a quiet one

This past weekend was a rather quiet. We had a kindergarten fieldtrip on Friday. It was probably the best one we have had thus far. We took the kiddies to a farm. They got to milk a cow, pet some farm animals, go on a hayride, and make ice cream! it was pretty cool!

Erica & Joanne Teacher

Roy

Ryan, James, Alex & Lina

Andrew

feeding the calves

trying to feed them!

Austin milking the cow

Jonny

Ryan, Alex, James

making ice cream

Paul

Ocean class

Wonderland visits the Farm!

Friday night I went to a bar to meet Nicks parents. They are here for a month and just arrived Thursday. They seem really nice and we had a good time all chatting away. On Saturday, Dom and I explored town a little bit and went into a lot of shops. We then took the bike to the rock wall and did some climbing. It was a gorgeous day so it was nice to be able to do something outside. Saturday night I stayed in and got some shut eye. Sunday rolled along and I did a lot of cleaning around the house. It was also Daniel Gill's birthday. He is a friend of mine in Dangjin. He had a small gathering on his roof to celebrate. We had a cookout and played darts. It was a lovely evening. I actually one in the darts competition and there was a prize! I got a $25.00 gift certificate to a sporting shop in town. WOOO ...dont know what Im going to buy yet!

Birthday in Dangjin

Nick, Nat, Dom and Jessica made me dinner a their place. We had veggie patties that were amazingly delicious, salad and a really good South African dessert that I forget its name. We then met up with some more local friends and headed to Topaz. (A nearby bar). We stayed there for awhile and then later on we went to this bar/club. There is no such thing as a nightclub in Dangjin but this place is new and its the closest thing resembling one. Its basically a bar with a dance floor and has like smoke machines and laser beams. It was a lot of fun and I just danced all night. 

The next day, Dom, Nick, Nat and I took the bus to Seoul. We went to a hotel in Seoul called Intercontinental Hotel at the COEX for a all you can eat and drink wine buffet. It was from 6-9 for about $35.00 and boy did we drink a lot of wine! Melissa and Carolyn came to this as well. Most of the food had meat in it but they did have a cheese platter of really nice cheese (cheese is wicked expensive in this country so I probably ate about $70.00 worth of cheese haha) After a ridiculous amount of wine consumption we all headed to a club nearby that we liked. We stayed out until around 3 then went back to the hotel. The next morning, everyone was too hungover for climbing so we took an afternoon bus back to Dangjin and had a recovering Sunday. 

Sorrry, I dont have many pictures from the second night and none of the first night. I will have to wait for friend to give me their photos...which could take ages!

first time working on my birthday

Can you believe it? I cant! I thought this day would never come, at my job in Korea I cant really even call in sick! I work everyday! Booooo Anyway, it wasnt entirely bad. Ive had a headache all day and felt really sick this morning but Im feeling better now that I only have an hour left. This morning at school when I walked into my kindergarten class, my co-teacher had all my students in there and they sang happy birthday. It was really cute! She also got me a little present which was sweet. Another class surprised me when I walked into their class and they all screamed happy 31st birthday!! They also wrote it on the board. Apparently, Nick teacher told them I was 31 as some kind of cruel joke! Hahaha I made them rewrite it saying 26! My last class, we are having a pizza party. It is two of my students, Harold and Michaels birthdays too and they just finished there text books. This means PARTY! Today at school for the kindergarteners, we had "pajama day". This consisted of all the kids looking adorable in their pjs and we played limbo and some other games. We then watched a movie and had popcorn. It was really cute.

Zoey

Polly being the cutest girl in all of KOREA!

Susie and Polly

my girls: Lina, Jamie, Gloria & Zoey

Limbo time

Polly & Emily

William & Austin

Hailey & Dom teacher

My 1st grade class wishing me a Happy Birthday!  Victoria, Ashleigh, Kathy, Jasper, Daniel, Mike, Tiffany & Andrew

Tonight, I am staying in my town and going out to celebrate with the foreigners in town. Nick and Nat are also cooking me dinner and there will be 6 of us at that. Tomorrow, we all head to Seoul where I will have round #2 of my birthday (time difference allows me to celebrate for a lot longer). We are going to a wine buffet at an intercontinetal hotel and everyone is suppose to dress up! I hope they do. Sunday is scheduled for rock climbing which I hope happens, but if I drink too much I might not be able to. Im going to try not to and have lots of water because I really do want to climb. Soooo stay tuned to find out how my birthday weekend went and if I went climbing!

kiwitastic

I got a belated Chuseok gift today. I bet you cant guess what is was. You betcha! Another huge box of gold kiwis! Now I have a freezer full of kiwis and a refrigerator full of kiwis! What am I going to do with soooooo many kiwis!??!?!

Chuseok long weekend

So I may not have had a Labor day long weekend but I had a Chuseok long weekend and it was lovely. My 3 other co-workers and I setted off on our journey after school Friday. We heard horror stories about trying to travel during this holiday. Everyone told us it would take 8 hours and we the way home would be horrible too. We must of got lucky because we barely hit any traffic at all! We arrived within 4 hours to Busan Friday night and it took a little under 4 hours to get home today from Gyeongju. We spent three nights in Busan. We went shopping there, bouldering, dining at yummy restaurants and then headed to Gyeongju. We stayed there one night. We went to a beautiful temple there and went to see some tombs that were in these big green hills kind of in the middle of nowhere in a green field. It was a nice relaxing break from the daily grind.

our floor beds! Koreans often sleep on mats on floor

me on a little motorbike

yum lots of squid 

view from out hotel in Busan on Haeundae Beach

view of Busan

Happy Chuseok continued

Today at school its been a busy day full of presents, sweets, and madness. Some of our students are dressed in their traditional clothing called "hanboks".

traditional hanboks

Zoey

Lina, Jamie, Erica

Gloria & Zoey

New student. My favorite at the moment! Her name is Julie!!!

 Four teachers birthdays are in September, so this morning we all got presents from our boss and a cake! She got me a beautiful pink leopard print scarf. I love it, I have no idea how she knew my style but Im very grateful I didnt get toothpaste or something. A lot of teachers got spam gift baskets and I got a cookie gift basket. Maybe more presents will be coming. It is now only lunch time.

airplane ride for Emily!

With our kindergarteners, we made Song Pyon. This is a tradional food ate during Chuseok. Its bascially a rice dough ball stuffed with something sweet like sugar, chestnuts, nuts or sugar. All the kids got to make them and they are getting steamed now.



step 1



step 2 roll the dough into a ball

step 3 press your thumb into it

step 4 add something into the middle

step 5 fold it together

My Song Pyon