Buddhist Boot Camp Pt 2

After we talked with the monk, we made our "Dream Pouchee", or dream pouch. The Koreans are really big on "dreams", and a very common question is "What is your dream?" It's kind of like the American version of "What do you want to be when you grow up?", except it's not just for kids. Anyways, they gave us this pouch, and all we really did was to string the tie through the top so that you could pull it closed. This, however, required a diagram on the board and several people walking around to help. After we had made the pouch, we were supposed to write our "dream" on a small card, and put it in the pouch and close it. We also had to put our names on the outside of the pouch so no one's would get mixed up. Then after everyone had finished and put their dream pouches in their pockets ("Keep it close!"), they taught us how to bow.

You start with 'hapjong', or standing straight, with your feet together, and your hands in front of you in a praying type position. Keeping your back straight, you then bend your knees until you are in a kneeling position. Then cross your feet, keeping your knees together, and put your head down to the floor. Move your hands to the side of your face near your ears, first putting them palm down and turn them palm up, and then palm down again. Then sit back up with your back straight and put your hands back into the hapjong position. Uncross your feet, and without using your hands, push off your knees back into a standing position. This is generally repeated a minimum of 108 times.

After we finished the pouches, around 9:30, we headed outside into the freezing cold and walked up a rather steep side of a mountain to the Jeokmyulbogung, another building on the premises. When we got to the top of the mountain, there were strings of lotus lanterns all lit up towards the building.



When we got inside, we were instructed that we would be doing the 108 bows. The first 50 would be done together to the beat of an instrument, and then afterward we could do the rest at our own pace. I was able to do about 25 or so before my knees started to protest, so after that I simply bowed at the waist each time they hit the bell. I stopped bowing all together after the first 50, but about half the people there completed all 108.



After the bowing, we were taken part way back down the hill to where we were sleeping, the girls in one room and the boys in another. It was traditional yo, which is mats, or in our case blankets, on the floor. They gave us whole warm baked potatoes for a bed time snack, and asked us to have the lights out by 10pm, as we were to get up at 3am to start the next day.


Usually sleeping on the floor isn't that bad because of the ondol, or under-floor heating. It actually makes for cozy sleeping arrangements when it's cold outside. It is not cozy, however, when you have the ondol turned up all the way, and the floor is so hot that it burns you if you touch it with your bare skin. And so this was the way I fitfully tried to sleep through the night, already having a pretty bad cold made worse by going in and out of the cold air and warm buildings. They came and woke us up at 3am, saying that we needed to be at the Bubundang building at 3:30 for the "dawn devotional chanting". I was in no condition to wake up, and respectfully asked if I could skip the yebul (chanting) and wake up in time for the breakfast. I was allowed to go back to sleep, which was rather hard considering they didn't turn down the heat at all and I was sweating in my bed. Everyone came back around 5:45 after meditation and chanting (which I'm glad I missed, because apparently there was a considerable amount of bowing as well). We walked back down to the Heungnungwon building for a traditional Temple-style breakfast, called Balwoo Gongyang. The sun was just coming up.


We had to watch a video before we ate that showed us the proper way to eat the food. There is a specific order that you have to undo the bowls and napkins that you are given, and a very specific way to eat your food. You only take what you will eat, as it is an insult to the people that made the food for you not to finish. You also have to clean your bowls when you are finished, with a yellow radish, and then eat the radish, otherwise that's wasted as well. They're pretty strict about eating everything you take, they actually walked around the room and made several people finish their food that really didn't feel up to it.



After a silent, regimented, and rather unappetizing breakfast, we were allowed free time for an hour. Most of us slept. Then we made lotus lanterns, which was actually quite fun, and made for a lovely decoration for my apartment when I got home.



After we finished the lanterns, we hung them outside to dry, and then headed back up to the Yaksajeon to make bowing beads. We were each given a small plastic bag with string, and 109 beads inside. We had to melt the ends of the string and pull it to a point so we could put the beads on it. Then we were supposed to do one bow for each bead we put on. They said that if you couldn't do one for each, you could do two or three beads for each bow, but no more than 5 at a time. So you bow (from standing to kneeling and then standing again), and then kneel down and put one bead on the string. Then stand up and do it again.


I did my beads 5 at a time.


I counted them carefully each time I put them on the string, but after counting the whole thing three times, I only had 107 beads. So I had to go ask for one more. After everyone had finished putting their beads together, the monk that had talked to us the day before came back and spoke to us again, thanking us for taking part in the program, and saying that he was happy that we all participated fully and hoped we had a good time. Then we followed him around the room about 6 times, chanting vowel sounds, and then we hung our dream pouches on the wall (you can see them in this picture behind the monk).


When we had all finished, we headed outside for a group photo with the monk.



Then we were done, so we headed back to the main building to change into our own clothes, and get on the bus. The people that I went with were pretty tired, and once we'd gotten back to 'civilization', it was a unanimous vote to go for coffee before getting on the subway to go back home to a hot shower and a real bed.

I definitely recommend a temple stay to anyone who wants to be convinced that they never want to become a Korean monk. Or if you want to exercise your knees. Or if you enjoy getting up before the sun. Or if you like a militant environment in the guise of a restful retreat. Otherwise, just enjoy the temples as a tourist. :)

Buddhist Boot Camp Pt 1

I signed up a few weeks ago to go to a Buddhist Temple Stay. This is a program that the multiple temples around South Korea have started to allow people who are interested in learning more about Buddhism and the life of a monk to experience it first hand. Although most of the larger temples have a Temple Stay program, only a few allow a single person to make a reservation, and quite a few more require 15 or more people and a week's notice.

One of my friends suggested that we go as a group with Adventure Korea, so about 7 of us signed up for a trip to Bubheungsa (법훙사). Since the temple is in the province to the east of us, and about a 3 hour drive from Seoul, we had to catch the bus at 9:30am on Saturday (meaning that I had to be on the subway by 8am, so on a bus to get to the subway by 7:30 am). I was able to take the metro with Kathryn, one of the girls I'd met at my Wednesday night dinners, and one of the people I'm going to Japan with.

There were 30 people on the trip, and we all got to the temple with nothing exciting happening on the way. We did arrive at the temple about an hour early, so our guides brought us to a nearby river, where we walked up the side of a mountain to get a better view, and found a pagoda and buddhist rock carving.

(Dayna, Vincent, Maria, Kathryn, me)

We then wandered down to the river, which had some really cool stones that had been eroded from the elements.

(Lauren, me, Kathryn, and Dayna)

When we got to the temple around 3pm, we were given a white shirt and navy pants to change into (they called it a training suit), a key to a cupboard to keep our stuff, and a name tag. The girls changed in one room, while the boys changed next door, none of us realizing at the time that the rooms were a sliding paper door apart from each other.

(me and Dayna posing zen style, with our cupboards and a vacuum behind us)

During the orientation in this same room, we learned about proper manners in the temple, and a little bit about the temple itself. It was a little difficult to follow, because our guide only spoke Korean, so every sentence or so was translated by another guide, whose vocabulary was excellent, but whose accent was a bit hard to decipher. We were also give a temple stay schedule, which is the only reason I'm able to remember the order and times that we did everything! (They stuck to the schedule almost exactly.)

At 4:20, we did walking meditation in the "Forest for enlightening Intelligence". Walking meditation is simply walking VERY slowly, and concentrating only on the act of walking, and not thinking about anything. This is much more difficult than it seems. It looks, to a casual observer, like a mourners' procession, since everyone is supposed to be walking silently and slowly, with their head bowed and hands crossed.

One of the hard parts was not thinking about anything except your walking. We walked for about half an hour, but didn't really get that far. That's a long time to think about nothing but your feet. The other hard part was, oddly enough, the walking itself. You had to walk slowly, but continuously. So you actually spent quite a bit of time balanced on one foot with the other in the air, on it's way to the next step. Quite a few people stumbled on their first step because they were so unused to the balance required to walk like this.

After the walking meditation, we had dinner in the dining hall around 5pm. The meal itself wasn't half bad. We were told ahead of time that any food we served to ourselves had to be eaten - we weren't allowed to have leftovers, as this was rude to the people who had spent time preparing the meal. We also had to wash our own plates and silverware, and return them to where we got them from.

After dinner we had Yebul, which is a devotional chanting. We pretty much all sat in front of a large projection screen with a picture of one of the alters at the temple, while one of the monks chanted and beat a wooden-instrument. When she beat it three times, we were supposed to bow (which is a seven step process, and very hard on the knees), and when she beat it once, we were supposed to stand up.

After the chanting meditation, we took a freezing walk up the hill, where they showed us a bell that's wrung in the morning and at night. We were allowed to help ring the bell two at a time.


When we came back to the orientation building, we had hot tea with another monk, who told us a little bit about Buddhism and about the temple we were staying in. There was only time at the end for three questions.

Hot tea served in bowls

That's the life

I've spent the last week or so making both mental and physical preparations for two changes: I moved apartments (again), and both James and Cherita left to go home this weekend.

I suppose it's the nature of people who move to a foreign country to be a bit transient, but it makes it doubly hard when you've made a strong connection with someone who leaves to the opposite side of the world. The ex-pat community is very tight here, both in Uijeongbu and around the country. It's difficult to make the transition into a completely different culture, and having a network of like-minded people makes it both bearable, and enjoyable.

I never truly understood why there were places like Chinatown, or other equally concentrated areas of immigrants living near each other. I always felt that if you were going to live in another country, you should be making every possible effort to learn about the culture and not only immerse yourself in it, but become a part of it (without losing your own heritage of course). I always thought that areas like this made it harder for foreigners to become acclimated to their new home. I now completely understand why these communities exist. Though you may have made a vow to become as enlightened and immersed as possible in your new culture, you will never really be an integral part of it. You will cling to your heritage and your culture, as much as you yearn to understand your new one. This can only be done successfully if you have a support system of people from your native country who not only hold the same general beliefs (and accents) that you do, but at the same time are open enough to want to experience as much of the new culture as they can.

So when the biggest part of my support system left me halfway though my contract, I feel like a large chunk of me has left with them. Though I have made several other friends here (two of which I'm going to Japan with. Wohoo!), the daily contact and closeness acheived with a coworker won't be easily replaced.

That having been said - I love my new apartment! It has a couch!!

Really? No, seriously. Really?

I went out with James this morning to Insadong (a rather touristy shopping street) to pick up one final Christmas present. It's a mission to get anywhere outside of Uijeongbu - I think I was on the subway or a bus for a total of 4 hours today, just to walk through Insadong for less than an hour. James and I are well aware of the common courtesy that is displayed (or severely lacking) on a subway: Always try and scootch over a bit if someone sits in an empty seat next to you. Don't talk too loudly. Don't sit in the seats of three near the end - they're reserved for the elderly and pregnant. The ajumas will bodily push you out of the way to get to that empty seat first - get used to it.

I was sitting down in a single empty seat with James standing in front of me. He'd been talking to me for a good ten minutes, in a slightly low tone of voice, as the particular car we were on was a bit quiet, but not overly so. In the middle of him telling me a story, as I'm slightly straining to hear him over the sounds of the subway car, the woman sitting next to me, a Korean, interrupts him and says something to him along the lines of "Excuse me. Please lower voice. Shhh. Too loud. Softer voice please."

James and I both looked at her for a second, speechless, and then looked at each other for another three seconds before he tried to just continue with his story in the same tone of voice. He couldn't remember where he had left off, though, and so we had a brief conversation, with her still sitting there, about how that was a rather unbelievable request, seeing as how we were both being respectfully quiet, and there was a Korean man across the car from us who was speaking quite a bit louder and was being much more disruptive, if anything, than we were. At this point neither of us cared if she understood us or not, and she got off the train about 15 minutes later.

It really surprised both of us to a large degree, and I imagine I'll be telling people about it for the next week or so. I could understand if the train had been silent, or we were talking really loudly and being rowdy or something like that. But I had been missing a word here and there of what James was saying because he was talking so softly, so I find it hard to believe that she thought we were being too loud. It's more likely that she didn't like listening to us speaking English and wanted us to stop, though her English was good enough that I don't think that was the case either. I really have no clue as to why she said it, but I sort of wish we'd actually replied to her. Maybe something like "Excuse me, but we're not being loud. The gentleman behind us, however, is. You're more than welcome to ask him to be quiet, or maybe you can move to another car. There's plenty of train here for all of us, lady."

IT'S SNOWING!!!

I'm such a kid, sometimes. I was sitting in the teacher's office about 10 minutes ago, when one of the Korean teachers said "Oh, it's snowing!". I looked out the window, and sure enough I could see a few little flakes falling here and there. I gave out a little screetch, and jumped up on my desk to open the window. I get to see the first snow of the season!! (of course I don't have my camera today. grrrrrr...) It's falling a little faster now, and it definitely looks like winter now. It's great timing as well - I had mentioned to Gina the other day that I was looking for a new scarf (since mine was waaaay too thin), but the ones in home plus were really expensive. She told me yesterday not to buy one - she had ordered me gloves and a scarf off the internet because she was worried about me being from Florida and being too cold here. They both arrived today, and they're both really nice and really warm.
So yay for winter!!

Kong-gi

I had my kids make this video on how to play kong-gi, the Korean version of Jacks:

In case you don't understand the video, here's a breakdown step-by-step:

Start with 5 kong-gi pieces. Throw them gently on the ground. Pick up one piece, and throw it in the air. While it's in the air, pick up one piece from the ground, and then catch the piece you threw using the same hand. Repeat this until you have picked up the remaining pieces. If at any time you don't catch a piece you threw in the air, or you don't pick up a piece from the ground, it's the next person's turn.

Now throw the five pieces on the floor again. Pick up one peice and throw it in the air. While it's in the air, pick up two kong-gi peices from the ground, and then catch the one you threw. Repeat this once to pick up the remaining two peices.

Throw the five peices on the floor. Pick up one peice and throw it in the air. While it's in the air, pick up three kong-gi peices, and then with the same hand, catch the peice you threw. Repeat this to pick up the last peice.

You now should have all five peices in your hand. Throw one piece in the air, and place the remaining four pieces on the ground, then catch the piece you threw. Throw this single peice in the air again, pick up all four pieces, and then catch the piece that's in the air. You now have all five pieces in your hand again. Gently, throw all five peices in the air, flip your hand, and try to catch all five pieces on the back of your knuckles. Then gently throw the five pieces in the air again, and try to grab them from above.

It's worse than Valentine's Day

Imagine for a moment that you are the marketing director of a new cookie. You have been given the task of advertising for a new cookie that your company has come up with - chocolate covered cookie sticks.



So you think to yourself "what can I do to make everyone not only want to buy these cookies, but feel they need to buy these cookies. I know! I'll make a national holiday!" So you decide on a date that looks like your cookies (11/11), and announce to the country that on this date, they must buy this cookie for their loved ones (and anyone else they come into contact with on a daily basis).



And so, for the past several years, November 11th has been known as Pepero Day (빼빼로 데). I must have received about half a dozen boxes of these things from my kids, and that's all they had for snack today.

Korea presents: real men of genius. Here's to you, Mr. Pepero Day maker guy. You've turned a cookie into a national holiday.

Quantum what now?

I went to go see Quantum of Solace with James tonight - there's a movie theatre near the station that plays the bigger American movies with Korean subtitles. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with it, I thought Casino Royale was much better. I'm not going to spend much time critiquing the movie, but I say wait until it comes to video.

My morning today was actually great. I was told when I came in that all but one of my lemon students would be absent today - they all went for interviews at elementary schools to see if they could get in. Originally Julie decided to put my one student, Daisy, into Orange class instead of having me teaching one student by myself (since I wouldn't be able to do the planned lesson for the day). I still had to go to cherry class, but this meant that I had two half hour breaks this morning, and I usually don't get any. And even though 3 of my kids came in right before lunch, I still only had one class with them, and I mostly just had them talk about what they did this weekend and what they did this morning (I was trying to find out about the interview process, but the kids seemed rather uninformed about the process, and were telling me about the cartoons they had watched at the school). It would have been nicer if Julie had told me ahead of time so when I was making my plans for the week I wouldn't have had 3 lessons planed out, with follow up lessons and spelling tests on Wednesday that were based on the lesson from today. But that would have required pre-planning and thinking ahead, something that doesn't seem to be quite common here. So anyways, I got some work done this morning and finished filming my afternoon classes' gong-gi instructions. I have to edit the video I took, but when I'm done I should have a nice 3 minute video of my kids explaining how to play the Korean version of Jacks (it's actually much harder than jacks, but that's the closest thing America has to it). Once they got over being camera shy, they actually seemed to have fun playing a game and talking about it in English. To bad we have to go back to the books on Wednesday.

James and Cherita have less than a month before they leave. I'm really going to miss hanging out with James, but I'm also looking forward to meeting the two new teachers (one of whom is the teacher I replaced when I got here). Such is life as an ex-pat teacher in another country I suppose.

Allow me to wax political for a moment

Regardless of how you feel about the election or how you voted, it was a historical event, and an election that will go down in the history books. I will remember it for a completely different reason.

First of all, I voted for the first time via absentee ballot. I do not usually vote in local elections, because I am usually (sadly) quite uninformed about the issues on the ballot. I would rather not vote, than vote against something I believe in, or for something I don't. I have never, however, missed a presidential election since I turned 18 (which has only been three, but still). I'm usually very forgetful about these sorts of things, but I managed to get myself a ballot in snail mail in enough time for it to be counted. And luckily I was able to sit at my desk at work while voting, because there were a few things on the Florida ballot that I hadn't heard of (like No 2), and wanted to vote on, but I wasn't sure about the wording. I was able to look on the internet with the ballot in my hand to find out what they meant and how I wanted to vote.

The second, and more important reason that I will remember this election is what happened later on in the day. I have one co-worker from DC that had been watching the internet and the polls to see who was winning. She and I were both excited as in between classes we watched the numbers grow for Obama. During one of my afternoon breaks, we discovered it was certain. A few hours later, my Korean co-workers asked if I had seen the presidential election results. I replied with a resounding whoop that I had. They seemed just as excited about it as I was. Though I was on my way to a class, this made me wonder - why were they excited about an election in another country? I was certainly never interested in elections outside the US.

Later that night I went out for dinner and drinks like I do every Wednesday with four other people from Canada, Britain, Scotland, and South America. We must have toasted Obama a half a dozen times throughout the night - and never once was it my idea. We forget sometimes as Americans that the whole world is watching us, and sometimes not in a good way (like an ant under a magnifying glass). Not that we are that important or special, but because what we do as a country has a direct impact on the rest of the world. Foreign policy, military strategy, tolerance, religion; all of our values and morals are being scrutinized by the rest of the world. Keep that in mind the next time you vote.

It's the end of the month

Today was my last open class, I had the first one of the month and the last one. The lesson itself went fine, and the kids were slightly more well-behaved than normal (though they're usually pretty good.) The parents seemed to enjoy it, though I didn't look at them, and my boss said they had no problems, which means they're happy. But now I have planning for next month for my afternoon classes due, evaluations for this month, lessons for the week for Cherry and Lemon, and I'm getting ready for Halloween this Friday.

I'm also doing a separate week-long lesson with one of my afternoon classes on how to write directions in English, and then I'm going to film them giving the directions on how to play a Korean game to send to their pen pals. The kids are really excited about it, and my boss really likes the idea, too (which is always nice).

And I was sent a link the other day to a rather interesting article about escaping student loans by leaving the country. Though I haven't come here to escape my loans, but rather pay them off, I am concerned about the change in exchange rates since I got here. When I arrived in Korea 5 months ago, the exchange rate was just about even - 1,000 won = $1.00 (meaning I could easily send home $1000 each month and still have plenty to live on here). However now, it's around 1,000won = $.695.

This makes it harder for me to send money home, as I'm still making the same amount per month, but I have to send more won home in order to keep the same amount in my American bank account to make my monthly payments. Though I would never consider changing my address to an international address just to avoid making payments, it does worry me that others in my position have been faced with that decision. It's amazing the things you start paying attention to (exchange rates, foreign policy, current political climate) when they affect you directly, and that in my case it only happened when I left America.

Hahoe and Andong

Last weekend I got to travel by myself for the first time to Andong, a city in the east central part of Korea. It's famous for the Hahoe (pronounced Ha-hweh) folk village and mask dance. I had planned on leaving Friday night on the last bus there (11pm), but when I got to the bus depot, there were no more seats to Andong, so I got the first bus out the next morning at 6am (managing to do this, by the way, when the bus clerk didn't speak any English). I managed to find a hotel to stay in near the bus depot, and caught the bus on Saturday morning no problem. The trip was only 3 hours, so I got into downtown Andong rather early. I found a cheap hotel to stay in near the bus terminal first, and unloaded my overnight bag. Then I went back to the bus depot to get my ticket for the bus on Sunday, just to make sure I didn't have the same problem again.

I explored a little of downtown Andong and found a tourist information booth, which had the time schedule for the bus to the local tourist destinations, of which there were quite a few. The first place I went, and my main reason for going, was the Hahoe Folk Village ( 하회마을).

Hahoe (pronounced Ha-hweah) is an ancient village that has never been attacked because of it's unique location - it is surrounded by a river on three sides and mountains on the fourth. The buildings are a mix of thatched servants quarters




and upper class homes.


It's beautifully tranquil, and the mountains and homes together makes you feel like you've been transported back in time (if you ignore the odd satellite dish attached to the thatching). I wandered around the village for a few hours, looking at the different architectural styles of the houses, and going to the different national treasure sites (I believe this village houses about 19 of them). National treasures here are mostly buildings owned and lived in by historical Korean officials and heroes.

In my wanderings I came across a small playground, where kids were playing on what we would call a see-saw, except instead of sitting on it, they stand and try to get each other to jump higher, almost like a trampoline.



This village is particularly known for the Hahoe Mask Dance, which is an ancient traditional dance with a lot of cultural significance that has been lost in the touristization (is that a real word?) of it.




I missed the first part of the dance because I didn't know where it was being held, but I got to see most of the first three acts. I got a short video of it that I'll try to upload later (since this post is already a week later than I would have liked).

I headed back into town, intending to visit some of the other places in the area, but I was too tired. So I grabbed dinner at the Mr. Pizza, and wandered around the downtown area. I found a small park with some of the old-style pagodas that were lit up.


I went back the next morning to visit the cliff across the river from the village to get a better view of it,


and got to see a few of the people that lived there actually working on making the masks



as well as other ancient style crafts like calligraphy.


After leaving the village again, I came back to the hotel and got my bags, ready to head home. I decided to stop at a museum I had seen the night before, which was interesting in that it didn't have any physical artifacts, but had interactive videos, games, sounds, etc, all linked to the history and traditions of Andong. It was a very restful and enjoyable weekend, especially since I was alone and was able to do what I wanted, when and where I wanted to.

A close encounter of the animal kind

I saw a field mouse today on my way home. This is the first, true, dyed-in-the-wool field mouse I've ever seen. Of course I've seen my share of rodents, both wild and domesticated (I have a pet snake for goodness' sake). But this is the first wild field mouse I've ever seen, complete with the little arrow shaped tip of his little tail that I saw as he scurried in front of me into the gutters of the street. Best of all, he was running away from, you guessed it, a field.
I was just thinking the other day about the lack of distinctly 'Korean' animals that I've seen here. I remember being very impressed by the few wild iguanas and various other reptiles I'd seen while living in Boca, and wondering what my kids here would think or do if they ever ran across a wild iguana. Then I started thinking about the distinct lack of wild animals I've seen. There's the occasional stray cat, but I actually see the same ones over and over, usually because they live under the cars that are parked outside a restaurant on my way home. I have yet to see a stray dog here. I'm not sure if it's because Koreans don't really own that many dogs, or if it's because they eat any strays that happen to wander through (I'm only half joking). Either way, it was a pleasant and unexpected little surprise that I felt I should share.

One shot??

It's slightly disturbing when your kids are chanting for you to drink your water in "one shot, one shot, one shot!"
I wonder where they got it from...

It's the little things I love

It's fall here now, and I'm loving it. Growing up and living in Florida all my life I rarely got to see the different seasons, and when I did, it was brief glances, usually a week at a time during a vacation to our mountain home. Here I get to watch the leaves change bit by bit. I wish I'd brought my camera with me to work this morning - there's a line of trees that are beginning to change near the river that have orange, red, green, yellow, and even a burgundy color to them. It's a bit cold at night, but I have an underfloor heater, so my feet don't get cold when they touch the non-carpeted floor in the mornings. It was 15 degrees C this morning (59 F), so though I've taken my lighter jacket to work for the past week, I didn't need my gloves, scarf, or hat. Yet.

Yesterday was my first open class. The parents are invited to sit in the classroom during one of our lessons - of course its the foreign teachers they want to see and not the Korean teachers. Cherry class was first in the rotation, so I was the first to be 'observed'. The parents normally watch one of the morning classes, but one of my student's mother is a pharmacist, and couldn't leave work until the afternoon, so my last class of the day was observed. This of course just served to increase my nervous level throughout the day, and we spent the first two classes just reviewing the songs and vocabulary that we'd learned. Thankfully, my co-teacher had thought to tell the class that when mommy came to visit, they had to pretend that they couldn't see mommy. This worked very well, and at the beginning of class, I had everyone say "Hi, mommy" and wave, and then reminded them that they can't see mommy. Of course Lewis said "But Breanna Teacher, mommy can see me!" The rest of the class went well, the kids behaved very well for the most part (they are 4 years old, after all), since I actually did very little different from what I normally do. And though I had to ask Julie teacher what the parent's reactions were as she didn't offer the information, she said they were all very pleased. So now I just have one more class with Lemon to look forward to.

16th Street Art Exhibition in Hongdae

Mini Olympics and National Foundation Day

National Foundation Day was Friday, October 3rd. Whenever we have a Friday holiday, Thursday is usually a wash in the mornings, and this holiday was no exception. We had our Mini-Olympics that took the entire morning.

Gina and I started off with archery with our two classes, and then each class switched to another room to do another "sport". James and Sylvia were doing shooting, and Cherita and Ally did bowling.



After snack was the limbo (James had to show everyone how to do it since the kids had never heard of it before, and thought they could bend forward).


There was also running, which we had down the hall of the building since our school is too small,


standing long jump,


'swimming',





hula hoop,



eating chips,



and finally tug-of-war.