January Weekend

Once again it's hard to believe how quickly this month has gone by and we are about finished with the last weekend of January already.  For the past four weeks we had been teaching winter intensive classes to some of the elementary students meaning we had to teach a 50 minute elementary class during part of our usual morning kindergarten time.  The elementary students were on winter vacation from their regular elementary schools so they could come for some extra English academy time every day for three weeks (exactly what every kid wants to do during their school vacation, right?).  We are both thankful that is over now though so we can go back to the regular schedule with our kindergartners for the last five weeks of the school year.

This weekend was actually filled with a couple disappointments in that both days we set out with a mission and both times were unsuccessful...  But in the end we didn't mind too much because there's always next weekend!  We had heard about this supposedly very delicious, American style breakfast restaurant and were dying to try it.  Unfortunately, as has happened more than a few times over the last eleven months for us, the directions we found online were outdated.  We did eventually find the restaurant (after walking around Gangnam for nearly an hour in the frigid wind chill) but the wait was much too long for what we had time for.  So no American style breakfast this weekend but we have promised each other it must happen very soon!  And now we know how to get there too! 

On Sunday we set out to make a Costco run for a few groceries.  However, Korea has a law stating that all large chain supermarkets must be closed on the second and fourth Sundays of every month.  This is supposed to encourage people to support the smaller local markets in their area a couple times a month.  If a large company like Costco chooses not to follow that law they have to pay a pretty hefty fine.  However, for a while Costco was choosing to pay the fine instead of close because apparently they made more money even after the fine than closing their stores for two days every month.  But as we discovered today, they have apparently changed their mind or the government has told them they can't anymore because they were closed today :(  So I guess we will be going back another day!  Instead we ended up going for a walk through Seoul Children's Grand Park near our home which was nice.  Since there were very few people around we could actually go for a leisurely stroll when we wanted to, unlike yesterday in Gangnam where you better be moving with the crowd in the same direction and the same pace at all times! 

They still had a few of the animals out in the zoo at the park

 Everything else was very frozen!!