This is Halloween, this is Halloween

I feel like I had two Halloweens this year - one with my kids, and one with my friends.

At school on Friday, we had activities planned for the afternoon, and the morning was standard lessons. As I only get two breaks per day, and on Friday they're the last two periods, I wasn't happy about the scheduling (which meant I was to teach all day with no break), but I figured for one day I could grin and bear it.

I enjoy decorating my classroom, and I may have gone a little overboard with the Halloween decorations. I had the Korean teachers from other rooms asking me to stop, because they felt they had to decorate as much as I was and they wanted to go home. I did end up slowing down a bit, but I still carved the best pumpkin in the school. :)



All of my kids dressed up, and though I had two Optimus Primes, I was still highly impressed with how they all turned out.

I wasn't the only teacher that dressed up, either. Some of the Korean teachers did small things (like my co-teacher wore an orange Casper shirt that my mom sent me), but for the most part the foreign teachers went all out. My personal favorite was the ajuma in the front center.


In the afternoon, the kids rotated to other 7-year-old classes to do different activities, similar to what we did for International Costume Day. My activities were making popcorn monster hands and marshmallow ghosts. Now, this would be a simple thing to do in America. But wondering why you can't find candy corn or jumbo white marshmallows in Korea in the fall is like wondering why you can't find Pepero in America in November.



Thankfully I have a forward-thinking mother who shipped me a bag of candy corn that arrived before the 30th, so the monster hands were saved (though I did have to tell the materials person that no, three individual bags of popcorn would not be enough for 35 kids to fill a plastic glove and could I please have some more before 1pm? Thanks so much...). I was not so lucky when it came to the marshmallows, however. I was given my materials on Thursday (after submitting my list two weeks earlier with specific instructions on EXACTLY what I needed, and how many per child I would need, and the number of children that would be participating). So instead of using these for ghostie heads:

(which btw makes for minutes of fun ages 8-80), my kids were stuck with rather strange ghostie faces made from this:


But, we made do with what we had, and the kids - after convincing them that the food dye was, in fact, food dye and not poisonous coloring that would make them sick and die- made some rather interesting ghosts. And then promptly ate them, since they don't travel well.


Clean, rinse, repeat. I then proceeded to do the same two activities with the other two seven-year-old classes, until the day was over. I have no qualms about making kids clean up after themselves (Rule number three out of three in Sapphire Class?: "Leave things better than the way you found them."), so before moving on to the next activity, kids had to make sure that all remnants of the previous activity had been spirited away into the garbage.

I then got about half an hour after the kids left to chill out from the day before our weekly meeting at 4pm. This was the first meeting where our new Vice Principal ran the meeting (the old one wasn't that great at the job, didn't know how to work with foreigners, and only lasted about 2 months). It was blessedly short, sweet, informative, and to-the-point. After which we got the go-ahead to go home early! So after removing all vestiges of the holiday from my room (I wasn't going to do it Monday morning), I headed home to change.

A friend of mine had a birthday party in Itaewon at a lovely Moroccan restaurant. The company and the food was good, but at $20 a plate for buffet (of which I only partook in two small plates), it was a bit pricey. Afterwards, I went out dancing with some friends, and then headed back home to get some sleep to prepare for Saturday.

Once I had ordered my zombie contacts, and knew I would get them in time for Halloween, I told James what I was going to dress up as. He's not the most competent when it comes to what he calls fancy dress (we Americans call it dressing up or costumes), so he asked me if I would make him a zombie as well and of course I agreed. About three days before Halloween, he told me that his girlfriend and her friend's plans had fallen through for ABBA themed costumes, and would I mind terribly doing their makeup as well? I thought it would be fun, though I had JUST managed to find enough makeup for myself and James. I told him that if they bought more makeup, I'd be happy to help. So on Saturday I woke up, ripped up some already dubious clothes of mine, and proceeded to apply my own zombie makeup. This was partly to reduce the time it would take to do everyone else's makeup, and partly to practice in private, since I hadn't done it in two years.


I then headed to Itaewon, to infect three other people. It was raining, so my umbrella effectively hid my costume and makeup on my walk to the subway. I was enjoying startling the random person by lifting the umbrella from time to time. Once inside the subway, I got the random sideways glance, or semi-aborted scream from passers-by, but for the most part people didn't pay me any mind. I did get some opened-eyes and smiles from people as I was waiting for the train to open its' doors and looking through the window at the people waiting to get out. I stepped onto the train, and stood behind someone who was holding on to the handle hanging from the ceiling and facing away from me, towards the windows and the row of seats. My transfer was about 5 stops away, and nothing of note happened until about the fourth stop. The girl in front of me, who apparently had been blissfully unaware of my presence happened to turn around. She promptly screamed, let go of the handle, and ran off into the crowded subway car to get away from me. I spent the next two stops trying desperately not to laugh, smile, or look around.

I made it to the apartment without much more ado, where James, Juliet, Rob (Juliet's best friend and roommate), and Nonkuli (another friend of Juliet's) were already there. We waited until Claire arrived, and then I started doing makeup for Juliet, James, and Claire.



After about the third layer of makeup, Nonkuli and Rob decided that it looked like too much fun, so I made three zombies, and then two more. The result was an awesome family of zombies.


Nonkuli, Juliet and I all headed down the street to catch a cab, and Juliet was enjoying herself by scaring passing ajumas and random strangers. One of them, a Korean, stopped and asked if she could take our picture. She then called her friends over and had our picture taken with them. We started talking to them, and they asked who did our makeup, at which point Juliet said that I had done it. The Koreans were all impressed, which wouldn't have been as cool if we hadn't found out that they do professional body painting, and were heading to a body art convention in Austria. I got the card of the girl who took the picture and e-mailed her later in the week. I'm still waiting for the pictures (apparently they're too big to email), but I'm looking forward to seeing them, and to possibly working with them in the future!

The rest of the night was spent wandering around Seoul with friends and scaring people. We gained semi-celebrity status in Haebangcheon, when we actually got a round of applause when we walked in the door of a bar.


I left partway through the night to go to a gothic party with Nonkuli, where I lost my wallet and never got it back. Made for a rather annoying, and cashless, rest of the evening, but I managed. I've been slowly working at getting all my cards back, though the 6 coffee cards I had from different cafes with stamps and points on them are rather irreplaceable....

September Survival

September's been a rather busy month for me, both in school and out of it.

At the beginning of the month I took a level test to see if I could join the free Korean classes offered by city hall. It was a difficult test (it was all written in Korean), and I was impressed that I was able to get any right at all, let alone the 6/30 score that I received. But because I missed some of the earlier questions (they got progressively more difficult as you went), my level was determined to be beginner. Which would have been fine, except that the beginner classes are only offered on Wednesday from 4pm-6pm (I get off work at 5:30 and the classes are a half hour subway ride from my school). So I asked if I could go into the level 1 class, which is offered from 7pm-9pm once a week. They said it would probably be too difficult for me, but put me in for the October class anyway. I've since decided that I (probably) won't go, as I really do need to start from the beginning. It is, after all, a very good place to start. I asked about the discounted language classes offered by my company, but you have to have been working with them for three months before you qualify. So I think I'm just going to wait it out and start classes in early November.

So on September 5th, the Seoul Drum Festival began. I wanted to see part of it, so I checked out the directions on the website, which were slightly confusing. I started by trying to find it at Children's Grand Park, but after wandering around for almost 2 hours, I got a little frustrated. I did get to see a rather large and diverse park that I'd never been to.

At the entrance to the park.

A large fountain of the type that's rather ubiquitous here. It lights up and plays music at night.

It says "Mushroom Village"

The rather depressing zoo located inside the park.

I'm guessing this was part of a "traditional Korean stories" section...

I called James, who checked the website and figured out that it was actually in Seoul Forest, which was several subway stops away. So I hopped back on the subway and headed to Seoul Forest, which is located in the middle of one of the smoggiest and most industrial areas I've been to in Seoul. Someone has since described Seoul Forest as more of a "twig-land" than a forest, as it's only a few years old.

I've been trying to get a picture of the completely dyed dogs, but the ability escapes me. Apparently you can't tell these two apart, so pink and green tails were in order.

I found the 'forest' to be more of a large park, and not even as large and tree covered as Children's Grand Park.

Part of the playground - kids could climb in and around a giant metal person.

After looking around for about 15 minutes, I decided to try the info booth. Through my broken Korean, I deduced that the festival was indeed in Seoul Forest, but I had missed the performance for the day, and the next one wasn't until the following weekend. So I headed to James' place, since we were meeting up with some friends of his for dinner and drinks.

We went pretty far north on the subway to get some Moroccan food, and then headed to a place called Ka Brew which had just opened. It was 5,000won for all you can drink beer at the pub, which had its own microbrewery.

The price was amazing, but the beer was only average (though certainly better than the bottled Korean beer).

The next weekend one of my closer friends Stephanie had her leaving party. She left to go on a short Euro trip before heading back home to DC, after which she's thinking about moving to Prague to study.

So James and I headed back to Uijeongbu, where we had dinner at an Indian restaurant, tried to go bowling but couldn't because the place was shut down, went to a bar that filled up immediately with all 27 of us, left and went to another bar, around 1am headed for a noraebang for three hours, and then headed to Stephanie's place to crash.

Me, Joey and Lauren at the Indian restaurant called Durga.

The biggest leaving party I've been to - 27 people showed up to say goodbye to Steph.

Steph and James getting up to some crazy stuff in the noraebang

I wasn't immune to the noraebang fever, either. It was 4am though...

So after crashing at Stephanie's, James and I headed back into Seoul because we had a picnic planned with Kathryn at 2pm at Children's Grand Park to celebrate her 30th birthday. Surprisingly, we were able to make it back into Seoul, get showered, changed, pick up food for the picnic, and make it out to the park on time with bright smiling faces.

Melissa, James, me, Fan, and Gary

Our amazing picnic, which lasted for about 9 hours!

Me, Fan, and Gary

There was a wild rabbit who kept hopping about and got rather close. The Koreans seemed to enjoy clapping and shouting at it to try and scare it.

We continued the picnic at Kathryn and Gary's house once it got dark at the park.

After a late night version of the picnic, we headed out to Itaewon for drinking and dancing. I had my first experience with the two hills in Itaewon - Hooker Hill and Homo Hill, both completely apropos names. The two hills are right next to each other, and while looking for the later to go dancing, we went down the former. I'm not naive, but I've never seen a place like this before. I won't go into details, of which there aren't many anyways, but suffice it to say that hill left a definite impression on me. We made it to the dancing street, where we (being James, Gary, Kathryn, Michelle and myself) danced for several hours before I decided to call it a night and head home around 3 or 4 am.


Stephanie had shown up to Kathryn's picnic for a few hours and left her sunglasses there, and I had left a necklace at her house over the weekend, so we decided to meet up for dinner. She wanted to go to Insadong one last time, as there's a vegetarian restaurant there she really enjoyed. Insadong is only about 15 minutes by subway from my house, so I headed there early to do a little bit of sightseeing and shopping (it's a big tourist area).

The face of a sculpture on Insadong street

Our vegetarian meal - yummy!

The railroad tea shop on Insadong street that I wanted to take my parents to. Everything has been taken from old railroad cars.

Steph had been wanting to go to a batting cage for a year. So when we heard the sound of metal bats ringing out, we just had to stop.

On Friday the 18th, my kids had a photo shoot for their yearbook. And yes, it was a photo shoot. We went to Dosan Park, and were there for about 2.5 hours, taking class, individual, and candid shots.

Sapphire class - me, Miss Alison and the kids. I was told my picture would be from the waist up, so since it was Friday I wore jeans. Oh well.

Playing the "cooperation game" so the photographer could get small group shots

The boys examining, and then later killing, the bugs on the ground.

The girls played telephony - an apparent favorite of the photographer.

This could have been a good shot. I think Anika made it a great one.

The next day, I met up with Kathryn, Gary and James for a French photography exhibit, and then an open-air jazz concert at the Seoul Arts Center.

An add for the photography exhibit.

Me, Kathryn and Gary at the Jazz concert

Gary and James

The jazz quartet, and the scenery behind them.

After the Jazz festival, the four of us headed to Habangcheon to a friend of James' house named Jess. Jess had recently moved to a new apartment and gotten her Masters, so she was celebrating by throwing a house party. The four of us waited for almost an hour for two girls I had met online who live in Apgujeong and had just arrived in Korea less than three weeks ago. The six of us went to Jess' house, where we stayed until around 3am, at which time things were beginning to slow down and I decided it was time to call it a night. I went to Uijeongbu the next morning for a doctor's check up, and met up with a former Korean co-worker of mine from EWAS for coffee, and then had dinner with another co-worker before heading back home to Seoul.

I'm also a member of the national council for ATEK. We've recently elected our first president, and we held our first meeting on Skype on Wednesday. It's a fledgling organization, and as hogwan representative for the country, I'm finding it a bit hard to know my role and what I can do to help. I'm doing what I can, though, and I hope over the next year the roles become a bit more defined and I'm able to help a little bit more.

This weekend I plan on going to the Seoul Mass Freeze, and then I'm throwing a housewarming party on Saturday on my rooftop. We'll see how that goes - I'm historically rather bad at throwing parties, but this will be byob so I don't go broke. The rooftop should keep the neighbors from getting annoyed, and I live close to a downtown area, so if people get bored we can always migrate.

And next Monday is International Costume day at school (I'm doing Ireland!), Thursday is a half day, and we have Friday off for Chuseok - the Korean Thanksgiving. I'll probably be going to the islands near Incheon for Chuseok with Gary, Kathryn, James, and Kobus (a friend of James').

Busy, busy!

A few random updates

The past few weeks have been rather busy at work getting ready for the kid's graduation presentation next Tuesday. Three of our classes are graduating (Apple, Orange, and Lemon), and moving on to elementary school. Some of these kids, though not as many as my boss had hoped, will be coming to EWAS in the afternoons now for 3-5 days a week. As much as I enjoy singing and dancing with my kids, the pressure put on both the teachers and the students in the past month has been rather unpleasant. The teachers are expected to determine which songs and stories the kids should memorize, and then choreograph the dances and practice with the students, while concurrently attempting to continue teaching the books the students have yet to complete. While I don't mind deciding which chapter from the book to memorize, or even assigning parts, I am not, nor have I ever been, a choreographer. Granted, I took ballet for quite a few years as a child, but extemporaneous dancing in my living room twenty years ago in a leotard while doing the laundry does not compare to full body movements and blocking for a group of eight 5-year olds and a group of nine 7-year olds, most of whom are still working on hand-eye coordination. You'd be surprised how hard it is to think of movements for a song like "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Thankfully my partner teacher did the motions for that one.

So we have just two more days with the older kids before they leave. This means that Wednesday through Friday of next week will be easier, as I'll have half as many classes in the morning. We're supposed to spend this time cleaning out the classrooms to get ready for the next year. The nice thing about starting a new year is that the schedules change. I'll be teaching Orange in March instead of Lemon, though I'm not sure which other class I'll have, since there won't be a Cherry next year (not enough baby kids signed up). I'll also be losing one class in the afternoons, so I'll only have one on Tuesday and Thursday (instead of two), and 4 MWF (instead of 5). It'll be really nice not to have to teach straight from 2:30-6:15 with no break anymore.

- - - - - - -

This past weekend I visited with Dayna and her boyfriend, since she moved into Seoul and I haven't seen much of her lately. I went to Itaewon first to pick up a book I had ordered (Coraline - definitely looking forward to seeing the movie now) and to show my friend Chris where the store was. Chris and I then met Dayna and Hong in Itaewon for lunch at a Thai restaurant. During lunch Hong suggested that we go see a movie - specifically a Korean documentary with English subtitles about an 80-year old man and his ox. So we did. It was... interesting... though a bit repetitive. Afterwards Chris went to meet up with some of his friends in Gangnam for drinks, and I went with Dayna and Hong to do a bit of exploring around Meyongdong. We went to the large Catholic cathedral, which is beautiful at night, at which point I realized that I hadn't brought my camera with me.

After the cathedral we wandered around Meyongdong (which is in Seoul) looking for things to do. We ran across a street fortune teller, and Hong suggested I get my fortune read since he could translate what the person was saying for me. After asking me for my birthday, and examining my face and hands, he proceeded to tell me a lot of things I knew and a few things I didn't. He said I listen to, and believe, most of what I hear, which makes me susceptible to betrayal. Though I'm not nearly as gullible as I used to be, I still fall for things a bit more often than I would like. He also said that I shouldn't wear yellow or white, as it messes with my chi (or the Korean version of the chi). He said I should wear dark colors, like brown and deep purple. I like purple. At least, I've started liking it in the past 8 months. He also said that something changed me when I was about 20 years old, and I'm a different person now than I used to be. Now I'm a leader, and I used to be a follower. I can sort of see this (I started a group on Facebook for the ex-pats that live in Uijeongbu to make sure everyone knew where we were meeting each week for our dinners. Because of this, I've become the unofficial "leader" of the group, and certain non-vital decisions have begun to fall to me), though I still consider myself more of a follower. He also said that I shouldn't wear metal, as this messes with my chi, and checked my watch to see if there was metal on it (it passed inspection - I go for those cheap $7 Walmart plastic ones). He said I should take out my metal earrings as well. I thought about it, and later that night removed four of the five metal earrings I had in. My parents were highly pleased with this, and are probably wondering why they didn't send me to a fortune teller years ago and pay him to tell me that tattoos and piercings would mess with my chi and to stay far away from them. Nothing else was that noteworthy, other than the fact that when I'm 30, I won't envy anyone, and when I'm 50, even though I'll have plenty of money, I shouldn't lend it to anyone else. Oh yeah, and he said if I was approached by the media for a job I should take it because I'm creative and my personality would suit an on-camera personality.

- - - - - - -

The forecast for today was a small chance of snow, and this afternoon we saw a few flakes before we left work. By the time I'd left my private lesson at 8:30, there was a thin covering of snow in some places, and in others it was melting. Snow still hasn't lost it's appeal to me - I still think it makes everything better. Kind of like a giant band-aid, or a hug from your mom. It also made me wonder about the chemistry of the streets and roads. Some parts of the sidewalk had a decent covering of snow, and some parts were completely melted. During the day n and the shade is.s sense because of where the sun and the shade is. But this was well after dark, and I couldn't see anything that would indicate a difference in the materials that would cause parts to melt and others not too. I suppose that's one of the many mysteries of Korea that I'll never know...

- - - - - - -

I'm coming up on the end of my 9th month here in Korea. It really doesn't seem like I've been here that long, but I'm scheduled to come back home in just three short months. After all this mess with the graduations are over, I'm going to ask if I can stay an extra month and come home at the beginning of July instead of the beginning of June. Not that I wouldn't love to spend two whole months living in my parent's spare bedroom, but I'll still have bills to pay, and I won't be able to come back to Korea until August 1st. I'm just now starting to get a bit homesick. Not a lot, and mostly it's just because I haven't been able to see any of my family or friends back home. Skype has helped a bit, but I never realized how often I would travel home to see my parents or family. I've made some amazing life-long friends here, but nothing will ever replace the family I have back home. I'm one of the lucky few people I've ever known to have grown up in a loving, stable, healthy environment with parents who were able to prioritize and allow me to grow into my own person without letting me have the run-of-the-house. It wasn't idyllic, but I couldn't ask for anything better for my own future family.

I'm really looking forward to our family reunion cruise for a few reasons. One is it will make it a lot easier on me to see as many of my family members as possible before I come back to Korea. I'll have many of my relatives, some from out-of-state whom I rarely get to see as it is, all in one place. This way I won't have to try to travel to see any of them - we'll all be on the same boat (literally). I've also never been on a cruise before, and I've never been to the Bahamas. My passport expires in 2010, and I'll have to get a new one before I come back to Korea, so I'd like to get at least one more stamp in there before I retire it.