Cherry Blossom jeans, boots with the furrrr... (Part 1)

As I mentioned in a recent post, Saturday I had the opportunity to visit the cherry blossom festival in Yeouido with Randy and some of the girls from school. Needless to say we had a fabulous time!

Our outing started out a little on the disappointing side as we got off the subway to find ourselves in a rather large park, with perhaps a dozen cherry blossom trees, and about a million people.

Was this what we had heard all this hype about?

We tried to make the best of our situation. It was after all a beautiful day and the park really was wonderful even if the cherry blossoms were a little underwhelming. I set to work taking pictures anyway so I would have something to show for myself after promising pictures in my last post. We got a few really nice group shots of all the girls, (It seems that Randy was always the one holding the camera in these situations -- hmmm... ) and I snuck some pictures of tiny Korean children being cute in the part, as I am sometimes apt to do. I realise now, years later, that my trip to Belgium was poorly documented when it comes to pictures... I'm not going to have that problem with Korea! Ha!

And to be fair, there were a few cherry blossoms in the park, as well as a flower here and there, although most of the other flowers weren't in full bloom yet.

We also got to see some things that I thought brought a distinctly Asian flavour to the excursion. These two pictures are among my favourites. This man was just chillin' on the side of the road outside the subway, eating an ear of corn. I'm not sure if he really wanted his picture taken, but now he's famous! He just looks so quaint.

There was also a gaggle of Korean girls that wanted their picture taken with Randy's beard. I was just walking along near the front of the group minding my own business in front of the group when out of no where he was kidnapped by the paparazzi! Good thing I'm so fierce looking and could save him from the Korean hoards. We get a lot of attention when we're out walking. Korean men seem to feel the need to talk to us for some reason. I believe its 1/2 because I'm a white woman, which seems to be quite attractive to the average middle aged Korean man, and 1/2 because they are jealous of the fact that even if they never shaved again, their facial hair would never be as magnificent as Randy's!

I though this little boy picking at flowers was just too precious. He reminds me of those crying dolls that my mom used to like so much when we went to the flee market at the mall on Sundays. His mom was crouched down behind him taking his picture too, so I just snuck in behind her and took a quite shot. I guess she though that he was pretty cute too.

The stone man in the chair is one of the most famous people in Korean history. His name is King Sejong and he invented the Korean alphabet. (You can read more about him here.) He's a really big deal in Korea, and I've learned about him in two separate courses that I teach at SLP. Its so great to also be learning new things while I'm teaching! :)

There was a huge Korean flag flying in the distance, which in this picture does not look as big unfortunately. I guess I still have some work to do on the picture taking front. Not a photographer yet! To console myself for my lack of picture taking ability I took a silly picture of the girls on a bench. The peace sign by the eyes means, CUTIE! :)

One of the next things on my list of things to do before Randy leaves Korea is to rent a bicycle built for two and look as cute as these couples did riding around in the park. If you look closely you'll notice that the girl in the second picture was actually posing for the picture as I was taking it. Cutie!

Naturally where there are millions of people looking at cherry blossoms snacks will be in abundance. There were some 'regular' snacks like cotton candy and ice cream, but also some less regular snacks like this man selling silk worm pupa and some snail looking creatures.

There had been a lot to see, even though we were disappointed with the lack of cherry blossoms at this supposed cherry blossom festival. We were starting to feel a little discouraged, until we saw....

To be continued...

Korean Children <3

Just like real people, some Korean children don't like to have their pictures taken.

Others? They don't mind quite so much...

Now that I've been getting to know my new classes a little better, I am really enjoying interacting with all the different personalities I teach. Most of my classes and children are a lot of fun. Others can be very serious and studious.

Some of the kids can be pretty goofy from time to time... :)

... but I have a lot of fun teaching all of them.

I've been bringing my camera to school for the past few days so I could get some picture of my kids to show all of you out there in blogland. They really are an amazing bunch of awesomeness!

Off to the cherry blossom festival now! More pictures to come!

Summer (oops! Spring!) in Seoul

The weather today in Seoul was absolutely fabulous, and I would be happy if it didn't get any warmer here... ever! I walked to school in a t-shirt and wished that I had worn shorts. (I didn't even bring shorts with me, what was I thinking?) The best (worst) part of all of this is that it's only the beginning of April, and that means that I am going to be truly uncomfortable during the months of May, June, July, August and September. Newfoundland barely has 5 weeks of semi-summer. What was I thinking of coming to a place where real summer lasts full-blown for 5 months?!? Yikes! Hopefully my body will adapt quickly. On the plus side though summer at the beginning of April means that we have some beautiful flowers blossoming right now.

Virtually over the past few days, trees have gone from barren to green in some cases, and to just filled to the brim with blooms in others. It really is absolutely breath taking. Especially for a city where the air quality is so poor! I was amazed to find today on my way to school that in spite of the general poor air quality and omnipresent large-city-odour that the fragrance of flowers hung heavy in the air, quite literally. Like it was warning me of just how hot and sticky this summer is going to be :) There is a chance I may melt before I make it home. Aagghhh! I did take some pretty fabulous pictures though which I will post tomorrow when I get home from school.

There are plans in the works to take in a cherry blossom festival this weekend on an island in Seoul called Yeouido that I'm pretty pumped about. The city has really been coming to life over the past few days and even my walk to school has some breathtaking moments. Suffice to say, there will be many pictures. There must be millions of flowers in bloom in Seoul right now if you include all the cherry blossoms, the tulips, azaleas, forsythia, pansies... you name it, it seems to be beautiful in Seoul right now. (Including me of course! But as you know... I'm always beautiful. :P )

On a completely unrelated note, I've been doing a fair bit of research over the past few days to see if I can't make my classes a little more interesting for the kids, and I was wondering if any of you out there happened to have any ideas, especially those that don't involve game that are only for the sake of entertainment. I like to play games with my kids, but I run less of a risk of getting in trouble with the higher-ups if they are actually clever learning activities disguised as games, which is what I'm really hankering for. Also, suggestions on how to help the kids really feel accountable for the work that they do, so that their sense of pride over a job well done kicks in. I've found a few ideas of my own, and online, but any and all help is always appreciated!

I want nobody, nobody but you!

I heard this song (Nobody - WonderGirls) for the first time in a while yesterday and decided that I had to share it with you because it heard it nearly every 10 mins when I arrived here first, and had *gasp* almost forgotten about it!

Traditional Korean music has all but gone by the way side here in Seoul, especially among young people who list it as among their least favourite music. However, K-pop is a thriving industry and is phenomenally popular. With the most popular K-pop music at least is seems that success is guaranteed by about a dozen English words, usually having something to do with relationships or teenage angst and the rest of the song in Korean. I was told when I got here that this particular song was such a sensation that it was also becoming popular in the west, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced.

At any rate, here it is for your listening and viewing pleasure! It's set to be released on May 5, 2009 as the groups debut single in North America. I cut off the beginning of the video because its a little dull to watch, but the story is that in the video the song was originally intended for someone else but he got stuck in the bathroom before the show started and our heroines (the WonderGirls)had to take over and save the day because no one knew where he was!




Over the past few months Nobody has slowly faded and I think this one is one of the most popular right now. I borrowed the idea for this post from one of the other teachers in my school, and he says that his kids don't really like this group. They are called Girls Generation and apparantly especially the older girls in his classes like to call the group something in Korean which roughly translates to 'plastic surgery generation.' This one doesn't have any English translations, but its another pretty good example of what most radio stations are playing around here.

HomePlus! HomePlus!

I have this song stuck in my head today, because I need to get some groceries. I hear it multiple times every time I go into the store that's next to my house : HomePlus. (No, I haven't seen any polygamists Catherine.)

Hopefully it will get stuck in your head too! Enjoy!

I've been through Korea on a turtle with no name...

The turtle I got for Christmas needs your help!

He still has no name!

Can you save him from a life with no identity?

Just look how cute he is, eating his breakfast this morning with his favourite turtle friend -- his reflection in the glass!

Please put names to be considered in the comments section!

Thank you from your friendly neighbourhood turtle-mama, and perhaps turtle-mama-to-be-when-I-leave...

Laura and Amanda

Kickin' It Old Skool!

The past few weeks here in Seoul have been pretty fun and interesting in a lot of ways, so I thought I'd write a quick note to tell you a little about it.

In my last post about my daily events I ending off with telling you about upcoming White Day. I most recently posted saying what White Day is and now I'll take you a minute to tell you about my White Day! As you know Randy and I decided to reverse traditional Korean Valentine's and White Day rules so he planned Valentine's Day and I planned White Day. As luck would have it, Randy completely forgot about White Day's existence, and I could have gotten off Scott-free if I had wanted! Instead I used it to his advantage. He probably won't appreciate me putting this on the Internet, but while he didn't know that it was White Day I convinced him clean his apartment until it was spic and span. Heehee, I'm so clever. Then, when I announced the occasion his first gift was a nice clean apartment! The rest of the day's festivities included Mexican food, some time at the driving range and a little scrabble to finish it all off. Wonderbar.



White Day was closely followed by St. Patrick's Day which I of course had to celebrate, having Irish blood running through my veins. My friends and I all went to an Irish pub not too far away from where we live called Maddigan's where we had a pleasant but quiet evening having a little celebration of our Irish heritage. Not everyone there was of Irish descent mind you, those who weren't were just a little jealous and decided to tag along.

The weekend was fairly uneventful with the exception of what inspired the title of this post, Kickin' It Old Skool! On Sunday we went to see the Korean Folk Village in Suwon. It was pretty neat! There were a lot of traditional Korean houses and people wearing traditional Korean clothing and making traditional Korean food. I had heard people say that there wasn't much to see there and that you could do the whole thing in 1/2 an hour, so I was surprised when I arrived to find a $13 entrance fee. At this point we had travelled around 2 hours to get there and had a two hour train ride to get back home though, so there was no way we weren't going inside. I was pleasantly surprised to find that (perhaps in part due to my geeky nature) I could have stayed there all day and not really gotten my fill. There were so many things to read and explore! There were different houses and structures used by everyone from the lowest pesant to the richest nobleman, shows, old style markets, livestock, traditional games to play and food to eat... wow! We didn't get to see it that day because we were a little late but they even hold traditional Korean weddings for tourists to see! You could make pottery, ride horses and pretty much waste an entire day, I thought. There was also an amusement park for kids next door, which I thought was pretty neat.

Perhaps one of my favourite things that I saw in the Folk Village that I think that you'd enjoy was a sort of "Magic Show", or so it was called by the people preforming it. They were making Dragon Beard Candy, which is a really neat thing to watch. I've uploaded two videos for you to watch and see how neat it is, although neither is as cool as seeing it in person. The first one is the exact one I saw at the folk village in Suwon, but the second one I think is a better video for seeing exactly what is happening. Hope you enjoy!