School Pics

So I couldn't figure out how to categorize our pictures from school, so here is another hodge podge post, but this time limited to our school experiences.  So here's an inside look at our Hagwon!

DANIELLE'S CLASS

This is my classroom.   We are Mickey class (Taggart is Daisy), and I must say I've become the teacher who is slightly obsessed with our room mascot.  Everything is Mickey(ish).  haha Oh Well, at least my kids will have a sense of identity.

These are some window clings I made.  The kits come super cheap from Daiso at like 3,000 won.  I havent even used all the paint yet.  The right picture is an example of the kids dressing up, in this case for our speech contest (videos to come).  The following should give you an idea of what it was like:

Those poor kids were so dang nervous.  I think they are slowly becoming more confident, but the speeches were scary for them.  My class, being the youngest, did speeches called All About Me.  They were short and basic, and I got sick of doing them REALLY quick.  Donna's dress is so ridiculous!  I bet her parents bought it for her specifically for this day.

A big part of our lives are spent in the playroom, so obviously after bribing my kids with the prospect of playtime, we went after their speeches were over.  Note that one girl, Jean, wore what are essentially pajamas as her "formal" dress, because they had Elsa on them.  haha.  Here are shots of the boys and of the girls.  This is before we also got a new student named Sarah.

My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE to play dead, or dying.  They also love for to me to be a vampire (more to come on the Halloween post).  They play dead really well, and it's so creepy (and morbidly fun) for me to fling them around the room as if they were rag dolls.  I'm sure the CCTV loves that.

I also thought I'd include some pictures of some of my older students, because I totally love them (for the most part :P).  They are bright and eager to learn, and they have begun to grasp complex concepts about life, which makes me so proud and feel so fulfilled as a teacher.  Cheese much? haha.  They also frequently sing, including (but not limited to) Michael Jackson, Pavarotti (Nessun Dorma, I kid you not), One Direction, and a special edition of "Til the ceiling can't hold us" in particular.  They also love to play Uno together.

Left: my M,W,F class playing cards.  Right: my J4 girls, Kate, Jihyun, and Alice (my problem child).  She's brilliant, but a pill.  Getting better every day, though!  She refused to smile in this picture because she couldn't sit in the middle.  She looks so pathetic!!! hahaha

Ahh, the smiles are much better!  Here we are playing with our mascot, the Mouse himself.

TAGGART'S CLASS

So Taggart's kids really crack me up.  We've been lucky over the past month because we've been working with each other's kids for parent's day (more to come soon on that!), so we've really gotten to know the other classes.  His kids are so smart, it amazes me.  He only has two kindegarteners:

This is Jay.  Jay loves spiderman, he can write in full sentences, and he has the funniest voice ever.  He always likes to show everyone what he does, and we quote him by saying "_____, Look at THIS!!!"  This is him with his shoe bag on his head, and on his birthday.

This is Yeriel.  Yeriel is shy but sweet and so smart.  She thinks Jay is funny and that Taggart is a baby teacher.  They frequently draw pictures where Jay and Yeriel have big houses and Taggart has the baby house, and then giggle incessantly.  The two of them are best friends - they even take swimming lessons together outside of school. We (just me, really) think that the two of them should get married.  And then Jay can pop the question by saying, "Yeriel, look at this *shows her the ring*!!!!!!" ^_^

Here are the pair after our open market garage sale day, where the kids earned dollars and brought in used toys to trade and "buy" new ones.  This is the two of them sliding down holding hands.

Taggart says they draw and play hangman a lot, especially with the new hard words they learn.  They are seriously like a billion levels above my kids, I'm so jealous haha.  Taggart has drawn some pretty rockin' hangman robots so far:

I've since taken a time-lapse video of our beautiful walk to school, but I thought I'd show you an idea of what our immediate neighborhood looks like.  We live right next to a Korean elementary school.  The weather here thus far has been absolutely gorgeous (once the insane heat backed off, of course!)

Well, as per my new MO, I will be giving you a few short doses of blogging every couple of weeks.  October was so crazy - now that it's over, we can both breathe again (literally and figuratively, we were both sick as well) and get back to work on updates and adventures!!!

Namsan Tower

So this is overdue, but in my efforts to maintain consistent blog updates, I am doing it anyway!  Over the next couple of weeks you guys may be bombarded with posts about the cool things we've done.  Sorry, but not sorry, in advance.

One of the first trips we went on once we got our bearings in Seoul was to Seoul Tower, or Namsan Tower.  We, having mastered now the subway and (almost) bus systems here (more to come on that later), were happy to discover that it is really easy to get to touristy places here.  We took the gondola up to the base of the tower, which lies on top of one of the central mountains in the city.

Our obligatory(?) gondola selfie (is that a thing?)

Some views from the ride of the city.  It's amazing how much metropolis there is, and it just goes on for miles... as far as the eye can see in some places.

I got a lucky shot of a passing car so you can check out what the gondola looks like.  Note the sardine-like configuration of the people.  It's times like these when I am so glad we're tall.

We waited in line for this 4-ish minute ride for almost an hour, but hey, that's what you do, I guess.  Plus it was dirt cheap to do.  The views were great, and once we got to the top we checked out the locked gates on our way to the tower.  Seoul especially is a place for couples - they don't hang out anywhere but in public, because it's considered inappropriate.  As a result, there is SO much marketing targeted towards romance and couples (it's nauseating, and I'm a part of one).  The tradition at Namsan is that you lock a padlock onto the gate to symbolize your commitment and everlasting relationship. It makes for a cool photo, at least.

***BONUS TIP for any parents (or tech-unsavvy friends) that wish that I would make the pictures bigger - you can click the pictures and they will pop up into a slideshow. ;)

We finally made it to the base of the tower!

The park was pretty, but crowded.  Since we had to go on a holiday, that meant everyone else and their mom and dog had the day off too.  It's the sucky thing about living in a 24,000,000 urban populated area - traffic is everywhere.  Always.

See what I mean about the couples thing? Heart-shaped bushes, even.  Why?

We got lunch and found a churro stand, so we indulged! (We miss Mexican things, can you tell???)

And now for some of the glorious views from the day...

Pretty beautiful, right?  We also saw a cool war memorial on the way home with some awesome sculptures.  It was a great first adventure of many. Keep looking for more updates soon!