Weekend with Dads

We've had a great weekend with our Dads and are looking forward to the three more days we get with them, though I'm sure it will go by too quickly!  Like I said before this weekend was the three day Chuseok Holiday and everyone was spending the time at home with family.  We knew that meant more people would stay inside and less people would be out but we didn't realize Seoul would be a ghost town.  It is so weird to us that we can walk on the streets with almost no other people anywhere in sight.  We are so used to living with ten million people now that this feels very strange!  Anyway, we have kept our Dads busy seeing a few of the sights we have enjoyed since we've been here.  This has included a whole lot of walking the last two days (though it's always a guarantee we will get seats on the subway since no one is on them!)!  We started our Saturday at Gyeongbokgung Palace, the largest of the five palaces in Seoul, originally built in 1394 and used by the Joseon Dynasty.

Near the palace is an underground museum about two famous Koreans: King Sejong and Admiral Yi Sun Shin.  So our dads got to learn a bit about two of the most famous Koreans from the past and see a model of the turtle ship.

After that we headed to Namdaemun market.  This area was still busy and crowded but that is the only busy area we have seen the last two days.  We wanted to take them to a Doonkas (pork cutlet) restaurant that we really like but of course they were closed for Chuseok so we ended up with pizza.  After a day full of walking we spent the evening more relaxed, down by the river outside our apartment and their hotel.  We spent our Sunday at the War Museum of Korea, learning about the Korean War.  There were even some new things for us to see that weren't there the first time we went several months ago.  Both days have given us perfect fall weather, sunny and warm during the day and cool but comfortable in the evening.  We are very thankful for the time we get with our Dads and are enjoying showing them some different things about our lives here.  Many pictures to come!

Visitors for Chuseok

We are so excited that our dads arrived here last night to visit us for a week!  They are staying at a hotel very close to our apartment and we have the next five days off to spend with them.  Even though we had to work all day today, we made sure their first dinner in Korea was BBQ tonight after work!  Tomorrow the real sightseeing around Seoul with them will begin.

Saturday is the first day of the three day Korean holiday called Chuseok.  It is basically the Korean form of Thanksgiving and their harvest time.  It is a VERY big deal in Korea.  Everyone in the family must go to the man's parents' home (which for many people in Seoul is a good ways away from the city in the countryside).  While they are staying with the parents and grandparents they pay their respects to their ancestors that have passed away by offering rituals and blessings.  They also wear the traditional Korean clothing, hanbok.  Another big thing with Chuseok is to take a gift to the home that you spend the three day holiday at.  For the last few weeks the stores have been filled with gift boxes of Spam.  Yes, taking a gift box of Spam is a very big part of Korean Thanksgiving!  Today at work we had a Chuseok party with the kindergartners and they all wore their hanbok.  Here are a few pictures with many more to come soon (I also have a picture of the Spam gift boxes I will post soon).

 

Baseball in Korea

We finally got our chance to go to a baseball game today!  Doosan Bears vs. SK Wyverns.  Since the person that got us the tickets is a big Doosan fan we sat in the Doosan section.  The game was at Jamsil Stadium which was built for the 1988 Summer Olympics.  It is also right next to the main Olympic Stadium and the Swimming Complex which were all built for those Olympics.  Baseball in Korea is VERY different than baseball in America!  For one thing, when your team is up to bat all you do is stand up and dance and sing.  Each player has a different song that plays when they come up to bat and each one has a different cheer or dance that is done while they are batting.  I wonder how they decided who got to have Gangnam Style as their song...  They have cheer leaders for the time in between innings and a guy that leads everyone in the dance/song/cheer during the innings.  We had a good time.  Another teacher, Melanie, came with us also.  It was fun but I'm not sure we would rush back to another game.  The seats were very small (almost worse than an airplane) and sometimes it was difficult to see since most people stand up the whole entire time.  Also, there was no seventh inning stretch where they played Take Me Out to the Ballgame.  We heard the music to the song playing at one point, but no one was singing the song.  It was definitely a fun experience though!  The weather was great and the music was fun, some was English some was Korean, but definitely different than how I am used to enjoying a baseball game back home!  SK beat Doosan 5-1.  As for the food, there were a lot of little carts outside the stadium selling things like kimbap and dried squid, along with Domino's Pizza, Burger King, and KFC.  Inside was pretty similar.  We all got some Burger King outside before the game.  We were all too worried about breaking up the synchronized dancing during the game to walk over people and go and get anything else inside the stadium, but we did make a Taco Bell stop on the way home!  If you have not seen/heard Gangnam Style yet you can find it on Youtube but it is currently the most popular song and dance in Korea, maybe in America as well. We got a great video of the Doosan mascot doing the Gangnam Style dance.  The file needs to be converted to a new format but as soon as Eric does that we will put it up!

 We bought a set of clapper sticks (we had to fit in somehow!)

 The view from our seats was pretty good!

Doosan Bears mascot

Fire Station Field Trip

On Friday we took the kindergartners on a field trip to the local fire station.  They got to learn about about what to do in a fire, look at the fire trucks, try on the fire fighter coat and even have a fire drill with smoke.  Going through the smoke was quite traumatic for one of my young students who became terrified and started sobbing before we even did it.  She wanted nothing to do with the rest of the field trip after that, burying her head in my shoulder the rest of the time.  But don't worry she was back to normal after we got back to school!

 Tommy and a fire truck

 Fire fighter David

 Eric Teacher with his group of boys: David, Mike, Alvin, Jerry, Johnny, and Alex

Our weekend has not been overly exciting once again.  We realized it has been quite a while since we took many pictures to share and decided we need to make it our mission to go somewhere exciting very soon so we have pictures to share!  The weather is finally becoming very pleasant so going out somewhere will be much more likely to happen now!  It's still humid but has cooled down so much during the day and especially in the evenings.  Typhoon season is not over yet, however, and it looks like we will be getting a whole lot of rain and maybe some wind tonight and tomorrow from Typhoon Sanba.  This weekend has been filled with some more household things like cleaning and a trip to Costco.  Trips to Costco can be quite eventful if you buy a lot of stuff or buy some big stuff.  One of the other teachers went with us and was going to carry a crockpot and a flat of energy drinks from the subway station to her apartment.  Our bags were rather heavy too but we all decided the subway was probably a much better option than a taxi on a late Saturday afternoon.  I am still trying to get used to the fact that I can only do one load of laundry a day instead of all of the laundry on one day, due to very limited drying space.  I have learned that bike seats and handlebars make for a good couple extra drying spaces when the drying rack isn't big enough.  We promise we will have some new pictures to share soon!

Successful Saturday

We started our Saturday morning by looking at a potential future apartment, the unsuccessful part of our day.  The apartment building is not too far from where we live now but is much closer to things like the mart, the subway and our work.  However, we were extremely under-impressed by the apartment so will definitely not be moving into that one.  We were expecting it to be a bit bigger than ours as well as nicer (since it is more expensive than ours).  The bathroom was nicer (it had a shower curtain and a sink) and the kitchen was a tad bit bigger, but overall it felt even a bit smaller than what we have now.

However, we were successful at finding Baker's Alley in Dongdaemun Market!  This part of the market was lined with baking shops filled with baking tools, ingredients, and packaging.  It made me miss having the ability to bake even more!  (One condition if we decide to move is a kitchen big enough to put a small oven!)  They even had Kitchen Aid mixers and Wilton food coloring!  In another part of the market I found a large basement filled with tons of vendors selling yarn.  Though it was a bit difficult to find the kind of yarn I like to use, there was a lot of different kinds of yarn and was so fun to look at.  I even bought some sparkly purple yarn, made by none other than Samsung (it's Korea, everything is made by Samsung).  Lastly, we made a trip to the Daiso store (like the dollar store) to pick up a few things we have been wanting for work.  Even though it is a private school, our work is not always very good about giving us plenty of good supplies.  I also needed to pick up some mini whiteboards (which of course I have a bunch of back home but not here!) because sometimes the only way I can get my kinders to write is if it's on the whiteboard with a "special" marker.

Overall, it was a pretty successful day.  Tomorrow I plan to go on the search for some kids English games and books.  Hopefully that will be equally successful!  Even the weather has been turning nice!  It's comfortable enough to walk and ride our bikes finally.  We were even able to turn the air conditioner off and open the window this week! 

 Lots and lots of decorating tips!

 Lots of cupcake liners to choose from, including American flags!

Wool yarn made by Samsung

6 Months Down

We have officially been in Korea for 26 weeks.  Half the year gone already.  At times it seemed to go by very quickly, other times not so much.  At this point we are not sure how many months we have left.  We haven't made a decision as to whether or not we want to finish out the last six months and go home or if we want to stay one more year after that, giving us 18 more months here.  We sure do love our jobs and living in this country, but of course we miss everything about home.  When we do make the decision it will not be an easy one for sure.

In other news the weather is slowly starting to get a bit better!!  We did get a whole lot of rain from a second typhoon last Thursday, but it seems to slowly be cooling off and feeling nicer outside, especially in the evenings.  We even got to ride our bikes for the first time in two months this weekend!  I went to Dongdaemun market on Saturday with two other girls.  I haven't been there during the day before but we saw some interesting things, like old books for sale stacked as tall as buildings.  I don't know what happened if you wanted to buy a book near the bottom of the stack.  (Sorry I forgot my camera, we will go back another time)  I found directions for a section of the market that supposedly has a good yarn supply, as well as a baking area.  Finding these two things may prove to be an important deciding factor in whether or not we stay one more year!