Happy Teacher's Day to Us!

Today was a very important day for teachers in Korea: Teacher's Day.  To Korean parents this is a very big deal.  Many of them go out and spend a good amount of money on  nice gifts for their child's teachers.  Today we were given things like brand name socks, expensive rice cakes and candies, a gift certificate to Lotte Department store, expensive wine and of course flowers (even Eric Teacher got flowers.  He also got anti-wrinkle hand cream.)  Along with the gifts came some nice cards in which the students talked about how much they loved us.  Aside from the gifts and cards we were both amazed at how much the parents seemed to care about showing their appreciation.  We have known all along that the parents cared very deeply about their child's education.  But apparently they also care deeply about showing their child's teachers how much they appreciate them.  Even taking the time to stop by and say thank you or calling and asking how their child is doing, like many parents do all the time here seems to boost the morale of all teachers.  Although getting to work with the kids everyday is all that really matters, I wouldn't be against making this day a bigger deal back home as well :)

Here's a look at some of our gifts from Teacher's Day