A Very Zen Weekend



In exactly one month Meg and I will be celebrating Christmas from Cambodia! Our hostel is booked in Phenom Phen, as well as our hotel on the beach where we will be spending New Years. We are going to pick up our passports this weekend, which have a new addition - our Vietnam visas. We have checked the weather trends (should be high 70s to low 80s!) and I personally am getting super excited! All that is left now is figuring out what sights to see! And for all you people counting down the weeks left in our year...when we return from Cambodia we will officially have 8 weeks of teaching left on our contracts. Woah.

Two weekends ago, we made a trip to a nearby store called Home Plus. It is kind of a cross between a Target and a department store - it has basically everything. Meg and I have gone there before to get various things for our apartment (ie a fan, cooking utensils, cleaning supplies) but we had never explored the food section in depth. We decided to take a crack at it and were pleasantly surprised! It was like being back in good old Cub Foods. We both managed to load up on some great finds - instant soup for lunches on cold days, goldfish crackers, precooked duck in a box (actually really, really tasty), and fresh asparagus to name a few. However, the reason I tell you this story is because of what came with the cereal we bought. As in America, some brands of cereal include things with the cereal to convince you to buy it. However, unlike America, the items that they include are actually useful. I bought a box of cereal that came with two pairs of warm, fuzzy socks. And Meg bought cereal that came with two sets of ear muff things. So now we can eat delicious cereal AND stay warm!

Speaking of warm, we have finally gotten our first taste of winter here in Korea. The temperatures have started getting colder (and by this, I mean 30s. It still has yet to drop below low 30s here) and I have finally gotten out my winter coat and mittens. Still no snow in sight, but we have both come to realize that it feels a lot colder than it probably is due to the fact that we spend much more time outside walking places.

This past weekend Meg and I finally got around to doing something that we had talked about doing since coming to Korea - a temple stay. Seeing as there are lots of Buddhist temples in Korea and a large portion of the population is Buddhist, we thought this would be a great way to have a new experience and immerse ourselves in another part of the Korean culture. I was not really sure what to expect going into it, which I think was helpful in keeping an open mind about the experience. We arrived at the bus station around 9 am on Saturday morning and boarded the bus. On the way to the temple we stopped at the Jucheon river to do some exploring. We were able to take some nice pictures, and as always, it was refreshing to breathe in clean, mountain air. We made our way to Bubheungsa temple, which is 1,400 years old. When we arrived we were giving our training clothes, which we were required to wear all weekend. From here, we went into training. This is where our guide for the weekend, through the use of an English interpreter, told us what we would be doing all weekend and taught us how to do a proper full bow (which, in case you were wondering, has 9 steps and takes you from standing, to kneeling with your forehead on the ground, to standing again).

From here we went out to a path in the woods for walking meditation. This involved walking in two straight lines, each person about a meter apart, at a pace of about 1 step per every 5 seconds. We were told to really concentrate on each individual step and the movement that is involved to take it. The purpose of the walk being that we often go through the motions of things, thus turning them into habitual activities, without ever thinking why we do it or what is involved in doing it. At the beginning I was doing fairly well focusing on this and enjoying myself - however, as we continued to walk at this very slow pace, I continued to get colder and colder. By the end of the walk my toes were numb and the training clothes weren't doing much in the way of keeping me warm either. In fact, this was just the beginning of being cold all weekend - apparently the monks don't really believe in heat. I am pretty sure I wore my winter jacket almost the entire weekend, both inside and outside. I also quickly learned to put multiple shirts and another pair of pants under my training clothes.

Next we experienced a traditional monk dinner called balwoo gongyang (literally meaning bowl eating). We were given a stack of 4 bowls, which we set out on a place mat according to very specific instructions. The first step of the meal is to clean the bowls. Cleaning water is poured into the largest bowl. You swish it around, the dump it into the next bowl and swish it again. This process continues with the third and fourth bowl. Once the water is in the fourth bowl, it stays there until after the meal. Then each person is served rice in the largest bowl, and soup in the second largest. Side vegetables are passed around and these are put in the third bowl. The spirit of this kind of eating is equality, cleanliness, thrift, and togetherness, thus there was no talking during the meal and you were required to eat EVERYTHING you took. I was surprised by how weird it seemed to not talk while eating - it was also a lot harder to do than I thought it would be! After eating, we began the cleaning process. Each person received drinking water in their rice bowl. Using a yellow radish as basically a sponge, you clean all the residue from the bowl. Then you pour the drinking water into the next bowl and repeat the process. Same in the third bowl. After the third bowl is clean, you eat the radish "sponge" and drink the drinking water. Then, we poured the cleaning water that had been sitting in the fourth bowl into the rice bowl. Using our fingers to help, we did a final rinse of each bowl. This water was then collected in a large bucket for inspection. If done properly, the water should be perfectly clear. Ours was clearly not. However, the monk who ate with us passed around his bowl and it literally looked like fresh tap water. It was absolutely astoundingng.

We spent the rest of the night having tea with the monk while discussing dreams. It was interesting to hear the topic of dreams talked about from a
Buddhist stand point, although slightly hard to follow at times given that everything was going through a translator. The main focus of the discussion was that ours dreams are much easier to achieve when we make our dream specific and think in small steps. This actually gave me a lot to think about for the rest of the weekend, which ended up working out perfect as we had lots of meditation time on Sunday. We all wrote a dream down and put it in a dream pouch for use in a ceremony the next day. After our discussion with the monk, we all went to bed (at 10:30 pm) since we were being woken up at 3:00 am for morning meditation and chanting.

As you can imagine, 3 am came very quickly. We got up and bundled up against the cold, then trudged up a hill to the building where we would be participating in a morning service. There were two monks who did a series of chants and led us in a round of bows. From here, we went to another building to learn how to do Buddhist meditation. We were instructed on how to hold our legs, what our hand and head placement should be, and given suggestions on what to focus on. Once we were ready, we started our 25 minutes of meditation. As you can imagine this is rather difficult, especially at 4 am! After mediating, we had some free time until our 6 am breakfast time, so we all went to get a power nap in.

After breakfast we made lotus lanterns and then we started the process of making our Buddhist prayer beads. Similar to rosary beads, the string of beads is often used when chanting mantras. We made a strand of 108 beads because in traditional Buddhist thought people are said to have 108 afflictions. Each person has 6 senses - sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, and consciousness. Each of these senses can have three different reactions - positive, negative, or indifference, for a total of 18 feelings. Each feeling can then be either attached to pleasure or detached from pleasure, for a total of 36 passions. Each pleasure can then be manifested in our past life, present life, or future life, for a total of 108. The traditional practice is to do one bow (which as previously mentioned is nine steps) for every one bead that is strung. However, we were told that it would be okay to do two or three beads to every bow...or as the end neared 5 or 6. My legs definitely started to feel the burn about half way through!

Once we finished our beads, we took our dream pouches from the previous day and went back up the hill to one of the buildings we had been in that morning. A monk lead us through a series of chants and we all hung our pouches up in order to help our dreams come true. After eating lunch, and having already been awake for over 10 hours, it was time to put our normal clothes back on and head back to the city. Overall, it was quite an experience. I am very glad that I am not a Buddhist monk. I wish we had learned more about the ideology behind Buddhism and been able to talk with the monks more, but overall, it was a cool experience to be completely immersed in their lifestyle.

Over the weekend it finally happened - the Nemo class was hit with the swine flu. CIS has had some scattered cases of the flu here and there, but unlike Froebel, we have not shut down. Instead, the class with the sick student doesn't come to school for a couple of days. Anyway, on Saturday I got a call from Jenny (my supervisor) that one of my Nemos had tested positive. While I still have to report to school at the normal time and teach my afternoon classes, my Nemos aren't coming until Thursday. This means that during kindergarten Monday to Wednesday, I get prep time, which I couldn't be happier about! I was supposed to have conferences on Monday but those also got canceled. However, the school is taking an interesting approach to this case of the swine flu that they haven't with past classes. During conferences, we each pair up with our partner teacher and teach each others class (for example, when I have conferences the Nemos go to Bambi class and when Bambi class has conferences, they come to my room). Well, I had a mom concerned that combing our classes during conferences would make people sick, so it had been decided that this time around the Nemo and Bambi classes would not be combined. Instead, my aide, Christine, was going to teach the Nemos during my conferences and teach the Bambis during theirs. When I heard my Nemos weren't coming, I figured I was going to be put in charge of teaching the Bambis during conferences again since their conference day was Tuesday, and I had no students. However, I was informed that I was not going to be allowed to teach the Bambis since I will spread the flu to them. Umm...wait...the flu I don't have any symptoms of? So, Christine taught the Bambis (despite the fact that she is just as likely to have caught the flu from the Nemos as I am), I was told that I am required to wear a mask when my kids return on Thursday (although no other teachers had to when their kids caught it and neither Jenny or Christine are required to) but although there is fear of me being highly contagious (with, remember, no symptoms), I am still required to come into school all day and still need to be teaching my afternoon classes. This is a particularly stellar example of Korean logic for you.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home! Eat extra turkey, pie, cranberries, and all that other good stuff that we don't have access to over here for us!

The scariest thing this Halloween?

SWINE FLU!

So even though Koreans do not celebrate the wonderful holiday that is Halloween, we were going to dress up and go out in costume...even if nobody else did! Thankfully, there is a large enough foreign population here (mostly young adults) who were equally as enthusiastic to make Halloween a reality, even while overseas. Rach and I decided to be alley cats and represent the crazy, hissing occupants of our back alley. We were invited out to a party with the boys we met on Ulleungdo, and so we set out to meet them in full costume. It goes without saying that we got quite a few looks from the Koreans going about their Thursday evening, but we were in the spirit and hence, could care less how crazy we looked getting on the subway.

After a full night of fun, we both had to get up early and go to work the next morning. It was our school Halloween party, so basically a day of fun! I spent the entire day with Elgar class, watching "Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" that I downloaded for them, and making "worms in dirt" (pudding, oreos and gummy worms) along with other various Halloween themed activities. They all looked so awesome in their costumes! I didn't even care that there were 3 power rangers and like 5 princesses, haha. It was another day that reminded me of how lucky I am to be with such amazing kids. I don't think my smile left my face that day :)

Last Thursday night I went out with Frank to see Seoul Tower at night! I had been there during the day and it was quite nice, but it was really amazing to see the city all lit up from the tower in the evening. It took us a while to figure out where to go, but a nice Korean man walked about 10 minutes with us to show us how to get to the cable car. I brought my new fancy camera and we basically just had a ball walking around the park and going up the tower. We had dinner in a restaurant right in the tower overlooking the city. In the upper part of the tower it showed you how far different cities in the world were. He found Amsterdam and the closest thing to MN I could find was Chicago. Soooo far away from home for both of us, and it reminded me just how remote the chances of us even meeting were.

The next day (Friday) I went into work to find that nobody was really there. Confused, I put my computer down on my desk and looked around. My coworker Kathleen then told me that three of the Korean teachers went to the clinic because they had high fevers. "Do you feel sick?" she asked me. I admitted that I felt a bit funny and so she suggested I go get checked out. Might as well since the others were there anyway, right? Debbie was my translator to the doctor and he checked my temp and looked in my throat and checked my heart/breathing. He told me that he thought that the other teachers and I might have a mild version of the swine flu and that we should shut down the school. Feeling pretty much fine besides a slight cough, minor fever and a minor headache I was really doubting that what I had was swine flu. He gave both Debbie and I a prescription and after thanking him we left to get it filled at the pharmacy. To my surprise, not only did we get regular flu medication, they threw in Tamiflu for free. Like a lollipop or something. Since when do we give out tamiflu like candy?! I definitely wasn't going to take it unless I started feeling REALLY really bad, and was just confused in general why I had gotten it in the first place.

Returning to school was like returning to a bio-hazard zone. EVERYONE was wearing a mask, and a huge percentage of teachers were feeling ill, along with many of the kids. It was...just crazy really. Throughout the day I never felt terrible per say, but my temperature climbed steadily. Finally, after my first class after lunch I retook my temperature and it read 38.3 (Celsius) which is a bit over 100 f. I told my supervisor and those who had a fever approaching or over 38 were to be sent home. I was relieved since that afternoon I had cooking class and didn't feel like me touching food these kids were to ingest was going to be a smart idea. After taking the regular flu medicine and sleeping for about 5 hours after I got home, I felt relatively normal. Then I got word that the school was going to be closed the next week.

This had happened once before, the 2nd week Mom and Meema were here. They shut down the school to students, but teachers had to come in and do prep work. This time, nobody was going to come in until Friday, so teachers could get everything organized for the next week. We had to send emails to all our homeroom kids with activities for them to keep practicing English while at home, and today my kids could call me on the phone during certain hours (which I chose) to chat and make small talk. My little Joshua called RIGHT at noon ... "Meghan Teacher...?" he asked, "yes?" I answered. "I MISS YOU!" haha. The other conversations ranged from inaudible to little John screaming "Nooo!" and dropping the phone when I told him he was coming back to school on Monday, lol.

Saturday we got a bunch of people together to go ice skating. The rink was really big and inside the giant department store and theme park, Lotte World. It was so hot on the rink the ice was melting! We all had a great time and it was so much fun to see everyone on skates!

Tonight Frank and I had an impromptu date when I went to meet him in Insadong. We walked around there for a while, got dinner, and then randomly ran into the main stream of the city. We were both really surprised to see that there was a huge lantern festival going on! There were beautiful lanterns placed in the middle of the stream as far as you could see down. They had themes too - some wee of the Chinese zodiac, some were of famous buildings and monuments, some of ancient warriors, etc. Even thought it was a bit chilly we walked along the stream and got some great pictures. Even got a glimpse of a small kpop concert!

It was also 빼빼로 (pepero) day today. Probably THE most commercial holiday ever. Everyone says Valentines day was created by Hallmark or something? Pepero day is the creation of Lotte, a huge company who happens to make these little graham sticks covered in chocolate. They created 빼빼로 day because on November 11 (11.11) the straight sticks look like the date. I'm not kidding - that's the sole reason for this holiday. Any who, all the lovers buy 빼빼로 sticks for each other. When I went to charge my subway card at the mini-stop near my apartment - the guy who works there knows me and constantly calls me his "friend!" and says "beautiful day!" and stuff whenever I come in - gave me some 빼빼로 sticks and so, to embrace the Korean culture of it all, I gave them to Frank, haha. Not bad for a Wednesday night on my "week off."

UPDATED PICS on my webshots! Jeju Island, Halloween, Seoul Tower and Lantern Festival.

Coming soon: Temple stay! Can't wait to tell you about our adventures waking up at 3am to bow with the monks!

Meema says...

Travel to Korea with my daughter to visit Meghan was awesome. We were on the go constantly trying to take it all in. Meghan was a big help with her "ever-ready smile" and her willingness to make sure we were busy touring even while she was at work. I'm a lucky grandmother.

Some of the highlights were visiting Meghan's school and meeting her adorable students; shopping; touring the DMZ - which at times was a little tense as North and South Korean soldiers stood at attention staring at each other in the Joint Security area - also walking down and back up the long "tunnel of aggression" dug by the North Koreans to invade the South; shopping; downtown Seoul a lively vibrant city with ancient palaces, museums, parks, many shopping markets including night markets, exotic foods; Meghan's performance with the Nanta cast; cruising the Han river; taking the train to Busan and from the depot a hour bus ride to our hotel where a woman grabbed my luggage and held on to it the entire hour so it would not bang around; beauty of the South Sea, three festivals-spectacular fireworks soaring up to the ocean skies-fishing port with very fresh fish & shrimp and shopping markets; oh did I mention we appreciated the outdoor vendors for shopping deals?

Kidding aside...The memory of Korea and it's kind people will stay with me....Meghan where next? I'll come.

Q: Are you still in love with Korea?
A: 네!!!!!!

As you may recall, Meg and I did a Q&A post around our 4 month mark in Korea. As we have recently passed the 8 month mark, we thought it would be fun to do another one. We have come up with some new questions and are also repeating some of the questions from last time.


Favorite non-Korean food you have eaten while in Asia?

Tom Kha Gai: Coconut chicken soup from Thailand

Tom Yum Goong: Spicy and sour prawn soup - Thailand.





Something I still want to do before I leave SoKo
Visit Busan and Panmunjom

Temple Stay where we get to stay overnight at a Buddhist temple and meditate with the monks (we are going on one Nov 21st!)

Something I wish I had discovered earlier

Asian pears...so delicious and huge...and now out of season...

Where the new bean-paste fish guy is located (they taste best when its cold outside!)


Favorite weekend trip since July 2009?
Spending Chuseok at Ullengdo Island

Ulleungdo! :P

Best English sign you have seen (many of the signs have...interesting translations)
The "Heed a fall" on a hill on Udo Island


A door at the bank has a sign that says "Fush" on it...instead of "Push." I get a good giggle every time :)






Favorite K-Pop song

Abracadabra by the Brown Eyed Girls http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlTqQjOJ7jk&feature=related

Mine remains "Sorry Sorry!"

Something I thought that I would hate but I actually like
Tofu
The majority of Korean food

Something I thought I would miss but I actually don't

Having a car (except when I go to Costco!)

Being at least sort of "in the loop" with American pop culture

How Korean fashion has converted me
I now wear tights under essentially all skirts and dresses
I can accessorize for much cheaper! And I love it!

You would never seen this in America...
Pink parking spaces meant for only women to park in

Squatter toilets with mirrors placed on the inside of the door in case you needed to make sure you look good while using the bathroom.

Weirdest pizza topping
Raisins

Sweet potato paste (but its so good!)

I'll be glad when I never have to...
Use a hot plate as my stove again
Get elbowed by an old lady. They have the right of way here, and they know it :P

Best Costco find
Chocolate covered raisins
Animal crackers

One English song that is way overplayed in Korea
My Heart Will Go On
YMCA

One Korean word that has started making its way into your daily vocabulary?

아싸! (assa!) = "oh yeah!"
진차? (Jin-Cha)= Really?

Ridiculously cute kid story
I couldn't choose, so I am going to share two short ones with you. I was talking with my Nemos about what animals eat to kill some time. I asked them what spiders, frogs and cats eat and they were doing a great job whipping out the answers. Finally I asked them what dogs eat. They all stopped cold and stared at me with big eyes. Finally, Irean tentatively answered "dogs skeletons eat."

I got a new kids added to my ESL K class. He is really good at English but has decided that I am bilingual so he has been speaking mostly Korean to me. Finally, on his second day in my class he calls me over, leans in and whispers in my ear, "You're is a...mosquito!"

Its hard to pin one down, but lately I have been having moments where the kids just do something totally crazy or unexpected and I just have to laugh. Not like "oh haha, you're silly, now sit down" laugh but a "wow I'm so incredibly lucky to be here with these crazy kids right now" laugh. Sometimes I have trouble stopping, so in that case, I just let myself laugh. The kids then start laughing and pretty soon we are all laughing and life is good. Its just good, you know? Crazy kids. Haha. I love them.

Any other questions for us as we hit 2/3 the way through, please let us know!

Island hopping on the weekends...because we can!

On the last Thursday that Meg's mom and grandma were here, I met them at their hotel to celebrate Meg's mom's birthday. We had tons of good food and wine while enjoying a view of the city. We noticed that a Korean man was talking to Meg's mom and grandma and they told us that he had talked to them at the hotel a few nights prior. The man came over to say hello to Meg and I because her mom had mentioned to him that Meg was a teacher in Seoul. The Korean man introduced himself as Gabriel and said he had a daughter that worked at a hagwon in Gangnam who was looking for possible subs for when members of her staff were gone. Since we both work in Gangnam, we immediately asked which school. He went on to tell us it was a pretty well known school with multiple branches called Canada International School. Shocked, I exclaimed "I work there!" Turns out that Gabriel is the father of my principal, Sae Hee, and one of the Korean supervisors, Ginny. Gabriel called his wife over and we all chatted while sipping wine and eating birthday cake. In the middle of our conversation, Ginny called her mom about something. You can imagine Ginny's shock when her mom tells her that there is someone at the table who wants to speak with her and I say hello. Gabriel ended up giving us both his card and extending an open invitation to dinner at his house if we ever make it our to Ilsan. So even in a city with a population of over 10 million, you come to realize that the world really is a very small place!

This past weekend Meg and I headed to another one of Korea's islands, Jeju. This island is off the southern tip of Korea, about an hour flight from Seoul. In order to make our 8:15 am flight, we were up by 4:45 on Saturday morning. Luckily, we met up with the Adventure Korea group at Starbucks so we were able to get some caffeine for the road. We arrived in Jeju by 9:15 and made our way to the first stop on our whirlwind trip, a "museum." It is still a mystery to both of us as to what exactly this museum was. We were told it had something to do with the history of Korea, but there were relatively few signs (and zero in English) and there was no rhyme or rhythm to the artifacts. For example, one case had a boom box in it. Another, about 30 pairs of tennis shoes. As we continued to wander through it, we finally came to the conclusion that it was supposed to represent life in Korea, as there were various buildings (such as a school, dance club, post office, houses, and so forth) but we still have no idea what time period or area of Korea the museum was representing. However, seeing as it was a week before Halloween, a haunted house had been set up in one of the model buildings. It was mostly just noises and light-up figurines but it was still a random, fun experience (and sadly, probably the highlight of the museum!)

We made our way to one of the volcanic craters on the island, walking up the pathways that were made of pumice stone. The crater itself wasn't much to see but it did provide spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. We were also able to get our first picture with a dol hareubang (stone grandfather) which is a distinct cultural feature of Jeju that is carved out of basalt and can be seen everywhere on the island. After having traditional Jeju black pig for lunch (some pigs on Jeju have black hair and their meat is chewier than normal pork), we made our way to a ferry to head over to Udo (cow) Island. The island was only about 15 minutes away by ferry and upon our arrival we boarded a bus that would take us around the island. Seeing as it is a very small island (the population is only about 1, 750 people) the bus drove us around the entire thing. Along the way we stopped at various spots to check out the scenery. We were also able to spend some time on the beach and even played in the water (yes, the water was cold, but not so cold that we couldn't enjoy getting our feet wet)! The beach was one where the haenyo can usually be seen diving, but unfortunately they weren't out the day we were there. The haenyo are female divers of Jeju who become the main bread winner of the family because of the dependency on sea products in the area. They dive up to depths of 65 feet and are known to be able to hold their breath for more than 2 minutes. After leaving the island we had dinner and made our way to the hotel where we would be staying...and unlike normal Adventure Korea accommodations, this one did actually qualify as a hotel. The rooms had beds (usually we end up sleeping Korean style, aka, on the floor) and space for more than 4 people to actually exist. Unfortunately, Meg and I got caught up in a room mix-up that resulted in about 30 minutes of frustration. Somehow, 8 people in the group ended up with one 3 person room to share. After the leader spent a considerable amount of time trying to scrounge up where the extra keys went and we worked with the other group on how to make it work, Meg and I lucked out and ended up with a room all to ourselves (and a big room at that, complete with a balcony overlooking the ocean!) Exhausted from being up for over 18 hours, we found an English movie on TV about 2 girls traveling abroad that sufficiently freaked us out and attempted sleep.


The next morning started off with a bang as we made our way to a Chinese acrobat show. The show was amazing and included all sorts of acts - plate balancers, a mother/daughter team who did tricks off a ladder suspended from the ceiling, some people who twisted themselves in long ribbons hanging from the ceiling to do tricks, and many more. Perhaps the most amazing thing was the last act, which was a motorbike riding around in a large metal sphere. What started as one bike turned into two...then three...then four...then five...then six...then seven! Meg and I literally could not believe our eyes! After this we made our way to a green tea farm where we were able to see how green tea grows. Next we made our way to the mysterious road. This road looks like it is going uphill...but it is actually going downhill. In fact, you can actually coast "up" it. It is a puzzling mystery to foreigners and Koreans alike, as noted by the group of middle aged Korean men with a level on the street trying to figure out the science behind it all!

From here we made our way to Loveland, an outdoor sculpture park that opened up in 2004. Korea has a very traditional culture, where it is rare to see public displays of affection, living with a boyfriend before marriage is frowned upon and being single past 30 is a big no-no. However, as these olden ideas clash with the more liberal younger generation, Korea has started to see some of these traditions falter. The more than 140 sculptures in the park were created by graduates of Seoul's Hongik University and range from G rated to R-rated (you do need to be over 18 to enter the park). After spending about an hour here, we made our way to the airport, tired (as usual) but happy with our successful weekend!


























Friday was Halloween party day at CIS! Halloween is not celebrated in Korea, but CIS has turned it into a huge deal. The foreign teachers turn the gym into a haunted house for all the students go through and we take the kids trick or treating to all the classrooms. For the kindergartners in particular the day is a big deal - the photographers come in, everyone is in costume (many of the afternoon kids didn't wear them) and we are (supposed) to take them outside to local businesses to trick or treat as well (it was canceled this year due to swine flu). My partner teacher for the haunted house, Nicole, and I created a graveyard for our section of the gym. We went all out, creating fake mounds, throwing some fake bloody hands and gauze in there, and even managed to wrangle up a fake skull. All the Korean supervisors spend the day in the gym, hiding in corners to pop out of kids and help keep things in control (the gym is almost completely dark and they of course, play scary noises/music). Since I have the Nemos, I was the first class to enter the haunted house. I had one boy who refused to go down the stairs and 3 girls who started crying less than 15 seconds after entering the gym. We had to turn the lights on and stop leading them through the haunted house before they were even half way done because all of my kids were refusing to move. To cheer the kids up after this traumatic experience I took them trick or treating and let them watch "Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" Of course, while trick or treating, Kelly refused to go ask one of the teachers for candy because she was so afraid of the mask that went with his costume, but the rest did great!



















My ESL K kids were also pretty funny to watch in the haunted house. They were all very nervous going down the stairs, especially when they were able to hear the music and see how dark it was. Hailey clung to me the entire time, bawling her eyes out. Christine went through the whole thing, but whimpered the entire time. And probably my favorite moment was when Joshua, dressed as Harry Potter, whipped out his wand and started yelling spells at Jenny (my supervisor) as she attempted to reach out and grab kids. I rounded out the festivities by giving everyone candy corn and painting their fingernails orange and black.

In more recent news, it has officially hit below freezing here. Tonight, the temperature dropped to 31 degrees. Of course, this is just a freak cold spell as it is supposed to be back to the high 60s by mid-week!