You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid!

I made paper chains with my classes today for my lesson, “What do you want for Christmas?”

It’s been a lot of fun watching these kids change and grow over just 8 months… like little, Korean wild flowers.  What’s also interesting is how fast their prerogatives change.

The majority of my 7-year-olds wanted a Nintendo DS or new games for the system they already had.

Even Jack, one of the twins, who never remembers to put an “-s” at the end of plural words, made sure to tell me about 12 times that his paper said, “Nintendo DS gameS, NOT game- many, many!”

Most of my 5-year-olds asked for Power Rangers, Thomas the Train, or bubbles.

In fact, Jun wanted bubbles SOOO bad, he used ALL 3 of his paper chains to ask for them.

Absolutely adorable… I swear, if that kid doesn’t get some damn bubbles come Christmas…

So, I get to the Russian boy, Sawyer… and what does he ask for?

A gun, a sword, and some Japanese anime toy I’ve never heard of.

All we’re missin’ is the vodka!

Jingle What?

We’re planning a big Christmas party for our students and their parents on Christmas Eve day, and we’d like the children to be able to sing a few Christmas songs in English.

So, today we started learning Jingle Bells and awww maaaan.  I tried SO hard not to giggle, but they’re just so gosh darn cute!

I felt like I was watching A Christmas Story- you know the part where they go to the Chinese restaurant for a duck dinner…

“Deck the holes with boughs of hawry…. fa ra ra ra raaa……”

“Jingle bears…. jingle bears…”

Now, granted, it’s not nearly that bad.  We have spent QUITE a bit of time on the difference between ‘L’ and ‘R’ sounds these past 8 months (because in Korean, they’re the same symbol).  Still though, it’s definitely cute…

Korea’s ‘Catalina Island’

Goeje Island was a lot of fun this past weekend.

Beautiful, serene Goeje-do

It’s a relatively small island, only 148 sq. miles.  Heather’s friend lives there, so it was nice having a place to stay and a car to bum around in for a change.

It was a bit nippy, definitely windy.  The water was an absolutely pristine, sky blue. I sure wouldn’t mind going back during the summer time to hit the beach-ees.

The oh-so-worth-it breakfast

We went to this great, little breakfast place called Spoons, where we got the 1st proper breakfast we had seen in almost 8 months.  (Except for when I was at the hotel with my folks- that breakfast buffet definitely hit the spot as well!)

Eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, fresh-squeezed, ice cold OJ…. Mmmm…. We joked around that it was a 12-hour round trip for breakfast, and it was damn well worth it! 

There were so many foreigners on this tiny island, from all over the world, it was downright freaky.

POW Camp

We also visited the historic park of the Goeje POW camp, back from the Korean War (1950-1953).

Roughly 173,000 prisoners of war were held here- North Korean soldiers, Chinese soldiers, and about 3,000 women soldiers and militias.

Atop the windy lookout

It gave us a pretty good idea of what everyday life was like for the POWs and I definitely found it interesting.   War is just so incredibly sad…

Heather’s friend works for Samsung, inspecting ships as they build them.

So, we hit up a high-up lookout point to get a good, overhead view of the shipyard and my!…  Is THAT a sight to see!  It sure is amazing– the big, incredible things us small humans can make when we work together.  And how FAST they can be done!

The shipyard

Apparently, this same lookout was used back in the 1400s when Korea was constantly battling Japan.  One of Japan’s islands can supposedly be seen from the top of it, though I certainly couldn’t find it.

Thanks, Goeje for a wonderful weekend getaway!

No Soup for You

Today’s lesson with my 5-year-olds was, “What do you want for lunch?” And for the day’s dialogue practice, I wanted to concentrate on good manners- something easy they could start using today, at lunch.

So, I went around the classroom with a bowl and ladle asking my students, “Do you want soup?” Their response had to be either “Yes, please” or “No, thank you.” If they forgot the ‘please,’ I hastily took the bowl away and pulled a soup Nazi on ‘em, sternly saying, “No soup for you!” in a deep, husky voice.

Of course, this was much funnier for me than it was for them, although oddly enough, I did receive quite a few chuckles here and there.

Oh, what fun it is basing an entire lesson on a Seinfeld episode.    Life is good.

One Cold Morning

I had a delightful little weekend down on the island.

Iceberg, straight ahead!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera.  So my friends have all of the pictures at the moment.  I’ll snag some from ‘em and tell you about it later…

This morning’s quite nippy: 21 degrees.  It snowed here this past weekend and I missed it.  There are still some remains of snow here and there around school though.

The dogs’ water bowl out in the zoo is frozen every night and morning and our little pond is freezing over.  I’m worried about the fishies!

Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!  Baby, it’s cold outside!

Goeje-do, Here I Go!

On my way to Goeje Island for the weekend…

It’s on the southern coast of South Korea, and is its second largest island (second to Jejudo, where Nick and I went back in July).

It’s got a couple of good hiking mountains, some natural harbors, and some beautiful beaches.  Shipbuilding is this island’s largest industry.

Just another short, cross-country, weekend trip… you know… ;-p

See you all on Sunday night!

What Color is Your Belt?

I had mentioned in a previous post that after 3 1/2 months, we were going for our yellow belts…

Yellow never looked so good

Well, all original members of the Jinjeop 5 passed the test… with flying colors.   And it was actually a bit more professionally conducted than I had imagined.

Sabumnim had to bring in an elder- a true, old school Taekwando master- to head the ceremony.

He judged all 5 of us on kicking, punching, blocking, poomsae-1, target-kicking and shingle and board-breaking.

Since the Jinjeop 5 is now the Jinjeop 7 (we’ve had some new recruits), they had to sit tonight out until they’re ready next January.

So, they were able to snap some pictures of the ceremony:

Meditation

Breaking shingles

Wood-kicking

Attention!

Being presented with my belt

Makin’ the switch

Yellow never looked so good

Jinjeop 5 & Master

Lookin’ good, guys

Wouldn’t wanna mess with this

Turkey’s Good for the Seoul

This weekend was a good one.  I went snowboarding Friday up at Bear’s Town- a ski resort just 20 minutes from my place.  Minus a nasty fall I took on the ice that left me hurting until even now, it was a lot of fun.

On Saturday, I got together with a bunch of friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, and it turned out pretty darn well.    We covered all of the basics:

Cranberry sauce- Check.
Pie- Check.
Turkey- Check. Check. (We went crazy and got TWO).
Gravy- Check.
Mashed potatoes, rolls, macaroni & cheese- Check, check, and check.

Luke and his lamb

The last time I celebrated Thanksgiving abroad, my dad and I were dining on pizza and pasta, and sipping on Cabernet, in front of the Pantheon in Rome.

But this was definitely the most international Thanksgiving I’ve ever had.

The New Zealander roasted lamb and prepared some beautiful mussels, the South African made some vetkoek (fat cakes) and the Koreans brought some homemade kimchi.

Elmarie & her fat cakes

Aaron baked an apple pie, I baked the mac & cheese and whipped up some indoor s’mores with some Ritz crackers, marshmallows and Hershey’s chocolate.

And we all brought plenty of wine.

Aaron & his apple pie

This was also the most expensive Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. ;-p  Since turkey and cranberry sauce are anything BUT staples here in Korean diet, we had to hit up an international specialty market.

A can of cranberry sauce cost me $4 a pop, and the bag of marshmallows was $12!

Since this was the first oven I’d seen in over 8 months, I tried not to look at the receipt for too long.  I was just super pumped to bake something.

We played some cards, shared some laughs, and had a wonderful evening with good food and great people.  I’m thankful for everyone that was there.

We gave a big toast to Korea for bringing us all together.

Daehan-minguk! You’re alright in my book…

So Much to Be Thankful For

Many of my co-teachers asked me if I was a little sad today, being so far away from my friends and family on Thanksgiving.

Now, granted, if I could be anywhere right now, it’d be back home baking pies with my mum and stealing pieces of turkey whenever my dad stepped away from carving it- eyeing that wishbone on the kitchen windowsill the entire time.

5-yr-old Aurora: If that just ain't the cutest Pilgrim you ever did see!

My grandpa would be sporting his red socks, my brothers would be watching the football game and my parents would be watching the parade.  My aunts would bring something sweet and delicious they baked and I’d get to hang out with my cousins and we’d all be fat and happy.

But, I’m not back home.  I’m still here in Korea.  And I can honestly say that…

THIS WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE THANKSGIVINGS EVER.

I thought introducing my students to Halloween was fun. Thanksgiving was even better!

1 little, 2 little, 3 little Indians...

I’ve spent a good chunk of this week’s English classes teaching my students about the story behind the Pilgrims and the Indians, how they migrated to America on the Mayflower, how their food supply froze during the harsh winter, and how the Indians shared their crops and showed them how to farm better.

We made hand turkeys out of construction paper, put together class projects sharing what we’re all thankful for in our lives, and ran around the classroom like a bunch of wild Indians and Pilgrims.  Fun, fun, fun.

A feast to be had!

So today, I divided each of my classes in two, dubbing half of them the Indians and half of them the Pilgrims.

We fashioned hats for both parties and painted our faces accordingly.

Each student was to bring in a fruit they could give as a peace offering to their new friends, and it made our dinner table look just beautiful!

Daniel & Sally making peace offerings

We had potatoes, corn, rolls, kimchi and seaweed soup (Come on now, we are still in Korea).

Jaydon was able to mix in a bit of cranberry sauce with the chicken, and it tasted absolutely scrumptious!    That made me very happy.

After the feast, we went around the table and everyone said what they’re thankful for.  Then, the pilgrims offered a piece of fruit to the Indians and vice versa.  Here’s a video I took of my 7-year-old Pilgrims and Indians:

done

The kids all had a blast, the teachers looked quite smitten with their students, and everyone was happy.  AND everyone was thankful.

I’d say that’s one successful Thanksgiving Day.

May God bless you all.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Kaley

P.S. A ladybug just fell from my ceiling and landed on my desk.  Weird.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can’t wait to write to you about quite possibly my favorite Thanksgiving EVER.

But, right now I have my final hagwon class before the weekend and then I have taekwando.  I’ll be taking my yellow belt test.  Wish me luck and talk to y’all soon!

Kaley