I'll be home for Christmas...

..for the first time since 2009!!  Today is the my last day of school before 3 glorious weeks of vacation in the USA~~  I think this is actually the longest vacation I have ever had in my adult life.  The past 2 years, I have only ever been able to take 2 weeks off at a time.  Needless to say, I'm excited!  Also, because of the way my vacation falls a week before school actually ends, I lucked out and don't have to go on the staff overnight trip this year either!  Bring on the cookies, turkey, beer, and holiday cheer^^  Now, just to start trying to pack...

First snowfall of the season

PSY Gangnam Style 싸이 강남 스타일 Seoul City Hall Concert Korea for fan

Giving out my phone number..

A few weeks ago, some girls in one of my good 3rd grade classes asked me for my phone number.  I figured..why not?  They will never 1. remember it or 2. call me.  I'm pretty sure they wrote it down because I started to get text messages from one of them last week.  They go something like this...

The first part just says...Sonya teacher, goodnight.
(don't judge me, but I have to save most Korean names with parenthesis about how I know them..otherwise I will eventually forget who they are)

Fall in photos

Forward

Proud to be an American.  Proud to be from Maryland.

Hibernation...

Hibernation season is upon us.  I know this because I watched 4 movies this past weekend, spending as much time inside as possible.

The first one was "Take This Waltz," a terribly awkward Canadian movie.  The only good things about this movie were 1.  the character played by Sarah Silverman and 2.  the fact that we saw it at the fancy new IFC Mall CGV.  The chairs were like recliners.

I actually woke up semi-early on Saturday to go to one of the palaces to see the fall foliage and the weather was pretty nice around noon.  After eating lunch, it got cold so my friends and I decided to go a DVD bang. We chose to watch "Silent Hill," a fairly old scary movie.  It cost about $20 for a 4 person room with a pretty big couch to get it on.

Saturday night, I went home and rented a Korean movie called "All About My Wife."  It was actually pretty good.  SH thought it was just gonna be a dumb Korean drama comedy, but it turned out to be better, plus I really like the main character, Lee Sun Gyun.

Finally, on Sunday, I went to see Skyfall.  I thought it was just okay.  I wasn't blown away, but I never have really been into the Bond movies anyway.  I only went along for the ride when I was younger.  This weekend, I remembered why Korean movie theaters are way better than American movie theaters.  The popcorn is so much cheaper!  And they sell beer!  A large popcorn and 2 draft beers cost $10!

The next 3 weekends in November consist of lots of birthday parties and Thanksgiving!  So, I guess I will be forced to watch less movies.

My favorite season is...

We're studying seasons in 6th grade now...of course this is what one of my students wrote in his book.  "I like to wear the Northface."

I don't know why, but for some reason, in Korea, North Face is extra popular.  It's also a way of telling who is rich-ee because they are even more expensive here than they are in America.

A girl in 5th grade told me that "bullies" wear North Face.  Also, every single time I wear my 6 year old ratty North Face fleece, at least one kid will be like "oooohh NORTHFACE!!!"

Halloween costume idea?

Hyuna from the Gangnam style video?  Random shirt with letters and numbers..could probably be made from a cheap Forever 21 shirt.

Honey Boo Boo

I watched Here Comes Honey Boo Boo for the first time last week...




(Source: realitytvgifs)

PSY!

Last night, PSY had a free concert at city hall.  The place was swarmed with Seoul citizens.  He put on one heck of a show!

Also, for some reason, he promised he would take his shirt off if 'Gangnam Style' reached #1 on the Billboard chart.  Even though, he's still #2 this week, he did it at the end anyway! (it may or may not have had something to do with the entire bottle of soju he chugged right beforehand)

mannam

One of the younger teachers at my school invited me to a "disco" dance party last weekend.  Being that not many people talk to me at school, I agreed to go on the spot.  I then talked 2 of my friends into coming with me.  I assumed it was one of those "silent disco" kinda things...only because she used the word disco.  I was so wrong.

Once we met her and a friend at the subway station, she told us this party was for foreigners only.  Her friend took out the ticket which had the title and name of the organization written on, "Mannam."  I didn't really know anything about this group, but my friend had recently read about it.  It is apparently possibly connected to some kind of religious cult in Korea, but is outwardly a volunteer group.  Once I heard about that, things got awkward.

The event itself was fine and nobody tried to push any religious stuff on us.  There were tons of Korean volunteers running about holding signs and telling people where the fun party for foreigners was.  When we first arrived, they checked our bags saying they were checking for alcohol, but they didn't need to check the foreigners' bags.  Then they asked if we wanted our faces or hands painted which we declined.  Then we got some hot dogs and drinks and sat down at a table.

The only real thing they tried to push us to sign up for was some kind of "olympics" that is happening in September.  The teacher from my school got one of the volunteers to come explain to us what it was about.  We didn't get much information about the actual event except it will "basically be just like the olympics" and there will be 50,000 people there.  She also said since they don't know how many people will come, they haven't chosen a location yet which is odd.  My friend said we will decide later once we know about our plans on that date and the volunteer was like, oh well, we're telling you in advance so you don't make other plans and join us!

We stayed to watch some kind of best dressed/best dancer contest and then luckily, the teacher that invited us said she had a plan to meet her friends somewhere else.  We let them leave and followed soon after.  Overall, it was strange.  Nothing was pushed on us and we didn't hear anyone saying the slogan (which I've read happens at other events).  I think it was just a random event in order to get more people to sign up for the September event which I'm sure will be weirder.  For now, I'm giving the teacher at my school the benefit of the doubt and assume she's not in a religious cult.  I think some of the Korean people who volunteer really don't all know the details.

bolaven schmolaven

The typhoon was a bust.  We actually did get to go home early around noon.  I went straight home during the heaviest rain of the day and locked myself in my room for the afternoon.  I kept peeping out the window to see if it was getting worse or not, but it seemed like nothing was happening except some heavy wind.

Overall, the whole typhoon was built up way bigger than what it was.  The door going to the roof of my building did shatter from the wind though.

bolaven is coming!

Typhoon Bolaven is on it's way to Seoul. Apparently, SMOE decided to close all public schools tomorrow, BUT teachers still have to come. Why, Korea, why?

"The Korea Meteorological Administration on Sunday predicted that Bolaven will bring the wind speed of over 50 m/s and more than 30 mm per hour of rainfall in Jeju and the south coast on Monday, with some parts of Jeju seeing up to 500 mm of downpours until Wednesday.

Bolaven is expected to be more powerful than Kompasu, which devastated Korea in 2010. The KMA said its winds will be stronger than Kompasu's in 2010 and Muifa's in 2011, making it the most devastating typhoon to come to Korea since 2000."

...still hoping to get a message in the morning saying not to bother coming in.

It's Friday, Friday!

First full week back at school is over in 4 hours!  Classes are going okay so far..hopefully the kids won't start getting devilish until at least November.  In other school news, the Japanese teacher at my school started talking to me after lunch.  On Monday, she came up to me and said she wanted to have a conversation and then proceeded to read me some sentences introducing herself.  Every day this week, she has said a few more sentences to me.  It seems like this is going to be a regular thing.  It's kinda funny because she really cannot speak English (Japanese is her first language and Korean is her second), but she has tried harder to communicate with me than any other teachers at my school who I am pretty sure CAN speak English better than they let on.  I really appreciate her effort.

[I know I need to learn Korean too..after all, I am living in Korea.  I just don't find it that easy to "pick up" (at least not in the way I know European languages would be).  For now, I know enough to get through everyday life.  The Japanese teacher told me that she studied Korean through a government program for Koreans who lived abroad- that's me!  So, maybe I will look into that.  She said she studied for 3 sessions of 3 months each so I think it will take a while.]

The weather this week has been pleasantly cool in the 70s/80s.  After returning from Japan, it was still pretty hot and humid, but around Tuesday or Wednesday, it got way better.  I can step outside without suffocating or sweating.  I actually wore pants twice this week without being uncomfortable!  I think this might be the last weekend pools are open so I'm hoping it won't rain on Sunday.

Also, this is the transition weekend where a lot of the teachers from my year will be going home and a new round of teachers will arrive.  Since one of my best friends recently left Korea, I will hopefully be on the prowl at the night spots for some new chingus in the coming weekends.  My group of friends is highly exclusive, but I feel like we really need to start expanding our horizons as our numbers are slowly dwindling.

Japan (pt.4) FOOD

Osaka is supposed to be a big foodie city and we certainly partook in trying many delicious Japanese foods!

Takoyaki- regional to Osaka- octopus balls

seared tuna

grilled vegetables

Curry

Udon

sushi lunch box

Sirloin Yakitori

Japanese style ramen

tuna roll

Mushroom Yakitori

Yakisoba noodles

another regional food- Okonamiyaki

Japan (pt.3) Nara

On our second full day in Osaka, we decided to get out of the city to visit the nearby town of Nara.  Nara is known for having many very friendly deer roaming around which obviously sounded great!  The pictures are self-explanatory.

one of my favorite things was watching the deer chase around frightened children

feeding the deer cookies..they would nod their head first and then expected to be fed

deer in the park

Bambi

sometimes we could pet them without feeding them cookies

temple in Nara

I couldn't get the cookies ready fast enough

Japan (pt.2) Osaka

From Kyoto to Osaka, it should have been about a 40 min train ride.  We must have messed up and bought the wrong tickets (or just followed what we had read about online) because after settling in for a nice little nap, we heard the announcement that we would soon be arriving at Shin-Osaka station.  It had only been 10 minutes since we boarded..talk about a bullet train.  The first night we just walked around the Amerimura/Dotonbori/Namba areas, and the next day we got up to visit Osaka Castle.

Dotonbori

Lamp posts in Amerimura

Dotonbori

Dotonbori Canal

Osaka Castle

view from the top of Osaka Castle

Dotonbori

Later in the week, we checked out the Umeda area of the city which is around the main Osaka Station.  This seemed like the biz-district with a lot of high-rises and department stores..so many department stores.  The man reason we went here was because my friend really wanted to visit the Pokemon Center.  It was beyond crowded with not only thousands of children but grown men/women standing around playing their DS.  We also took a ride in the ferris wheel at the top of the Hep5 Building.

buildings around Umeda

Osaka Station

Osaka Station

Hep5 Ferris Wheel

Osaka from the Hep5 Ferris Wheel

Pokemon Center

people hangin out playing the DS at the Pokemon Center