Fancy Dinners and Farewells

Hi everyone!

So this will be one of our last blog posts - it's crazy all this is quickly coming to an end.

Jesse has officially finished his teaching but he still has one more day to show up at school and sit around doing nothing before he's on holiday. He's getting pretty sentimental about leaving. His student Hansul, the one we went to see in the hospital, gave us both some socks. She's in a wheelchair and not back at school yet but she came in to visit him before he left.

He's got a final farewell dinner for all the departing teachers, with his co-workers tomorrow night and is currently practicing a speech in Korean to make at the dinner tomorrow.

I am not finished until March 14th and am working hard right up to the last second. On March 1st, Jesse will be flying home and I'll be moving in with two of my colleagues, Mallory and Karen. I won't have a computer for my last two weeks so, for my parents, I can't Skype or anything in March.

Last weekend, I had to work Saturday because there was a massive standardized English test and our director, Mrs. Lyu, thought this would be a good advertising opportunity so had all the white teachers had to wear giant 'ECC' sashes like beauty queens, standing in front of the testing centre. Truly humiliating. Saturday night, Jesse and I went out for a Valentine's dinner with two other couples, Tom and his Korean girlfriend Song and Dave and his Korean girlfriend Kijoo.
Dave and Kijoo

It was at a really fancy hotel in Seoul and had great wine and cheese and delicious food and it was nice to get all dressed up and have a fancy night. After dinner we went to Nowon, an area of Seoul, just south of Uijeongbu for our friend Analie's going away party.

On Sunday we went into Seoul again because I made an appointment to get Magic Straight - this hair straightening thing that I heard is a miracle for us frizzy-haired lasses. I was skeptical but it seems to have worked perfectly! It is worth flying to Korea for that alone.

On the actual Valentine's Day, Jesse and I went to Durga, our favorite Indian restaurant and then saw 'Tangled' or, 'Rapunzel', as it's called here.

This coming weekend, my co-worker Rhea is getting married in Seoul to a Canadian, actually, so we're all going to her wedding. It should be lots of fun. This is likely Jesse's last weekend in Korea since he'll probably be going to Hong Kong to visit his friends in his final weekend.

Anyway, that's all that's happening here! It's so close to the end and we're both looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone but it's starting to feel strange that we're doing a lot of things for the last time now.

Hope all is well,

Love Ali and Jesse