Photo A Day: May 15-21

May 15 - Today is teacher's day in Korea. Some of my students gave me little gifts. I love all my students. They're so cute. 

May 16 - A late teacher's day card. It's a picture of me and the student that drew it. So cute ^_^ 

May 17 - Wore my new rain boots to work. When I was walking to work there was a thunder storm and then an hour later, it was all sunny an bright. The storm left as fast as it came. 

May 18 - Sandy chillin' like a villain. 

May 19 - Had some Chinese food for the first time in a very long time. It was very good. I'm glad we found this place in our neighborhood. 

May 20 - Went to Seoul Zoo today... it was an absolutely gorgeous day out and in the 80's. I love seeing animals! 

May 21 - Two of my students were super excited to show me their new magazine filled with pictures of K-Pop boy bands. On the cover is a bang called Beast.

Teacher's Day!

This last week, it was Teacher's Day. Just like there was a Children's Day a couple weeks ago, there was a Parent's Day and a Teacher's Day. On Teacher's Day, some of my students brought me cute little gifts. They were so cute when they gave them to me. They were very shy, and became happy when I thanked them. I love all of my kids. They make me so happy!

One of my students had even opened up her piggy bank to buy me and another teacher, that shares the class with me, a present. She had only ₩5,000 and she spent ₩3,000 of that on our present. She made us a cute little card and bought instant coffee. She is so sweet.

Photo A Day: May 8-14

May 8 - I went to this local restaurant for this first time today with Alison Kathleen LaFave and Jihyeon Lee. The Korean translation for it is "Around the Corner" but we like to call it Ahjumma's Kitchen because the entire restaurant is one room with the kitchen to the side. It is different everything you go. There is no menu, she just serves you what she made for the day and its only W5,000 each. It's a traditional Korean meal for a low price. Jessica, be prepared for me to take you here. 

May 9 - We had a teacher's lunch today with all of the native and Korean teachers. We went to a buffet called VIPS. It's not pronounced V I P S but vips, weird. The buffet had mainly western style food. 

May 10 - Drinking an iced caramel macchiato in my new tumbler. 

May 11 - This is exactly how I felt today. I have been getting sick and the weather wasn't helping. 

May 12 - I was feeling a bit better and needed to get out for a bit, so I went to see the Dark Shadows movie. 

May 13 - I dyed my hair. I trusted the Korean hair dye, but only because there was a white person on the box. It turned out well. 

May 14 - Made some Rainbow in the Clouds cupcakes for my co-teachers. Tomorrow is teachers day, so I wanted to make something nice. I wasn't able to find rainbow colored candy, so this was going to have to do. Also it kept drooping, grr. It was also the first time I made cupcakes from scratch; I made the batter and the frosting.

Photo A Day: May 1-7

May 1 - A typical dinner for me. It is very filling. A tuna rice ball and a blueberry yogurt smoothie. 

May 2 - What a beautiful day it was today...and HOT! 

May 3 - I decorated my classroom for our Children's Day Party tomorrow! 

May 4 - All dressed up for Children's Day. I am Super K! 

May 5 - Happy Cinco de Mayo. Celebrating with some margaritas in Korea. 

May 6 - Went to the National Museum of Seoul today with Jihyeon Lee. We were only able to see about a 1/4 of the museum. It is the 6th largest museum in the world, so there is a ton of stuff to see. We mainly looked from the prehistory period to the beginning of the medieval period. 

May 7 - I made some beignets for my co-workers today. They were a hit and they were delicious.

National Museum of Korea

I went to the National Museum of Korea for the first time, and most likely will not be my last time. The museum is free so that is awesome. I love free activities. A few fun facts, which are on the pamphlet/map: it was founded on December 3, 1954; it was renamed the National Museum of Korea on July 19, 1972; it was constructed in Yongsan on October 28, 2005; the size of the main building is 404x186x43.08 meters; the total collection has 300,000 pieces with 15,000 of them on display; there are 67 national treasures, 131 general treasures, and 4 folklore assets. The museum is the sixth largest museum in the world, in terms of floor space. And with this amount of space, we were only able to see about 1/4 of the museum. We definitely will have to go there again to see the rest of the museum.

We started at the beginning, the Paleolithic period and went to the Medieval period. We ended just before the Joseon Dynasty, which is the most well known in Korean history. So next time, we will start there. The museum was gorgeous. Just before you walk into the museum, there is the Reflecting Pond that has a Pavilion. There is also an awesome view of N Seoul Tower and Seoul from the building.

The Reflecting Pond and Pavilion with the Museum in the back 

Seoul with N Seoul Tower

We saw a lot of stuff but there were two things I liked the best. There was the Gold Crown which is National Treasure of Korea No. 191. It had an entire room to itself. When we first walked into the room, we were both amazed. It was made in the fifth century during the Silla Kingdon.

Gold Crown

Another thing was the ten-story pagoda in the hall of the museum. It is the National Treasure of Korea No. 86. It's official name is the "Gyeongcheonsa Ten-Story Pagoda." It was originally built at a monastery in Gyeongcheonsa in 1348. In 1907 it was illegally smuggled into Japan by Japanese officials but was returned in 1918. 

Ten-Story Pagoda

We also went out to look at the outdoor exhibit. There were more pagodas, but there was also a really pretty pond that has a small waterfall named the Dragon Falls. It was pretty small but the area was beautiful. 

Dragon Falls

It was a good day. Here are a couple more pictures of Sandy and I. And there will be more on my Flickr account.

Yay!

Sandy looking at some duck vessels

The Fountain!

Back in college, I would always get super excited when they turned on the fountain in the Spring. It signaled that the warmer weather was coming. It is the same here in Korea. Even though, the winter was very sunny, it was still freezing cold, but now the weather is getting very warm, very fast they also have to turn their fountain back on. In the middle of the Sanbon shopping area, there is a fountain where people can walk through and the little kids can play in to get cooled off. This last week, they finally turned it back on. I was super excited. I am happy that the warm weather is finally here, after the coldest and driest winter I have ever experienced.

The little tykes playing in the fountain

Children's Day!

Today, at school, we had a Children's Day Party. Children's Day is tomorrow on May 5th, on Saturday but we celebrated it today. It is a National holiday here in Korea, but since the day fell on a Saturday, we didn't have it off. In Hangul, Children's Day is 어린이날. Parents often give presents to their children, as well as spend time with them. The children are taken to the zoo, museums, and other children places. Korea first started celebratin Children's Day after after Korea became independent from Japan in 1945. They wanted to respect children. Then in 1961, a children's welfare law was written into the constitution which was officially registered on May 5th.

I decorated my classroom all crazy. It kind of reminds me of a circus. They also wanted us to dress up crazy for the day. I wore hot pink tights, with neon yellow shorts, my power ranger shirt, and a mask. I was telling the kids that I was Super K. I think that it was a pretty crazy shirt.

My classroom

Super K! 

For the day, we played a lot of random games with the kindergarten and elementary kids. The middle schoolers didn't get to have fun, because they're not children anymore. It was pretty fun day. Although, it was long and exhausting. Play days are usually  like that. It takes the energy out of me. The kids are uber crazy, but I still love them!

Monica got her face painted

Kindergarten class!