12/13: The Hospital, a Korean Wedding and the Nutcracker, Oh my!!

Korean Wedding

Korean Wedding 

Mothers of the bride and groom bowing to the families and guests

Korean Wedding 

Korean Wedding

Christmas Exchange at the Ugly Sweater Party

The Nutcracker

Seeing the nutcracker in Seoul

Walking around the Children's Zoo in Seoul

The last full week of school of the semester, I made it!! And whew what a crazy semester. It has been so stressful with afterschool and with learning how Juny likes to teach and my role in the classroom. As the school year progressed, I had less and less of a role. Instead Juny became the main English teacher with me being there to say some sentences once in a while and walk around the classroom like a dope. It bothers me sometimes because I feel so useless and keep wondering why I am here but then I hear about how other people have to play 25 lessons a week and they are so so busy. I know that next semester will be really busy without her because I will have to teach 22 different lessons every week which is going to be overwhelming. Many people have bigger schools so they have one or two classes for each grade level and can therefore repeat lesson plans. Not me. So I should just enjoy my laziness now while it lasts.

                I also got to enjoy the kids and their silliness. Now that I don’t see them in after school and have to yell at them, they are way funnier and hilarious. Like the other day. The school is freezing. They heat the classrooms in the morning and afternoon so the rooms are semi warm but a lot of times the doors stay open in the hallways so the hallways are absolutely freezing! For that reason, a lot of the students walk around with hand warmers. Well, one morning, Juny is talking to the students and I’m just standing there (a good part of my job it to be a mannequin) watching the students. I look over and there is 6^th grade who took a hand warmer from his friend and pretends that it is make-up and starts “dabbing” it in fake foundation and then dabbing his face. It was hilarious! In the states I think it would have been more weird for a boy to be putting on pretend make-up but here the men are a lot more feminine and it is a lot more widely accepted. All the kpop stars (men and women) wear a lot of noticeable make-up and perms/dyed hair are everywhere on men. I’ve seen two year old boys with permed hair. Plus the men here dress a lot more feminine than the women back home with tighter pants, more sweaters and in general seem to be into  fashion way more than at home. They don’t really have “manly men” here. Yet that being said women are portrayed and seen as being very weak and fragile and men are always supposed to take care of them. Men do all the heavy lifting at school and within a couple it is common to see men carrying the woman’s purse, following her around when they go shopping to carry her things, holding an umbrella over her, etc. It’s both cute and disgusting.

                Since it was the end of the year I decided to give the kids a present and, thanks to mom and dad, was able to give each of the kids a penny from the states which they all really liked. I also had two kids, Tyler and JunJe from fifth grade stay after class one day for like two seconds so I secretly gave them candy. I told them they had to keep it a secret and they said yes. Well by lunch the secret had been spilled and the other kids had found out. Those two!!! I didn’t have any more candy but I had ordered dried apple pieces online and had those in my bag so I gave out some. Before I knew it I had a line of fifth graders sticking out their little paws for food. One thing Korea has taught me is to be better with sharing food so I obliged and they each got some. I did get them to say “May I have some apple?” or “May I have some more?” They were too cute to not give them apples.

                By the end of the week I was really beginning to feel more and more sick so I asked if I could leave early to head to the doctor. Juny was so sweet and even gave me a ride and said she would go with me but when we got there the doctor was at lunch and Juny had to drop off the Vice Principal somewhere so I was left by myself to come back later. It was difficult but I succeeded in my trip. In Korea the doctors are separated by their specialty so I had to go to an ENT doctor for my cold.  The receptionists and nurses didn’t speak English but I just handed them my card and they took me right in to the doctor who did speak English. He didn’t really find anything but did give me a prescription for some meds and let me sit in this weird room with a heater on my ear that had been hurting. It was a bizarre appointment but at least I was able to get some medication.

                I had just made it back to my apartment when I saw my friend, another American teacher walking towards me and asked if I knew where the hospital was. I didn’t but called my tutor who pointed me in the right direction and so, being the good person I am, walked with the teacher to the doctor. The teacher looked terrible and I felt bad because we had to walk around forever before we found the place and actually went to the wrong type of doctor first. Anyways, finally found the right doctor who spoke some English and told us we had to head to the hospital in Cheongju. Okay, so hopped in a cab and made our way to the Cheongju ER where no one spoke English. Thank god for Juny who I called and used as a translator between the doctor and the other teacher. We were in the ER for hours and they finally admitted my friend around 8:30. But since we had been there for so long she was hungry so I had to go out in the snow to get her something to eat. Of course, she could only eat soup and every restaurant I went to that had take-out said they do take out for everything but soup!!! God!! Finally found something, made it back to the hospital and once I ensured she was settled and okay I left by about 9:30.

                I found a bus stop right outside and sat down to wait which was supposed to be about 20 minutes. As I am waiting this drunk guy walks over and stands like 2 feet away from me and just stares and stares at me. But being the stubborn person I am, I just sat there and ignored. Then he sat down next to me, I scooted over and he got even closer and leaned over to see what I was doing on my phone. Then he touched my leg which grossed me out so I said excuse me and got up. BUT when I got up he touched my butt! That pervert! Before I knew it I had kicked him in the shins and gave him the dirtiest look and was about to slap him before my alert system inside went on. I realized that it would be safer just to walk around instead of hit him as I had no idea what he would do. I walked a little ways away but still waited for the bus. It finally came and the creepy guy got on too and kept looking back at me. I ignored him and began to panic about something else. The bus didn’t turn when it was supposed to! I was going the wrong direction! I was on the wrong bus. I needed the 502 home and I thought the 50-2 was the same one—NOPE! Damn it! I hopped off and walked to the busiest street I could find and hailed a cab back to Jochiwon. Finally made it back after getting harassed and shelling out way more than was necessary all because I was being a good person. No good deed goes unpunished!

                The next day, though, was going to be great as I had been invited to my first Korean wedding. A girl I play volleyball with was getting married and had handed out invitations to the entire team. Luckily the other American I play with was going and she and I went with a teacher from her school. I had no idea what to expect. We got to the venue which was a wedding hall that was hosting two weddings. When you walk in there are tables for each of the respective weddings and you go, give them cash that they put in an envelope for the couple and you get a meal ticket. Then you walk into the lobby where you see the groom surrounded by banners and flowers with his and the brides parents and you can go take pictures with him. In a small room off to the side is the bride who sits on a couch and you can go talk to her and take pictures with her. It was so bizarre. The ceremony was held in a bright, white chapel off on the side. As you walk in there are pictures of the bride and groom from a photo shoot and there is an elevated aisle (looks like a model runway) leading up to the altar. Everything was so shiny and bright and white! We took our seats and soon the wedding started with a little flower boy, the groom walking down and then the bride being led in by her father. But it is way different from a Western wedding. Here everyone was talking the entire time and no one stood up when they walked down the aisle, it was loud and boisterous! They also had a video being played at the front that had pictures of the bride and groom.

                I think the ceremony was pretty but it was all in Korean so I have no idea what they said. At one point though, friends of the bridge and groom got up and sang various love songs with, of course, cutesy dancing. After the ceremony (which did not include rings or a kiss and instead including bows to both families), they took pictures at the front. First it was with the families but then all the visitors and friends were invited to come up for a massive picture. The whole time I kept thinking that in 20 years she is going to be like who are those white people sticking out!

                They kept taking pictures and we went upstairs to pig out on the buffet. What a huge spread; Chinese food, Western food, Korean food, desserts, salads, etc. It was really good but it was just like being in a big cafeteria. They took your ticket, you got a tray and pigged out and then sat where you wanted. That was it. Afterwards, you just went home. The teacher we were with said that on her wedding day she got married in the morning and then went home to clean the house. SO we ate and just left. It was pretty anti-climactic.

                The wedding in general was weird because they go over the top on some things but skimp on others. Like the meal was good but it was in a cafeteria with people from another wedding. Yet there was a movie that was played and the bride’s dress was impeccable. It was really an interesting and bizarre experience.

                That night there was an ugly Christmas Party and white elephant gift exchange at an Americans apartment which ended up being fun. I gave a beer collection where I bought 3 different beers from around the world and a baby beer glass. People really liked it which I was happy about. I ended up getting a hodgepodge of things like a thermos, scent diffuser, socks, etc. After the exchange the others went out to a bar but as I was still recovering from being sick I headed home.

                I was glad to go home and rest a bit because I had another big day on Sunday. Although I wasn’t going to be home for the holidays I still wanted to do holiday stuff and therefore I bought tickets with a friend to go see the Nutcracker ballet. I had mentioned it to another girl and she came too so three of us headed to Seoul for the afternoon. The performance by The Universal Ballet Company (a South Korean company) was beautiful but it was so hot in the theatre that I kept falling asleep. I felt terrible but I couldn’t keep my eyes open! What I did manage to see though was beautiful even though they changed things around a little bit. For example they didn’t have the mom come out with all the kids that run out from under her dress which is my favorite part.

                After the show we walked around that area of Seoul and went to the Children’s Park and stumbled upon a zoo! Who knew there was a zoo there!!! Not a lot of animals were out but enough that we enjoyed walking around. To end the evening we ended up going out to eat for barbequed duck which was amazing.

                All in all it was a fantastic, Christmas-y weekend!

12/13: Kimchi Making

Dehydrated cabbage used for kimchi

Making kimchi

Making kimchi

Making kimchi

Cookie decorating party

Making strudel with the other foreign teachers

Our strudel

After an EPIK weekend in Korea (get it, epic vs EPIK-English program in Korea) I was ready for another week of school and actually pretty stoked because I didn’t have afterschool until the next semester. LIFE IS SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT AFTERSCHOOL. After school is so hard because there is no coteacher and the kids go crazy. So this meant that I would teach classes with Juny in the morning and then have the afternoon to chill and do nothing. I was supposed to be planning lessons for the following semester but that was so difficult because apparently they are changing the English textbook and they don’t have them in yet.

Even though I didn’t have afterschool there were still a lot of funny moments with the students. The 6^th graders were doing a unit called “You look like a Scotsman” where they were learning the phrase, “You look like a XXX.”  Juny and I were eliciting the expression from them by making the students say something about me or her. I got some things like “You look like an American”, “You look like a girl” but the funniest and most insulting was “Julie teacher-You look like a smurf!!” At first I didn’t know what that 6^th grade Ryan was saying and then when I fully understood him I was taken back. I realized I was wearing a bright blue jacket but still. Immediately in my mind I had the comeback “You look like a smurf because you’re short!” but of course I couldn’t say anything and just laughed along with the kids. There are lots of those cases where the kids say something to me and I so badly want to reply but have to hold in it. Not sure why I do considering they won’t understand it anyways. Sometimes though the other students will do it for me. For example in the textbook there is a section that says “Say Hello to the rest of the world” and introduces sayings from different cultures. In one particular section there was a picture of a person from France saying “Bonjour.” Most of the kids just ignore this section but Jacktonio #1 who is terrible at English but the cutest and funniest 6^th grader decides he is going to say Bonjour for most of class. But his version wasn’t exactly Bonjour but “bon door.” He also has this little lisp so him saying it over and over again got the whole class laughing. He was so determined when he kept saying it to as if he was teaching the rest of the class how to say Bonjour. It was fantastic!

Along with funny moments in the sixth grade, I was really happy with the third grade too. Every day we ask them the date, the day, the month and year and they never really care or know the answer even though we ask them every day. However, I started this new thing where I had a different student read different parts of the date ie one says Monday, December 11^th, 2013. At first they didn’t really enjoy it but after two groups did it, more and more kids started volunteering to be different parts. Now the kids love it and scream their parts. It’s really cute and exciting!

So some cute, funny things happened this week. Plus I was uber excited about the upcoming weekend. I had signed up a couple of weeks ago to go up to Seoul for a kimchi making event. There are multiple companies in Korea that offer activities for expats to do more “Korean-y” things. So for $35 you could meet up with other Americans and foreigners and learn how to make your own kimchi and bring home a 3 kg container with. Originally there was going to be 4 of us from Jochiwon going up but Maggie got sick so early on Saturday morning me and two other foriegners headed up to Seoul and met up with other foriegners in the eastern part of Seoul across the Han River. I had never been over to this area and it was ncie but a lot less busy than downtown. It was freezing though and as soon as exited the station it started snowing which would have been terrible since I had crappy shoes on but I always think that cities look magical when it snows.  In the end there was a total of about 15 people, most of whom were American English teachers.

We hopped on a bus and within 10 minutes or so landed at our location which was a gorgeous wooden building with open windows allowing us to admire the trees and following snow surrounding the building. Our guide told us a little about kimchi and how it is made. It is made from a specific type of cabbage called baechu but there are a variety of types of kimchi including radish kimchi, white kimchi, etc. It is not just a stereotype that Koreans love kimchi because it literally is served at every meal in some form or another and Koreans even have a separate refrigerator in their house solely for all the kimchi they have and eat in the year. It’s kind of mind boggling.

Basically all the ingredients in kimchi smell in their own way and can stain your clothes so we all got suited up with long gloves (it reminded me of the kind that people wear when they stick their hand inside a cow, UMD anyone??) and aprons. To make kimchi you first need to soak the baechu (cabbage) in salted water overnight which they had already down for us. It becomes smaller and way more shriveled. Then you need to make your sauce. The typical kimchi sauce will contain radish, green onions, leeks, salted fish, ginger, garlic, Chili powder, sugar, aekjeot fish sauce, salt and salted water. You basically mix all these together in varying degrees until you have the right balance of sweet, salt and spice. I had no idea what I wanted mine to taste like so our guide kept trying and helping. Here again there was that cultural difference of being fed food. The guide had no problem feeding each of us some radish and ingredients and would tell us to feed her our concoctions. It was obvious that many of us Americans were a little awkward with it but when in Korea… Anyways, after mixing together your sauce you take a salted baechu head and basically rub and stuff the sauce into it and presto, you have made kimchi. From there kimchi can be stored for an extended period of time, the longer the more fermented it becomes with the taste constantly changing. Korean families tend to know how long and how to store it to achieve the best taste but I had no idea so as soon as I got home I just stuffed that thing in the fridge (which proceeded to smell up my fridge and apartment every time I opened the fridge!).

After kimchi making we all headed out and my friends and I ended up getting a really nice dinner at Bennigans, an American pub by Seoul Station. What was so funny was at the pub there were various American paraphernalia around and where we sat there just so happened to be a Maryland license plate and Redskins flag, lol.  We all decided to head back to Jochiwon by that point because there was a cookie decorating party at another friends house that we wanted to attend.

A couple of weeks ago an American, Stacy, decided that she wanted to have Christmas like parties to really get us all in the mood and she planned a multitude of events including a Christmas decorating party. She had made gingerbread and sugar cookie dough and we all took turns cutting out the cookies and decorating them with sprinkles and icing. It was so interesting because Koreans don’t really bake nor do many apartments have ovens (they all instead just have stovetops) so all the Americans brought over their tiny confectioners ovens. Here we are cooking like 3 cookies at a time on this little sheets in like 4 ovens with various timers constantly going off and us trying to figure out which oven is the right one.  Not only did I really enjoy decorating cookies and it got me more in the Christmas spirit but I had also really wanted to continue with the Brice-Liptak tradition of making apple strudel every Christmas and that we did. The day before I had made and beat the dough for what felt like forever and cut up a billion apples. I was so nervous to make strudel because no one else had done it before and I have never made the dough all alone so was really unsure about the whole thing. But it ended up turning out wonderfully! The dough stretched beautifully with some holes here and there but nothing that wasn’t salvageable and everyone was majorly impressed by it. It was so amazing to bring this tradition across the world! Of course I would have preferred to be with my family in Grandma Molly’s basement but I can’t have everything. The only problem (if you can call it that) was that it took forever to cook so we didn’t even end up eating it until 11 at night and even then it probably could have been in the oven a bit longer.

Overall I was really impressed with our strudel making and glad that I got to still make apple strudel even though I am so far from home.

12/13: Craziest Nights in Korea

Christmas Decorations in my apartment

One of many raw fish platters

Fire Shot at Touch Bar

Street Artist in Insadong

Random, singers advertising some food

Seoul: The whole city was overrun by police in training

My Christmas Tree

Some classroom decorations

Snowmen that the students made

Snowmen by the 1st/2nd grade and some stockings

Snowflakes made by the fifth grade afterschool boys

So Thanksgiving is over and in the Brice household that means that the Christmas Season has officially started. I have no idea what Christmas will be like in Korea but am nervous and sad to be missing Christmas back in the states. From what I have heard about Korea is that Koreans don’t really celebrate it and instead it is a “couples” holiday (like most days in Korea). So needless to say I wasn’t too happy about having to be in Korea for Christmas.

                I was planning on doing a whole month of Christmas crafts, projects, songs and movies with the kids during afterschool so I figured I might as well start now. This week during afterschool I had all the first and second graders decorate and color small snow men and stockings. We also finished up learning all the movements that go with the phonics song so I was glad that winter started, giving me something to do with them. I didn’t really incorporate much English into the snowmen but I did for the older kids. All the third and fourth graders got to decorate large snowman and had to make a little nametag (My name is XXX. I am a boy/girl snowman. I like XX). Then they each got to decorate a stocking where they wrote “My favorite toy is XX.” I was proud that I got some English in there. We also made Christmas Cards and cut out Christmas trees to decorate the windows. Plus I found on pinterest a way to make snowflakes from toilet paper rolls. Only a couple of kids brought in rolls but the ones who did really enjoyed making them. With the older kids we made little mice from toilet paper rolls and really complex snowflakes from paper. Again, the English might have been lacking but at least they had to follow directions in English. They were so creative with the little mice we made. I hadn’t tried it before hand and was having problems making them but the students were amazing at it and ended up making little presents that the mice could hold. I also learned about the 5^th grade boy crushes and which of the girls they liked-so cute.

                Along with the mice and snowmen, each student got to decorate a snowman. One little boy, Tyler, my fifth grade pupucha was hilarious. He is really artistic and decided to make a WWE Smackdown snowman. This is also the kid who likes to steal the signs that say the days of the week and the weather to make WWE Champion Belts. Anyways, for the past couple of months he loves to walk around imitating commentators of WWE “And smackdown for landon oliver” and he goes on and on and landon oliver. So I asked him today the name of his snowman and of course he goes Landon Oliver, “spelling teacher.” I had no idea who he was talking about so I google it and nothing. I keep trying different spellings before I finally find a picture of the guy he likes and his name is ……”Randy Orton!” “r”s are very hard for Koreans and so it kind of makes sense but it was so funny. Months and months and I finally understand what the heck he has been saying. The kids all made their crafts and I said good bye to them on Friday. Only after saying good bye did I learn that that would be my last after school class until March. There were still two weeks left of school before winter vacation so I expected to keep going and had plans made up. It was bitter sweet. I was really excited that after school was over since I kind of hate it but at the same time I wanted to have a mini party for the kids and have a proper goodbye. With my first and second graders I had spent the whole semester teaching them phonics and I wanted them to do the whole song as I videotaped them! Darn it!!

                Earlier in the day on Friday, Juny said that the nurse invited her and me to a good bye dinner for the groundskeeper of the school. So the school is really small but there are major divisions amongst the staff. There is basically the teachers and then there is the support staff. The office staff sticks with the nurse, bus drivers and groundskeeper and the teachers then all stick together and don’t really get along. Juny fits with both groups but is close with the nurse so she invited us to dinner. I really didn’t want to go but Juny said it would be a good experience and I should come. Well, what a night it turned  into. There were about 7/8 people; the nurse, two bus drivers, two office staff, the groundskeeper and me and Juny which also meant that it was 4 men over the age of 40, one man who was 35 and then two women who were over 45! Awkward and hilarious. However, everyone was so happy that I came and welcoming. We went out for raw fish and they brought out two huge platters of all different types of raw fish and ocean goodies. Everyone just wanted me to try everything and they kept filling up my beer and soju glass! The fish was delicious. I got to eat live octopus again, different types of fish, stingray!! I really hated the stingray. It tasted like you just swallowed the ocean. I have mentioned the drinking culture a little before but let me go into it a little bit more. So your glass is never empty! If it is empty someone will repour it within a couple of minutes, whether it be coke or alcohol. Also when someone pours you a drink, you take the bottle and using two hands (and sitting on your knees/kneeling) pour them a drink back and then cheers together. When you two cheer, many other people join in to cheers.  But it’s more polite to turn your body away when you take the drink. Basically if someone wants to take a shot, they want everyone to take a shot with them! They then will yell Korean shot and you have to take the shot glass and turn it upside down on your head to prove that there is nothing left. Another type of shot-taking is to use the same glass. Usually at an event the oldest person has a shot glass and goes around taking a shot with every person. They pour you a shot, you take it, then wipe the shot glass on a napkin and pour a little for them that they take. And boy this all happens pretty quickly. They take shot after shot. Needless to say I ended up eating a lot and having a lot to drink at dinner.

                We ended dinner by around 7 and went for round two at noraebang. By this time Juny was tired so she left and here I am with 4 ajhussis (old men) and one ajhumma (old woman) at noraebang (karaoke). It ended up being a lot of fun and I even sang a couple of kpop songs. They were so great because they asked me what song I wanted and then went to the man in charge to help find it. It was a lot more fun and less awkward than I expected. EXCEPT that my dirty old bus driver friend who speaks some English kept saying that he wanted me to date the 40 year old accountant from the school. The 40 year old is really nice, but Pa-lease!! After noraebang we all gathered outside and the dirty bus driver friend’s wife showed up and not only drove us back to school but also brought a huge box of strawberries for us to eat. Back at school, the 40 year old (let’s call him Tall Man cause he is like the tallest Korean I’ve seen lately) said he would take me home since he lives really close to me. At first I was nervous because he had so much to drink but then I realized that he called a chauffeur. They have a service where you call a driver who comes and drives your own car to wherever you want. At this point I hadn’t quite figured out how the driver then gets home but I later learned that another car follows behind and drives the driver home. Anyways we get back to Jochiwon at like 11 and Tall Man asks if I wanted some chicken so we went out for chimek (chicken and beer). Awkward cause it was just me and him and his English is terrible. I really had no idea what was going on because of the language barrier but whatever. Before I knew it we were walking to another chimek place where we met up with some of his friends. Again, here I am, 23years old and I am with 4/5 ajhussis drinking together. I wanted to leave but wasn’t really sure how to get out of the situation. Luckily they were old and tired so two of them had actually fallen asleep so we all got up to leave. But then as I was walking home I ran into two of my American friends who were going to the American bar and I figured I was already out so might as well go. We ended up having a blast and I actually was hanging out with people of my own age! The bar was a lot of fun and we met some Korean students from Korea University and I spent a good deal of the night playfully harassing the bar tender to get him to show me his tattoo. People in Korea don’t have tattoos and they are looked down upon so I was stoked to see a Korean with one. Finally by 4am we decided it was time to head home and pass out. One of the craziest and weirdest nights of my time in Korea so far!!!

                After sleeping in some on Saturday I ended up going to Seoul with another American to go Christmas shopping. There are a lot of places in Korea that you can go shopping but Seoul is really where it’s at for souvenirs and American clothing. I didn’t get everything I needed for people but I did get most of my Christmas shopping done. I bought chopsticks for my dad, weird food for my brother (silk worm pupae, dried squid), a donut air freshener for PJ, a toothbrush holder for Lainie, a weird cat sculpture for my friend Megan, a beautiful scarf for my friend Rachel, teas for my mom and a whole bunch of odd things. Korea is weird. PERIOD. Everything here is bizarre so I figured I would buy bizarre things for my family and friends. 

                Sunday was another lazy day. I wanted to finish up my Christmas shopping so I took the bus to Cheongju which is a bigger city in Korea where they have a store called “Artbox” that I really like. Unfortunately I get all the way there and I walk back and forth forever trying to find this store before I realized that it was under construction. DARN IT! The other plus was that their Daiso (a dollar store company) had a lot of great Christmas decorations so I loaded up on decorations and went home to decorate the apartment. I might not have finished Christmas shopping but at least I have a rocking Christmas apartment!

11/13: Thanksgiving in Korea

Some of the kindergarteners at kimchi making

Our Thankful Tree

Thanksgiving with the Americans

Flea Market at School

Some of the kindergarteners at kimchi making

4th Grade Audrey making a heart for the Thankful Tree

Me making Kimchi with the 4th and 6th grade

Making ddok at school

4th Grade Antonio with a heart for the Thankful Tree

3rd and 4th Grade after our candy hunt

Making ddok

Eating meat and kimchi with the students

The funny 6th graders: Jacktonio #1 and Ryan

3rd/4th grade scavenger hunt

European Christmas Market in Seoul

This upcoming week is Thanskgiving and it will be the second Thanksgiving in a row that I have not been home with the family. Last year I was in Mozambique enjoying my time on the beach with my friend Anthony right before I was set to come home from studying abroad in Southern Africa. Our dinner was on lawn chairs in a completely deserted restaurant on the side of a palm-tree lined roads and we had a baby crab and some other seafood dishes. It wasn’t the best meal but the company was awesome and I remember just chilling on the beach that night enjoying the ocean and each other’s company.

Although I was still not home for this year’s thanksgiving it is nothing like it was last year. Although there are a lot of Americans here everyone is pretty busy during the week so instead our Thanksgiving celebrations were going to be on Friday and Saturday.

For Halloween I had the kids learning about the holiday for a couple of weeks beforehand; they watched Halloween themed TV shows, made pumpkins, made gravestones, played powerpoint games, etc. For Thanksgiving I still wanted to celebrate it but it definitely wasn’t as big as I made Halloween. Instead I introduced the foods we eat and football and we played a couple of powerpoint games with Thanksgiving vocabulary. The fourth graders also made turkey handprints that they decorated the classroom with. On the actual day of Thanksgiving I made the third and fourth grade participate in a Brice Thanksgiving tradition of a candy scavenger hunt. In the Brice household for Thanksgiving we go to a cabin and after our huge feast, my mom hides mints all over the cabin and we are responsible for running around finding them. I did the same with my third and fourth grade afterschool kids. I made them wait in the hallway as I ran around the room hiding the candy. THEY HAD A BLAST! They were sprinting around the room and within 2 minutes had found most of the candies (we did lose about 2 or 3 that were found about two hours later). I also made them write a thankful leaf, a little leaf where they wrote what they were thankful for and we put them on our “Thankful Tree.” I can trust my fifth and sixth graders a little more so I had a scavenger hunt for them like I did at Halloween. I cut up a paper turkey and put his body throughout the school and they needed to use clues to find all the pieces. After they finished finding the turkey they got to put it together and we watched some football highlights. I’m not sure how much English education was actually involved in the activities but all the kids really enjoyed it and had a good time celebrating the holiday.

On Thanksgiving evening I was supposed to play volleyball and went to the gym with another teacher but no one else showed up because they were so busy so I just went home and had a quiet evening to myself.

It was cute that I had the kids celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday because on Friday I participated in making a traditional Korean dessert (ddok) that they usually eat on their Thanksgiving in September. My school is really small and they enjoy doing agricultural activities with the kids so in the morning different grades gathered in the gym to make ddok (rice cakes, similar to mocci in Japan). Basically how it works is they take a special kind of rice they cooked and then basically knead it and knead it until it becomes like flour. Once it is in this stage they put it on a low table and take this really heavy, huge hammer and pound it. This was where the kids (and I) got to participate. We each took turns banging on the ddok with this mallet. Sometimes the mallet was bigger than the actual kid holding it!! After beating the dough for some time, you bring it over to a cookie sheet and cut it into 2inch slices/cubes and roll it in some sweet flour coating before eating it. I love ddok so I was in heaven. As I was helping cut this little kid comes over and stuffs a piece in my mouth. I look around and all the kids are feeding the teachers. In Korea it is not as rare for people to feed each other and when kids do it, it is endearing and a sign that they like you. Every time I ate a piece from a kid it was weird for me seeing as how we don’t do this in America but at the same time it was really cute and I felt really loved by the kids. There were some times though where the pieces were so big and different kids kept feeding me. I felt terrible rejecting a kid so my mouth was stuffed with ddok the whole morning!

It was also a great morning because we had third grade make leaves for the Thankful Tree and a lot of them wrote things like family, friends, but some wrote “Julie and Juny teacher” along with Jesus Christ, haha. The tree turned out to be so beautiful and we left it up for months and months.

The fun didn’t end with the Thankful Tree or the ddok making because right before lunch we had a flea market! That’s right, a flea market! It started with a school assembly where all the kids brought a small bag of rice. After some announcements, all the kids lined up and deposited their rice in a bigger bag that would be donated to the elderly of the neighborhood. Once we finished our rice donation it became mass chaos. All the kids lined up around the perimeter and laid out a blanket and all the goods they had brought from home. There was everything from stuffed animals to clothes to comic books to toothpaste. It was anything the kids didn’t want anymore and wanted to sell. They said go and the selling started; little kids yelling prices as you walked around and chasing you with their goods, kids bartering with each other, the PTA was selling ttopoki and fish cakes. It was chaotic. I walked away with toothpaste, an English book, colored pencils and facemasks. My 6^th grade girls told me that if I put the face masks on I would be beautiful afterwards. At the end of the market the students had to donate half of their proceeds to the school and other charities.

Then we had lunch even though I was stuffed and then we had a huge kimchi making party. A couple of weeks ago was the time of year when families get together and spend the whole weekend making kimchi for their families for the entire year. Since our school has so many crops and fields, the principle harvested the special type of cabbage (baechu) needed for it and all the grades got to come down and make kimchi, kinda. Most of the process had already been done by the lunch ladies so the kids go to take the red, chili pepper seasoning mixture and rub it on the cabbage that had been salted. It only took like five minutes but the kids were all decked out in long gloves and they had brought their kimchi containers. The kindergarteners even had aprons and hats on. Although this was meant for the students the staff was so happy that I was there that they pushed the kids out of the way so that I could get a spot to make the kimchi. Once we finished the lunch ladies helped to pack up the kimchi for the kids and they even gave me extra even though some of the kids wanted more, whoops. Then we all sat down together and ate steak and kimchi together, even though I had just had lunch!!!

Overall it was a fantastic day at school!!!! And that was just the start to my day. Later that night was the Americans Thanksgiving dinner at a bar by one of the universities. Some of the Americans are good friends with the bar owner so he lets them use the entire bar for different events which was great because it turned out that like 30 people showed up. It was potluck style too so there was so much food, such GOOD, American food. Someone even brought a turkey which is a major accomplishment considering people don’t even know what turkeys are in this country (Thank you Costco!). There was apple pie, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes,  chicken, casseroles, apples, kimchi (brought by yours truly), it was delicious! It was so great to have some good, old fashioned, American food!!

The next day, started my Christmas celebrations so I headed up to Seoul for a Christmas festival but first stopped to meet a friend for brunch in Itaewon. Itaewon is a neighborhood in Seoul where all the expats go and hang out so it is very Westernized. I am not really a fan of the neighborhood but they have American food and I had a fantastic omelet and eggs benedict breakfast, FOR ONCE! I forgot how much I love breakfast!!!! Koreans do NOT do breakfast well. After stuffing ourselves with breakfast, we headed to a different part of Seoul where they were supposed to have a foreigner Christmas celebration. We got there and the place was packed. They had it in a really small square and there were so so many tourists and foreigners. Basically different European embassies had shown up, set up booths and were selling various foods from their countries. There wasn’t too much Christmas stuff in the booths but they did have a huge Christmas tree and a Santa walking around. And they had Christmas music playing. Although I had just ate I did go over to Poland to get some goulash (which was alright).

Since the festival was a bit of a bust, my friend and I went to Dongdaemun which is supposed to be a huge shopping area in Seoul. I had never been there and didn’t know what to expect but we ended up in this like 7 story building that has a million stalls all for crafting. You can buy anything you need there to craft and make jewelry and trinkets. It was interesting but so confusing with all the stalls and we kept getting lost.

I left Seoul Saturday afternoon and made it home in time for another Thanksgiving dinner. This one was being held in the basement of a church in town and was really quiet but very enjoyable. The food was great here too and it was nice to have a smaller group of people. After eating we ended up playing Settlers of Catan. I had never played this before but it was actually a lot of fun and required so much strategy. I’ll for sure have to play it again and think it through better.

Sunday I got to relax and just hang at home-the usual protocol for a Sunday.

                It’s so hard being in Korea and missing things back home. I am experiencing a lot of great things here and have come to realize just how much I know about Korean culture. Through other teachers and being with Juny’s family I have really learned and gotten to understand this interesting culture. They are a very proud and boisterous culture that wants to keep its pride and heritage while advancing in the world and striving to become a world wide powerhouse. It’s interesting how they value respect and diligence and hard work but all my kids have a smart phone that their parents just gave them without having to pay or earn it. The society to me feels very ‘Stepford Wives” like where they do everything by the book and are always concerned with their image making a lot of Korea seem insincere and fake. It’s really hard to describe without shining Korea in a negative light.

                I know that in twenty years I will say “Remember that time when I had Thanksgiving in some Korean guys bar with pictures of naked women plastered all over the walls” but for right now I am really hoping that this is my last Thanksgiving away from the states for some years.

11/13: Boseong Green Tea Fields

Clay tourist at the Boseong Tea Field Museum

Boseong Green Tea Fields

Minbab we stayed at in Yolpo

Yolpo Beach

Juny and I at Yolpo Beach

Minbab in Yolpo

Minbab in Yolpo

Julie in "Yolpo"

Boseong Green Tea Fields with Young Woong

Walking around the traditional market

Boseong Green Tea Fields with Young Woong

Boseong Green Tea Fields with Young Woong

Chilling on the beach in Yolpo

Boseong Green Tea Fields with Young Woong

Boseong Green Tea Fields with Young Woong

Boseong Green Tea Fields with Young Woong

Although the talent show is over, the students are still keeping me entertained and running me ragged around the classroom. Afterschool is not getting any easier but I have a tried some new things with the first graders which basically includes dances. Luckily they really like the dances so we have two; one for days of the week and one for the months, both of which are very similar to the Macarena. After lunch one day, fourth grade Jasmine came to my classroom and together we did the Macarena with the months. Not sure if she will remember it in the future but she remembered the months for at least a week. This was the same girl who at lunch one day ran over to me and told me to hold up my finger as she measured string around it. Then after lunch she ran back over and gives me a ring she made. AWESOME! Now I can add a ring to my collection which also includes a bracelet by a kid. A couple of weeks ago the fourth grade was studying finances and markets and they actually had a little market in their classroom. The kids were such amazing salespeople and I ended up buying popcorn and a bracelet which I thought was made by the kids but turned out to be made from a parent, haha.

Luckily with after school, the games and activities have been pretty well received! Score. The first and second graders have been such terrors that the 1^st grade teacher started coming and sits in the back to help me with discipline and control. It’s not 100% perfect but it sure is better than when there was no one.

There have been a bunch of cute, funny moments over the past couple of weeks so I will just put some of them in this post, sorry if I repeat myself.

--There is this one little girl in fourth grade named Hyo Jung, English name is Emily, who is just the cutest little thing. Her and her brother in fifth grade are both pupuchas and way shorter than the rest of the kids. When they sit in their chairs, their feet aren’t even close to the ground and just dangle. Well, Juny and I have decided that Emily is just a little puppy. She has a huge attitude and walks around with such swag but she is so cute and loveable that you can’t help but love her. And she gives the best hugs in the world. But her English is terrible as she never tries or does her homework. She only knows a couple of phrases which she always says at the wrong time. One of my favorites of hers is “No thanks, I’m full” but with her Korean accent comes out “No tanks, I’m pool” and not only is her accent there but she always says it for no reason. Me: “Emily-How was lunch?” Emily-“No tanks, I’m pool.” Just one example. Her other favorite thing to say is “Teacher-What do you want?” which she also uses at the wrong time. Me-“Emily, let’s go. Time for after school” Emily: “Teacher-what do you want?” HILARIOUS! The two phrases she does use correctly are “Teacher-Bye, Bye” and “I don’t know.” I just think she is the cutest, most adorable little thing.

-Speaking of accents, some of their accents turn ordinarily uninteresting English words into curse words! For example, I was teaching the third graders how to say “Fork” and well, “r” is very hard for them so it becomes “F**ck.” So here I am with all these little kids and they are supposed to be repeating after me and instead of “Forks” I hear a continuous chorus of “F*ck, F*ck” and I can’t hold it together and burst out laughing. This wasn’t the only time I could hold it in either. We were teaching the sixth graders to say “sit down.” Well there really isn’t an “s” sound and it is more of a “sh” sound so again just a chorus of “shit downs” are being reverberated around the English room. It was so so funny. I was surprised that they didn’t understand why I was laughing. I thought they would have heard the word by now but instead they were just so confused as to what I was laughing about.

-Along with my first and second graders as being tough during after school, my 3^rd and 4^th graders for sure give the little kids a run for their money. However, I had a couple of cute moments with them lately. We mainly play powerpoint games in afterschool and it seems like every time we play boys vs girls the boys, in fourth grade!, yell out their team name as “Sexy Boys.” I didn’t even know they knew what the word “boy” meant but every time we play it is “sexy boys”!! Along with ppt games, one day I was playing Uno with the third graders, who love that game. Except we were playing English after school way in which students have to say an English sentence in order to put down a card. The third graders only know pretty basic sentences like “I like/I don’t like” etc. It started with “I like fish, I like dogs, I like cats” but then we started using names and this one little cute kid with glasses, 3^rd grade Ryan, goes “I don’t like Julie teacher.” At first, I was taken back but then I saw the little glare in his eye and knew he was joking. Well months after we played that game he would still see me and say “I don’t like Julie teacher” laughing the entire way. It actually made me feel loved that he runs up to me and says he doesn’t like me. Score for teacher Julie. Also in that afternoon class, there is this really boisterous but sweet kid, English name is Antonio, who is awesome at English. He is really small with this really little kid voice, bright blue glasses who loves to look like a little angel (he cups his face with his hands and blinks at me all the time). Anyways, in the classroom there is a little stage and he runs up to the board to write something, he gets it right and then he starts a victory dance. However, as he is doing his victory dance which is taking forever he starts going to sits down and falls off the stage! It was the funniest thing. Luckily he wasn’t hurt and was laughing too but it was one of the moments where I forgot I was the teacher and just laughed at the kid who fell off the stage! The last great, hilarious moment of this group for this post comes from little fourth grade Emily again. We played a game where you need to win at rock-paper-scissors in order to advance and she wanted to play against me. Fine by me. What I didn’t realize was that I would be playing with a first grader. Every time she lost at Rock-Paper-Scissors she would say “no teacher, one more time”  or that one didn’t count or two out of three. She had an excuse every time. I didn’t care that I was losing but the excuses just kept coming. It was like playing with a kindergartener.

Finally onto the fifth and sixth graders. The sixth graders and I don’t really have a lot of funny stories because I only see the sixth graders during regular class instead of after school and instead have a core group of fifth grade boys who come to afterschool who are awesome!!! They are obsessed with anime and cell phone games and their team names are always “Naruto, Minato or YD (Yeon Dong Elementary School)” and one of the ring leaders, Adrian, his new favorite word is “yeah” and is obsessed with saying “yeah, yeah” all the time. I find it kinda funny but Juny gets really annoyed by it. These boys though are so great because they are so competitive and get so into the games we play. Even if they are dumb ppt games they are so excited about them and want to play all the time. Jayden even comes in the room yelling “play the game!” One day we were playing Jeopardy and a picture of Alex Trebek was in the corner of the TV the entire game. Halfway through after school they start pointing and saying “Obama!” They literally thought that Alex Trebek was Barack Obama!! He’s white and he’s Canadian!!!!!

One of the boys from after school, Thomas, was so cute and ran up to me one day in class and gave me a gold bar of “Godiva” chocolate! He goes American chocolate and when he saw it he thought of me so brought it to school for me. What a sweetie?? I ended up not eating the chocolate and later in the week I went to a Wine and Crafts party at my friend Maggie’s house. I played volleyball so I got there late but it was a really nice evening where a lot of the female teachers got together and all brought our different crafts as we chatted and sipped on wine. Some people knitted, others designed ugly Christmas sweaters, one was drawing and I was doing my cross stitch. Nice, relaxing night.

So these are my kids stories and now for a little bit more of my story.

This upcoming weekend I would head to Boseong with Juny and her son, Young Woong, to see the famous green tea fields. I had no idea what to expect but Juny told me that it was a beautiful place that she loved to visit and that she would take me so of course I said yes. And thank goodness I did. She picked me up early Saturday morning and the three of us headed to Boseong in the south western part of Korea. Along the way we rocked out to countless kpop music including a whole bunch of Teen Top and stopped at a beautiful rest stop to munch on some fish cake and stock up on barley tea. This rest stop was nice because they had a little patio outside with a koi pond that overlooked some mountains.

We were about an hour away when Young Woong spotted a sign for a traditional market so we pulled over and headed out to walk up and down the huge market.  (a traditional market is basically just a farmers market). There are traditional markets all over Korea but most have one or two days a month where more and more vendors show up and offer a whole bunch more goods. It was awesome going with Juny because she was able to ask people what things were when I didn’t know and tell me what a lot of the stuff was. As soon as we got out of the car there was this little booth giving away free bags of Green Tea face wash. I joined in pushing with the rest, stretched my hands out and when the vendor saw my hands, did a double take, stopped, looked at me and said “waygook, ahh” meaning foreigner, ahh. I also got to try a whole bunch of different candies, we bought some twisty donuts, peanuts, ginseng candy and more. We even had lunch at the market that I have never tried before because they are usually little stalls with no menu and you just walk in and need to know the different foods. The one we went to was small with only two tables and just a sink and gas burner where the woman was cooking everything. It was pretty dirty so Juny didn’t let us drink from the glasses or bottles and spent a good amount of time cleaning all the silverware, etc. Juny ordered Sundae which is basically blood sausage. They take sausage casing and fill it with cellophane tube noodles that have been filled with blood. It was actually really delicious!! Then on the side we had gopchang which is basically pig intestines that have been fried up. I really liked all of it!!

After lunch and exploring the market a little more we got back in the car and made our way to the Boseong Green Tea Museum. The museum was all in Korean and showed different types of tea from around the world and different manners for brewing tea. I enjoyed the pictures and diagrams, lol. Then we finally made our way to the famous Boseong Green Tea Fields. Basically they are green tea fields that are built into the side of a mountain and wind their way back and forth. Even though it was cold and cloudy out, the fields were bright green and really well manicured making them look so beautiful and pristine. We climbed all the way to the top of the mountain where you were supposed to be able to see the ocean, but it was too cloudy and honestly, the view from the bottom of the hill was better. After taking in the sights, we stopped by the gift shop were I bought too many green tea flavored things and munched on green tea ice cream!

Since it was getting late and the drive was pretty far we decided to stay the night in the town of Yolpo which is right on the beach. We arrived in the town within 10 minutes or so and went straight to the beach where Young Woong played around in the mud turning his orange shoes into brown trainers. It was cool because right before the beach starts there is a public pool so in the summer people can come to the beach and enjoy the beach but swim in a pool to avoid the waves (I didn’t really see any big waves though). In fact there were hardly any waves and instead there was a lot of beach. There were actually people clamming along the tidal shore.

It took us a little while to find a place to stay but eventually we made our way to a minbab which is kind of like a bed and breakfast, but no breakfast. It’s usually a person’s house who has rooms in the back that they rent out. This one was really nice where the room had a private bathroom and kitchen area. It was really quite lovely. After settling in we decided to head back into town for samgyupsal dinner (BBQ pork). But these was a little different as the pork and beef of this particular restaurant is said to be fed green tea leaves making their meat taste a little different.  I didn’t taste anything different about it but it sure was delicious. I also tried green tea nokcha suejaebi for the first time which is a type of chewy noodle soup. I LOVED IT!! The rest of the night was relatively peaceful as we just headed back to the minbab and watched Korean TV.

Sunday we had a leisurely morning and had very traditional Korean food for breakfast: Ramyun aka Ramon (think Cup of Noodles). In Korea you can buy your cup of ramyun at the 7-11 and eat it there as they have hot water and a microwave. That is exactly what we did. Each family makes their ramyun a little differently but Juny always throws in a hard boiled egg in hers. It was a great, salty, unhealthy breakfast. Along the way back we wanted to stop for green tea but all the places we went were closed. Oh well!

The way back was relatively uneventful, still rocked out to Teen Top and enjoyed each others company. We got back to the Daejeon area and went out for an awesome smoked duck lunch (ori in Korean). This place was really well known amongst Koreans and for a green reason. It was awesome. It’s very similar to Korean BBQ where there is a grill in the middle of the table and you grill it yourself except that instead of pork it is duck. Koreans can do food so well!

We were just about 10 minutes from Juny’s parents new house so we wandered over there so she could see the new apartment and I could meet her parents. Her parents were very welcoming and at the time, Juny’s brother and sister in law were there so I met them and Juny’s nephew as well. Juny’s sister in law speaks some English so I had someone to talk to for a bit. Although it was just a short visit I really enjoyed meeting Juny’s parents and appreciated them letting me in their house.

Overall it was an awesome, fantastic weekend! I got to see the green tea fields that are pretty hard to get to without a car and spend some time with Juny and Young Woong outside of school. THANKS EONNI (Korean for older sister/female friend who is older than you and you are close with).