Pepero Day!

Well, today is Pepero Day, 11/11/11. You may be wondering, what is Pepero Day? Well, first thing, a Pepero is a long cookie that is dipped in chocolate. The South Korean company that makes them, Lotte, was inspired by the Japanese Pocky sticks in the 80's and so they made their own version of them.

Pepero Day is similar to Valentines Day. Pepero Day came about because the the Pepero sticks resemble 11/11, the date it is observed on. The day is usually celebrated by young people who exchange Pepero sticks with each other, very similar to Valentines Day.

Apparently the company, Lotte, denies to having started this "Hallmark holiday," but they had noticed an increase in sales on 11/11 and decided to encourage the holiday by making gift boxes and other Pepero gifts. Lotte apparently also does 55% of their Pepero sales in November.

Pepero gift from my co-teacher. I like the "Fake" part!

My Pepero gifts from my students and co-teachers. Thanks!

Seoul Lantern Festival

Yesterday, I went to the Seoul Lantern Festival. I went with a friend that I met during my stay in Korea. She also knows Korean so that is a big help sometimes too. All the lanterns were very beautiful. It is located on the famous Cheonggyecheon Stream in downtown Seoul. The theme for the lanterns is 'Old Story of Seoul.' So a lot of the lanterns that were displayed represented activities or folklore from the history of Korea. There were also lanterns that were made by international artists as well as local artist.

A funny thing happened when we were at the festival. We wanted to get in line so that we can walk down next to the stream, as opposed to looking at them from above on the sides. We started walking next to the line wanting to find the end, but it kept going on and on, with no sign of the end. We decided to ask one of the security guards how long it will take to get through the line and he told us 3 hours. We were flabbergasted. We didn't have time to stand in line for 3 hours, plus the night was starting to get chilly.

So we decided to just walk around on the side of the stream from above. We really wanted to go down to the stream but 3 hours was too long. As we were walking, we walked probably half way (by the way this stream is very long) and then we noticed a rope tied to the trees next to the wall to look over down on the stream. We were wondering why there was a rope and then we started noticing ducking under the rope and getting in line. We were unsure of what they were doing so we did it too. We then peeked as far as we can over the wall to see if there were a set of stairs ahead of them that people were going down and it turned out we had gotten in a line to go down by the stream. The line was empty as we were walking by it, but all of a sudden the line filled up very fast. It took us only about 5 min to stand in line and head down the stairs. We were lucky from having to only stand in line for 5 min compared to the 3 hours.

Once we got to the bottom, the crowd at the bottom were walking in the direction to the beginning of the stream, so we decided to use one of the small bridged that crossed over the river so we can could continue in the direction we had come from. These lanterns went on forever. We had no idea when it would end, but eventually it did, and we crossed back over the river and go back towards the beginning. It was all very fun. I was excited we got to view them a little more up close.

We got some nice police officers to take out photo!

They were all so beautiful

There are some more photos on my flickr account, so be sure to check them out!

Survived my First Open House

Today, I had my first open house as an English teacher. The parents of my students came to the school and watched one of my classes with the kids. The entire week, I was pretty nervous for it. I wanted to do a good job so that that parents know that: a) there kids were learning English from me and b) that they enjoyed me as a teacher as well. During the week, we had practice open house where just my boss would watch me and I had to do that twice. I did well both times but I have also taught in front of her before too.

Last night, my nerves weren't really effecting me at all. Even when I woke up this morning and got to school. It wasn't until the parents came out of the classroom, where we held the open house, after watching the kids Chinese class that I started feeling nervous.

I then also had to wear a microphone, so that the parents can hear me, and I was being filmed. That just made me more nervous. One of the parents started talking to me. She knew a little bit of English, that I started relaxing a little bit. I think she felt how nervous I was, too. She even asked if I was nervous.

When the class time started, I walked in front of my kids, the parents on my right and the camera in front of me kind of off to the side, and greeted them as I normally do. I then just ignored everyone around me except my students. I taught the class like I normally do and it went well.

After my class, both of my bosses told me that I did very well especially for it being my first open house. The parents obviously knew it was my first open house and they told me that I did a great job. I was very happy that it was all over with and it went well.

I've heard that sometimes during the open houses the kids get really nervous and either not talk as much or not talk at all. For me, I sensed only one of my kids being really nervous. He still talked a lot but he didn't talk as much as he normally did but my for my other students, I felt they stepped it up a notch. They wanted to impress their parents so they made sure they were being heard.

I felt so relieve that it was finally over. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I was worrying over nothing. I feel much more confident as a teacher as well.

Until next time, which will probably be on Sunday. There is a lantern festival in Seoul that I'm going to. I am excited.

NaNoWriMo

Hey everyone, I am taking a break from writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. You may ask, what is NaNoWriMo? Well it stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is a one month creative writing project in which you have to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days in any genre. Their slogan is quantity of quality. It could be the worst book ever but as long as you were able to write a story in 50,000 words or more, you are a winner. 

I have a couple friends who have participated in this event and I always wanted to but I never had the time with school and work. Now that I am here in Korea, I have time to to sit down and type. I posted the link at the bottom of the post to the website if you would like to learn more about the even. 

The basic concept of my book, is about a girl who travels to Korea to be an English teacher. It is slightly autobiographical in the characters history but I'm going to try and make her journey in Korea to be more exciting and more exaggerated.  

Anyway, I will keep you update on how I am doing with it. It is the end of Day 2 and I am on the right track.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Dang Forest of Doekgogae

Today, I went to one of the 8 famous scenic spots of Gunpo. You can find the rest of the list under my "About Sanbon" page. It was a very long walk to get there. I basically made a very large circle around Gunpo as well. I am not sure how long the entire walk was, but on my walk there was a trail sign that told me how far of a walk it is to get to Dang Forest. I indicate that on the map with the yellow circles.

Map of my Journey

It was a gorgeous walk. All the leaves ranged from red, orange, yellow and combinations of all three of those colors. The first part of the walk was all up one of the smaller peaks of Surisan Mountain and then once I got to the first yellow circle on the map, it started evening out and down. I didn't want to walk back the same way I came, I wanted to explore a little bit more, so I walked to one of the subway stations, the walk to the stations probably took me about the same amount of time that it took me to get to the forest. 

Dang Forest

The next time I head up Surisan, I am going to go to Surisa Temple. The temple is in the top left part of the map. 

More pictures can be found on my flickr.

Halloween in Hongdae

So I have had my first experience with the nightlife in Seoul and what better time to begin when the bars and clubs are celebrating Halloween. In one of my previous post, I mentioned that Hongdae is an entertainment and clubbing area of Seoul. My co-teachers and I, got all dressed up in our costumes, I was had a flapper-esque costume and my other co-teachers wore a toga and the other was Lana Kane from Archer. When we first go to Hongdae, we went to a cute little cafe for some coffee. Then we were off to a club called, "GOGOS." We payed ₩5000 to get into the club and then we also got a free drink. That's a pretty good deal. That was the only drink I had for the night too! When we first got there, it was fun. It was crowded but we were still able to dance pretty easily.

There were some interesting characters out, and I don't just mean by their costumes. I was also very surprised by the number of Caucasians partying it up. There was this one Caucasian guy who was dressed up like an Ahjumma. He was also pretty drunk. I was also surprised by the number of both Asian and Caucasian males who were dressed up as females. My father was this guy who was dressed as Snow White. There were also some awkward moments in the night. This guy who had a scream mask kept point at us and trying to dance with us and making some very awkward gestures. There was this Korean guy who was dressed up as a doctor and he kept using his stethoscope on everyone to check their heartbeat and what not.

As the night went on though, it started get very, very crowded. To the point where you couldn't really even dance anymore. And then there were so many people smoking in the club that it was kind of making me sick. There were also a lot of people that were already wasted. We decided to end the night around then, just because the night started out good but then things kept happening that was making the night less fun. For example, a white guy dressed up like a Korean school girl stepped on my foot. No fun!

I then had my first taxi ride home at night. The streets were pretty empty once we got on the highway, and our driver got as fast as 140 kph (86 mph) in a 100 kph (62 mph) speed zone. Korean drivers are very crazy. I would not want to drive here. Overall, it was an okay first time out. Hopefully next time we go out it won't be as busy as it was and we will have more fun. I mean we did go out when they were having Halloween parties.

Photo by Yeri

Jamboree!

It has been a very long day. Today was the Jamboree Day at school. Jamboree is basically a Halloween celebrations for all of the kiddies. What is pretty sweet about this day, is that not only were the kindergarten kids able to participate but also the kids in first through third grade. The day was very crazy. I got to work two hours earlier than normal (but luckily I was able to get off a half hour earlier), and then I got straight into my costume so that we can go and pick up the kids. I feel sorry for some of my co-teachers. With me working with both kindergarten and first through third, I work during the day but several of the other foreign teachers, the ones that work at night, had to also be there at 8:30 am. They also have to stay until the end of their shifts that range from 8 to 10pm.

We did a bunch of random games throughout the day. We did a ball toss game, a fishing game for prizes, and ball shooter game, and other random games, I don't really know how to describe them. We had gimbibap, which if you remember from my previous post, I love it! We also had a costume contest for the kids. There were a lot of kids that dressed up as the generic princess or super hero, so the other teachers and I made sure to choose the unique ones, especially the ones who made their own costumes. 

With my last class of the day, they were not able to participate in a large Jamboree Day event, and so we had a  fun day in the classroom. WE did some "pin the face on the pumpkin", and a ball toss game. The kids still had a great time, and that might of just been because we didn't have actual class time. Tomorrow I will be doing this similar thing with two of my classes that meet MWF rather than TR. I'm okay with that because it's Friday and the last part of my day will be much more relaxing. 

Now, I want to share with you some of the unique costumes these kids came up with. First, my costume. I found this really cute idea on this website called Pinterest. If you have never been on it, you should check it out. Anyways, I was a hot air balloon for my costume. I thought it would be super unique and the kids would enjoy it. 

Me as a hot air balloon!

The kid who won the costume contest for the kindergarten classes was dressed up as a squid-like creature. There was also a kid who dressed up as a praying mantis. There was a mini mouse, several spiderman's, a batman and superman. Lots of princesses, fairies, and wizards. They were all super cute. 

Edwin as a squid. Too cute

Plateo as a praying mantis

 I also want to post pictures of my classes all dressed up.

All of Kindergarten

Jefferson

Adams

Michigan

Montana

Ohio

I'll be posting the other two classes tomorrow night, so come back for those!