up! Hahaha! All in all, it was a good Christmas party and everyone seemed to have a great time.



Most of us left the restaurant at around midnight, although the joyful mood quickly ended for Amanda and I at this point. It had started raining at some point during the night, and much like it gets back home when it snows, there was no cab in sight. We wandered Hongdae for 2 HOURS trying to catch a cab. The subway and buses had stopped running by this point, so a cab was our only way home. It was so unbelievably frustrating and there were a few times when I just wanted to sit on the curb and cry. Luckily, we ran into Adam who'd made his way to Ho Bar 3 with the guys earlier in the night, and he managed to get us a cab home (and nearly get himself killed in the process. I'll spare you the details...). That much time standing in the freezing cold rain lead to a wonderful headcold. Lovely.



Wednesday, December 24th: Not only was today Christmas Eve, but it was also the preschool Christmas Concert! Every preschool class presented a short play (approx 10 minutes) and sang to songs for their parents. When I found out about this in late October, I was SO excited. I remember my teaching partner laughing at me and telling me that it wasn't as great as it sounds, but psh.... I mean come on, it's plays and songs, how much better can it get?!?! Yeah... it pains me to say this, but she knew what she was talking about. Kiwi class presented The Gingerbread Man and sang Jingle Bells and Jingle Bell Rock; Apple class presented The Little Red Hen (I know what you're thinking: What does this play have to do with Christmas?! I'm still unsure...) and sang Skidamarink (Again, the relevance to Christmas eludes me. I blame my teaching partner.) and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. We started rehearsing in mid-November or so and once the week of the concert came around, wasn't convinced my kids would be able to pull it off. They seemed to be getting worst by the day! When we started rehearsing, they were actually quite good and I was super excited, but then we saw a gradual decline in their presentation and it was pretty discouraging. But lady luck was on our side concert day and both classes did FABULOUSLY!!! I was very proud of my lil' ones!



In a perfect world, I'd have finished work once the concert was over, so 2:30ish, but no deal. Still had 4 classes of teaching ahead of me and didn't get off until 6:30. Boooooh!!! After work, we met up at Jamie's who was sweet enough to share a bottle of champagne that she'd received for a 'HOLIDAYS HAVE BEGUN! YAY!!!' toast (Christmas holiday: December 25th - January 4th). From there, we made our way to Fish & Grill (the restaurant in my apt building and our go-to place for beer) and spent a few hours trying to make it feel like it actually was Christmas Eve.



Christmas Day: Lindsay, being the sweetheart that she is, hosted a Christmas brunch in her apartment. She made delicious pancakes and had another assortment of goodies. Champagne was also provided, so we had mimosas. Yum! We had a Christmas exchange, so everyone brought a $5 gift and we played an exchange game. I ended up with a giant plastic Molson Canadian beer bottle bank. I stayed at Lindsay's until about 3:30, then a few of the girls came back to my apartment and we did a mini exchange between us. I received wonderful things from my lovely friends, but my fav is easily my Korean Hello Kitty doll, courtesy of Amanda! And my bamboo, the only plant that'd survive in my apartment. I finally have some green in my apartment!!! Once the girls went home, I napped and had an overall lazy day. I was surprised by how un-Christmas-like the day felt. Later on in the evening, I went to Kelly's where we were supposed to have a Christmas movie marathon, but we waited too long to meet up. Instead, I caught the end of 21, then came back home to call my parents who were spending Christmas at matante Cecile's in Ottawa, as well as Mitch and Jord who were celebrating at Jordana's parents. I sadly wasn't able to call Gilles and Angela that night, because my Skype account ran out of money and it took forever to reload!!! That was the first time I had to put more money on it since beginning to use Skype to make long distance calls, but it had only taken minutes to load money on it when I'd initially set up my account. It took over 24 hours this time! Thankfully I was able to speak to them the following day, which made me VERY happy because I hadn't spoken to them since being in Korea. Christmas Day ended much like every other day, talking on the phone with AJ, who was stuck on base. *tear*



December 28th-30th: 10 of us left the bustling city behind and made our way to the mountains for a few days. We took the bus early Sunday morning and made the 2 hour long trip to Vivaldi Park, a ski resort. This lead to my first attempt at snowboarding... Alright, I'll admit, I'm not a natural. Does this really surprise anyone thought?! Pretty sure I'm devoid of any athletic ability! Anyways, my lack of athleticism didn't prevent me from having a great time! I suck at snowboarding and spent my time struggling on the teeny-weeny bunny hill, but I'm proud of my efforts and absolutely LOVED spending a few days in the snow! Sure the hills are man-made, but that's besides the point! We stayed in a motel about 20 minutes from the resort and it was traditionally korean. No beds, just mats to lay on the floor. I think this was ideal though, because 6 of us ended up being in one room together (the other 4 were couples, so they had their own rooms) and it felt like a slumber party! We played games (mostly 'Apples to Apples', my new favourite board game of ALL TIME!!! I highly recommend that you play it. You'll love it!) and acted like goofs. It was great. The only little downside is that floors in Korea are heated. This would seem great, as we were sleeping on the floor on all, if it wasn't for the fact that the floors got scorching hot throughout the night! We all fell asleep wearing numerous layers, prepared for a potentially chilly night, and woke up sweating buckets! If you touched the parts of the floor not covered by our bed mats, it felt like concrete on a super sunny day. Intense! So night 1 was uncomfortable, but we were all prepared for it on night 2. And I was grateful for the heated floors on day 2 for another reason... my body hurt! It felt wonderful laying directly on the floor and letting it act like a giant heating pad! We were scheduled to head back to Seoul on Tuesday, but only found out upon our arrival that our bus wouldn't be leaving until 5pm. Check-out was at noon, so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves. We headed back to Vivaldi Park and I went up to the top of the highest hill with Tara, John, and Hojin. I had been on the bunny hill the entire time when we were skiing/boarding, so I hadn't seen the view from the top yet. It was beautiful! I got quite a few great pictures that I'll eventually post on Facebook. From there, we met up with the others for some 'gotta waste a few hours' beers. We then discovered the wonders to be found beneath Vivaldi: A bowling alley, an arcade, restaurants, stores... the perfect place to waste time!!! It was very sad to say goodbye to Vivaldi and the wonderful feeling of being surrounded by snow and trees. I miss having that many trees around!!!



New Year's Eve: Woke up earlier than felt necessary to go shopping at Forever 21 with the girls. Our mission: Outfits for New Year's Eve. I know, I know, way to keep it to the last minute! Very typical. We did succeed, for the most part. Kelly and I ended up buying matching dresses, but in different colours. Her's a dark gray, mine a hot pink. The best part, the bust is sequined! Finding sparkly dresses was basically our goal, so we were very happy. By the time we bought shoes to go with our outfits (Cause new shoes are a necessity! And I mean, it's so easy to do when you can find a nice pair of heels for $20!) and made the trip back to our hood, it was already mid-afternoon. After a failed attempt at taking a nap, it was time to start getting ready. We wanted to get to Hongdae early because we didn't know what to expect or how busy bars would be, so we figured our chances of getting in somewhere would improve if we got there before 9pm. Good thing we left as early as we did, because traffic was CRAZY, not to mention the cab that I shared with Kelly and Amanda decided to head in the opposite direction towards Bombai, not Hongdae. *sigh* A 20-minute cab ride took over an hour. *twitch-twitch* Luckily the other girls had arrived a good half-hour before we did and were able to get a table at Ho Bar 3. I swear we'd considered going somewhere different for once, but we decdided that going to a familiar place would again increase our chances of getting in! Most of our crew is there at least once a weekend, so we're pretty well-known by now. It was pretty much only the ladies in attendance for a good portion of the night, but finally the guys showed up, as did AJ and friends, who almost didn't make it for midnight... not gonna lie, I'd have been less than pleased if that had happened! Everyone joyously rang in the New Year with many hugs, kisses, and laughter. Several hours and numerous drinks later, it was time to enjoy my first sleep of 2009. Not that I slept all that much though, because my alarm was set to go off at 10am. Dad's birthday is December 31st so I wanted to call him to wish him a happy birthday while it was still the 31st back home. I feel I deserve a tiny bit of credit for waking up so early on New Year's Day! ^_~

January 1st - January 4th: Spent the remainder of my holidays with AJ, relaxing and being exceptionally lazy. We may or may not have gone out with the crew that weekend... I figure odds are good that we did, but I really can't remember! Haha!

The week of January 5th: First week back at school after the holidays. While I feel that nothing huge happened this week, I do remember feeling that my patience had been restored and I enjoyed teaching again. This was refreshing, since my patience and love of children was definetly dwindling by the time mid-December arrived.

Monday, January 26th: Lunar New Year's Day! This meant that I had a long weekend and didn't have to work on that Monday, nor the Tuesday. Score! A few of us had REALLY been hoping to take the ferry to Japan for the long-weekend. I was so excited to finally get another stamp in my passport and to finally see Japan. What we didn't realize was how big of a deal the Lunar New Year is for Koreans and how many people would be traveling. Our plan was to take the train to Busan (it's a 3-hour train ride from Seoul) and from there, take the ferry to Fukuoka, Japan. Well, our manager Danny was able to find us tickets to Fukuoka, plus a hotel, for under $300. The only problem: The train to Busan was completely SOLD OUT. We thought about taking the bus, but found out that because of the holiday traffic, it would take up nearly 12 hours to get there and we'd have to leave Friday night. Some of us worked until 7pm on Friday and so that alternative was impossible. Meaning: No trip to Japan. *sob* I was with AJ most of the weekend (I'm happy to report that things with us are going EXCEPTIONALLY well and that I'm very much in love! ^__^), although on Sunday night, I dragged him to the theatre with some of the girls to see The Changeling (I hadn't heard much about this movie, other than it starred Angelina Jolie, but I was pleasantly surprised). On Monday night, I had a girls night with Kelly, Liz, Alisha, Laura and Meghan and we headed to Itaewon. We weren't sure if anything would be open because it was Lunar New Year's Day, but we figured Itaewon would be a safe bet as it is VERY foreigner friendly. Many bars/clubs were open, so we weren't disappointed. We hung out at the Rocky Mountain Tavern, a fabulous Canadian bar that I believe I mentioned in a past entry a few months back. We stayed there for several hours, all kind of weirded out by the fact that the only Koreans in the place were a few of the waiters. RMT is more of a sit-down and relax kind of place, so we left when the need to have a dance party struck. It took us WAY longer than necessary to find a decent place to dance and when we finally did, let's just say it wasn't the most pleasant of places. The male population vastly outnumbered the amount of females, and moments after our arrival it became very grabby, if you get my drift. This was the only point in the night where we wished we'd brought a guy. Male friends make excellent bodyguards when all you want to do is dance with your girls! All in all though, it was a great night!

Friday, January 30th: Field Trip Day! This field trip was by far my favourite, because... WE WENT SLIDING (Or sledding, as most people apparently call it....?!). Seoul does NOT have enough snow to create a snow hill, so we bused 30-minutes away to a man-made hill. The concept that someone had to create a snow hill is very strange to this northerner! I have to admit, I was a tad bit disappointed because the hill was pretty weak. NOTHING like what I'm used to! But the kids don't know any different and they loved it! Some were even a little bit scared prior to going down their first time. That being said, none of them wanted me to go down with them. *pouts* I think I was more excited to slide than they were, but felt it would be inappropriate to go by myself when I'm supposed to be supervising and giving the kids moral support. I think I asked every one of my kids (plus kids from the other classes that I know.) if they wanted me to go down with them, but each and every one of them shook their courageous little heads and said "No. I want to do it by myself." Well fine then! I ended up going down with Jamie and Amanda instead! HAHAHA!!! It was great!!! Although not nearly long enough. *pouts* The worst part was going back to school knowing that I had a full day of teaching ahead of me.

This now brings us to the current week, that of February 2nd. Not much going on this week, other than writing up the much dreaded report cards. Quite possibly one of my least favourite things to do in the entire universe. It wouldn't be so bad if I only had to do it for one class... It's the 10 classes that kills me! They're due tomorrow (Friday) and I'm not done... probably not surprising that I choose this week to update my journal! Gotta love procrastinating!

Also gotta note that Valentine's Day will mark my 7th month of being in Korea?! Does that seem insanely weird to anyone else?!?!

4 Week's Worth of Updates for Your Reading Pleasure!

It's come to my attention lately that I fail as a blogger. In my defense, the last month has gone by RIDICULOUSLY fast, so fast that it actually feels like I just updated this thing last weekend. But alas, that isn't true, so here I am to make things right. As this will most likely be a loooong post, I suggest you get comfy, perhaps get a beverage and snack before you start reading. That might make this a more pleasant experience and I won't feel quite so bad for blabbering away for an eternity!

Week of October 6th:
The week went by in the usual fashion, except that on Thursday we had Sports Day with the preschoolers. This consisted of an entire morning/early afternoon at Mok-Dong Stadium with all of the kids, as well as their parents, mostly the mothers (although I was surprised that so many fathers showed up. Moms are definitely more involved in their child's education). The weather worked to our favour as it was a beautiful sunny day. I ended up with a bit of a sunburn because none of us expected it to get so hot in October! That's life in Seoul for ya. It was a fun and exausting day! We had professionals leading the activities, since the kids didn't actually play sports but games. The kids were divided into 2 teams, Pororo (green team) and Keroro (yellow team). I was on the green team, not that teams really mattered since it was set-up so that the day ended with both teams being tied. The teachers were there mostly to supervise, although that was easy because of the parents. We were asked to participate in some of the games, like running through a long tube on the ground (which was nearly too small to fit into. John, our one male preschool teacher, had a rough time! Hahaha!), running over a blanket that the parents were holding without falling on our faces (As most of you know I trip on flat surfaces, so that one was tricky!) and there were also activities organized just for the teachers to earn points for their team, such as the 'Deflate the giant balloon as fast as you can' game (Our team killed it by laying on it and rolling around until it was flat! Hahaha!) and 'Who can pop the most balloons in this giant plastic bag' game (Again... rolling on them proved effective). The parents were asked to participate in most of the activities with the kids and they also had a few activities of their own, like a somewhat inappropriate obstacle race: One parent was piggybacked by another parent who ran to a certain point in the field. At that point, they put the other parent on the ground who tried to pop the balloon that was taped to their butt with a ping-pong paddle. They then hugged (or cheek kissed as the case often was), then ran back to where they left off. It was HILARIOUS!!! There was also a parent-only tug-of-war which was fun to watch, especially the dads who were at the front and soooo into it! Its only a game, guys! The only downside to Sports Day was having to go back to school and teach afternoon classes. Needless to say, I was less than enthusastic in my teacher methods that afternoon and was incredibly happy when 5pm rolled around and I was freed.

That weekend was pretty relaxed, but fun. A group of us went on the Han River boat cruise on Saturday evening and that was really nice. The weather was great, a perfectly clear night with the full moon nearly full, and the cruise started at twilight so the view from the river was gorgeous. Seoul looks so beautiful lit up at night and that makes it easy to forget that if you were to fall into the Han River, you'd catch god knows how many various life-threatening diseases. It may be pretty but it sure ain't clean! On Sunday afternoon, I met up with my friend Jean-Marc for a much needed coffee date. We realized that we hadn't seen each other since Celine visited in August, meaning we went the entire month of September without a visit. Unforgiveable!!!! We spent the day wandering around Hongdae catching up and checking out the various little stores in the area We found a great little cafe where I had a DELICIOUS cafe mocha, then we met up with his friend Jasmine and went for dinner at Kraze Burger, which reminds me of a little hamburger diner which feels out of place in Korea! I had some sort of chicken sandwich thingy and all I know is that it was delicious! I left my visit with JM feeling full and content to have seen my longtime friend again, with a promise that we wouldn't let a month slip by without seeing each other.

Week of October 13th:
As I recall, this was a fairly uneventful week. I can't think of one significant detail to share with you from the week itself, so I'm gonna say that's a good thing. If nothing's popping to mind, that means there was no unecessary drama or evil children to deal with!!! Oh! There is one thing: A new addition to the SLP crew, Kelly!!! I feel the need to give her a shoutout cause I know that she reads this thing. Well, at least she did, since she found me through this blog and my insanity apparently helped prove that working at SLP wouldn't be the biggest mistake of her life. Always glad to help. So if you are reading this (stalker...): HIIIII KELLY!!!! *waves*

That Saturday, a few of us headed to Incheon, a city approx. 30 minutes from Seoul. Our plans while in Incheon: Visit Chinatown! Yes, you read that correctly, Chinatown. Incheon's Chinatown is Korea's only official Chinatown and it claims to be the largest Chinatown in South Korea. Truth be told, it wasn't that big, but it was still a nice place to visit! What made me laugh was all the souvenir shops that basically sold all of the same chinese-made trinkets. Even funnier, how something 'made in China' is supposed to be a big deal, when you consider most things are made in China! My one exciting purchase: sunflower seeds! Sunflowers seeds are IMPOSSIBLE to find in Seoul but are apparently quite popular with the Chinese (I'm only assuming this because many stores were selling them...), so I bought a brown paper bag of roasted/salted sunflower seeds. They taste kinda funny, obviously not the 'Spitz' that I'm used to from back home, but they do the thing! We were all excited to have some "real" chinese food (Note the quotation marks: When I say "real" Chinese food, I mean Chinese food cooked by Koreans! Haha!) in Chinatown. The kicker though: SOOOOO EXPENSIVE!!! We've all gotten used to spending $5 max for a satisfying meal, so were shocked that most places we checked out were selling individual entrays for over $20 each. We finally found a little hole in the wall that sold good, cheap, Chinese food. I split fried rice and springrolls with 2 of the girls and our total came to $9, so $3 each. Now that's more like it! Once we roamed Chinatown and its shops til our hearts content, we headed to Jayu (Freedom) Park, located nearby. We had to climb a ginormous staircase to get there (It reminded me of the exaggeratedly huge staircase in Kung Fu Panda), but it was worth the climb as Jayu Park offers a great view of the city and sea. Only downside: it was a VERY smoggy day in Incheon, so the sea looked more like a white blob in the distance. We had planned on trying to make our way to the beach but that discouraged us, so instead we wandered Jayu Park for an hour or so then headed home. We had met up at around 10 that morning and it was nearing 6pm by that point, so we figured we'd succeeded in playing tourists. Especially since we knew it would take us a good hour to get home.

There was no plans to go out that night, but my friend Tara (who hadn't come to Incheon that day) called wanting to know if anything was going on. We both decided that we were down for a laid-back night, maybe have a few beers and call it quits early. We had a beer at 'Fish & Grill' downstairs with Lindsay, then found out that our friend Jen also wanted a relaxed beer night, so we met up with her in Hongdae (Jen doesn't work with us but is a public school teacher. So we usually try to meet up with her in Hongdae because that's basically the halfway point between her place and here). The 3 of us ended up at Ho Bar III convinced that we'd have a few beers and be home by 1am at the latest. Yeah...plans changed apparently. We went from mellow to suddenly in the need for a dance party. We tried out a few different places but ended up at Tinpan, a dance club that normally feels crazy busy, but I think that's because we usually show up in a massive group. It's easier to deal with when you're in a group of 3. Needless to say, we stayed there until the wee hours of the night and left as the sun was starting to rise. So much for a relaxed night out! I have zero regrets though because it was a hilariously fun night. Plus I met a fantastic guy who I'm now dating. Yay!

Week of October 20th:
Hmmm... what happened during this week. Again, can't say that much happened during the week itself. Weekdays have become awfully routine as of late. Guess that's a good thing though, having a routine and all. On Saturday, I headed to the COEX mall with Tara and Jen for a shopping expedition. COEX is a MASSIVE mall and we've all gotten used to subway shopping so it was fun to go into real stores. Although less fun seeing real prices! I left fairly empty handed, although I did buy a cute necklace charm at the Hello Kitty store. Come on, like I could ever leave that store without buying something! That adventure took most of the day, so I was happy to come home and relax before the nightime festivities commenced. It was my friend John's birthday on Wednesday, so we went out Saturday night to celebrate. We ended up at 'Monkey Beach', a club in Apgujeong, which is a popular Thai-style bar that has live fire shows, which we sadly missed. *tear* Another wonderful part of Monkey Beach...you can buy mixed drinks served in child-sized beach buckets! FABULOUS!!!! Needless to say, that was a fuuuuun night! Everyone had a grand ol' time and while it's less convenient to get to then the bars in Hongdae, we've all made comments that we MUST return in the near future! Sunday was spent recovering from the booze buckets. Hahaha!

Week of October 27th:
Halloween week!!!! This week was spent planning the preschool Halloween party on Friday morning, plus getting ready for Halloween night. I dressed up as a black cat and spent part of Friday morning carving a jack-o-lantern with my Kiwi class and going trick-or-treating to the other classrooms. We then played 'Pin the Hat on the Witch' and 'Halloween Dance Party' (which was nothing but them flaying around to a Halloween mix cd I'd made!). I then went over to my Apple class and played my 2 games with them as well. All in all, it was a great morning and the kids had fun. That afternoon was good as well, although no Halloween festivities with my afternoon classes. Not gonna lie though, we did slack off WAY more than usual. Come on, it was Halloween! Its sad to think that Korea doesn't actually celebrate Halloween. At least not to the extreme that we do in North America. Stores don't decorate or advertise for it and the only costumes you can find are for the kids. Even then the selection is awfully bleak. So that made our Halloween night even more of a mission, because we had to assemble our own costumes! I have to admit that I'm incredibly proud of everyone and their accomplishments! My fellow vegetarian, Tara, and I dressed up as cannibals, cause we were amused by the irony of such a costume. We bought stage makeup and smeared red paint on our faces and bodies to make it look like we'd just devoured a bloody chunk of human goodness. In reality we looked more like messy vampires, but it was still funny. Especially the reaction we received when we went out to Hongdae. It varied between people being impressed and complimenting us to people cringing away in fear. Success!!! Everyone met up earlier in the night at Susie's, who was hosting a Halloween/Birthday party in her own honour. Her bday's November 1st, so it felt appropriate to celebrate both at once. As mentioned before, everyone showed up in costume and looked AMAZING!!! We then all headed to Hongdae and as always the group split up, but as is the norm we somehow came together once more later on in the night. Hongdae's such a huge area, but our huge group always somehow ends up back together at once. Anyways, Halloween night was a lot of fun, even though I was sad not to be celebrating it in Ottawa. I can't remember the last time I didn't celebrate Halloween with Deb and Do!

On Saturday afternoon, I met up with Tara in Hongdae. She wanted to buy new workout shoes and no one else wanted to go with her, so I was essentially guilted into it. One day I'll learn how to say no to people! Oh well. I was able to get a latte at Starbucks plus we ate at Quiznos, something we can only seem to find in Hongdae. Jen met up with us and we made our way back to our neck of the woods. We decided that we needed a scary movie night in honour of Halloween, so we went to the a nearby DVD rental place and rented 'White Noise' which we watched on a laptop at Tara's. No one has a DVD player and all of our tvs are too old to connect laptops to the tv itself, so watching movies on computers has become the norm. *sigh* The movie itself was kinda lame, but we still managed to get freaked out and shriek more than once. That's when we weren't making fun of it, of course! Haha! After the movie we headed down to Fish & Grill for a drink to 1) not be creeped out anymore, and 2) to keep Tara company until her man showed up. I was good and left after only one drink and went home to go to bed early and talk to my own guy.

On Sunday, we had a girly day and a bunch of us met up that morning to go shopping in Meyong-Dong, a shopping district that I hadn't experienced yet. There's sooo many stores down there, including designer stores like Louis Vuitton, Channel and the such. We only shopped at Forever 21 which is a MASSIVE store. If I remember correctly, it has 3 floors that are jam-packed with clothes. I'd say we spent a good 2 hours there, if not more. My mission was to find jeans and a Fall coat. Didn't find jeans, but did buy a cute coat as well as several shirts and was quite satisfied with my purchases. Then started the frantic search for somewhere to eat, more specifically a Subway or Quiznos. Easier said than done! It took us nearly an hour and were ecstatic (and more than a wee bit cranky) by the time a Subway came into view. I haven't had Subway since getting here, so it was especially delicious!!! Once we we had our fill of delicous sub-goodness, it was early evening so we headed back home. I spent the remainder of the evening/night doing laundry and attempting to make it look like a bomb hadn't landed in my apartment.

Week of November 3rd:
This week was less than awesome because I started to catch the cold that'd been plaguing the entire SLP crew for several weeks now. My apartment's been ridiculously dry at night, so I was hoping that's why I was waking up with a sore, scratchy throat, but by Wednesday (after having purchased a well-needed humidifier after work on Tuesday) I realized that this wasn't the case. I've been really good at fighting off colds since my arrival in Seoul, especially since becoming a preschool teacher (There's ALWAYS a sick child in your midst!!!), so I guess I was bound to lose a fight eventually. I don't think Wednesday night helped much either... One of the guys found a place nearby that sold fireworks, so he planned to set them off on the roof of one of the apartment buildings that night. This was in honour of Guy Fawkes Day, celebration explained in the following (Thank you Wikipedia!): "Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night, Cracker Night, Fireworks Night, Bommy Night) is an annual celebration on the evening of the 5th of November. It celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th of November, 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, were alleged to be attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London, England." I hung out with some of the girls after work and we met up with everyone on the roof at 10:20pm-ish. Turns out that most of the fireworks that Jon bought actually shot out confetti, and not sparkly fire, but thankfully someone had bought 2 roman candles that did have a lovely, albeit slightly pathetic effect. There's nothing quite like store bought fireworks! Hahaha! This night turned into a double celebration as my U.S. friends were quite excited that Obama won the presidential election that day. It was a triple celebration in my mind, because I was also celebrating my brother Mitch's birthday, although he'd have no way of knowing that. I did though! After hanging out on the roof for a good hour or so, we headed down to 'Fish & Grill' for some celebratory drinks. I dragged myself to bed at around 12:30.

Needless to say, Thursday was a bad day. Combination of not enough sleep, too much celebratory beer, and a now official cold made me the worst for wear. I was beyond happy when Thursday ended. I was bummed to wake up on Friday to realize that while I did feel more rested, thanks in part to an early night in bed on Thursday, I felt sicker than ever. I now sounded like a 90-year old chain smoker with a very bad case of the sniffles and a head that felt like it was filled with cotton balls. Good times. Friday was the longest day that I'd had in a loooooong time and I almost cried with relief when 6:20pm came around and I was able to go home. I went to Pizza Maru's with the girls for dinner and from there went home which I did not leave until Sunday. Saturday was spent watching movies and sleeping, slighly messed up on cold medicine. Thankfully that helped, because I was feeling almost human again when Sunday came along. By then I was officially going stir crazy, so was glad to have somewhere to be: Thanksgiving Dinner! It was decided a while back that the crew would get together for a pot-luck dinner on a date between the Canadian and U.S. Thanksgiving. We met up at Jess' at 6pm and it was a great night. There was sooooo much food and possibly even more dessert! We didn't have turkey, but Jess bought a smoked chicken and Jon brought fried chicken, so we at least had some form of poultry. I think my favourite part was the mashed potatoes that Susie made, the pumpkin pie that Jen brought, and the peanut butter fudge courtesy of Lindsay. I ate WAY too much of that fudge and had the worst sugar headache by the end of the night! Well worth it though!!! It was an exceptional Thanksgiving that was shared with a bunch of amazing people that I'm beyond happy to consider friends. Sunday also marked my 4-month anniversary of living in Seoul. Can you believe it?!?!

This now brings us to the Week of November 10th, this week! Today is Pepero Day, which is similar to Valentine's Day, where people give each other Peperos and other romantic gifts. A Pepero is a cookie stick covered in chocolate (Same as Pocky...I know some of you know what that means!) and Pepero Day is held on November 11th since the date '11/11' resembles 4 sticks of Pepero. Its not a huge holiday (Korea seems to have TONS of love-related holidays! I've been told of at least 3, not including V-Day! I do enjoy the fact that they have Black Day, which celebrates singledom!) but I did receive several boxes of Pepero from my students. Any holidays that provides chocolate covered cookie sticks is a happy day to me! Hahaha! Not sure what the next few days have to bring, although I do know that Friday is Field Trip Day for the preschoolers. As is the norm, the teachers have yet to be told where we're going. We usually find out the day before, if not the day of field trips. Nothing like being the last to know! There's plans this weekend to go shoe shopping in I.D.A., an excellently cheap shopping district, as well as adventuring to Costco which I've been told is pretty far. I think it'll be worth it though, since I've been told all Costcos are the same no matter what country you're in and I'm psyched to buy certain things, more notably Quaker oatmeal! YUM!!!

I promise to try to be less of a slacker when it comes to updatingmy journal. I mean, it's for my own good because I've been sitting at my computer for nearly 2 hours typing all of this out. Plus it's hard trying to remember everything that I've done! But I want to document it not only for you, my dearest readers, but for my own memoirs. I don't want to forget any of the fun things I've done while in Korea and this blog will help guarantee that!

Janique's jaunts are to be continued...

Jan ^__^

Yet another birthday celebration, Itaewon, 3 months already!!!

Last week was a 4-day week because Friday was Korea's Foundation Day. Yay another 3-day weekend!!! The week itself dragged on, it was quite painful actually, but other than time moving at a snail's pace it was a pretty good week. We had a birthday to celebrate, so the crew went out on Thursday night. The birthday girl had requested a fairytale theme for the event, so we (the girls, because the boys lack our coolness!) had quite a good time putting outfits together:

We hung out at various apartments until making out way down to Hongdae. We started the night at 'SKA', a dance club that I've been to a few times and that's always been a lot of fun. It used to be free cover for foreigners, although it's now W10,000. Boooo! You do get a free drink though, so that somewhat makes up for it. We danced our little hearts out for several hours, until the pain from our high heels started kicking in. From there,we ventured over to, surprise surprise, Ho Bar. I think I'd die of shock if we didn't end up there at least once during a night out! Ah well, it's a fun place with good music, cheap drinks and familiar faces. We spent several more hours at Ho Bar, then closed the night with a Burger King stop. Nothing like fast food at 5:00 in the morning! I waltzed into my apartment at approx 6am and noted with delight that the sun was rising when I crawled into bed. All in all, a Thursday night VERY well spent!

Friday and Saturday were spent in self-inflicted isolation. I was in need of some 'me' time, so I ignored my phone and did my own thing. Basically wander around listening to music, reading, and watching movies. I did miss out on some group activities both of those days, but there's ALWAYS something going on. If I waited until there was nothing going on for me to have a few days to myself, I'd be waiting a loooooong time. I absolutely adore the group, but it was really nice having some downtime. I talked to Mom and Dad for over an hour on Saturday morning, which was obviously a great thing. It's been really hard coordinating times for us to talk with my new preschool schedule, so I was happy that we were able to work in a time that worked for all of us. I miss my parents and it makes a world of a different just hearing their voices and finding out what's going on back home. Yay for technology and its ability to aid in communicating with loved ones who are at the other end of the world!!!

On Sunday, I returned to the real world and joined Lindsay and Amanda for an excursion to Itaewon, which is basically foreigner's central. This area is heavily populated by foreigners, especially U.S. Army personnel, so it was incredibly strange to see so many non-Koreans in one place and to hear so much English being spoken! Bizarre! The main reason for our Itaewon trip was to visit 'What the Book?', a new/used English bookstore. HEAVEN!!!! It's not a massive store, but has a great selection of books, both old and new. The best part is that if you can't find a certain book, they can order it for you. Fun! Not surprisingly, I left the store with 5 books in tow and a happy skip in my step. Lindsay and I have made a promise that we'll visit 'What the Book' at least once a month, a promise I'll happily keep! After this, we wandered around the part of Itaewan that we were in waiting for Tara to come and join us for dinner.

She arrived maybe an hour later (It's a good 45-60 minute trip from home) and we tried to find somewhere to have a real meal, not just fast food or Quiznos. We ended up at a Canadian pub, somewhere that Tara had visited before. I love that Korea has Canadian establishments! It's like our equivalent to a Korean restaurant and it makes me giggle a whole lot! From what Tara had been told, the owners are 2 Canadians who missed home, but loved Korea so much that they decided to open a very Canadian-esque restaurant/pub. The place was packed and I think that was mostly due to the hockey game that was being projected on a big screen. They were playing the Senators/Penguins game from the previous night and most of the guys were wearing either Sens or Pens jerseys, hollering and cheering. I totally felt like I'd been transported back to Canada! Especially since it was Hockey Night in Canada playing on CBC and all of the commercials were for Home Hardware and other Canadian franchises. We all reflected on how strange it was to hear English commercials and Tara and I (The 2 Canadian gals) were giddy at seeing commercials that were so familiar to us! The place itself was decorated with jerseys from Canadian sports teams, Canadian license plates and other knick-knacks that are delightfully Canadian. You can even order a beer in a cup that looks like a mini replica of the Stanley Cup! The next time we go there (Because there'll obviously be a next time!) Tara and I are totally getting drinks in those! The food was delicious and I was thrilled to see 'poutine' on the menu! We ordered one for the 4 of us because Amanda, being from Florida, had never tasted it before and we wanted to show it that it didn't taste as gross as it might sound. Lindsay, who's from Maryland, had only had one poutine in her life, so it was also necessary to give her another taste. Sadly it was only ok, but I am a bit of a poutine snob. There's nothing quite like a poutine made with homecut fries, thick gravy and fresh cheese curds, sold from a chip stand. *sigh* It was a nice temporary substitute though and I mean, for Korea (who's definitely not known for its cheese...ugh.), it was good. Amanda enjoyed it, so all that matters is that someone else now knowns the wonder that is a poutine! After a very satisfying meal (I had YUMMY chicken quesadillas...not very Canadian, but they did remind me of home because I order quesadillas so often when we go out!), and some good entertainment (the game was tied in the 3rd period when we left, although I later learned that the Sens lost 4-3 in overtime. >_<), we headed over to Coldstone for dessert. I had never experienced the wonder that is Coldstone, because as far as I know, it doesn't have any stores in Canada, but it's fabulous ice cream creations! I don't remember what my deliciousness was called, but it was chocolate ice cream folded over orea cookies, peanut butter, chocolate chunks and other yumminess. SO GOOD!!! I could barely move by the time we left there and it was an unanimous decision to cab home (Since it would cost us less than W5,000 each), as opposed to dealing with the subway ride. Once again, another weekend had come and gone.

Oh! I almost forgot! That Sunday marked my 3-months since I'd arrived in Seoul. Can you believe it?! I certainly can't! 1/4 of my contract is already done and it feels like I just got here! But, as mentioned before, it also feels like I've always been here. I still wake up some mornings and it hits me "Woah. I'm in Korea." and I feel the same jumble of emotions that I did when I first stepped foot in the Incheon/Seoul Internation Airport. The reality of my current life hits me at the strangest moments and it feels very surreal, as if I'll suddenly wake up and be back home. I'm so relieved that I'm enjoying it as much as I am, because those moments do shake me up a bit. The fact that I'm so far away from everything familiar to me, everyone that I've known for so long...craziness! But then I'll go to work and be bombarded by these adorable little faces and talk with those that I believe will be lifelong friends and I'm so happy to be here. I know that once my year's up, I'll be so excited to go back home and be with my family and friends again. I smile just thinking about it! But I also know that it'll be really hard to leave this life behind and all of the people and things that go with it. But not going to dwell on those thoughts just yet. Afterall, I still have another 9 months to go!

As it is currently Saturday in the 'Land of the Morning Calm, that means that my week is not yet over. Meaning, you get to wait a little bit for my update of this past week. I don't think this is a huge deal, as it's not as if I haven't given you enough to read in the past 12 hours!

So once again, my life update is to be continued...

Field trip, Day and Night on the Town, Foreign Fan Girls

I'm a tad late with this latest update, so let the story continue: Our adventure left off with my upcoming field trip with the preschoolers. We went to the Sodaemun Museum of Natural History, or 'The Dinosaur Place', as the kids called it. It was a lot of fun, albeit a bit stressful since there were many other schools there as well, so keeping track of my 9 hyper-active 7-year olds (Kiwi Class) was a challenge. I don't think I'd be exagerating to say that I was doing a head count every 30 seconds. The kids LOVED the exhibits, especially the dinosaurs, but I was a bit disappointed by how quickly we had to go through everything. We had limited time, plus I was following my teaching partner who had our 6-year olds (Apple Class), and she was flying through everything. She's the expert, so unlike myself knew what she was doing and how things should proceed, but it was literally "Wow everyone, look at this! *60 seconds pass by* Ok, time's up! Let's see what's next!" The kids didn't seem to mind, I assume their used to super speed field trips, but I wish we'd had time to actually spent more time looking at the exhibits. Plus I wanted to see things too! *pouts* Ok, yes, that's childish of me. It WAS for the kids entertainment and I was simply there to supervise, but museums are fun! I think the biggest bummer is that I didn't have much time to take pictures of the kids, something that I was really looking forward to doing. I did get a few good shots, including this one of Kiwi Class, which is amazing because I didn't think they were physically able to stand in one place for this long!

Aren't they cute?! Sure they make me want to rip my hair out at times (Ok, not gonna lie, almost daily), but I love them all the same! I think my favourite part of the trip was their 'let loose' time. There was an outdoor area with plenty of space to run and burn off some of that excess energy. It was fun seeing them running around like mini maniacs and not having to tell them to calm down; I could just let them be, which was nice. Plus it tired them out for the bus ride back to school, which is always a bonus!

The rest of Friday was relatively uneventful. Taught my 4 classes in the afternoon and got off work at 6:20pm. Met up with some of the crew for our traditional Friday night dinner at Pizza Maru's, then came home and did a whole lotta nothin'.

On Saturday, I joined Lindsay and Amanda on a trip to the Electronics Market in Yongsan. Lindsay had finally received her alien card, so it was time to shop for a much needed cell phone so that she could truly be kept in the loop. Our group communicates via text messages for the most part, so a cell is definitely necessary. After a successful shopping trip, we met up with Jen at the Omokyo subway stop and made our way to the Hyundai Shopping Center to go see 'HellBoy II'. Loved it, quite possibly more than the first one! Comedy, action, good effects, all rolled into one nicely wrapped package. I highly recommend it! Although as many of you are aware, I can usually find something good in all movies. If I'm entertained, it's aaaall good! ^_~ It was past 7pm by this time, so we headed back home, went out separate ways, then met up at Susie's at 9:00ish. Tara and Susie had decided not to join us for our daytime excursion, but we had all decided that it was necessary to go out that night. Pretty much the entire group showed up at Susie's which is always fun! We hung out there for a few hours, then headed down to Hongdae. We started off the night at 'Pause', a sit-down bar that's owned by a friend of a friend. It's small and we pretty much took up all the space, but I liked it. Plus we pretty much had control of the music. Yay! I hadn't been yet and had heard a lot about it, so I was happy to finally have a chance to see it for myself. The only downsides that I can think of were that drinks were almost as expensive as they are back home (Booooo!!!) and the bathroom. Oooooh, the bathroom. It was upstairs, up a scarily steep staircase that is made MUCH worst when wearing heels. When you finally climb the staircase, you're met by one bathroom which has a urinal and a *gulp* squatter. I was still less than comfortable using a squatter (I will ALWAYS take a regular toilet over a squatter!!!), but that awkwardness was tenfolds after having drank for several hours. I felt like I was at a bush party all over again, peeing in the woods, except there was no tree to lend any support!!! Thankfully I survived multiple visits to the bathroom with no incidents and didn't fall going up, or even worst, going down the stairs. Whew! After 'Pause', we decided that some dancing was in order so we wandered to a club...can't remember it's name. S-something or other. I'm still unsure as to what happened, but only a few of us ended up going in to dance and were having a grand ol' time when John came to find us and told us the group was moving on. But...but...we were getting our groove on! That's the downside to having such a large group; It's hard to please everyone. We had all said that we'd try to stick together that night (a hard task indeed), so we relunctantly left our dance party. *Sigh* We then ended up at Ho Bar, not a big shocker. I can't recall one single night where we've gone out that we haven't ended up there at one point in the night. I'm not sure what time I got home that night, but it was late. Or early. Whatever.

On Sunday, against my every instinct and desire, woke up at noon. That would seem late if I hadn't gone to bed only a few hours earlier! Now you may be wondering: What would make Janique, the Lover of Sleep, get up on a weekend before getting at least 10 hours of sleep? It was fangirl day!!! In my last post, I mentioned that 'Big Bang' and 'Wonder Girls' would be performing across the street at SBS. Well, I had the 'Wonder Girls' part correct, but it was actually another boy band, one who's apparently even more popular than 'Big Bang' who'd be performing: DBSK (Or TVfXQ...will explain that doozy in a bit). Susie's our resident K-Pop (Korean Pop) fanatic and knows pretty much every word to every song that any Korean boy band has ever recorded. I met up with Jen, Lindsay and Amanda at Susie's apartment and we began the process of making signs. Signs for what? Signs to go parade at SBS, of course! We wore our tackiest, most neon clothing to ensure we'd be noticed (with the exception of Lindsday, who sadly isn't as crazy as the rest of us. She did offer to play camera woman though, so at least she wasn't too embarassed to be seen with us. Hahaha!), although quite honestly, the chances of are not being noticed, even if we'd worn normal clothing was slim to none. Afterall, we were the only foreigners in sight. And as an added little somethin'-somethin', we put our hair in pigtails, just cause that somehow seemed appropriate. With signs in tow, along with Susie's iPod and speakers, as well as my bright yellow tambourine, we made our less than subtle introduction to the crowd who for the most part had been waiting outside SBS early the previous evening. We danced, we sang, we cheered, embarassed several Koreans in our attempt to get them to join us... good times. I'm hoping that this following link works, so that you can see for yourselves. Here one of MANY videos that was taken that day:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1046029591582&subj=502185922

We did manage to get a few followers who actually followed us through the crowds for a while and sang along with us. They even inducted in the official DBSK fan club (Can't verify how official that was, but it's the thought that counts!)! They were the ones who brought about the DBSK/TVfXQ debacle. All of our signs read 'DBSK'. More specifically, Jen, Susie, Amanda and I each had a poster with a letter, plus several mini posters making cute/silly play on words with the initials. Suddenly our newly formed posse informs us that they're actually called 'TVfXQ'. HUH?!?! Susie protested (as much as one can when speaking to girls who have very little comprehension of the English language) that she saw that their name is DBSK. They giggled at us and shook their heads, repeating TVfXQ, over and over again. But...but...OUR SIGNS! OUR BEAUTIFUL SIGNS!!! We were devastated to say the least, not to mention horrified that we'd gotten the name wrong. Susie still swore that they were also called DBSK, because I mean, it's not like she pulled those initial our of thin air. Sure enough, we've since discovered that TVXQ (as there's apparently no longer a f...?) are often refered to as DBSK. We weren't wrong! HA!!!! After several hours of unadultered silliness, we went back to Susie's to 1) Relax and drink water because we didn't have enough hands to bring liquids along, and 2) Find answers to the DBSK/TVfXQ insanity! We had considered bringing out fangirlness to downtown Seoul, but once we sat down, we realized we were quite exhausted and that it wasn't necessary to share our awesomeness with anyone other than DBSK fans. We headed off to dinner, were home by 9:00 and I went to bed shortly thereafter.

I still have 2 more weeks to update you on, but it's now nearly 2am and my brain hurts from teaching all day and still somehow being awake. I'm not convinced that I'm still making sense as I write this, so updating is to be continued....