Halloween and other updates

Annyong! I just thought I would give Nadia a break from typing and finally contribute to the blog again. So here’s just a few updates of what we’ve been up to recently. Last week was pretty busy for both of us. On Wednesday Nadia went to an English festival for the elementary schools in our area. She watched her students perform a musical for the other schools. The theme of the festival was school violence and bullying so many of the performances were addressing that issue to some degree. Apparently some students even did a rendition of “Gangnam Style,” where they changed the lyrics to make it an anti-bullying song. I hardly taught any classes last week (you do a lot of desk warming at this job) because my school had their career day on Wednesday, their sports day on Thursday, and their school festival on Friday. This basically meant that I had nothing to do on these days; however, on Thursday, right before I was about to go home, my co-teacher announced to me that I would be dancing with her and some other teachers in the festival the next day. She showed me a youtube video of the dance routine and basically said that I had from then until 2pm the next day to learn the routine. I repeatedly told her that I have two left feet and am a horrible dancer, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. At the festival the next day we rehearsed in the morning, but I had to run an English activity at lunch so I still didn’t know the full dance routine by the time we were about to perform it. We pulled it off in the end (with many mistakes), but it was actually a lot of fun.

            Friday night we had a few of our friends over and then went out in Bupyeong in our first round of Halloween costumes. Nadia and I went as a “mouple” (Korean matching couple); it was sort of a makeshift costume that we threw together right after school. I didn’t stay out late that night because I had to get up really early the next morning for another English festival at a different middle school. At the festival, I helped run an English activity outside under a tent. Regardless of the rain and cold weather, it was still a lot of fun. The activity was simple; I just got Korean students to do funny activities using English like jump up in the air and scream “potato.” I was laughing pretty hard the whole day. That night after the festival Nadia and I went into Hongdae in Seoul with our friends. We had booked a hostel near Hongik University the previous weekend so we just went right there to drop off our stuff and then headed out for the night. On Saturday night we all went out as the six animal cartoon characters from the smart phone game Anipang (a really popular cell phone game in Korea). Needless to say we got a lot of compliments on our costumes by Koreans. I was really tired from the festival, but it was still a lot of fun. It was great to see so many people all dressed up in costumes, because Korea doesn’t really celebrate Halloween.

            On Sunday we just had a relaxing day and got ready for the start of another week. I think were both still a little exhausted from the weekend. My co-teacher even said that my eyes looked tired and droopy this morning (they’re really blunt here). Anyways, we both send our love back home and will keep you updated again soon on our lives in crazy Korea. Everyday brings a new adventure.

The opening act at Nadia's English festival. Apparently they were in grade six and were amazing!

Nadia's students doing their musical performance.

Nadia's students singing songs from "Grease."

Our "mouple" - matching couple Halloween costumes. It was pretty easy to find two matching sweaters. They sell them everywhere!

Our Anipang costume. I was the cat and Nadia was the mouse.

The whole Anipang group!

Another day of Seoul: Saturday October 20

Time is flying by in Korea; we have now been here for 7 weeks! This past Tuesday, after work we met up with our Korean friend Steve and a few other foreign teachers to enjoy another game of baseball. Our home team in Incheon, the SK Wyverns was playing the Lotte Giants from Busan. We thought the fans at the last game were wild, but they didn’t even compare to the crowd at this game. It was a semi final game, and we won! Unfortunately, I brought my camera but realized at the game that I left the batteries charging in our apartment… At least we had our phones to try and capture the night. It was a lot of fun, and we will definitely be going to more baseball games when the season starts up again in the spring.

Saturday, we decided to head to Seoul again and stay the night in Hongdae, a popular area among the younger and foreign crowd. We first headed to the War Memorial Museum. It was a massive, beautiful building surrounded by many statues dedicated to the war. There were also plane, tank and boat replicas. It was a great way to spend part of our day. Another plus was that the admission was free. We walked around the whole museum, and learned a lot about Korean military history. The museum was very modern and each room had cool designs. Ian particularly enjoyed the visit being a history major.

After the museum, we went to look at Seoul City Hall and we stumbled upon yet another festival. Street festivals seem to be very popular in Korea.  The weather started to take a turn for the worse, so we ended up meeting some friends for dinner in Hongdae early. We had very delicious Indian food, followed by a fun night out in Hongdae.

Statue at the front entrance to the War Memorial of Korea. It is a statue of two brothers, one from South Korea and one from North Korea that meet on the battle field and embrace. They are standing on a dome that has a giant crack down the middle that represents the division of families during the War,

A statue representing the drive into battle and the family and friends left behind.

Ian in front of the Memorial. There was a stage set up and a band was playing. 

The Memorial is surrounded by water with bridges going over. There were boat, plane and tank replicas around the whole building.

Plane replica with the Namsan Tower in the background. 

We got this photo of a matching couple. We see them everywhere, and sometimes they are completely matching from head to toe...

It was very interesting walking around each room in the museum. The exhibits were nicely put together. 

This is the main lobby.

In the UN room, this shows the flags of the countries that helped Korea during the war.

Information on the Canadian involvement.

Parachute in the main lobby.

A shooting game in one of the exhibits,

This is apparently the "Future Warrior" of Korea.

The war boat in the main lobby. 

City Hall consists of the older building and the more modern glass one behind. 

Another festival in front of City Hall. 

A man making rice cake. He makes rice and then uses the hammer to pound it together to make a smooth consistency. 

A view of the modern section of City Hall. 

Seoul for the day: Saturday October 13

Highlights from this past week include a welcome dinner my co-teachers organized for me on Tuesday night. It was great going for dinner and coffee to get to know them better – who knew they all loved watching shows like friends, desperate housewives and CSI miami! Another highlight was that I signed up for a membership at a hot yoga studio near our apartment. Ian has kept up with his taekwondo, going twice a week. Maybe he will become a yellow belt soon!

Saturday we decided to head to Seoul for some sightseeing, shopping in Myeong-dong, and to find some different food. The first stop was visiting the Gyeongbokgung Palace.  It is huge and is located in downtown Seoul.  It was interesting to see how the city expanded around the palace.  Walking around the grounds, it really felt like we went back in time.  There were guards positioned outside the main entrance gates.  The buildings were so beautiful, with so much detail. The detailing on most of the buildings is called Dancheong and it consists of 5 colours: red, yellow, blue, white and black. There were also amazing gardens surrounding the palace.

Here are some fast facts about Gyeongbokgung that we learned.  The palace was built in 1394 and it was the main palace of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The name Gyeongbokgung means “the Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven.” There are 7,700 rooms! During the Japanese occupation in WWII most of the palace was destroyed. The Korean government has been actively restoring the palace. Even while we were walking around the vast grounds, certain areas were under construction.

Before heading to Myeong-dong, we were lucky to see the closing ceremony at the end of the day. The guards march and drum out of their positions. We were both so happy that we chose to visit the palace this weekend.  The next activity was shopping in Myeong-dong, which was fantastic! We went to Forever 21, HM and a bunch of other stores. Every time we entered a cosmetic or “face store” they handed out free samples. I received many of these facial masks that are very popular here. Most of the stores handed out mini lotion bottles, and face masks; however, one store gave out “Skin Whitening Cream” but I think I will give that one a miss. After Myeong-dong, we went to Itaewon, which is the foreign area of Seoul. There is an American military base near this area, so we saw a lot of army guys walking the streets. We went out for Indian food, as there was an “Itaewon Global Village Festival”. It was yet another street festival, serving a variety of foods. It was definitely a lot fun to walk to around.

It was also a good weekend, because we were also bunny-sitting for our friends. Our friends bought a bunny in Korea and went away this weekend, so we said we would watch him. His name is Monster, and he was such a cutie! 

Main entrance gate to Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul.

Ian with the guards. They aren't allowed to move.

This seems to happen quite often when we are out and about in Korea. Students from middle, high school, or university have homework that they need to interview a foreigner. After entering the gates, it took 5 minutes before we were asked to do an interview. 

This photo needs to be rotated so that the red chair is at the bottom. This is one of 7,700 rooms at the palace.

This building is actually a mini island that has a pond surrounding it. There is a bridge connecting it on the far right side.  There were huge fish swimming around in the pond, around 3-feet in length. 

National Folk Museum of Korea 

Gyeongbokgung Palace. 

Closing ceremony: The guards marching out of positions.

Taking the subway from the palace to Myeong-dong for shopping was crazy! The subway was packed!

Itaewon is the foreign area in Seoul. This is where we had dinner.

Itaewon festival

Bunny-sitting Monster

Monster

Getting lost in Incheon on Sunday. It is so great we can search a map with our phones. 

We came across this sale in Incheon, but didn't quite understand...

This is a video of the closing ceremony at Gyeongbokgung Palace when the guards march out of position.