Halloween in Korea

Just like we talked about last year, nothing is done for Halloween in Korea.  Except at the English hagwons that is.  Last year the students at our hagwon dressed up and we had a party with them.  The same thing was done at Eric's hagwon this year.  He decided at the last minute (last night) that he wanted to at least have some form of a costume so he bought a mask and a play knife for his "costume" and a plastic pumpkin to hold the candy he would give out.  I felt a little left out when I saw pictures from everyone's Halloween parties with the kindergartners today!  As if I didn't miss teaching kindergarten enough... 

Being at a public school in Korea meant there was no mention of Halloween today.  Instead the classes took the midterm tests today.  Since I do have some freedom with the curriculum I use, I created a couple of Halloween lessons for all of my kids to teach them some Halloween vocabulary and adjectives which I've been teaching to all of my classes during the past week.  They seemed excited to be doing something besides the regular book, but only a few in each class seemed to know much about costumes and jack-o-lanterns from their English academies.  I only teach one class on Thursdays so they were the lucky ones who got candy from me (after they learned how to say trick or treat). 

Here are a few pictures from Eric's Halloween party..

Testing out his costume

Hwaseong Fortress

On Saturday I went to the Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon, a bit south of Seoul.  This fortress was built in the 1700s during the Joseon Dynasty.  It was built for King Jeongo as a place to bury the remains of his father and it is also suspected that he would have liked to move the capital from Seoul to Suwon and therefore needed a place to live when he was there. There is a wall, three and a half miles long, that circles the old fortress.  I walked along the wall for a while, hoping to find some colorful trees.  Unfortunately there were not many trees in the area, just a lot of roads and buildings which made the walk not as peaceful as I had been thinking but still nice and another piece of history to see. 

We are starting to realize that with only four months left (all of them in the dead of winter) our weekends for any last sightseeing are becoming more and more limited so it's time to make sure we've seen everything we can!  I think we've done pretty good on seeing everything we would have wanted to, at least within our area.  Here are a few pictures from the Hwaseong Fortress:

 Paldalmun Gate to Hwaseong Fortress

 The wall surrounding the fortress

Winter is Coming Closer

This weekend Eric took me to my first 4D movie!  He has been to a couple 4D movies here before but this was my first.  We went to see Gravity and the 4D made it quite fun I thought!  Before the movie we had a Korean BBQ dinner at one of the restaurants near our house.  We realized a couple weeks ago that we hadn't had a Korean BBQ meal in two months!  And now we are down to having less than five months left to enjoy them so we really need to be having it more than once every two months!!  Dinner was good, the movie was good, and it was a nice evening together since it had been a while since just the two of us went out.

Fall is officially in Korea.  I want to say winter is here but I know it's only going to get colder so I won't use that word yet (though I know it's coming soon!!!).  It is getting to the point where just a sweatshirt or a windbreaker isn't quite enough to keep me from feeling really cold while walking to the bus in the mornings.  It's also getting dark so early now, just shortly after 6:00, which also adds to the fall feeling.  We are almost to our last season in Korea....

Other than working, homework for me and fall in the air not much has been happening with us.  We continue to plan out the final details of our vacation and trip home in March as we will be buying our tickets very soon.  It's hard to believe it's so close to that time already!

Fall Vacation

My school had a week off for a fall vacation in early October due to a couple of national holidays and school holidays falling so close together this time of year.  A whole week off when the weather was perfect... definitely a great time for someone to come visit!  We were so excited and thankful that my friend, Michelle, was able to come and stay with us from October 1st-10th.  I had seven whole days to show her Seoul and we had an awesome time!  We definitely stayed busy and saw about as much of Seoul as one possibly could in a week!  We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace, Cheonggycheon Stream, Seoul Zoo, the Korean Folk Village, Hyundai Department Store (she has officially bought more things from a Korean department store than I have!), North Korea (aka Panmunjom/Joint Security Area), Seoul Tower, Dongdaemun, Namdaemun, Olympic Park, the Korean War Memorial and museum.... that is all I can remember at the moment but obviously it was a very busy week!!  Not to mention I had to show her the Korean culture of coffee shops and noraebongs (karaoke rooms).  We had a great time together and I'm so thankful she was able to come!  The time went by much too fast and yesterday it was back to work for me and home for her, but it definitely added to my long list of lifetime Korean memories!

This weekend I will be spending a majority of my time doing homework since I somewhat neglected it over the past week or so (okay maybe ever since we went to China three weeks ago...) and it's that time in the semester where due dates for the big projects are starting to appear.  Surprisingly the weather has still stayed relatively warm so far into October (hot if you ask Michelle).  It gets quite chilly in the evenings but not as cold as we both seem to remember it being around this time last year.  I remember I had to break down and wear my winter coat before the 1st of November and that's already only a few weeks away.  It is cool enough that the mosquitoes are definitely making their way indoors everywhere! 

I don't have many pictures from our time exploring Seoul since I already have pictures from the places we visited. Here are a couple I did take...

 Night view from the top of Seoul Tower

Standing in North Korea with a South Korean soldier inside the conference room