Happy Chuseok!!!

Happy Chuseok! We had a great (almost full) week off for the equivalent of Korean Thanksgiving, or harvest festival.  It's crazy to think that we're already past the fall break of our school term, since it's not even the end of September yet, and it's around this part of the year that all of my alma mater's compatriots are just starting fall quarter.  Ha! The kids here were super excited for the Chuseok holiday, and we had an event at school to celebrate.  The kids dressed up in their traditional hanboks, which resulted in the following slew of cuteness:

Here's Jay in his hanbok, and one of the Korean teachers tried to idiomatically call him something, which basically came out as, "he's such a...the son of a rich person". His hanbok was like the tuxedo of child hanboks, and he paraded around  in it all day.

Justin pouring his tea with help.  Jean wanted to do it herself!

Mrs. Kim, our boss, dressed up to lead the kids in a traditional. Korean tea ceremony, and they all had to pour their own cups of tea and practice etiquette.  I have to say I have NEVER yet (or since!) seen my kids act so well mannered - I think it must have been a result of the reverence they felt for the ceremony, channeled through Mrs. Kim.  We also got to make Songpyon, which is a traditional Chuseok dessert made from rice dough and filled with a sweet sesame sugar paste, which is then cooked.  I actually got to also make Songpyon with my Relief Society from my church.  The Korean activity leaders from our ward told us ladies as we made Songpyon that the saying goes, "if you make beautiful Songpyon, then you will have beautiful daughters." I was REALLY worried about the first batch, cause they were ugly beyond belief, but I think I redeemed myself at school the next day when we did them again, so here's hoping when we have kids that they're not atrocious. :)

Alice eating Songpyon, and Mrs. Kim helping Helen pour her tea.

Justin and Jay excited about their tea.

We also played a game called Yut-nori, which involves rolling some wooden 'dice' and then moving people as tokens around a life sized game board.  The kids were hilarious, though as kids tend to do, their attention waned after about 10 minutes, so the majority of the game play was herding children, not playing.  -_- The girls weren't that excited near the end, but in their get ups, it made them way cute:

Some of my older students dressed up for their Korean schools, and so of course I got a picture.

My little kids are still practicing their drama, which some days is almost good, and other days is an absolute train wreck.  I ended up marking little Xs on the floor for their standing places, and while they were dressed up, I thought, "ooh! Let's take a picture!" ....... This was as good as I could get.  But aren't they just the most adorable little nerfherders ever?

From L to R: Justin, Helen, Toby, Alice, Donna

So since we had the week off we got to do a few cool things, including going to the Seoul Korea temple for the first time! It was a disaster trying to get there, since we were dumb and overestimated our 'winging it' abilities with directions.  I forget that we're still beginners at navigation here, especially because having mountains on all sides and simultaneously no sides (because of all the buildings!) really throws you off.

Here we are exhausted and SWEATY from the 90 degree heat and the long walk, but the view once we reached the temple was totally worth it.

The temple is very small, and is totally surrounded by apartments and office buildings, but it's amazing how once you walk the two blocks up from the street, all the city noise drops away. It is surreal, and even the air feels still.  It was a beautiful pocket of Seoul for a Saturday morning, and we had a lovely trip.

These last two pictures are some of the Chuseok goodies we enjoyed.  The first is the Songpyon we made with our Relief Society, and the second is called Hwakwaja, which is kind of like rice cakes, or marzipan from rice, and was a gift from one of my student's grandmothers.  I definitely cleaned up this Chuseok! Here's what my students have given me so far: Hwakwaja, Cookies, Chocolates, a gift card to the Lotte department store, Chanel lipstick, and some Hera perfume.

And here's another gorgeous shot of our view, because I am obsessed with it.  Happy Chuseok!

The Small Things and Life in General

So life here is starting to feel less exciting in some ways, and more normal, which is weird because I feel like we forget on a day to day basis that we are in Korea and then are suddenly like, "oh wow, we live on the other side of the world!"  Perhaps that's because everyone at work almost always speaks only English, and so our actual Korean interactions occur outside of the work week.  It could also be that we just get by pretty well with the VERY small amount of Korean phrases that we know, so we don't feel as intimidated going out into the world.  The big victories of this past week included finally getting a toilet seat that isn't broken (it's the small things, I know!), and branching out to a new restaurant.  So I thought I'd write this post to find a way to mash together the cool moments and random pictures that we want to share with everyone, but don't know where to put them.  Therefore, I am pleased to give you the HODGE PODGE post! Haha

We found the most awesome hair care line at the Korean Walmart (HomePlus).

Here's the new restaurant we found, where we got huge fresh cut potato chips and fried chicken.  It's kind of our version of Chick Fi La, and as you can tell, we're pretty excited about it.

Haha I love these next photos.  

Taggart is letting his hair grow and wanted to show off his almost Beatles shag.  

He's getting pretty close!

Awesome.

This is a photo of an apartment building that is going up across the street.  The old building was demolished less than a month ago and it is already almost finished.  It has been cool for us to look out of the window every morning and see how far they have come in the last 24 hours.  I definitely will not miss the noise though... Construction in Korea starts WHEN THE SUN COMES UP.  Meaning there is hammering at 6:00 am and it's normal.  Gross.

This is one of our favorite restaurants called Gimbap Cheonguk, or Gimbap Heaven.  Gimbap is like cooked sushi rolls, but this place also has the most rockin' stone pot bibimbap we've had.  We get it with tuna and a hot sauce, and it comes out in a sizzling pot with all kinds of veggies and seaweed.  And it's only 6500 won, so it's even better!  

We found this hat at the Japanese dollar store, called Daiso, where we frequent for little things like pens and random classroom supplies.  There are lots of hats like this and worse, sometimes using more *ahem* colourful language.  I didn't buy this hat, in case you were wondering, though Taggart was sorely tempted...

Here's the view from the other side of our apartment, on a really clear day that we had last week.  You can see how close the apartment buildings are from each other, and yet they all have a nice view.

This is what the subway is like closer to the heart of the city at peak travel times.  This particular photo is from Myeongdong Station at about 11:00 at night.  People in Seoul stay out really late every night and then everyone and their mom takes the train at the last possible minute.

This is for you, mom.  We saw this shop on the way to Insadong market, and thought it was awesome.  Now if only we could find Chacos.

Here is our new ukulele!!! It was a steal - the guys at the music store were awesome to us, and threw in a strap, case, electronic tuner, and pack of strings for free.  Taggart of course picked it up immediately and knows like every chord ever, but I know more than a few myself and can hold my own on a number of songs.  I'm even getting bar chords down! Though, admittedly, a case could be made that it's easier to do bar chords on the ukulele because there are only four strings.  But whatever, I feel accomplished!  haha We love having music in the house.  I didn't realize that for the past 6 weeks we had both felt like something was missing, and then we figured out what that was, and woah! It was exactly what we needed.

Well, there you have it, a snapshot of the small things in our lives here.  There are many more things to post, but slowly I am indeed catching up! I promise!

Birthday Parties and Myeongdong

This will be a post that has happened a while ago now, since it's already been 6 weeks and counting since we moved to Seoul!  I cannot believe that the time has flown by so fast.  It is amazing how in many ways we feel settled and comfortable with our lives here, but in SO MANY other ways still feel like we just got off the plane.  There have been many milestones since, but those will have to wait until the posts to come!

Apparently, birthday parties are the majority of what you pay for when you send your child to a Korean hagwon, because they are an enormous production.  We, as the teachers, are expected to bring gifts for the child - all of the students bring gifts for them as well, and their parents send them to school with gifts, and they give presents back to the kids who brought them stuff... It's just gift-giving hullabaloo all around.  The hilarity was doubled because my class celebrated 2 birthdays in the same month for Donna and Toby.

Notice how bored all of the kids look?  The picture taking in Korea is endless.  The party had 3 cakes and was fully dished out with pizza, fruit, snacks, etc.  The following is the best series of photos we were able to capture, complete with screaming, a yawn, and general lackluster... hahahaha. From left to right: Justin, Alice, Jean, Donna, Toby, Yours Truly, Jeremy, Helen.

Immediately after the party the kids went downstairs and had lunch... What?!  This time was also especially awesome, because Toby's mom hired a magician, so the whole school got to watch a magic show, including us.  We were able to stand witness to the fact that kid magicians are the same pretty much anywhere.  The bubbles were cool, though!

We also went this week to the (one of many here in Seoul) shopping hubs called Myeongdong.  I think Taggart's pretty DONE with shopping, though the markets do offer a lot.  We went with our friend Nate (remember Nate, from the airplane?) and his girlfriend, Danbi.  They introduced us to the Korean version of Monopoly, which is the first game I've ever tried to tackle in Korean.  I think we have it pretty much down, and the theme song is catchy too.  We went for lunch and ice cream in Myeongdong - there's a stand where you can get 32 cm. ice creams for like $3.  It was really fun.

Here's a really cool clock tower facade for some indoor shops, and the view from the maze of the streets.  One thing that is pretty cool, and weird, about Korea is that on hot days, the shops have people outside that stand in the middle of giant circles of dry ice and yell at you all of the cool things they have inside (we don't understand the yelling, but that's what Danbi told us they do).  The dry ice melts(?) in the sun, and so they look like they are standing on fog.  Its weird, but the cold does touch you legs as you walk by and it feels great.  Danbi says it's advertising for the shop having good air conditioning inside, which is a big selling point here.

 Here's us with yet ANOTHER ice cream excursion picture, and below a shot of our fabulous selves.

Abode Abroad ( As Coined By Taggart)

Alright, since this is kind of a tradition with us, here is a photo spread of our new kicks in Seoul.  We are on the north east side of the city right on the southern border of a suburb/district called Dobong.  The place was in need of a once-over with the Korean Mr. Clean, but we whipped it into shape the first week here and now it's a pretty nice place to come home to every day.  And we're on the 9th floor, which is crazy and fun! So here you go, first off a picture of our foyer! Aren't you excited!!! (So excited, I know you can't even stand it...)

We have a washer, but no dryer, as is typical for most Korean homes.

This is the view from the entryway, you can see into our kitchen and bedroom.

The bedroom was originally in this room, and not only is it really small, but it's the furthest room from the air conditioning, so we made this the sitting/junk room for now (right now we're using it to dry our laundry).  

Here's the kitchen with our cute little two burner gas stove and metal counter tops.  It actually makes for an easy cleanup since I can basically hose everything down when I make my usual cooking mess haha.

On the other side of the kitchen is our little nook for storage and food prep.  The previous owners even left us a little basil plant!  We'll see if I have any luck keeping that thing alive... O_o

Yes, we know everyone has been worried about how big our bed would be, but it is just fine for us!  It is a double, which definitely is smaller than what we've been used to, but we fit in it and everything :)

The desk nook in the far corner, which already came with those small boxes and a couple books on Korea.

Our his and hers closets are awesome, and here's a shot of our sweet sun room/balcony!

Did I mention we have a GREAT view??? We're pretty excited to make some sweet memories here!