Hi everyone,
Another week passed and now we're only about 12 weeks from coming home!
There haven't been any significant developments between North and South Korea - it seems to have blown over for now.
School is the same as ever - nothing new to report. The weather here is pretty mild compared to how early December usually is back home so we're enjoying it while it's lasting. We had one light dusting of snow which didn't last long but that's all so far.
This weekend, Jesse and I made a massive subway trek to Gangnam, a city South of Seoul. We went there because one of Jesse's favorite students, Hanseul, was in the hospital and we wanted to visit her. She's 7 years old and needs a walker to get around so, from what we understood, she was getting surgery on her legs to either help her walk better or to prevent further problems. Anyway, the poor little girl is out of school for three months and both her legs were in pink casts when we got there. We brought her some English books because she loves books and speaking English and wants to be an English author one day. It was actually really nice to visit her. She's cute as a button and super smart and we just chatted with her for about 40 minutes about all sorts of stuff. I think she was really happy to have visitors and she loves Jesse, clearly.
After that, we headed into Seoul where our friend, Jen, from South Africa, was having a goodbye party. She's been here for a year and a half and is heading home on Tuesday. It was at an Irish pub called the Wolfhound and it was good to eat delicious food and hang out with everyone for the evening. Jen is awesome and it will be sad to see her go but her replacement was there and she seems really cool.
On Sunday, Jesse did his homework for his AQ course and I did some Christmas shopping - nothing exciting.
We're still doing our Korean lessons but I'm losing patience with myself for not learning it faster. We showed our text books to Hanseul and she said "too easy!" and laughed her guts out.
Anyway, that's about all that happening for us right now. Christmas is right around the corner and everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit. I have my students learning a million Christmas carols and making all sorts of decorations for our classrooms.
I hope all of you are also feeling merry these days,
Talk soon,
Ali and Jesse
Showing posts with label goodbye party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goodbye party. Show all posts
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Flights and Farewells
Hello everyone,
So we haven't posted a new entry for a few weeks now and that's because we haven't really done anything new and exciting over here during that time. That's soon to change as our Chuseok Jeju island trip approaches, but we thought we would check in now and let you know what we've been up to so you don't think we've just been watching paint dry this whole time.
Two weekends ago, six of our friends were all leaving for home so it was a weekend full of goodbye parties. On the Friday night the party was an Ajima-Ajashi theme. That means people were supposed to dress up like old Korean women and men in their very distinctive style of dress. Old Korean women wear lots of floral, MC Hammer style pants, giant sun visors, long gloves, and often aprons. Korean men are less distinctive but often wear arm warmers, hiking gear, and similar stuff to old men in Canada with socks pulled up to their knees, collared t-shirts, etc. Anyway, lots of people didn't really dress up because they were afraid of offending everyone. Ali and I just bought sun visors in a half-hearted costume attempt.
We all went for galbi (a huge group of us) and then went to a bar downtown which is one of the only bars that permits US military so it was, consequently, jammed with military guys. Not the most fun ever.
Here's a big group shot of us and our friends outside the galbi restaurant.
The next day we were supposed to have a goodbye party on the roof of one of our friend's apartments but, because monsoon season was delayed this year, it was pouring. Instead, people rented out a huge hotel room for the goodbye party. It was lots of fun with tons of great food but then the hotel staff started freaking out seeing all the waygooks (foreigners) coming past the front desk so we moved to our friend's apartment and had lots of fun anyway, but it was really sad saying goodbye to our friends.
Last week, Ali went to Canada for her cousin's wedding, leaving me here to fend for myself. Since Ali saw most of the people that read this blog, there's no need to go into much detail on her trip.
The day she was leaving was slightly exciting because we both saw our first typhoon. It petered out by mid-morning but it was just crazy strong winds and rain. Apparently five people died from it in Seoul. There was lots of damage to be seen and Ali's morning classes were canceled. Pretty exciting and thankfully her flights weren't delayed because of it.
While she was gone, I had to make appearances to represent the Ali-Jesse image so we wouldn't be forgotten. I went out with Ali's coworkers for a Korean dinner and had a funny encounter. Outside the restaurant, a mother and child were walking by when the mother stopped and said "English teacher?" It turned out I taught her daughter (1 of 350 kids I teach so it's hard to remember them all). I was expecting to say a quick "hi" but the mother wanted me to have a conversation with her daughter (so I guess she could see the English she's learned). The only problem was the daughter was very shy and was clinging to her mom's leg. I said "how are you?" to her and she answered while still hiding behind her mom. The mother then said to me, "She wants to ask you question." She then grabbed her daughter's arm and pushed her towards me. "You ask teacher question now." The girl in her most timid voice says, "How are you?" I said, "I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Are you going to dinner now?" That must've too much for because she was back hiding behind her mom. Then the mom yanks her arm again to push her towards me to talk. It went like this for about a minute. The parents really want to see their children use English with a foreigner. Not sure if the mother thinks I'm a bad teacher though, given how little confidence her daughter had with me.
Later in the evening, we went to a norae-bang (karaoke) because there was a couple of new people with us who hadn't been yet, so that was fun.
The next day I went to a baseball game with everyone, taking advantage of Ali's absence since our opinions on baseball differ greatly. I have fun at baseball games but this one was very hot even though it started at 5pm. The heat has been bad for awhile now and only recently has shown signs of slowing down in exchange for warm damp days.
This weekend Ali had to work on Saturday to compensate for the extra day she gets off at Chuseok. She didn't get home until 8 on Saturday so we didn't do anything. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will probably just relax around Uijeongbu because Ali is still getting over her jet-lag and it's only a one-day weekend for her.
Anyway, it's only one more week until Chuseok so we'll let you know how that goes.
Talk to you soon,
Ali and Jesse
So we haven't posted a new entry for a few weeks now and that's because we haven't really done anything new and exciting over here during that time. That's soon to change as our Chuseok Jeju island trip approaches, but we thought we would check in now and let you know what we've been up to so you don't think we've just been watching paint dry this whole time.
Two weekends ago, six of our friends were all leaving for home so it was a weekend full of goodbye parties. On the Friday night the party was an Ajima-Ajashi theme. That means people were supposed to dress up like old Korean women and men in their very distinctive style of dress. Old Korean women wear lots of floral, MC Hammer style pants, giant sun visors, long gloves, and often aprons. Korean men are less distinctive but often wear arm warmers, hiking gear, and similar stuff to old men in Canada with socks pulled up to their knees, collared t-shirts, etc. Anyway, lots of people didn't really dress up because they were afraid of offending everyone. Ali and I just bought sun visors in a half-hearted costume attempt.
We all went for galbi (a huge group of us) and then went to a bar downtown which is one of the only bars that permits US military so it was, consequently, jammed with military guys. Not the most fun ever.
Here's a big group shot of us and our friends outside the galbi restaurant.
The next day we were supposed to have a goodbye party on the roof of one of our friend's apartments but, because monsoon season was delayed this year, it was pouring. Instead, people rented out a huge hotel room for the goodbye party. It was lots of fun with tons of great food but then the hotel staff started freaking out seeing all the waygooks (foreigners) coming past the front desk so we moved to our friend's apartment and had lots of fun anyway, but it was really sad saying goodbye to our friends.
Last week, Ali went to Canada for her cousin's wedding, leaving me here to fend for myself. Since Ali saw most of the people that read this blog, there's no need to go into much detail on her trip.
The day she was leaving was slightly exciting because we both saw our first typhoon. It petered out by mid-morning but it was just crazy strong winds and rain. Apparently five people died from it in Seoul. There was lots of damage to be seen and Ali's morning classes were canceled. Pretty exciting and thankfully her flights weren't delayed because of it.
While she was gone, I had to make appearances to represent the Ali-Jesse image so we wouldn't be forgotten. I went out with Ali's coworkers for a Korean dinner and had a funny encounter. Outside the restaurant, a mother and child were walking by when the mother stopped and said "English teacher?" It turned out I taught her daughter (1 of 350 kids I teach so it's hard to remember them all). I was expecting to say a quick "hi" but the mother wanted me to have a conversation with her daughter (so I guess she could see the English she's learned). The only problem was the daughter was very shy and was clinging to her mom's leg. I said "how are you?" to her and she answered while still hiding behind her mom. The mother then said to me, "She wants to ask you question." She then grabbed her daughter's arm and pushed her towards me. "You ask teacher question now." The girl in her most timid voice says, "How are you?" I said, "I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Are you going to dinner now?" That must've too much for because she was back hiding behind her mom. Then the mom yanks her arm again to push her towards me to talk. It went like this for about a minute. The parents really want to see their children use English with a foreigner. Not sure if the mother thinks I'm a bad teacher though, given how little confidence her daughter had with me.
Later in the evening, we went to a norae-bang (karaoke) because there was a couple of new people with us who hadn't been yet, so that was fun.
The next day I went to a baseball game with everyone, taking advantage of Ali's absence since our opinions on baseball differ greatly. I have fun at baseball games but this one was very hot even though it started at 5pm. The heat has been bad for awhile now and only recently has shown signs of slowing down in exchange for warm damp days.
This weekend Ali had to work on Saturday to compensate for the extra day she gets off at Chuseok. She didn't get home until 8 on Saturday so we didn't do anything. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will probably just relax around Uijeongbu because Ali is still getting over her jet-lag and it's only a one-day weekend for her.
Anyway, it's only one more week until Chuseok so we'll let you know how that goes.
Talk to you soon,
Ali and Jesse
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tying the Knot and Tensions
Hi everyone!
I hope you’re all doing well. As of the 1st, we will have been in Korea for 3 months – a quarter of the way through.
So, what happened to us this week? School was the same as it usually is.
My mom sent me my rollerblades about a week ago because there is a big river that goes through Uijeongbu and amazing smooth bike paths all along it. Jesse has never been much of a skater or rollerblader but he was a good sport and actually bought some rollerblades so I’ve been teaching him how and we’ve been going rollerblading, which has been a lot of fun.
Friday night was a teacher from the other ECC in Uijeongbu’s last night. Everyone went out for galbi, as usual, but Jesse was feeling sort of galbied-out and I never eat galbi anyway so we just went over to our friends’ apartment and hung out on their roof and played cards while everyone else was at dinner and then we met up with them later. It weird here because you have a group of about 20 people who are all friends but, every month, some people leave and new people arrive so the dynamic of the group is always changing. Jesse and I are already seeming like veterans because a lot of people who have been here longer than us have already gone home. Anyway, Friday night was a fun night out with all the teachers from the three main foreign hogwans in Uijeongbu (the two ECCs and another big hogwan chain called SLP).
Saturday Jesse and I got all dressed up because we’d been invited to one of his colleague’s weddings. We were researching Korean weddings all week trying to figure out what was appropriate as gifts, and dress code and stuff and were all excited because we’d read that a lot of weddings had crazy stuff like smoke machines, bubble machines, laser lights, people in crazy costumes (like Darth Vader) and lots of other awesome stuff. We met with one of Jesse’s colleagues at the subway station (her nick-name is ‘Froggy’ – a questionable choice). Froggy showed us the way to the church. Apparently it’s rare for Korean weddings to happen in churches, and that is maybe why we didn't see any of the awesome wedding features we'd read about. Usually people get married in wedding halls that are designed to look like castles and have the reception in the same place. We arrived late, which I was all stressed out about, but it turned out I was worrying for nothing. All through the ceremony, people were arriving late, answering cell phones, and just generally not paying much attention. It wasn’t a ‘traditonal Korean ceremony’. The bride wore a white ‘western style’ dress and the groom was in a suit. There were performances by a singer and then a group of kids (many of whom Jesse recognized as his students).
The bride and groom and a massive screen showing the ceremony.
Here is a video of some the kids' performance.
Lots of people weren’t dressed up at all. Lots were in jeans, cut off jean shorts, t-shirts, running shoes, etc. Jesse and I were the most over-dressed for sure. After the ceremony, people went to take pictures with the couple and then headed to another floor in the building for lunch. Lunch was buffet style with lots of choices but there weren’t nearly enough seats for all the guests so you were expected to kind of wolf down your food and then give up your chair and go home. The whole thing lasted maybe an hour and then we went home. It was an interesting experience but one I probably wouldn’t repeat unless there were definitely going to be some bubble machines and Darth Vader impersonations.
Today we’re just running errands and getting organized for another week. This week they are having elections on Wednesday so there is no school. Another 4-day week will be fantastic but it the last holiday for awhile.
One final thing that has been big news here is obviously the escalating tensions with North Korea. We know it’s been all over the press lately and I’m sure you know as much about the news as we do. From an on-the-ground perspective, though, I can tell you that no Koreans seem worried at all. They all seem convinced that it’s all being blown totally out of proportion and that we’re all really safe. To be honest, I feel like it is very unlikely that the tension will escalate to conflict but, to be safe, we’ve registered ourselves with the Canadian embassy and, if conflict arises, they are obligated to give us safe passage to the nearest neutral country. Bottom line: no one is scared here, we’re still safe and are confident we’ll continue to be so, and are taking measures to make sure we’ll be fine even if the worst happens.
Anyway, that’s all for this week! Just in case you ever need to reach us urgently and we’re not on the internet, here are our cell numbers (you need to dial 011 +82 + 1 before the number)
Ali: 3145-4958
Jesse: 3981-0890
Miss you all!
Ali and Jesse
I hope you’re all doing well. As of the 1st, we will have been in Korea for 3 months – a quarter of the way through.
So, what happened to us this week? School was the same as it usually is.
My mom sent me my rollerblades about a week ago because there is a big river that goes through Uijeongbu and amazing smooth bike paths all along it. Jesse has never been much of a skater or rollerblader but he was a good sport and actually bought some rollerblades so I’ve been teaching him how and we’ve been going rollerblading, which has been a lot of fun.
Friday night was a teacher from the other ECC in Uijeongbu’s last night. Everyone went out for galbi, as usual, but Jesse was feeling sort of galbied-out and I never eat galbi anyway so we just went over to our friends’ apartment and hung out on their roof and played cards while everyone else was at dinner and then we met up with them later. It weird here because you have a group of about 20 people who are all friends but, every month, some people leave and new people arrive so the dynamic of the group is always changing. Jesse and I are already seeming like veterans because a lot of people who have been here longer than us have already gone home. Anyway, Friday night was a fun night out with all the teachers from the three main foreign hogwans in Uijeongbu (the two ECCs and another big hogwan chain called SLP).
Saturday Jesse and I got all dressed up because we’d been invited to one of his colleague’s weddings. We were researching Korean weddings all week trying to figure out what was appropriate as gifts, and dress code and stuff and were all excited because we’d read that a lot of weddings had crazy stuff like smoke machines, bubble machines, laser lights, people in crazy costumes (like Darth Vader) and lots of other awesome stuff. We met with one of Jesse’s colleagues at the subway station (her nick-name is ‘Froggy’ – a questionable choice). Froggy showed us the way to the church. Apparently it’s rare for Korean weddings to happen in churches, and that is maybe why we didn't see any of the awesome wedding features we'd read about. Usually people get married in wedding halls that are designed to look like castles and have the reception in the same place. We arrived late, which I was all stressed out about, but it turned out I was worrying for nothing. All through the ceremony, people were arriving late, answering cell phones, and just generally not paying much attention. It wasn’t a ‘traditonal Korean ceremony’. The bride wore a white ‘western style’ dress and the groom was in a suit. There were performances by a singer and then a group of kids (many of whom Jesse recognized as his students).
The bride and groom and a massive screen showing the ceremony.
Here is a video of some the kids' performance.
Lots of people weren’t dressed up at all. Lots were in jeans, cut off jean shorts, t-shirts, running shoes, etc. Jesse and I were the most over-dressed for sure. After the ceremony, people went to take pictures with the couple and then headed to another floor in the building for lunch. Lunch was buffet style with lots of choices but there weren’t nearly enough seats for all the guests so you were expected to kind of wolf down your food and then give up your chair and go home. The whole thing lasted maybe an hour and then we went home. It was an interesting experience but one I probably wouldn’t repeat unless there were definitely going to be some bubble machines and Darth Vader impersonations.
Today we’re just running errands and getting organized for another week. This week they are having elections on Wednesday so there is no school. Another 4-day week will be fantastic but it the last holiday for awhile.
One final thing that has been big news here is obviously the escalating tensions with North Korea. We know it’s been all over the press lately and I’m sure you know as much about the news as we do. From an on-the-ground perspective, though, I can tell you that no Koreans seem worried at all. They all seem convinced that it’s all being blown totally out of proportion and that we’re all really safe. To be honest, I feel like it is very unlikely that the tension will escalate to conflict but, to be safe, we’ve registered ourselves with the Canadian embassy and, if conflict arises, they are obligated to give us safe passage to the nearest neutral country. Bottom line: no one is scared here, we’re still safe and are confident we’ll continue to be so, and are taking measures to make sure we’ll be fine even if the worst happens.
Anyway, that’s all for this week! Just in case you ever need to reach us urgently and we’re not on the internet, here are our cell numbers (you need to dial 011 +82 + 1 before the number)
Ali: 3145-4958
Jesse: 3981-0890
Miss you all!
Ali and Jesse
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Football and Festivals
Hi everyone!
Hope you're all doing well! We miss you all a lot.
This week was a pretty great week because Wednesday was Children's Day, a national holiday. For me, it really broke up the week and made it feel very short and, for Jesse, it was very short since he had no classes on Tuesday, due to Sports Day at his school, and then was off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
At my work, we've gotten a third new teacher: an opera singer from South Africa. She's very nice and it's good to finally have enough staff. On Tuesday, we had a big party to celebrate Children's Day and we had a treasure hunt, a clown, a games room, face painting, and lots more. I got to do face painting, which was really fun.
Me concentrating very hard on the face painting.
On the holiday Wednesday, Jesse and I met up with a bunch of foreigners who are part of this Korean meet-up group on the internet and we decided to celebrate Cinqo de Mayo instead of Children's Day. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Itaewon (the foreigner district) and had lunch. We met a lot more people from Uijeongbu who we hadn't met yet, which was nice, and we got to eat some Mexican food - a rare treat in Korea.
Happy Cinqo de Mayo!
After lunch, we all took the subway to watch a soccer game at World Cup Stadium. We arrived late and there were long lines for tickets but we managed to see the last few minutes of the first half and all of the second half.
The half-time show was a bunch of little kids doing Tae Kwon Do who were totally insane. They were doing a million flips and spinning kicks, and chopping boards with punches and kicks - it was very cool but made me a little more terrified of making my students angry.
Kids doing Tae Kwon Do
I usually find soccer to be painfully boring but it was actually a very high-scoring game with a lot of action. We were watching FC Seoul play Seongnam. FC Seoul was the home team and the stadium was packed with more than 60,000 people, all wearing red (FC's colour). It was neat to be a part of such an enthusiastic crowd, especially when the home team won 4-0. Every time they scored, fireworks were set off and the crowd went nuts. Luckily three of the goals were scored in the second half so we didn't miss much of the action.
Fireworks after and FC Seoul goal.
After the game we just explored around Seoul a little and had dinner and headed home.
Friday night was the goodbye dinner for one of the teachers at my school, Mikey T. He had been in Korea for 2 and a half years so there was a very big crowd to send him off. Everyone went out for duck galbi (cooking duck on the grill at your table) and there was probably about 40 of us. Then we went out in the 'bu (downtown Uijeongbu). I was so excited because everyone was talking about going to a noraebong (private kareoke) and I haven't been yet and am dying to go but they didn't end up going until 4 in the morning so I went home before that and missed it again.
Saturday (yesterday), Jesse and I went back to Seoul for this massive music festival called World DJ Festival. We met up with some other teachers from my school, my cousin Paul and his friends, and some other people we've met since being here. It seemed like every foreigner in Korea was there, as well as tons of Koreans, obviously. There were 4 stages (one for techno, one for rock, one for hip hop, and another miscellaneous stage). We had a lot of fun and saw some cool acts in both Korean and English. The festival went from 2pm Saturday afternoon until 6am Sunday morning but we left around 2am because it was getting cold and we'd lost our group in the crowd and we were tired.
Crowd shot by the main stage.
Today we're just taking it easy and doing errands and laundry and that kind of stuff.
Happy Mother's Day to both our moms and all the moms reading this blog!! We're both sad to not be with our moms on Mother's Day but we're thinking about you!!
Much love,
Ali and Jesse.
Hope you're all doing well! We miss you all a lot.
This week was a pretty great week because Wednesday was Children's Day, a national holiday. For me, it really broke up the week and made it feel very short and, for Jesse, it was very short since he had no classes on Tuesday, due to Sports Day at his school, and then was off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
At my work, we've gotten a third new teacher: an opera singer from South Africa. She's very nice and it's good to finally have enough staff. On Tuesday, we had a big party to celebrate Children's Day and we had a treasure hunt, a clown, a games room, face painting, and lots more. I got to do face painting, which was really fun.
Me concentrating very hard on the face painting.
On the holiday Wednesday, Jesse and I met up with a bunch of foreigners who are part of this Korean meet-up group on the internet and we decided to celebrate Cinqo de Mayo instead of Children's Day. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Itaewon (the foreigner district) and had lunch. We met a lot more people from Uijeongbu who we hadn't met yet, which was nice, and we got to eat some Mexican food - a rare treat in Korea.
Happy Cinqo de Mayo!
After lunch, we all took the subway to watch a soccer game at World Cup Stadium. We arrived late and there were long lines for tickets but we managed to see the last few minutes of the first half and all of the second half.
The half-time show was a bunch of little kids doing Tae Kwon Do who were totally insane. They were doing a million flips and spinning kicks, and chopping boards with punches and kicks - it was very cool but made me a little more terrified of making my students angry.
Kids doing Tae Kwon Do
I usually find soccer to be painfully boring but it was actually a very high-scoring game with a lot of action. We were watching FC Seoul play Seongnam. FC Seoul was the home team and the stadium was packed with more than 60,000 people, all wearing red (FC's colour). It was neat to be a part of such an enthusiastic crowd, especially when the home team won 4-0. Every time they scored, fireworks were set off and the crowd went nuts. Luckily three of the goals were scored in the second half so we didn't miss much of the action.
Fireworks after and FC Seoul goal.
After the game we just explored around Seoul a little and had dinner and headed home.
Friday night was the goodbye dinner for one of the teachers at my school, Mikey T. He had been in Korea for 2 and a half years so there was a very big crowd to send him off. Everyone went out for duck galbi (cooking duck on the grill at your table) and there was probably about 40 of us. Then we went out in the 'bu (downtown Uijeongbu). I was so excited because everyone was talking about going to a noraebong (private kareoke) and I haven't been yet and am dying to go but they didn't end up going until 4 in the morning so I went home before that and missed it again.
Saturday (yesterday), Jesse and I went back to Seoul for this massive music festival called World DJ Festival. We met up with some other teachers from my school, my cousin Paul and his friends, and some other people we've met since being here. It seemed like every foreigner in Korea was there, as well as tons of Koreans, obviously. There were 4 stages (one for techno, one for rock, one for hip hop, and another miscellaneous stage). We had a lot of fun and saw some cool acts in both Korean and English. The festival went from 2pm Saturday afternoon until 6am Sunday morning but we left around 2am because it was getting cold and we'd lost our group in the crowd and we were tired.
Crowd shot by the main stage.
Today we're just taking it easy and doing errands and laundry and that kind of stuff.
Happy Mother's Day to both our moms and all the moms reading this blog!! We're both sad to not be with our moms on Mother's Day but we're thinking about you!!
Much love,
Ali and Jesse.
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