Adventures with 토니! (Tony)

Pictures from all of Tony's visit HERE

We have officially hosted our first visitor! Tony came and stayed with us for two weeks, and being able to share Korea with someone on the "outside" was an experience I won't soon forget!

The adventures started on Wed evening, July 8th. After work I grabbed some gimbap and got on the airport bus for an hour to meet him at the airport. I was SO excited to see him again and I spent the whole bus ride thinking of all the fun things I had to show him about my new life here. I knew he would be just dead (as anyone should be after about 24 hours of traveling), but I decided I would force him to stay awake on the bus and tell me about his trip, etc :)

Since he was here for two weeks, I don't really remember a day by day, so instead I will just randomly tell you about everything as it comes to my mind, haha.

Tony was able to come to school with me quite a bit. I knew Froebel would be happy to have him for a day or two, but surprisingly they encouraged him to come as much as he could! The director of our school even sorta offered him a job haha. But nobody here loved him as much as the kids!

Tony was a BIG hit with all the kids. I even got a little jealous sometimes because they would get more excited to see him than to see me! :P During playtime the Elgar class would play doctor (mostly Monica) and give him haircuts (mostly Jon) haha. During circle time one morning all the 6 year olds swarmed him in a mob - it made for an excellent picture haha. On the couple days Tony didn't come to school, I had to hear "Tony Teacher where?" about a million times. One of the 7 year olds in cooking class pointed to us and said "married...you dance together!" to which Tony teased back "YOU'RE married" and she put her hands up and shook her head and said "No! I don't have boy!" hahaha maybe you had to be there but it was so great.

Tony had been following my classes through fb pictures and whatnot and was most excited to meet little Amy. She is the one in the cookie jar video I posted in March. It was fun to have him hang out during class because the kids got to use their English they've learned the past few months on an English speaker they didn't already know, and who wasn't their teacher. It was great to see how comfortable they were trying to ask him questions...the most popular of which were "do you like tomatoes?" and "do you like scorpion?" :)



Outside of school we were able to eat lots of great food including:

• 김밥 - gimbap - a popular Korean like "fast food" made from steamed white rice and various other ingredients, rolled in sheets of dried seaweed and served cold in bite-size slices



• 비빔밥 - bibimbap - a bowl of warm white rice topped with sautéed and seasoned vegetables and chili pepper paste topped with a raw or fried egg




• 삼겹살 - samgyeopsal - pieces of thick, unsalted bacon that you grill yourself on a grill in the middle of your table. You cook it Korean bbq style called 고기구이 - gogi gui - where you put the pieces of grilled meat into a lettuce wrap with garlic, onions, kimchi and other side dishes.







• A dish that was a live octopus put in a pan with other greens and red pepper paste and then cooked on our table

• 샤브샤브 - shabu-shabu - The dish is prepared by submerging a very thin slice of meat or a piece of vegetable in a pot of boiling broth swishing it back and forth several times. You also put in veggies to be cooked in the boiling broth as well. Once the meat and vegetables have been eaten, leftover broth from the pot is customarily combined with rice, making a porridge type dish to be eaten last.



• Korean sashimi
  


• 꿀타래 - kkultarae - a Korean royal court candy made in Insadong. It's made of fermented honey and corn starch, spun into tiny filaments and filled with chopped nuts. Very yummy!



• 떡볶이- tteokbokki - a broiled dish of sliced rice cake, meat, eggs, and seasoning bought from street vendors. We got a bunch of other street food that night and so our dinner consisted of varies foods from our street market!

We obviously ate lots of good stuff other than this but eating was one of our favorite things to do! We visited the aquarium, and walked around Insadong, which is a street with lots of fun shops/crafts/traditional tea houses, etc. Rach, Tony and I got tea at one of these houses and mine had flowers in it! I had ordered the chrysanthemum tea and the blooms were floating in my glass.

Also Tony was able to meet our Korean friends! On one of the best Saturday nights ever, we all went out with them to celebrate our friend Tylers last class (he is leaving for the states in a week after being in Korea for 2 years!). We went out for the usual stuff at Korean style bars. Tony got to try Korean rice wine, 동동주 (dong-dong-ju), and we also dined on pig intestine that night. We always get to try the fun stuff when out with the Koreans! :) It was really great for everyone to get together and meet new people and just share in life. Tony expressed to me that this was one of his most favorite experiences here.

I am so so so so so so so happy that he came! We had a truly amazing time and I won't ever forget sharing this experience with him. I am truly blessed to have someone like him in my life who would come see me and experience this with me and also Rachel. So thank you Tony for coming :)

Tony will also be writing a guest entry hopefully soon so keep an eye out for it! Also coming up in about a week we will be able to tell you all about our adventures in ประเทศไทย -Thailand! We hope to relax on the beach, go zip-lining through the jungle, explore the cities of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, see Thai boxing, eat some amazing food, get a thai massage (or 3), trek through the jungle on elephants, see traditional thai villages, and go bamboo rafting...just to name a few things :P

I (and I'm sure we) miss you all so, so much. It was officially 5 months on Tuesday...meaning we have a little over half-way to go! See you in a week lovely people!!!

100 Days Of School!

Seeing as Meg and I are less than 48 hours away from landing in Bangkok, I wanted to do a quick update on this past week. I figure that by the time we get back to Seoul we will have all kinds of Thai adventures (the newest one being a zip line trip we booked through the jungle outside of Bangkok!)

to update you on and this past week will not seem nearly as fun by comparison!

This past Monday was the 100th day of school for us at CIS so we were allowed to have a party. The kids were all told that they could dress up because the photographers were coming in and I was expected to plan activities dealing with the number

100. This proved to be slightly difficult since my Nemos can not count to 100 (nor would I expect 3 and 4 year olds to be able to). We made number 100 hats to wear and

then I planned on us making fruit loop necklaces using 100 loops. The plan was to do this together so we could count altogether, unfortunately, the photographers came in to take pictures when we were on number 7. Since the photographers need to get pictures of everything going on, plus each individual child, it ended up being a free for all with the children putting as many loops on their string as they could in 25 minutes. Some of my quickest children ended up with 100, give or take, while some of my slower students ended up with about 30. Our next activity was to make a picture out of 100 squares of paper. I had cut the paper up in advance and separated it into envelopes to ensure that each child had 100. While some of my students came up with some pretty colorful and creative designs, I had a couple who simply stuck stacks of about 20 squares on top of each other on the paper. In the end, I don't think any of my students actually glued all 100 squares on their paper anyway.

We rounded out the day by making a 100s day snack mix. Each kid brought in an ingredient and we mixed 100 of each all together. It turned out pretty tasty (even though I cheated and didn't actually count out 100 of each ingredient...way to time consuming with these kids!)

Today was another fun day at

CIS...fire drill day! I learned today that if there is ever a fire at CIS we will probably all be in trouble.

Mainly because the fire drill follows a procedure I like to call KL - Korean logic. Some things in Korea make a lot of sense and are done logically. Other things are so illogical, you just have to shake your head and say "whatever, its Korea" (hence where our motto came from). First, let me explain the layout of CIS. There are 4 floors, the first being just an entry, and the second through fourth having the classrooms. We were told that the "fire" was going to be on the third floor. The fourth floor and half of the third floor were to go to the roof as their escape plan. The other half of the third floor and the second floor were to go down to the first floor and out the main door. Then, we were told we had an order to exit in, that we had to follow. The fourth floor was to go to the roof first, and then the third floor could proceed (so the students on the floor with the "fire" had to wait). Likewise, I (being on the second floor) was expected to wait in my classroom until all the kids from the third floor came down and made it out (makes zero sense right?) The best part is that the school has fire escapes...but apparently only to meet building code. The harnesses used to lower people to the ground from the building (yep, no slides or ladders) take over a minute per person (by the time you strap them in, lower them, and than raise the harness back up) so they are essentially useless (here is a good example of KL). Also, there is only one way out of each room in the school. Every classroom has windows, but they are so small that even my smallest student wouldn't be able to fit through it. All of the foreign teachers tried to point out the flaws in in this escape plan, but to no avail.

Anyway, the fire department came and gave a presentation (in Korean) to all the students about what to do if there is ever a fire. Then, we all went to our classrooms and went about our normal day until they sounded the alarm. We were told there would be a smoke machine on the third floor, where the "fire" was. However, this ended up being false. The firemen filled the entire building with smoke. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face and I was expected to lead 12 three and four year olds down two flights of stairs. Plus, we were being told we needed to bend over (so we were below the smoke) and pull our shirts up over our mouth and nose to keep the smoke out (technically, the school is supposed to have a handkerchief for each student that they can use to cover their mouth and nose. You know, you can just grab them on the way out and pass them out. KL). Anyway, all my Nemos made it out, alive and injury free (although so slowly we probably would have lost a few had their really been a fire). All I can say is I hope there never really is a fire while I am in this country because as noted today, the evacuation plan is definitely not fool proof.

On to the good stuff though! Meg and I fly out Saturday morning at 10 am and arrive in Bangkok around 1 pm. We will be in Bangkok until Tuesday night when we fly to Chiang Mai until Saturday. We have an overnight flight on Saturday night, returning to Korea on Sunday morning around 7 am. Look for tales of our adventures and lots of pictures in the upcoming weeks!

Lets Get Muddy!

Back in late fall, when Meg and I started doing research on teaching in South Korea, we read a lot about one particular event that nearly every foreigner who attended said was their favorite event from their time in Korea: mudfest. It is exactly what it sounds like - special mud that is good for your skin is brought in by the truck full to Daecheon beach in Boryeong (보령), which is on the western coast of Korea. We booked our trip to this event MONTHS ago in order to make sure that we did not miss out on the fun. And finally, this past weekend, the fun arrived.

We left from the Gangnam area around 9:30 on Saturday morning, in a line of 5 buses that were leaving from the same area. The bus ride took about 4 hours because of traffic, most of which was spent watching Mama Mia (with no sound) and videos of J.Lo and Brittany Spears in concert. We arrived around 2 pm, slightly annoyed that the bus ride had taken so long and the sky was a dull gray. However, it is a festival for mud...on the beach. We were pretty confident that this in no way could be a terrible experience. After dumping our stuff in a room, we changed into our mud clothes and got down to business. Meg and I had both brought

swimsuits from the States specifically to ruin and had bought subway shirts for cheap that we could also destroy. We started our wandering of the beach, looking for familiar faces. We knew several people who were

coming this weekend, but with over 1,200 foreigners (the most white people we have seen in one area since March!) in our group alone, we knew that finding people might not be an easy task (for the record, by 11pm on Saturday night we had run into, at one point or another, every person we knew of on the trip). The first person we came across happened to be my co-worker, Gordon. Lucky for us, Gordon had risked taking his camera near the mud (a feat neither Meg or I were crazy enough to do) so we were able to convince him to snap a few shots of our first mud experience. A big thanks to Gordon as these ended up being our only pictures from the weekend!

From here we started to participate in some of the events, including a giant mud slide and a big mud pool where you basically knocked anyone standing into the mud. We ran into a guy who is from a small town in Minnesota, pretty close by to Tony (somehow we always find the MN people over here) and also visited the color mud station. It was basically colored powder that you could add water to in order to make colorful mud. However, when we got to the tent it had turned into a colored powder confetti shower with people simply throwing handfuls up in the air.

After being considerably powdered, we went to add water and ended up with...well, pretty much brown mud since all the colors had mixed together anyway. I did end up with some pretty sweet yellow mud in my hair that took about three separate shampoos to get it all out however! Sufficiently covered in mud, and with a little drizzle starting, we decided to head into the ocean to rinse off. The sky was starting to get grayer and the temperature was getting cooler (or maybe it was just getting less humid, making us think it was cooler. It is hard to tell here sometimes). Just as we were getting ready to leave the ocean, I heard my name. I turn and see a guy standing maybe 15 feet away from me, coming towards me. Turns out, it is a guy who went to Miami and worked with me at the ice arena for a year. We had become facebook friends when a mutual friend had told me that he was over here and had messaged a couple of times but hadn't managed to met up yet. Of all the places to randomly run into a white person you know in Korea, it is in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by thousands of other white people!

After changing into some dry and non-muddy clothes, we headed out to meet up with some people we had met white water rafting for dinner and drinks. About this time it started to pour cats and dogs...and bunnies, and hamsters, and any other furry animals you can think of. Having left our umbrellas in the room (always a silly move in Korea) we were forced to accept the fact that we were going to be wet all night. A highlight of the night was when fireworks were shot off a boat in the ocean. Seeing as we didn't get to enjoy any fireworks on the fourth, Meg and I

decided it was our fourth of July celebration - just a week late. From here we participated in some norabong and I went to check out an outdoor concert that was going on with some other friends. As the rain died down later in the night, we were also able to spend some more time on the beach which was fun. On Sunday morning, we awoke to...more rain. In fact, I would classify it as a torrential downpour. Seeing as it was to awful out for even the mud to be out, we ended up sitting in an outdoor restaurant that had covered seating and chatting away most of the morning. After grabbing a leisurely lunch and buying some ponchos to try to keep the last of our dry clothes dry, we headed back to the bus. We made it back to Seoul (where, ironically, it was not raining) muddy, wet, but completely satisfied with the Mud/rain fest of 2009!

Since it has been a while, I wanted to give you a quick CIS update. The Nemo class has overcome their recent hand, foot, and mouth disease escapade with only one causality (that ended up causing two causalities in my ESL K class). One of my students had the disease a couple weeks ago and we were worried it would spread like wildfire since I can't convince the Nemo class to keep things out of their mouths. Thankfully, we managed to keep it pretty well contained as the rest of the staff was getting pretty close to ostracizing me in fear of a CIS epidemic! Also, I have a new aide in the Nemo class, Christine. My previous aide, Chloris, walked out of school two Fridays ago after having some disagreements with various members of the Korean staff. I am happy with this new change, as I was having some problems with Chloris as well.

The main problem was that she wasn't bilingual, in fact her English was very limited. This made it very difficult to enforce a no-Korean policy and also kept my students from using English as they would just ask talk to her in Korean. It was also impossible to discuss her role in the classroom with her (another issue as I was feeling that she was overstepping her boundaries and acting as the teacher and turning me into the aide). Christine is completely bilingual and so far has been very responsive to me and what I have asked her to do! I am also pleased that I haven't heard her speak a word of Korean to the students yet! Also on the school front, we are getting three new staff members within the next month and a half. August is a big transition time here in Korea for English teachers, and while it will be sad to see the current staff members go (especially Kata, my morning commute partner) it will be nice to meet some more people (hopefully some Americans, our staff is becoming over-saturated with Canadians!) Today was also July birthday party day. As usual, the kids were hyped up and beyond excited and little was accomplished throughout the day besides letting them work off their sugar high from eating cake at 10:30 am.

In more recent news, I was able to go see the new Harry Potter last night! My co-worker, Danielle, is a huge fan, so she went and bought tickets for opening night for a group of us. Best of all, it was in English with Korean subtitles instead of vice versa. It was fun to do something over here that everyone in America is also doing - since at times I feel like I am missing out on so much going on back home!

Speaking of home, a big thanks to Brandi and Ellie for sending letters/cards my way! It is always so nice to find a piece of home in the mailbox after a rough day! I am going to try to get better about sending letters to people back home but as you all well know, Meg and I tend to pack our time pretty tightly here!

6 teaching days left till Thailand!!!!!

I Need a Pur-pur-purple Car!

So as you may know, these past 4 months I had worked on a play in my musical drama classes with the "5" and "6" year olds. Although it had a relatively simple script, it was incredibly challenging to get these super young kids who are brand new at English to a) remember their lines b) remember WHEN to say each line and c) remember where and how to stand while saying the correct line. Oye.

The drama was called "My Magic Crayons." The roles were Elmer, the magic tree, and kids. Each kid "needed" something (red hat, yellow jacket, pink scarf, green shoes, blue bag or orange flowers...in that order). Here is basically how it goes (in theory)...

Elmer: Good morning!

Kid A: Good morning! Whats your name?

Elmer: My name is Elmer. Whats your name?

Kid A: My name is ____.

Elmer: Nice to meet you!

Kid A: Nice to meet you too!

Elmer: What do you need?
Kid A: I need a red hat!

Elmer: Can you draw a red hat?
Kid A: Yes!

(Kid A uses crayon and draws red hat on paper taped to a white board which is supposed to be Elmers body)

Elmer: Look behind me!

(Kid A goes behind Elmer and curtain and puts on a red hat. Kid A walks back out)

Kid A: Red hat! Thank you Elmer!

Elmer: You're welcome!

Anyways, this goes on for all of the items listed above and there were two songs, one at the beginning and one at the end, which they had to sing as well. Each class did a FANTASTIC job. I was in the front directing them in case they forgot lines or actions and couldn't help but beam with pride over how well these small small children performed their first English play. Vicky and I co-teach the "5" year olds and our boss said it was one of the best performances of that play by "5" year olds EVER so it was just a really good moment all around. The parents came to watch and gave the kids flowers and we all took pictures together and whatnot. Totally made the 4 months of listening to the same script and same 2 songs over and over...and over again worth it!

For all of you wondering about the little girl who looked at me the first few weeks like I was the devil in blonde curls, she is actually one of the kids who has warmed up to me the most, and no longer gets up and moves her chair across the room if I sit within 5 feet of her, haha.

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The other night Rach and I made our 2nd Costco run! We took a cab home since we could barely carry everything (Costco is a pain to get to and has stuff you can't find anywhere else so when you go...you go all out!). We soon realized that cab rides are far more awkward when the cab driver speaks a bit of English. He was a very nice man who told us about how he was applying to be an international taxi driver, and how he really wanted to master English like a native speaker. So much so that he informed us he watches "Sex and the City" frequently to learn slang...hmm. He also told Rachel she looked like Cameron Diaz and told me I look like Brittany Spears. Then he began to sing "Womanizer" by Brittany...but thankfully our ride was almost over by that point!

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Very exciting news: our neighborhood recently got a little jewelry shop where you can by necklaces and earrings for w1,000 each. So...about 75 cents. We stop enough to browse around that when we finally bought a few things the lady recognized us from the neighborhood and threw in a free bracelet. Its kind of fun being so recognizable. It gets you free candy, high fives, and now jewelry.

Also new to our neighborhood is a small restaurant located in the spot that the fire destroyed in May. They have a section that's outside on the street where they sell chicken burgers (and by chicken we mean, "well..we know its not beef so...?"). They are also only w1,000 each. Awesome.

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The fourth of July was a bitersweet holiday here in Korea. Of course, it makes you think of home, swimming, bbq's, fireworks, clean summer air, etc. I was personally aching to be up at my cabin in Birchwood, WI with my family. Its just really not summer until you've swam in a lake, had a picnic on a boat and made a campfire in the woods. Anywho, we tried to do as many "American" things as we could to celebrate.

We went to the baseball game, the LG Twins vs. Doosan Bears. They are both the home teams of the stadium so we knew the game would be just as packed and awesome as it was last time we saw them play. We were meeting some of our friends there so Rach and I went early to get everyone tickets and save seats. We'd never been "early" persay so we were curious to see what the pre-game entertainment would be like. Can anyone guess what they did? I'll give you a hint...COMPUTER GAME. We just had to laugh because only in Korea/Asia would this happen lol. They took 4 guys from the crowd, placed them on 4 desktop computers they put on the baseball field and had them battle each other in "Temple of Doom" while they broadcasted the fierce battle over the jumbo-tron (ctrl "a"!, ctrl "a"! ...noooooo! hahaha).

After some good ole baseball we all went back to our neighborhood to go eat at a place where you grill your own meat at a tabletop (similar to a bbq yeah?). After dinner we went out on the town to celebrate one of Tyler Stoke's last weekends left in Korea. Norebong (karaoke) ended the long night and our 4th of July celebration was complete.

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Yesterday Froebel kids took a field trip to the Seoul Zoo! We definitely did not have field trips as cool as this when I was a kid! We went to the zoo in our cute little yellow shuttle buses. Once we got there we walked through the park, browsing animals such as tigers, lions, and elephants on our way to the place where they were going to have a presentation for the kids.

We all sat down in a big room and I got ready for what I thought was going to be a pretty uneventful presentation (they are usually all in Korean so the foreign staff just hangs out). THEN a lady brought out a tiny monkey! Not only did she have it do some tricks, she brought it around to each table for the kids to pet and play with. At this point I was so excited I was bouncing up and down waiting for MY turn to play with the monkey. At one point the lady put the monkey on top of Monica's head and it started searching through her hair for bugs. The look on Monica's face was absolutely priceless. I would have been completely happy after petting the monkey but the day just kept getting better and better.

After the monkey left the lady brought out a baby lion! It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. After the kids had the opportunity to pet it, the staff actually got the chance to hold it in their lap. It nuzzled up against my elbows and made me miss my cat (Kassie). After the baby lion they brought out a huuuuuge yellow snake and put it around each kids shoulders. To my surprise there were only one or two kids who were too scared. Even Tim Teacher had to leave the room because he was too scared :P And lastly they brought out a penguin. For real. It waddled around the room while a group of kids waddled after it. We all got a chance to pet it and shake its flipper too. Probably the BEST field trip EVER. I'm fairly certain I had more fun than the kids did.... haha.

In other news, Tony is here to visit for two weeks! He got here Wednesday night after traveling about 25 hours. He will most likely be doing a "guest" blog entry toward the end of his stay.

Rach and I leave for our 10-day Thailand vacation in 2 weeks! We are also looking at going to Busan for chuseok (Korean's "Thanksgiving" holiday).

PICTURES OF DRAMA AND THE ZOO HERE!

Stay tuned for our stories from MUDFEST that we went to this weekend!