Spring! ...Sort of...

The school calendar says spring. The solar calendar says spring.  Yet it does note quite feel like spring yet here in Seoul.  However, to be fair, the yellow dust has been blowing in (now with radioactivity!), and that is the REAL indicator of Korean spring.

As I've said before, the Korean school year starts in spring, so on the second of March I was back at school, ready to spend two weeks discussing the finer points of introducing yourself to people and asking where they are from. I know it is new kids in each grade, but it just always feels like everyone has regressed back to the beginning of speaking English when we come back from spring break. These classes are more of a challenge for me because the kids are so high level that they look at me like I'm an idiot when I say "Ok, repeat after me: HOW ARE YOU?"

Co-teachers also change in March, which was a MAJOR source of concern and consternation for me last year, but went much more smoothly this year.  I teach all third grade classes (except for one) and all of sixth grade with a sweet, quiet new teacher named Ji In. She is right out of university. The other third grade class and all of fourth grade are taught with Hae Jung, one of Carin's old co-teachers who I worked with at summer and winter camp at Cheondong. Her English is awesome, so that helps everything go more smoothly. We are working on classroom management...let's leave it at that. Half of the fifth grade is taught with Yeon Ah from last year, and the other half is taught with Ju Yeon, who was one of the other subject teachers when I first arrived here in 2009, so we shared an office for a semester. Things have been going pretty smoothly thus far. I have all the lesson materials from last year, so I'm able to only make minor changes and be all ready to go. That is pretty damn sweet, haha. I thought I did little work before (compared to teaching in the US) and now I'm totally spoiled. Things are also easier because the kids all know me, they aren't afraid of me anymore, they understand how my classroom runs, etc. That frees me up to have more fun with the lessons and give them more authentic experiences, so that makes me happy.

As for the school administration, we got a new vice principal, and that has been...interesting. I am slightly concerned he is a sociopath, but whatever. Before he came everyone was all atwitter because he had a reputation for being really strict and kind of a hard-ass.  However, when he arrived he smiled a lot, could actually speak a little English (his daughter goes to Drexel in Philly), and seemed okay to me.  Turns out that is just because I don't speak Korean. While his face remained cheerful and nothing changed in his tone of voice or body language, he would get super snappy at teachers and make all sorts of crazy rules. Decree #1: All teachers should be smiling all the time when he sees them in the hallway.  Decree #2: No laughing in the teachers' cafeteria; it's rude. Decree #3: Teachers may only sit at the lunch table with him and the principal when invited (keeping in mind that forces the 20 teachers to cram around the only two remaining tables.  He's just a little nuts and the atmosphere in the room changes the moment he enters, so that sucks. Obviously I wasn't doing a whole lot of talking and uproarious laughing during lunch before, but I know it stresses my co-teachers out when he's around so that sucks. The principal is this quiet little lady and she won't tell him to cool his jets, so he's on a big power trip I think.

Outside of school things have been going well also. I got my free iPad (finally!) this month. I won it in a raffle over at Buzz-Korea, and I am a little (read: totally) in love with it. And Angry Birds. You should pop over onto the Buzz-Korea site, because they have lots of raffles and competitions going, and now you know they are good for it! In general, I've been a busy little social butterfly. How is it that so many of my friends who teach here had birthdays in the last couple of weeks? March 12 we went out to celebrate Dana's birthday with a trip to an amazing (and expensive on the weekends!) buffet called Seven Springs in Yeoksam, before retiring to the Tree Hof in Gangnam to partake in some cocktail soju and birthday cake.

Cakes galore!

Julia, Chrissy and Diana are excited to celebrate! 

Representin' Merlind.

Crazy northerners.

 

Soju cocktail cheers!

March 17 was St. Patrick's Day and a group of us, including a handful of our co-teachers, headed down to the Dublin Terrace Pub in Gangnam for some celebration. While the atmosphere was beautiful and really did remind me of pubs in western Ireland and the food was to DIE FOR (go right now and eat some Guinness stew, it's amazing), it was extremely expensive (a pint of Guinness for $12?!) and there was NO GREEN BEER which is basically blasphemy. I felt especially bad since that was one of the draws for my co-teachers.  Carin and I thought we had outsmarted the system by brining our own food coloring.  Alas, it was ridic Korean food coloring that was gel instead of liquid and just floated around in foul tasting little balls of green rather than dying anything. Sad day. We also had to pressure them into putting Irish music on, so that was weird.

If only your insides were as festive as your outsides.

Carin with the headband SHE STOLE FROM ME.

Festive!

Dave's like a life size leprechaun...who likes to drink June Bugs.

Chatting.

March 18 was Diana D's birthday celebration, and a fun time was had by all. It turned into a fun girls night as Sarah, Diana, Chrissy, Shannon, Amanda, Julia, Lee-Rae and I met up to have a tasty Italian dinner near Konguk University.  Then we spent some time at a very cool decorate-your-own-cake cafe near in that area. You buy a cake, choose an icing in a piping bag, choose decorations, and go to town. Crazy Diana chose banana icing for the chocolate cake, but I forgave her eventually. It was fun to fancy up our own cake for the evening.  After we were kicked out (they were closing) we popped into a photo sticker booth so Diana could commemorate the night. The pictures are hilarious, as per usual. Future reference, 8 people is TOO MANY for a photo booth, haha.  A few streets down from the photo place there was a bar (one of a chain) called Ireland Yuki where they put on a hilarious birthday show for Diana, including a "bartending" show (where the guy dropped the cups twice), a mini fire show (where his first try breathing fire didn't light so he just spit alcohol all over the table), and a personal serenade by a bartender. She was also given a free shot and a bowl of birthday seaweed soup. Hilarious. We chowed down on some cake and threw back some cocktails before heading down to Apgujeong and partying it up at the always entertaining Monkey Beach.  I fled before everyone else because it became claustrophobic and over-packed, but it was a great time.  Love me some tequila sunrise buckets! I also saw the fire show for the first time and that was way cool.

Cake decorating cafe.

The cake (with Happy Birthday written in Korean) and our decorating supplies.

Ready to deck the cake!

Diana is a professional icing applier. Julia is impressed.

Amanda making the "coffee" look perfect.

Adorable.

We couldn't let that icing go to WASTE!

When Chrissy got married she converted to Islam and the other day we were talking about her future pilgrimage to Mecca. Turns out she never has to leave Seoul.  Check!

Bartending show in Ireland Yuki.

Serenade.

Nothing says "I'm glad you were born!" quite like seaweed soup, am I right?

This was BEFORE drinking, haha.

Fire show! Mesmerizing.

Love these ladies. 

Shannon, Chrissy, Diana, Amanda.

Posing with the birthday girl.

Please note that Shannon is becoming ever more Korean. Latest addition: glassless frames.

Julia and Shannon

More posing with the birthday girl!

Lee-Rae and Diana

Since Thursday was a let down for St. Patrick's Day, we were all thankful that we had already been planning to celebrate on March 20 as well! Diana, Carin and I started the day by going to see Beastly, which was PAINFULLY terrible. So so bad. Thank god it was only the three of us and one Korean couple in the theater, because we did a ridiculous amount of laughing and poking fun. After the movie we met up with Josephine and Julia and checked out the Irish Festival in Insadong. It was nice (and we got balloons), but after a bit we decided to head over to Itaewon.  (This turned out to be a good plan, because although the temperature was beautiful, it was a bad day for yellow dust and by the time I got home that night my throat was hurting and I had a stuffy nose already.) On the way to the subway station we randomly bumped into Amanda and Tom, who joined our motley crew. When we got to Itaewon everyone was hungry so we hit up Kraze Burger, a very popular restaurant chain here. Chrissy met us at Kraze, and then our whole group migrated over to the Wolfhound Pub.  We got there at 4pm and got the last table. Things only got busier and crazier as the night went on! Copious amounts of green beer, a plethora of green and white balloons, entertaining people watching, and fantastic food (those onion rings are now a feature in my dreams...) more than made up for the disappointing actual St. Patrick's Day.  Lesson learned! Stick with the Wolfhound. They treated us well last year, and again this year.

 St. Patrick's Day windows.

Classroom decorations a la Karen Shanahan.

We stood in line FOREVER to get these balloons. The men tasked with inflating them and handing them out were totally inept.

Cheers!

Julia, Carin and I

Gotta rep the heritage!

PERFECT!

And delicious! (Well, as delicious as cheap Korean beer can be...)

That giant pitcher holds 6 pints and it was only 15,000won!  I just noticed that this is also the trifecta of cheap Korean beer: Hite, Cass and Max.

One side of the table.

Chrissy, Julia, Carin, Josephine

And the other side.

Amanda, Tom, Me, Diana

Pouring for friends.

Jamie, Julia, Carin

Group photo!

Amanda, Tom, Me, Chrissy, Diana, Shannon, Jamie, Julia, Carin, Josephine

March 20 was spent recovering, haha. I was not meant to go out every night. I just don't have it in me...or my bank account.

This past Wednesday I met up with some friends of my first cousin twice removed (I think that's right), Shirley. My grandmother was an only child, and grew up very close to her cousins Shirley, Marian, and Jane. Shirley is awesome, she's always been a unique, interesting feature in our family. Right after college she moved to Egypt and taught for two years, which was obviously a HUGE DEAL in my grandmother's time. We've always been kind of similar and before I left she gave me her memoirs of her time in Egypt. It was so fascinating, and that was definitely part of the reason I started keeping a blog. Shirley lives in Connecticut, and she had made friends with a couple who was from Korea and working in the States. They moved back to Seoul recently and Shirley gave them my info so we could get in contact. Caroline Lee got in touch with me and we decided to meet up for dinner with her, her husband, and a Isaac Durst, a local TV personality whose brother was a friend of the Lees. We met up at VIPS in Wangsimni and it was wonderful: good food, excellent conversation, and just an overall nice time. I was really glad that we got a chance to hook up, and I hope we get a chance to see each other again before I leave.

Saturday night we celebrated the birthday trifecta of Erich (March 21), Diana D. (March 22), and Jamie (February 14, but he was in a Cambodian hospital suffering from amoebic dysentery, so he got a re-do) with a night of fun. Dinner at Fry Pan with Carin and Caitlin was delicious, and then we were off to the Funky Dunky (true story) where we had drinks and met up with David, Chrissy, Diana, Josephine, Jamie and Shannon. After some quality imbibing we walked across the street to the luxury noraebang where we were joined by Julia, her prionce Derek,  Erich, and (briefly) Stephanie. We sang for three and a half hours...so much fun. So much alcohol. So many terrible renditions of songs. An excellent evening. And Cheonho is so close that we just walked home, which was really nice. Big fan of our new local flava.

Luxury noraebang. We had a balcony, too!

Erich, Carin and Derek singing (surprisingly well) in Korean. Well, surprising for the two that aren't Korean, I guess.

Birthday kids.  Happy birthday Erich, Diana and Jamie!

Ridiculous. Love it.

I will miss nights like this dearly.

Jamie, Shannon, Chrissy, Julia, Derek, Carin, Diana, Josephine, David, Erich and I

So my leaving, I suppose, is also something that has majorly changed since I last updated. I officially tendered my resignation on March 23, effective May 26.  Over the next two months I will be packing up my stuff (shipping a lot of it home) and then I'll be on a plane to DC on the morning of Friday, May 27.  This gives me two weeks to overcome jet-lag before Bruno and Daria's wedding in Boston on June 11 and Morgan and Lon's wedding on the Eastern Shore on June 18 (both of which I am absolutely thrilled to be home for.) May 27 is alarmingly close. There is so much to do before then that I am a little overwhelmed, but hopefully I'll find some way to get through it! My co-teachers knew I was leaving, but I was really concerned about how the (crazy, as previously mentioned) VP would take the news. Thankfully he was surprisingly chill...probably had something to do with me throwing the name "Harvard" out there.

Here is where the whole grad school thing stands...I was accepted at Harvard, Columbia, UPenn, George Washington, Pitt School of Education and Pitt School of International Affairs. I was rejected at MARYLAND. This still is so freaking bizarre to me. No wait list, just flat out rejected. Bill, a guy I went to Marywood with, shed a little light on the possible reason. "Schools often reject applicants who are unlikely to attend their program in order to protect their yield numbers, which in turn boosts their appearance of selectivity. If they admit you and you matriculate elsewhere, all they get out of it is a higher acceptance rate printed in USNEWS. You'd be surprised at how sophisticated admissions departments can be at predicting their yield numbers and managing the concomitant financial aid and enrollment numbers. Sort of like a nice girl who's been used by a good looking charlatan, they've been burned before. When they look at the sophistication of your app and GRE scores and such, they can likely say there is a less than X% chance you will attend based on the actions of similar applicants in previous cycles. It would totally suck if you truly wanted to go to Maryland and only Maryland; in this case, however, it seems like they probably got it right, no? For a school like Maryland, the highest compliment they can pay a top applicant is actually a yield protect rejection, not an offer of admissions. By the way, another thing they may or may not have done is gleaned your admission offers from other schools from your facebook status or grad school forums. I'm sure that would make it easier to confidently yield protect you."  SO, scratch that, Maryland didn't reject me, they yield protected me, haha. I am actually super appreciative, because I had this horrible fear that I'd get down to the end and be left with a great school I had to pay a lot for, or Maryland that would be almost free. I think it would break my heart to go to Maryland. It's not a bad school, it's just a bad school for me. I am super thankful it won't come down to that now. The only school I haven't heard from is NYU. I think that is just rude to not have sent out decisions yet, especially since there is a national agreement recognized by almost every school that says April 15 is the deadline to accept an offer and put down your non-refundable down payments. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter that much, because NYU is a two year program and housing alone would be over $21,000, so it is out of my price range.


Moral of the story, I am 98% sure that I will be matriculating at Harvard come fall. Crazy, right?  I think so. Financial aid at all the schools is taking their sweet ass time, so that is where the last 2% of waffling comes in. If Columbia offered me some sort of ridiculously generous financial aid I might be swayed, but my heart is kind of set on Boston/Cambridge now. I can't really begin to think of the logistics of moving back to the US, moving up to Massachusetts, paying for school, living like a pauper, etc because it is just a tad stressful, but I am very excited. 


I'm very much looking forward to being around for things I've missed in the past year: births, weddings, engagements. Speaking of engagements, my brother popped the question and asked Loran, his girlfriend of two years, to marry him when they were on vacation in Morocco. Antique ring with a pillow cut diamond, at sunset, on a sand dune in the Sahara...no one can say my brother ever does anything half assed. She (obviously) said yes, so that is very exciting. The craziest part for me is the fact that I've never met her in person, only via video chat, because I've been in Korea the entire time they were dating. Insanity! I can't wait to be back in the loop in my loved ones lives. Because my brother isn't a girl, he hasn't done a satisfactory job of sharing 10000 pictures of the ring, or cluing me in on other important details, but I'll let that slide. For now.

My brother, Mike, standing on the dune where he would later propose.

My future sister-in-law, Loran, in the Sahara.

Sooooo, yeah. That is pretty much what has been going on in my life. 

Welcome to Native Speaker HELL!

The folks over at The Waygook Effect pulled together a HILARIOUS entry about the 10 Worst Dialogues from the Elementary School English Curriculum and I just had to share it with everyone. SO good, and so funny. Thankfully we got brand new books (and accompanying CDs) this year so we bid adieu to these gems.

Check it out.

I love their fifth pick so much that I have to repost it separately.  I laugh uncontrollably every time Peter utters the words "Whaaaat a BEAUTIFUL DAY!"  I want it as a ringtone on my phone.

Priceless.

Fishy Fun, a Super Seollal, and Goodbye Graduates!

Well my lunar new year's resolution (what...that could be a thing) is to not let more than a week pass between blog entries (provided I am in the country with ample access to internet) and I've already failed!  Oh well...it is the thought that counts, right?

Carin and I got back from Taiwan on Saturday, January 29, and I finally got home around 6:30pm.  After catching up on some shows and doing the tiniest bit of unpacking, I hit the sheets in preparation for my big day that was beginning early the next morning.

Last year I had found out a bunch of information about various ice fishing/winter festivals occurring through-out Korea, but it always seemed that my info came too late, or the festival was at a time when no one else could go. This year I looked early and was dismayed to find that many of them took place the EXACT week Carin and I were in Taiwan.  Finally I found the Inje Ice Fishing Festival, which was still happening on Sunday, and invited a bunch of people to join me.  Sadly, the Inje festival was cancelled due to a major outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease that Korea is currently trying to keep under wraps.  Its kind of a mess...they won't vaccinate animals because they would then lose their FMD-Free status (which apparently does not actually mean FMD-Free...) which would have a major negative impact on trade.  Instead they are culling (read: slaughtering) hundreds of thousands of animals on the peninsula.  Including burying large quantities of pigs alive.  Its pretty horrific. Anyway, a large number of festivals (especially those in predominantly agricultural southern Korea) have been cancelled since January.  The Inje Ice Fishing Festival was simply one more.  Thankfully, Shannon found an organized trip out to PyeongChang to their Ice Fishing/Trout Festival.

Our bus left Gangbyeon Station around 7:30am, and after doing some catching up with Diana and Shannon on the ride, we were out to PyeongChang lickety split.  The day was organized by Warren Kim, a super fun Korean guy who is in charge of the Seoul Hiking Group.  Jamie and Shannon have done two hikes with him and had really good experiences.  It was easy to see why! He was energetic, organized and just a really good guy.  Check out future trips Seoul Hiking Group is planning! It took right about two hours for us to arrive, and then it was only a few minutes walk to the festival grounds. Our band of merry travelers (Carin, Jamie, Shannon, Diana D., Diana C., Amanda, and Tom) grabbed our special ice fishing poles and headed down to the river.

Let me paint a mental picture for you first.  The river cuts through PyeongChang, a city about 1/3 of the country in-land from the east coast.  PyeongChang also happens to be in the running for the 2018 winter Olympics, and has a fair chance of beating Munich, Germany and Annecy, France when the votes are cast in 147 days. This city was the first place salmon trout were farmed in Korea, and now descendants of those first fish are released each year into the river for people to catch. On the day we went, it was a bright, sunny, COLD and windy day, with a wind chill of -33*C (-27*F).  I was wearing tights, leggings, corduroy pants, a tank top, long sleeved shirt, hoodie, coat, giant scarf, and gloves with hand warmers and I was STILL frozen.  The festival covers a fair amount of ground on and beside the frozen river.  The ice is roughly 30cm (11.8 inches) thick, providing a great surface for ice fishing, ATV riding, icycle riding, skating, and a host of other winter sports.

Map of the festival.

Beautiful day for freezing your ass off.

Being the eager ice fishermen we are, our crew headed directly down to the ice fishing holes.  Right as we got onto the ice we came upon a drilling machine that was putting roughly 6inch diameter holes into the ice.  Diana D. claimed that the noise would scare all the fish away, so we had to go to the other side of the river.  Most of the holes on the opposite side had already frozen back over.  Did we try extra hard to find an open hole? No. Did we wait for the electric drilling machine?  No. We picked up a giant, heavy, metal ice pick and went to work.  Uh...it wasn't the most successful thing I've ever done, but it kept us warm and got the job done.  After we'd been working nearly a half hour Carin walked by and we gave her a chance to try.  Damn if she didn't break through to the water within a few hits...some people have all the luck, haha.  Once we finally made it through the ice we tried our hand at fishing...and failed.  Nary a fish was pole caught by our intrepid team. After a (very) short time, we decided to go see what else was available at the festival and regain feeling in our extremities.

Frozen solid.

The little wind-protecting tents were only for families.  Those of us not toting children or the elderly were forced to brave the elements.

That metal ice pick thing was really heavy!

Shannon was the most energetic ice picker.

Teamwork? Haha.

No closer to water.

It's like a crazy ice pogo stick, haha.

Finally, we struck water!

Carin wins! 

(And looks pretty darn happy about it.)

Heeeere fishy fishy fishy.

We found our way into the massive food tent and they were serving (surprise!) salmon trout!  You could get it raw, grilled, baked, fried, in a soup, etc.  We ended up getting one large baked fish and a plate of fried fish.  It was pretty tasty, I must admit.  The meat of the salmon trout (also known as coastal rainbow trout) is pink and both dishes were very good.  It was during this time that I also discovered that the ladies at the hot chocolate tent were brewing Swiss Miss...basically my favorite hot chocolate ever (I am easy to please).  Throughout the frigid day I consumed 3 or 4 cups.

Food tent!

Fresh out of the oven.

Getting ready to dig in to our fishy dishes.

Apparently Diana didn't get enough to eat at lunch.

Hangin' out to dry.

Here's a frozen face only a mom could love.

After eating we headed back out to brave the cold.  After finding our way through a little snow tunnel we discovered an ice slide.  This was a slide, literally built completely of ice blocks, that went down a hill towards the river.  Jamie, Shannon and Diana D. headed up to the top to try it out.  As they waited for a young girl to finish her run, Jamie slipped on the ice at the top and started to barrel down the slide...heading directly for the small child.  Her dad ran up and ripped her off the slide, just as Jamie skidded to a stop about a foot away from her.  I was laughing to hard I was crying, which was bad since there was a very real danger of my tears freezing to my face!  They did a few more (uneventful) runs before we headed off to meet everyone else for snow tubing. I had a good time taking pictures of everyone sledding in tubes down a big man-made hill.

Shannon (in penguin mode) and Jamie hanging out in the snow tunnel.

Diana, Jamie and Shannon (top to bottom) taking on the ice slide...and getting stuck.

Snow tubing!  Ignore the shadow spots added by my camera.

Check us out! We have tubes!

The rest of our crew.

Then it was time for the main event...bare handed fishing.  There is a small, man-made pool on the festival grounds, that they stock with a bunch of salmon trout.  You can sign up (free if you're a foreigner) to don festival provided t-shirts and shorts before jumping in the water and wrassling some salmon trout into submission.  Keep in mind that its FREEZING outside.  Who in their right mind would do that?!  Jamie, Shannon, a hand full of other foreigners, and a troupe of Korean high school boys, of course!  It was insane.  Everyone walks out shivering in their inadequate clothing, and then when they're given the signal, they all jump into the pool.  It was probably less than two feet deep, but with crazy teens running around splashing and having to reach in and out of the water, I'm sure it was very very cold.  Future reference, the most effective strategy seems to not be swiping at the water like a bear (as Jamie tried) or walking around in the middle of the pool (as Shannon did).  The best strategy is to force the fish to the sides of the pool, beat them against the rocks, and when they're incapacitated throw them out of the water.  Lovely, huh?  Once all the crazies had secured their two-fish-per-person, they headed back into the tent to chance into their dry, warm clothes, and get toasty next to an electric heater.  Finally our group was victorious!

Pond stocked with salmon trout...peacefully unaware of what was coming.

The pond.

Jamie and Shannon already freezing...and they aren't even in the water yet!

Sadly they couldn't keep these adorable shirts.

On the prowl.

This kid was almost killed for sprinting through the freezing water and spraying it on everyone.  Every face in this photo is hilarious.

Jamie decides to test his theory that "bear hands" would be better than "bare hands" by swiping at the fish.  Result: still no fish, and he gets in trouble, haha.

Everybody grabbing for fish.

Whaaat?  Some boys started whipping off their shirts, presumably to use them as nets.  Or perhaps just to show off.

Hahahahahahahah.  This little girl was so unimpressed.

One of the coolest people I've ever met.

After the bare handed fishing and warming up a bit inside, we decided to check out the rest of the offerings at the festival.  First came the crazy rides where they hooked a giant tube up to a crane or tractor and flung you around, then a little more tubing.  We had been really interested in doing the ATV riding...until we found out that 1. it was literally just on straight ice so everyone was fishtailing all over the place and 2. it was dominated by children who were obviously not following any type of safety rules. Having my ATV run into by an out of control twelve year old without a helmet didn't sound fun to me, so I passed. So did everyone else. Right next to the ATV area was a big section of river where people were riding around on single and tandem ice bicycles (icycles if you will), as well as a bunch of little kids tooling around on ice cars.  I don't even like standing on ice, let alone purposely heading out to slip around on it, so I found a nice spot to take pictures and laugh at people.

Diana, Shannon and Jamie being flung around.

The crew: Jamie, Diana D., Diana C., Amanda, Tom, Carin, Me, Shannon

Carin and Diana C. on an icycle built for two. 

Various ice bikes.

Diana D. tooling around on her solo icycle.

After everyone was done riding around, most of the group headed off to skate/push each other around on ice sleds, but Carin and I opted to go into a food tent and warm up.  While there we were exposed to some of the most heinous karaoke I've heard in a long time. Our last group stop was another food tent where they grilled up two of Jamie and Shannon's freshly caught salmon trout. Holy crap, so delicious.  They were so fresh and perfectly cooked...we absolutely decimated them.  Great ending to a great day.

How awkward does that girl look as she shares the ice couch with Shannon?

Diana D., Carin and I lose feeling in our butts in exchange for a cute photo.

Verdict: Worth it.

Jamie and Shannon's fish!

Steamy and amazing!

I was not kidding when I said we DEVOURED the two fish.

Warren, Jamie, Diana D., Shannon, Me, Carin, Diana C.

I slept the entire ride home, and the bus dropped us back in Seoul and we took a taxi home where I headed to bed since I knew I had to work the next day. It should be clear that I use the word "work" in only the vaguest sense.  For a reason that is absolutely unknown to me, we had a five week winter break, followed by TWO DAYS OF SCHOOL, before a five-day national holiday weekend.  Why, why, WHY did we have to come to school those two days?!  I didn't teach at all, I'll tell you that much.

We were off Wednesday-Sunday for Seollal, or the Korean lunar new year celebration.  Seollal (new years) and Chuseok (thanksgiving) are the two biggest holidays in Korea.  It is serious business to travel back to your ancestral home, pay homage to your ancestors, and spend time with family.  The stores are flooded with gift sets (mmm SPAM) and the city pretty much empties out for the holiday.  It is really the only time of year that everywhere, even the 24-hour gimbap places, is closed.

Last year I was in Cambodia for lunar new year, so this year I wanted to do something special.  After sleeping late on Wednesday and generally bumming around, I got my act together and went over to Jamie and Shannon's for dinner.  We made delicious ddeok-mandu-guk, or rice cake and dumpling soup, which is the traditional meal for Seollal.  So tasty!  We also made it a multi-cultural affair with the addition of potato latkes made by Shannon's mom and pumpkin muffins made by me.  It was a fun, chill night.

Shannon becomes one with the DHC book.

Dave and Jamie show off the delicious spread we had!

I found a fun new years event being held at a traditional folk village in Suwon, about an hour south of Seoul, on Thursday, the actual day of Seollal.  I convinced Jamie, Shannon, Shannon's mom who is visiting, Carin, and Christina to join me.  Armed with the directions provided by the Korean Tourism Website, we took a bus to Jamsil and prepared to head out.  That is where the first problem arose. After walking around for a while and looking for it, and finally calling the tourism line, we found out that the bus that was supposed to come to Jamsil did not. We were given alternate directions that also happened to be messed up.  Long story short, it took us almost four hours, three buses and a taxi to get to the Folk Village.  AAAGH.  We could have driven the entire length of Korea in that time!  It was ridiculous.  What especially sucked was that Shannon's mom has bursitis in her hip and wasn't able to keep walking around and waiting so they didn't even make it to the folk village, but rather headed home around the half way point.  It was pretty crazy.

Once we FINALLY arrived, we ate some delicious lunch and headed into the folk village.  That thing is MASSIVE and really cool.  It shows examples of traditional houses from various time periods and regions in Korea, and provides opportunities to do some traditional activities including games, a tight-rope show, musical performances, watching traditional wedding, etc.  There were a few special events for Seollal, and some little displays.  This was the first time I saw a traditional Korean tight-rope show, so that was really cool.  I also LOVED the exorcism ritual that they do in order to ensure good luck in the new year.  They build a gigantic bonfire around freshly cut bamboo.  After first producing a ton of smoke, the fire heats up the bamboo to the point where all of the sections explode, one at a time.  The loud bangs created are said to scare off the bad spirits that would bring you bad luck in the new year.  It was very cool.

Wanted poster on the gates to the village.

Traditional snowman?

One new year's tradition is to write a wish or resolution on a piece of paper and tie it to the ropes.

This was a huge mill grindstone.  All of us agree that this would be great (useful) corporal punishment.  "Oh, really, Tae Kyung? You don't want to listen in class? 15 MINUTES ON THE MILL!"

Carin hard at work collecting water.

Christina snapping some photos.

Jamie crushing up...something, haha.

We all know I can't say no to arts and crafts!  First the stamp is painted with ink.

Then a paper gets placed on top and you tap the whole thing with a rag ball.

Make sure you get all the sections covered!

Viola!

Clang clang clang parade!

Very peaceful and pretty.

They had all different types of architecture from various periods in history and locations in Korea.

"Oh! Look, a petting zoo!" I think foolishly.  Then Carin sets me straight.  This was an enclosure where bunnies were being shown in honor of it being year of the rabbit.  Some idiotic parent released their toddler into the enclosure to reek havoc.  I mean come ON.

Tightrope walker.

One foot!

He only used his legs and body to propel him, never his hands.  He'd stand, drop down to a sit, then pop back up to stand on the rope. It was pretty impressive.

Hopping along cross legged!

Jaeggi Chaggi is like traditional Korean hacky sack.

Got into the groove.

You pass the frilly thing around with your feet, attempting to bounce it a certain number of times per person.

Drying some herbs.

 If it weren't freezing this would be a lovely place for a picnic along the river.

WHOA! Something is on fire!

Plenty of smoke.

I love me some fire.

Carin and her friend playing an over-sized version of the traditional Korean game, yutnori. (With an audience, of course.)

Carin's turn to throw the yut sticks. 

Little to no safety...awesome. Keep in mind that the bamboo sections were EXPLODING.

While we were at the folk village, Carin's Korean friend who lives in Suwon met up with us. Thankfully he was able to provide us with a MUCH faster way home, which consisted of a single bus that took us back to Jamsil in only 40 minutes.  Argh.  When we got back we gorged on a delicious, huge, expensive meal from TGIFridays and all was right with the world.  The rest of the weekend was spent firming up some plans for Bali and Kuala Lumpur with Lee-Rae, Laura and Diana C, relaxing, and working on grad school crap.

Oh, yeah, so I guess none of you out there in the blog world know the good news yet...so far I've been accepted to two grad schools!  George Washington University in DC and University of Pennsylvania in Philly both said they wanted me, so that is pretty exciting.  Especially since they're both in my top four.  I am still waiting to hear back from six programs, and in the mean time I am absolutely out of my mind worrying about how I'm going to pay for whatever program I end up attending!  My life is pretty much consumed by searching for scholarships and fellowships and applying for them at a feverish pace.  It is tiring and extremely stressful.  My right eye twitches when I get stressed and it has been going non-stop recently!  Hopefully it will all work out somehow.  I am just psyched that I definitely have a place to go...that is for sure a load off my shoulders.  In other exciting news, it appears that I won an iPad in a raffle that was held for people who signed up for www.buzz-korea.com.  I have gotten little information from them, but I'll keep you posted on when I get it, what I think of it, etc.

Last summer when I was home I lost my camera and had to buy a new one.  In December, my parents found it and they sent it to me in January.  Here are a few choice pictures from my last few days at home.

Erin, Liz and I in the bird's nest at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore.  Hands down my favorite art museum ever.

We finally made it to Great Blacks in Wax! I've always wanted to go!

Verdict: Their wax sculptures are not so great. I don't know that I could have identified the above as Obama.

No idea. but I love it.

I only taught a few classes last week and none this week.  Last Thursday the whole school went out to dinner in honor of the teachers who are leaving our school next year.  We had a great dinner made up of a billion little dishes.  They have this big wooden thing that has all the food on it and it just slides onto the table.  SO SMART.  My picture is terrible, but it was very cool, and (as my student would say) very genius.

This saves so much time that you would have spent laying out all the food and the cleaning up all the plates.

Yesterday was sixth grade graduation, and it was sad to say goodbye to kids I've had since I started here a year and a half ago.  Granted, it would have been sadder if they hadn't been so hormone-y and annoying lately, but still sad.

Class 6-2 (part 1).

Class 6-2 (part 2).

Class 6-3 (part 1).

Class 6-3 (part 2).

Please note the grim reaper next to me.  Those zip-to-the-top hoods drive me crazy!

Class 6-4 (half).

Graduation ceremony with our (now ex-) Vice Principal speaking.

Awards being given out to high performing students by our Principal.

Kids trying to stay awake, haha. No parents are allowed at the graduation ceremony, which I think is really strange and a little sad.

Ga Young being the "maestro" (her word) as the kids sang the national anthem.

Tomorrow morning I board a plane for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where I will stay until Monday.  Then it's off to Bali, Indonesia for a week.  I am very excited and totally looking forward to baking on a beach, eating a ton of amazing food, and checking out the rice paddies and cultural scene.  In Bali we'll be staying in Sanur for 4 nights (with day trips out to Ubud) and in Kuta for 2 nights.  I am really excited to do a fireflies boat tour in Kuala Lumpur and a cooking class in Bali.  Oh, and hitting a spa for some ultimate relaxation!

Kuala Lumpur!

Bali!

See you in March!