Christmas...Is Coming!

BTB Pie

So Thanksgiving was good. A few of the other teachers and I went to a place called Buy the Book for a lovely Thanksgiving feast. This is the same feast we had for Canadian Thanksgiving. It was delicious. Not the same as home, but it had a homey feel. This place is wonderful and the couple that owns it is great. Definitely going back for Christmas, I talked to Sandy and she said they would probably be open the whole week.

Vanilla Chai and
Christmas music
great way to relax.

It's getting colder here, but I still haven't broke out my coat yet. I just can't do it. It doesn't feel like winter. Maybe it's because I haven't seen snow yet, I don't know. The apartments in Korea, well mostly everything in Korea, is not insulated well, or at all for that matter. It doesn't matter how much you heat a place it ends up cold way too fast. I miss having a dryer.

So I think I missed this story from Busan last weekend. I wanted a cup of hot chocolate, and I asked Jayna if she had a tea kettle. She said yes, but she didn't use it often because it was so big. I asked if I could use it for hot chocolate. She gave me a funny look, said yes, but she normally just uses the microwave. OMG! I have forgotten about the modern convenience of a microwave. I use one at school but I don't have one in my apartment. Great moment.

I put up my Christmas tree, second hand of course. It came complete with tinsel, bows, and ornaments.    Would you believe that most of the ornaments are green and gold? Well I was pretty excited about that, since I can't have the normal mini Packer tree this year. The Christmas music is on my iPhone and the countdown is on.

A couple of teachers and I had our second Thanksgiving meal on Sunday night (it's not Thanksgiving unless you eat it twice) and Kaylee and I had to go pick up a Christmas present. I saw a cute pair of boots in a shop (mind you my feet are considered huge here, and I don't find shoes easily) so I went in to try them on. They are tan suede looking boots. I looked at them, asked how much, and saw they were made in Korea. I tried them on and bought them on the spot, not 5 minutes and I had a new pair of boots. Yay! Random but I'm good with that.

I took up crochet,
I had to find something productive to do.

I finally made a batch of popcorn on the stove without burning it! So excited. I miss normal air popped popcorn, this is the closest I can get for the time being.

I miss everyone so much. I can't wait to Skype my family for Christmas. It will be so amazing to see my grandparents. It's really hard not being able to just jump in the car and go see them. Being here has made me appreciate the little traditions. Thanksgiving in a bar, Black Friday with all the lines and ridiculousness, mom's pumpkin pie, grandma's scalloped potatoes. I am totally going to gain 10 lbs when I get back home.

Spicy, but delicious italian baked pasta from
Little Italia. So good.

28 days...

Thankful

Well it is almost Thanksgiving. So in the spirit of almost every person on Facebook, I am going to list the things I am thankful for. It could be very long, so I will try and prioritize and these are not in order of importance, by any means.

1. Skype. Without it I would be a mess. It lets me see my mom, my brother (when he surprisingly shows up on the screen), the dog, the neighbors, my aunt and uncle and my dad. It's a sanity saver.

2. Kleenex. What in the world would I do without my favorite tissue brand?

3. Mail. It is a very uplifting moment when I walk into school or a teacher walks into my classroom with a little hand written note from someone back home. Email is great, but mail is amazing.

4. Tylenol. So many headaches! Without it I would be a goner.

5. Mac and Cheese. It's a little flavor of home that tastes amazing no matter where you are.

6. Music. My apartment would be way too quiet if I had to turn it off.

7. Airplanes. My mom and brother are coming to see me for Christmas (in case you missed it in my last however many posts).

8. Toaster Oven. You can't cook everything on a stove, believe me. And I love that my muffins turned out last week. Next step, lasagna.

9. Other Foreigners. Without all the other foreigners both at my school and around Korea I would be SOL. It's nice knowing that there are people here who have your back and care.

10. My Family. (See I told you this was not in order of importance) I miss them so much. I'm thankful that my aunt will wrap my mom's birthday present and email me photos of Clay Matthews from the Packer game. I'm thankful that my grandparents pick up the phone when I Skype call them (they are selective with their caller ID, haha). I'm thankful that my uncle taught me to throw a decent punch, I don't want to test it, but I could. I'm thankful that I have a village.

11. My Mom. What? Did you think I was going to group her in with everyone else? She is the woman who taught me to be brave and strong and not to give up. She sends me penguin flashlights and mac and cheese and Thanksgiving decorations. She holds a squirming dog up to the webcam so that I can see him every once in a while. She goes above and beyond everyday and I could never say thank you enough.

Clay! And Other Lovely Stories

So this week was a good week. For Phonics this week my kids had ~ay words, and guess what word came up? Clay! Ahhh I had a field day, or several of them. The first day I mentioned that Clay could be a name as well as a normal word. Well this started a whole conversation, and by the end of the week I almost had the kids doing the Packer chant. It's a goal before I leave.

Wednesday is my favorite day of the week, because let's face it, kids singing English songs that they don't understand, while doing complex dance moves is adorable. I added a video so you guys can see my tiny humans and their silly music class.

This week they started construction on the building next to me. I think it was at one point a house. When I moved in, no one was there and it was a dump. So now it is a pile of ruble. So nice. I have started using my ear plugs so I can sleep on the weekends. I slept until 10:30 on Sunday. Good gravy!

I have finally found a decent bar to go to on Friday nights. It is downtown, which kind of sucks, but it is more homey than any other I have found. It is pretty chill and we were able to sit, have a drink, talk and pay a random Korean card game. Definitely felt more like a normal Friday night,

I got my Christmas decorations this week! So excited!!! I will not be putting them up until Thanksgiving, but I can handle that. I put up lights around my room in my apartment. It is so much nicer than my florescent overhead light.

It's getting cooler here. I haven't used my winter coat yet, but I know I will have to soon.  I am not looking forward to the dry, cold, snow lacking winter they keep telling me to expect here.

I have started to crochet again, or at least I am trying to. Could get interesting. I found some great yarn at the market, and I finally got my needles from GMarket. I ordered them all by myself from a half Korean website. Yay!

Guess what?! 42 days until my mom and brother get here! I am getting so excited. Making many, many lists and there is so much to do!

Miss you all! Leave me a question if there is something you want to know about Korea. 

Field Trips, Treats and News

So once again I am slipping in my blogger duties and haven't updated in a while. I am sorry! So here are the highlights, and a few pictures to make you even more jealous of the adorable kids I see everyday. Don't let the big brown eyes foul you, they are naughty kids.

So we had a field trip a week ago. We went to a park, which was actually really cool. The kids had a chance to harvest what we believe was a type of wheat. Definitely not the kind I am used to seeing, but I know it was not rice like everyone was saying. The kids were able to cut the stalks, and then use a machine to get all the usable grain off the stalk. The picture is pretty cute. She is one of my favorite students.

Kristen and Me

I have been hanging out with my friend Kristen, who is from WI. Amazing! Someone who understands that football is not just a sport, it's a way of life. Although when we first started talking I wasn't sure we could be friends, we both like Clay Matthews (my future husband).

Seomun Market, Daegu

I went to Busan last weekend. Took the train (for only the 2nd time since I have been in Korea) and caught the subway from there. I was met by my friend Jayna who came to Daegu when I first moved here, she was a life saver that weekend too. This weekend we were going to see a comedy show (and yes it was in English) and then a fireworks festival the next night.

The comedy show was amazing. The MC for the night was hilarious, watch the video below. There have always been lots of rumors and stereo types about foreigners in Korea and he sings about them to a T.

The next day was the fireworks festival. We woke up to down pour rain. Lovely. We well met up with some of Jayna's friends and completely soaked ourselves trying to get to the beach. It was a nice beach, I'm sure I would enjoy it when it's not a mud pit. We ended up hanging out in a coffee shop for a few hours waiting for the fireworks, but as it turned out the waves and rain had other plans. We were told (in Korean) that the fireworks were postponed to the next night.

While we weren't able to see the fireworks the trip was a lot of fun. We went out to dinner, went out for drinks and I met some really cool people. Hopefully I can head down to Busan a couple more times before Jayna leaves the ROK.

Look at my cute class

Halloween came next. Let me tell you, kids in costumes are adorable. Now we had a Halloween party (organized by my friend Kelly, and she did an awesome job) on Tuesday. The kids were so cute and had a ton of fun. The teachers dressed up too, more the foreign teachers than the Korean ones but it was cool anyway.

6 year old teacher costumes

It's finally the weekend again! And before I left school today I got some amazing news. We found out the dates for Christmas vacation and I will be off December 22-January 2. Good Golly Miss Molly hell has frozen over. None of the teachers saw that one coming. But that means that there are no complications with the best Christmas present ever (my mom and brother coming to the ROK). I even get a couple days to clean my apartment (yea I'm not buying that one either).

Well hope everyone is well. In other, unrelated Korea news I have turned in my resume and interest letter to AK. Who knows, in a year I might be hanging out in frigid Alaska with a real teaching job.

Spider hats!

Here is the lovely video from our comedy show, all about foreign English teachers. I died laughing.